Professors Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres, authors of "Why Not," give fresh solutions to common problems

1492 words
November 1, 2003
National Public Radio: Weekend Edition

LYNN NEARY, HOST:

LYNN NEARY:
Have you walked through an airport or a train station recently and noticed that hardly anyone carries a suitcase anymore? No, everyone is happily rolling their suitcases toward the gate. When you think of all the money those rolling bags represent, don't you find yourself wondering, 'Why didn't I think of that?' Well, that's the wrong question to ask say Yale University Professors Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres. Nalebuff and Ayres have written a new book called "Why Not" which they say is the right question to ask if you want to come up with new ways to solve old problems. Professors Nalebuff and Ayres join me now from Yale University.
Thanks for being with us this morning.

Professor BARRY NALEBUFF (Yale University): Thanks for having us.

Professor IAN AYRES (Yale University): Ah, thanks.

NEARY: Professor Nalebuff, first of all, why do good ideas begin with that question, 'Why not?'

Prof. NALEBUFF: What you need to do is take a battle cry against complacency, and as you see things that aren't right, instead of just accepting them the way they are, think about better ways of doing it. For example, rather than have a company pay to have you on hold to listening to Muzak, why don't they just call you back when they're ready to speak to you?

NEARY: That's a good idea. Give me an example of a couple of 'why not' questions that have led to some other good ideas, Professor Ayres.

Prof. AYRES: Sure. One of our tools is simply flipping things around. What would be the opposite of a (900) number? Well, one way you could flip it around is have a reverse (900) number. Instead of paying money to call the psychic hotline, you might be paid money if a telemarketer calls you.

NEARY: That seems like an idea that would be very appealing to consumers. I'd like that idea, but why would a telemarketer want to do that?

Prof. AYRES: Well, one thing is it might allow us to deregulate other parts of telemarketing. Right now we don't allow telemarketers to use prerecorded calls or telemarketing faxes.

Prof. NALEBUFF: But the big thing is they're about to be put out of business with the Don't Call list and this would actually allow them to have a legitimate model; that is, while they're trying to sell you a product, you can sell them your time. It distinguishes the good telemarketers from the bad ones.

NEARY: Professor Nalebuff, how much do you think we should get paid for listening to a telemarketer?

Prof. NALEBUFF: I think the goal is you should set the price yourself, and some people will have a low price and some people will decide their time is more valuable and the telemarketers should know what the price is before they call you.

Prof. AYRES: And to shift gears a bit, one thing we'd like to do is improve charitable giving, and a very simple idea we have is to take the nice IRA deduction rule which says, you know, you can deduct your IRA contributions all the way up to April 15th. Extend that to charitable deductions so that when you get to April 15th and you go to your tax preparer, 'What else can I do to reduce my taxes?' well, you can give some more to charity and that will reduce your taxes for last year.

Prof. NALEBUFF: The other thing is, of course, on December 31st you don't know how much money you've made or how much you've given away, and only when you get to April 15th actually do you have all that information.

Prof. AYRES: Yeah, this could start a national conversation about how much people should give. Right now most people don't know that nationally we give 2 percent of our income to charity, and most people don't even have any idea what proportion of their own income they give to charity. April 15th is a really natural date to do a charitable assessment.

NEARY: What are some of your other principles at work here?

Prof. AYRES: A very simple one is where else would it work, and if you actually see a great solution in one context, can you find another context where it'll work? So here's a simple one. Car rental companies are set up where you can check out your car just about any time of the day when you come up to the counter. Where else would this idea work?

NEARY: You mention in the book that you think it would work in a hotel.

Prof. AYRES: Exactly.

Prof. NALEBUFF: That's right. It's OK to read ahead, I guess.

Prof. AYRES: To me, this is an idea that, oh, you can think of some problems with it, but actually there are a lot of benefits not just for the consumer but hotels right now have to really stretch their maid service to turn over all the rooms at the same time. If they allowed some people to check in in the morning and some in the afternoon, that might actually ease some of their scheduling problems and it would allow business travelers to go get a shower before a meeting.

NEARY: Here's another idea for that 'where else would it work?' One of the latest thing in cities is the Flexcar. You can sign up and rent the car by the hour. What else might work with that kind of a concept? Prof. NALEBUFF: You know, I thought about baby strollers the same way, where people who are traveling in other cities, it's really a pain to actually take your stroller with you. Prof. AYRES: And the same kind of a Flexcar idea has been used with combines by farmers, the flex combine. Every farmer doesn't need a combine. As a matter of fact, on some crops, it's very predictable that they're going to ripen from north to south, and so you just set up with your southerly neighboring farms to take over the combine the next time.

I'm happy to say, look, we don't expect the readers to fall in love with every idea, but some, I'd say, might challenge you to this. A slam dunk to me is a simple idea about DVDs. Normally now the DVDs are marketed by putting in more explicit, more violent, more sexual directors' cuts, and that's fine, but they should also have...

Prof. NALEBUFF: They should turn it around.

Prof. AYRES: They could turn it around. They should have an option where you could see the airline version or the TV version of the movie, so an R-movie could open up a new market for younger kids to be able to see...

Prof. NALEBUFF: Ian just wants to show "Shallow Hal" to his kids.

Prof. AYRES: That does it.

NEARY: Now we've come up with a problem or two that we'd like to hear you solve, or see if you can come up with a good solution to this. First of all, we have a father of twins working on this show...

Prof. AYRES: Ambitious.

NEARY: ...and he wants to know how you might solve the problem of feeding twins at the same time, bottle-feeding twins at the same time.

Prof. AYRES: One of our things that we're quite comfortable is looking around the world. One might go to see how parents of triplets and septuplets handle this problem to gain insight into it.

Prof. NALEBUFF: Look, cows, we know, can feed multiple calves at the same time, so maybe we could have the bottle with two nipples.

NEARY: So we can start thinking about inventing one and putting one on the market. Now here's my own pet peeve and I know it's a lot of other people's pet peeve as well, and that's the increasing conflict between those who seem oblivious to the pain they inflict when they're chatting very loudly on their cell phones in public spaces and those who have to listen to that. I know, for instance, some trains have started Quiet Cars, but is there a better way to motivate people to be aware of those around them and either turn their cell phones off or talk quietly?

Prof. AYRES: One thing that I've thought about is--and this is using a little bit of technology--concert halls or the trains could have a device that isn't an absolute block to calls, but if you speak too loudly, it actually stops your message from getting through, so it's kind of a reverse filter. You have to speak softly to be heard.

NEARY: Oh, I like that idea.

Prof. NALEBUFF: A reversal there.

Prof. AYRES: And people would then learn, 'Oh, I can't speak too loudly.' This also would be helpful when speaking to foreigners where a lot of people, 'Can't you understand me?'

Prof. NALEBUFF: And actually on that same dimension, there should be a voice mail on your cell phone which has, 'Hi. I currently don't wish to be disturbed on my cell phone, but if this is an emergency, hit zero and my cell phone will vibrate or ring.'

Prof. AYRES: And these are not all our ideas that we've been sharing with you. The innovation isn't just for the rocket scientist. It's actually a very old American idea to come up with better ways to run the world.

NEARY: Well, thanks to both of you for being with us.

Prof. AYRES: Oh, it's a pleasure.

Prof. NALEBUFF: Oh, it's a pleasure.

NEARY: Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres are the authors of "Why Not: How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small."
And you're listening to WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News.