How old is jonah berger

He was named one of the top 30 leaders in business by the American Management Association and one of the most creative people in business by Fast Company magazine.

Berger has helped hundreds of companies like Apple, Google, Nike, and GE get their products, services, and ideas to catch on.

Want access to free resources on how to change minds, organizations, and the world? Download Now. Jonah Berger. About Jonah Berger. Longer Bio Why do some products, ideas, and behaviors catch on?

Over a million copies of his books are in print in over 35 countries around the world. Everyone has something they want to change. Startups want to change industries and non-profits want to change the world. But change is hard. They preferred to do better than others, even if it meant getting less for themselves. They chose the option that was worse in absolute terms but better in relative terms. Game mechanics help generate social currency because doing well makes us look good.

A friend of mine is a Delta Airlines Platinum Medallion member. Every time he flies he finds a way to brag about it on Facebook. And this is how game mechanics boosts word of mouth.

People are talking because they want to show off their achievements, but along the way they talk about the brands Delta or Twitter or domains golf or the SAT where they achieved. Tomorrow: How to leverage game mechanics most effectively in generating social currency. AWS Deloitte Genpact.

Events Innovation Festival. Follow us:. By Jonah Berger 3 minute Read. I was short by miles. But game mechanics also motivate us on an interpersonal level by encouraging social comparison. What did the majority of people choose? He went online and scanned different styles. He went to several stores and tried pairs on. He narrowed his options down. Then he started thinking about what the jeans said about him. Cause and effect: Berger and Zoe play catch at home. Berger is wearing a colorful, casual button-up instead of a t-shirt because the collar conveys at least a bit of the formality of being a professor.

His wife, Jordan Etkin, is an associate marketing professor at Duke University. Berger, just 36 years old, is now finishing his 10th year as a marketing professor at the Wharton School. He has given a multitude of talks and is a popular guest on television, radio, and podcasts. A conversation with Berger is rapid-fire. His replies are both thorough and succinct and often come with the perfect analogy.

When you talk with him, you can learn a lot in a short amount of time. And even as he talks, his mind is always churning. In the midst of this swirling air, a man gets out of a pickup truck next door, fires up a leaf blower, and starts a futile minute effort to clear off the parking lot. Jonah Berger was born in suburban Washington, D. His mother, Diane Arkin, is the senior lecturer at the National Gallery of Art and uses simple language to help visitors and docents understand complex paintings and sculptures.

His father, Jeffrey Berger, is a detail oriented retired labor lawyer. When Berger was born, Jeffrey bought a book, Total Baby Development , written by a Czech author who insisted that movement and exercise in infants lead to better cognitive development.

So Jeffrey threw his new son in the air and rolled him on exercise balls. One time, she caught him counting out numbers, somewhere up in the 5,s, while he stared at the ceiling. He was counting the dots on the tiles. As a teenager, he kept his room messy. That was okay—the more complex things were to him, his father says, the more interesting. He was drawn more to Super Bowl ads than to the game.

He wore Nikes because he loved their commercials. His grandmother ran her own research company that conducted focus groups. Berger was fascinated by them. At Stanford, Berger wanted to be an environmental engineer until he read a paper that caught his eye. It argued that the design of our homes influences our kids: In individual houses, kids play in the yard, where we can see them, but in high-rises there is no yard, and kids are less likely to play with the neighborhood children, which affects how they interact later in life.

That was social science, he discovered, and he quickly realized that studying it was what he was really interested in. By the time he earned his doctorate in marketing from Stanford in , he was in demand.