Book Recommendation: Snoop

Recently, I had read the book Snoop: What your stuff says about you? Is your desk messy? What are the CDs,posters and decoration in your bedroom? Where do you place your photographs? are they photos of your family, friend, pets or world leaders? In this book Sam Gosling talks about what your stuff says about who you are. It is also a nice introduction to basic psychology and take an in-depth look at the "big five personality traits" or the OCEAN model. Dr. Gosling talks about how your personal and work spaces are a reflection of where you are on the OCEAN spectrum. To me, the fun part about this book was constantly trying to evaluate how my own personality seeps through in my spaces. I also kept thinking about all the people I know and what their desks said about who they really are. For those who remember Sam from his talk at ICWSM 2007, you might recall the talk "Personality Impressions Based on Facebook Profiles", which talked about the perception of self vs. perception of others about us. Based on their study of Facebook profiles, like in the case of workspaces and bedroom studies, Dr. Gosling and his colleagues find people are usually pretty good at knowing who you are based on the few clues projected by your stuff -- be it virtual or otherwise. It is a book that promises to teach you how to Snoop! But really, I think it will set you snooping a lot more on yourself (than others), the image your stuff projects and the one you might think you want it to.... For those interested, here is a sneak preview of what is in the book:

Comments

[christopher K. Travis]

I must admit, I am biased about Snoop because the last chapter of the book is about me, my architecture firm and the Internet startup - Truehome.net - that we are creating that will help people create homes that fit their personality.

I totally agree that Sam's book is really a lot more powerful as a tool for considering your own relationship with the environments in which you live than as a sneaky way to spy on others.

In our firm, we use psychological testing and lifestyle analysis to develop criteria for the homes we design. Our goal is to create living spaces that truly fit our clients tastes, lifestyle, values, personal goals and emotional needs. We have been doing this for almost a decade now and the approach helps people understand their profound relationship with their homes. Sam's book offers a lot of good science that validates this approach.

An article was published in the New York Times in July about our project - directly as a result of a reporter there reading Sam's book. It is called "Home Is Where The Head Is" and it is written by Penelope Green.

The url is http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/garden/17emotional.html?_r=1&ref=garden&oref=slogin

If you are interested in learning more about all this, my blog includes more than you would ever want to know about the relationship between our brains, our emotions and our living spaces. If you are interested, the url is http://[email protected]

Thanks for promoting Snoop. It is a great book, and there is much more to it than the marketing gimmick that is used to sell it.

With respect,

Christopher K. Travis