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October 12, 2005
Nobel Prize in Economics and Game Theory (at Logos!)
It all started innocently enough. I went for a cup of coffee on Monday afternoon at the Starbucks up the street. When I was there, they gave me a coupon for a free Pumpkin Spice Latte.
I like my coffee straight. No cream, no sugar, and certainly no "pumpkin spice".
So, on my way back to the office, coffee in one hand and coupon in the other, I started thinking. Earlier that day, the Nobel Prize in Economics was announced. It went to some guys (Thomas Schelling and Robert Aumann) who did foundational work in Game Theory. (yes, I can be a bit of an econ geek ... )
I had the brainstorm of giving away the coupon via Logos company email, but experimenting a little with game theory in the process. Read on if you're interested ...
See, I didn't want to just give away the coupon to the first person who responded to a company email (the typical thing that seems to happen). So, I decided to give the coupon to the seventh person that emailed.
At first, I thought maybe the fifteenth person, but then I didn't know if there would be fifteen people interested in a pumpkin spice latte. So I cut it down to seven. That seemed to be a good number for all sorts of reasons.
I sent out an email at 2:02 PM. The rules were simple:
- The seventh responder got the coupon.
- Only the first response counts, second (and subsequent) responses were void.
For good measure, I decided that 4:00 would be the cut-off time. If there weren't seven responses by 4:00, I'd keep the coupon and do something else with it.
So, game theory is all about thinking through the strategy to be number 7. Respond early? Wait until later? I thought folks would wait until closer to 4:00 and start to respond then.
I was wrong. Here's the chronology.
- Respondant 1: 2:02 PM
- Respondant 2: 2:02 PM
- Respondant 3: 2:04 PM
- Respondant 4: 2:04 PM
- Respondant 5: 2:07 PM
- Respondant 6: 2:08 PM
- Respondant 7: 2:09 PM
It was over in less than 10 minutes. That was unexpected.
Congrats to Jared Bryant in our Sales department for skill (luck? providence?) in responding.
Posted by Rick Brannan at October 12, 2005 07:00 AM
Comments
This is very similar to what radio shows do that ask for the Xth caller, instead of the first.
Posted by: Sarah Schreffler at October 13, 2005 10:14 PM
But how was the Pumpkin Spice Latte. Was Jared truly a winner in this contest??? If it was nasty, wouldn't that make him the loser???
Posted by: David Webster at October 25, 2005 01:30 PM