2016 Insights & Strategies Conference May 18-20, 2016 in New Orleans

Expect the unexpected from Adam Alter.

What color should you wear for your online dating profile photo? What font should you use for your print piece? How does the weather affect consumers’ spending habits? How might an unfamiliar company’s three-letter ticker code affect its stock price?

These phenomena and the psychology behind them are what fascinates Adam Alter. While certain factors that affect people’s thinking and decision-making are obvious, there are other, equally powerful forces that are so elusive as to remain almost invisible.

Uncovering just such astonishing insights into human behavior with humor and piercing vision has made Alter not only a New York Times bestselling author, but also a widely-published expert and consultant for business giants such as Apple, Google, Fidelity, and Prudential.

As a researcher, he has focused on the issues of human judgment, decision-making, and social psychology with special focus on the subterranean cues in the environment that quietly but powerfully influence human cognition and action.

Alter is an associate professor of marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, with an affiliated appointment in the New York University psychology department. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in psychology from Princeton University and is the author of the bestselling Drunk Tank Pink: And Other Unexpected Forces that Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave.

In addition, his research and conclusions have been featured on PBS, CNBC, and BBC Radio as well as in Newsweek, the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. His scholarly publications include studies published in Psychology Science, The Journal of Consumer Research, The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and Psychological Science, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and others.

Brian Little is internationally known not only for his expertise and insight into human personality and well-being, but also his entertaining speaking style. Three times, he was voted “Favorite Professor” by graduating Harvard students, and he has also won the 3M Award, the highest honor for teaching in Canada.

A pioneer in the field of motivation and personality, Little’s work focuses on the personal projects, large or small, that drive individuals at different stages of life and often push them to act out of character within different environments depending on their goal.

In his book Me, Myself, and Us, Little explores these personal projects and explains how they influence daily behavior and decision-making. His research has uncovered new insights that amplify, but also sometimes contradict, traditional personality type theory and that invigorate thought on product development and brand loyalty.

Little is a Distinguished Scholar at Cambridge University, a 2015 Senior Fellow at Wharton. He has also taught at the EMBA program at Judge Business School at Cambridge, was an inaugural Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and is a Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Derek Thompson is a senior editor at The Atlantic. He a weekly contributor to “Here and Now,” the national afternoon news show on NPR, and he appears regularly on CBS, the BBC, and MSNBC. He is the recipient of several honors, including the 2016 Best in Business award for Columns and Commentary from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. He is the author of the national bestselling book Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction.