I was delighted earlier today to receive a tweet from a big hero and acquaintance of mine, Rory Sutherland. Rory's an extraordinary thinker and drives much of the creative brilliance at advertising giants Ogilvy. I first met him a few years ago when he appeared as a guest on The Museum Of Curiosity and endeared himself to many with tales of brilliant problem solving. One of my favourites (which has made it into my book) was when marine biologist Dr Helen Scales asked him what he would do to persuade the Chinese to stop killing millions of seahorses for use in medicines that have no proven eficacy. 'Well', said Rory, 'If they're happy to use medicines that don't actually work, get them all hooked on homeopathy. Then one seahorse would do them all.'
I've since met Rory a couple of times and got some great material for the book from him. In turn he's talked about me and the work I did in the police in his influential book The Wiki Man. I am delighted that he's pledged on Why did the policeman cross the road? and taken time to promote it on Twitter.
But now I want you to see some of Rory's brilliance in action. Do check out these two amazing TED talks by him. The first is called Life lessons from an ad man. You can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=audakxABYUc. The other is called Sweat the small stuff and it's just as brilliant. You can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkLcwHmnPV4.
Each is only 20 minutes long.
Trust me, it's 40 minutes well spent.