March 15, 2018

Recommendation bonanza

Thanks so much to everyone who sent in recommendations in reply to yesterday’s email!

Wow what a varied list. Here are some of the suggestions y’all contributed:

A ski resort in West Virginia
An Anatolian Shepherd
O’Keeffe’s Working Hands cream
A pair of cherry red Doc Martin boots
Boating areas in Quiberon Bay, Brittany
A Devon Rex
Punk IPA from Brewdog
Cucumber deodorant
A paper-based “CRM”
A metallic green sweat bee
Salsa dancing lessons
Khawdry dates
Taiwanese High Mountain oolong tea
Music ranging from classical piano to chillstep
Tourist destinations from Argentina to Switzerland
Hiking trails from Tennessee to Slovakia
A whole bunch of podcasts, apps, restaurants, gadgets, luggage, fountain pens, kitchen tools, musical instruments, computer keyboards, programming languages, and more

Coincidentally, I own three of the recommended items (and yes, they’re all great):

Okay, so this was a fun exercise (for me, at least!) but what was the point?

My reason for asking was to see if there were any patterns in what sorts of things people would recommend, and how they would do it.

Turns out that there were:

Almost nobody recommended something cheap, utilitarian, or boring
Almost everything recommended was either free (e.g., podcasts, hiking trails) or premium (i.e., expensive for its category, like a $400 blender)
Very few people listed features of the recommended item
Almost half of the recommendations were the just the name of the thing with no explanation whatsoever.
About a quarter of the recommendations came with a fairly detailed story about a positive experience or emotional connection.

This last point - the one about stories - was the most fascinating to me.

In particular, two different people recommended Porsche sports cars. One person told a story, the other didn’t.

The difference was startling.

More tomorrow...

Yours,

—J

P.S. Friends don’t let friends bill by the hour. Gift options available at checkout -> http://hourlybillingisnuts.com