tomeppel.com: Workshops

Thomas is currently offering workshops on the following topics. Please contact him at tomeppel@mac.com for availability and pricing information.

Smart Decision Making
Business In The World Today
The Behavioral Revolution in Economics and Finance

Smart Decision Making

Decision-making is the most important activity by which we control our professional and personal lives. Many people don’t realize that decision-making is a skill that can be learned, practiced and improved upon like any other skill. This workshop is meant to motivate people to view decision making as something positive and to help them make better decisions throughout their lives.

Based on principles of rational decision-making, the science of decision analysis draws on economic theory and probability theory to devise models and tools for smart decision-making. These models are fairly straightforward and intuitive. However, implementing these models and tools often runs against important and real psychological biases that prevent us from making smart choices. This workshop presents the key ideas from both the science of smart decision-making and the art of implementing them into useful strategies.

In particular, the workshop will discuss the following topics:

Never view a decision situation as a problem; instead see it as an opportunity for you to have a positive impact on your future, both professionally or personally.
Have a clear understanding of your objectives; without a deep and honest exploration of what it is that you want to achieve, your decision-making is unfocused and possibly counter-productive.
If you can’t have it all (and most of the time you can’t), make sure that you make tradeoffs that are consistent with your value system; all too often, we don’t pay enough attention to this crucial step in decision making.
Identify the key uncertainties and risks that may get in the way of you achieving your goals and objectives; deal with them in a systematic way rather than being overwhelmed with emotions and fear that often accompany ambiguous situations.
Don’t let the particulars of a situation or the fallacies of your emotions and “intuition” get in the way of achieving what you truly want. In the past 25 years, we have learned a lot about traps and shortcuts in decision-making and how to overcome them.

The workshop will discuss these and other topics by reviewing the state of the art of smart decision-making. It will present key concepts and tools and provides hands-on advice and exercises about how to implement these ideas and tools in your life.

Download pdf version of this workshop description.

Business In The World Today

Do you have a Second Life?
How does Wikipedia work?
What did the iPod do to hit albums?
What mindset is required to succeed in the 21st century?
What is success anyway?

The business world is going through fundamental changes that will have far reaching impacts for the 21st century. The changes are nothing short of revolutionary and present a paradigm shift that is occurring with mind-boggling speed and on a truly global scale. Based on a number of business bestsellers, this workshop will summarize these new developments and trends in a way that is both engaging and informative to everyone who wants to stay abreast with the latest business trends.

Here are just some examples of the topics that this workshop will discuss:

Does it seem strange to you that a woman became a multi-millionaire by selling virtual real estate in a Second Life? We will explore why companies, universities, government agencies and all kinds of private enterprises are flocking to Second Life to establish a presence in this virtual world.
Why didn’t we have another megahit such as the Thriller album in recent years? Welcome to the world of the “Long Tail” which provides a though-provoking way to look at the transition from conducting business in the world of atoms to doing business in the world of bits. This change will replace long-standing economic principles based on a world of scarcity with new views based on a world of abundance. We will discuss how a world unconstrained by physical limitations (like shelf space) requires new business models with profound implications on culture and society.
What does the fall of the Berlin Wall have to do with the establishment of call centers in Bangalore, India? Globalization entered a new phase over the last 15 to 20 years where companies AND individuals are now able to collaborate in ways that transcend geographical and political boundaries. While profit motives and healthy competition will always be part of the business world, old hierarchies and business models are crumbling and are being replaced by dynamic networks of collaborative partners.

If this sample of topics sparks your interest, then attend this dynamic workshop on the latest business trends and models. The workshop will make extensive use of multimedia material to illustrate the main points.

Download a pdf version of this workshop description.

The Behavioral Revolution in Economics and Finance

Economists have long sought to describe, explain and predict how people make choices in financial markets. For centuries, these attempts have centered around key assumptions about how people should behave in order to fulfill some standard of rationality. While many of these models provide elegant mathematical formulations they fail to incorporate a fundamental truth: human beings are not necessarily rational but are prone to making systematic mistakes based on mental shortcuts, emotions and lack of information.

The realization that economic models cannot and should not ignore the shortcomings of human behavior led to the behavioral revolution in fields such as economics, finance and even accounting. Based on the path-breaking experimental work by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, many studies have provided important insights as to how and why we often fall short of making choices that promote our financial and personal well-being. This workshop will summarize the key findings of these studies as well as summarize the key messages of recent business bestsellers such as Predictably Irrational, Fooled by Randomness and Nudge.

Understanding the ins and outs of human behavior in the marketplace is not only of theoretical interest to economists and policy makers. It is also of utmost importance to business people who need to understand how people decide what, when and how to buy. Of course, this field is also important for consumers who do not want to be manipulated by clever strategies that exploit their tendencies for suboptimal behavior. Specifically the workshop will discuss and illustrate with many examples the following topics:

Why do we make different choices depending on how decision situations are framed for us?
Why is a $1,000 loss so much more significant than a $1,000 gain?
Are we overly confident in terms of what we think we know?
What roles do emotions, especially fear, play in decision making?
Why are we so often fooled by “information” that is completely useless?
Why are so many books about achieving financial success fundamentally flawed?

This workshop addresses fundamental assumptions about human behavior that have shaped our understanding of economics and consumer behavior for centuries. Many of these assumptions have been proven wrong and have been replaced by sometimes astonishing insights into the foibles of human behavior.

Download a pdf version of this workshop description.