Two recent events involving inexplicable violence offer a glimpse at the complexity of motivations in personal and collective decisions. Even before the rapid capture of the Boston Marathon bombers, the search had begun to discover their personal motivations for such a random act of violence. As each new piece of information is revealed, we get a slightly clearer picture of the circumstances of their lives. Uncovering the bombers’ motivations requires understanding how they internalized those circumstances and aligned them with their personal values. Trying to discern those motivations is made more difficult because personal values are culturally derived, and these individuals grew up in a hybrid culture.

Another strange act of violence in Newtown, Connecticut, led us to a picture of our collective societal decision-making. The latest round of Congressional debate about gun control legislation recently ended in a narrow defeat for the background check proposal.

What an illustration of divided perceptions of truth and of different personal motivations on the part of Congress! One comment that struck us, offered by a number of those opposing the legislation, was that we should not make any decision on an emotional basis. That plays to the common characterization that good decisions really are based on careful, “rational” analysis of the facts and just the facts. Nope. The gun control debate is a clear demonstration that the rational stuff is inextricably linked to important emotional outcomes ultimately tied to our collective values as a society. It also reminds us that, even though there are many common denominators in Americans’ societal values, there are major dividing lines in the way we interpret the same rational “facts.”

This seems a fitting analogy to changes in the way our consumer society is changing the way it allocates responsibility in a variety of realms.

Ever since the creation of the defined contribution retirement plans in the U.S. Tax Code in 1978 (including 401Ks and more), the responsibility for managing one’s financial circumstances in retirement has been changing. As a result, the proportion of Americans covered by a defined benefits plan—something managed by a large institution and providing an assured payout—has declined to just over one-quarter of adults, while everyone else needs to take more personal responsibility for setting aside retirement savings.

Now, in the health arena the Affordable Care Act may be just the first of several changes in the way that the health insurance system is structured that move responsibility for managing health insurance from institutions (i.e., employers) to individuals. Just as locks provide one with a sense of physical security, most Americans derive a sense of security when their financial and health needs are assured.

An interesting question is how this continuing shift of responsibility for providing security from institutions to individuals will play out. Can new tools provided by technology give individuals a degree of choice and control that make up for declining institutional oversight, or will our culture continue to divide further between those equipped for their new responsibilities and those less equipped?

In 2012, Felix Baumgartner jumped out of a satellite from space to embody the adrenaline boost you can expect from Red Bull. Primarily, his achievement of breaking the speed of sound served as a solid marketing angle for the energy drink. Among college and graduate students today, this energy spike and the resulting ability to laser focus pretty much represent the Holy Grail. This desire is coupled with a relatively heightened sense of health and nutrition, so young people have shifted their beverage choices in this generation.

You probably noticed the similarity between our names and those of a couple Artemis partners. They wanted to hear something about how college students are thinking about food and nutrition these days, so we volunteered to enlighten them.

Sarah Richardson, a dual Master’s student in Public Health and Business at the University of Michigan writes:

At the UofM, water and diet soda are beverages of choice, with a persisting consumption of tea and coffee, as well. We hear about (and see) the striking decline of full-sugar soda consumption, and big manufacturers are expanding their product lines to include beverages that reflect current consciousness. As students of public health, of late we have increasingly discussed the intersection of policy, marketing and nutrition across several classes.

Energy drinks are one of the more prominent product lines. They’ve been around for a while, but in recent years, stunts like Baumgartner’s reflect a booming industry that claims youth as its target customer. One estimate casts a wide net by claiming that 11 to 35-year-olds are primary consumers, but others are more specific—e.g., assuring that college-aged males are the sweet spot. This is where we face a conundrum: It turns out that, while they are often viewed as healthy beverages, these products aren’t so great for you. A typical energy beverage boasts that gingko and ginseng are among its ingredients, but neglects to highlight the sugar content. Some researchers have also honed in on the potentially negative effects of high caffeine levels: a typical cup of coffee may have 100 to 150 milligrams of caffeine, whereas some energy drinks have over 500 mg.

We know that recent reports of hospitalization associated with energy drink consumption have prompted concern. As with many products, students are interested in being aware of such occurrences, but do they reform their own behavior as a precaution?

Haley Aldrich, a senior at Michigan State University studying Business and Marketing writes:

At MSU, among apparently health-conscious college students, caffeine has consistently been a study partner of choice. On college campuses students gravitate toward Starbucks and local coffee chains as studying hubs and a place to get their quick caffeine fix. Recent reports from sources like health magazines, blogs and others read by college students preach the negative effects of energy products, but often have some positive things to say about coffee and tea as caffeine sources.

Energy drink consumption, when it happens, is sometimes paired with alcohol. College bars near campus at Michigan State University actually have drink specials with or without some prominent name-brand energy beverages. Although many are aware of the health impact of energy drinks, it seems college students make exceptions. Sunday through Thursday midday is all about working out and eating healthy, and then the weekend comes. Thursday afternoon to Saturday often involves drinking, eating out and late night pizza or fast food. Go to the intramural gyms on a college campus from noon to nine during the “healthy” days, and one will find lines for treadmills and elliptical machines, and the majority of the machines and free weights in use. However, the gym is nearly empty on Saturdays.

Now, there are exceptions. When college students dislike coffee, they’ll drink energy drinks for a boost. But looking around a classroom at Michigan State, at least half of the students have a refillable water bottle, about a quarter have a coffee drink and just a small percentage may have an energy drink, if at all.

So it turns out we may be a generation that remains conflicted about our eating and drinking behavior even as we learn more about what’s good for us. This beverage analysis is just one slice of the pie—you might, for example, hear a student praising the organic ingredients in a jumbo-sized burrito that they are ordering, conveniently ignoring that the meal could account for a day’s calories.

Perhaps an encore blog may be in order.

A recent Wall Street Journal article reports on a group in Britain and Germany developing what they call the BinCam, a device they expect you to buy that will take pictures of your recycled trash, load it up to your Facebook page and report to your friends on how green you really are.

As in the early days of the computer revolution and the height of the dot.com frenzy, some new technological capabilities are being introduced more because someone created the technology than because it fulfills a specific need. In our recent blog post “Common Interests: Financial Capability” we talked about some of the opportunities being brought to people at all levels of financial sophistication and need by new technologies, among them new mobile banking and payments apps. But we concluded by suggesting that only a few of these new technologies are destined to follow the full adoption continuum, progressing from early adopters through to the entire population. Further, the context in which people are using a technology makes a big difference; it’s quite possible that a sharing capability that works wonderfully for athletic shoes or pictures of great meals may not be nearly so useful as people think about their financial or recycling needs.

The Wall Street Journal story mentioned above develops an intriguing theme about personal control and technology functions: “Devices that are ‘good smart’ leave us in complete control of the situation and seek to enhance our decision making by providing more information. Technologies that are ‘bad smart’, by contrast, make certain choices and behaviors impossible.”

We can’t recall meeting that young woman in the ad we allude to above, but she may exist. In our research we’ve met plenty of folks who fit a different profile. They’re not early adopter technology sophisticates. Many are actually struggling financially and use their mobile devices to see whether they have enough money in their checking accounts to cover the purchases they’re about to make.

That’s the part we think poses the most interesting challenges. As computer and mobile capabilities become even more commonplace throughout all tiers of our society, which capabilities will work best for the unique needs of people in different segments of that society? Which will follow typical “adoption curve” patterns, and which will move along a different path, with some populations segments leapfrogging others to use a technology that fulfills a specific need?

Sometimes I feel like David Brooks channels my thoughts. I’ve been trying to boost my enthusiasm for Big Data. I know it’s making lots of new consumer and business connections possible, and it certainly is where the action is today. But with all the new capabilities it’s worth remembering where it falls short: its emphasis on “what” risks obscuring “why.” In the above editorial Brooks highlights several challenges using big data. His set-up example of a major corporate decision provides a reminder that values often are more important than volume when it comes to understanding both business and consumer decisions.

Helen and her husband are doing okay, but the budget’s tight and they need to watch what they do. On a recent day, Helen is out shopping and uses her mobile phone to make sure the checking balance is going to cover her debit card purchase. When she gets home in the evening, she goes online for an update on that balance, pays a couple bills that are coming due and makes a small transfer between accounts. While she’s on the bank’s website, she takes a few minutes to explore a new financial management tool. Then she’s back to checking on the kids.

A few years ago it wouldn’t have been so easy for Helen. While Google and others are generally thought of first when it comes to Internet technology, the financial sector has been a more subtle technology innovator, creating new applications that make life simpler and more convenient for people of all ages and incomes. These technology applications expand the proportion of Americans empowered to manage their family finances. We’ve been struck in our recent financial service research studies at how universally consumers use and expect technology tools to address the full range of their spending, saving and other financial needs.

Our public sector financial research focuses on strategies to improve the financial literacy and balance sheets of all Americans, especially those who have the hardest time getting on top of their finances. Among those who concentrate on this goal there certainly is some caution about the motives of the commercial financial sector. But we’re convinced that there’s tremendous common interest between the commercial sector and the public/advocacy sectors in building the financial capabilities of all Americans. One of the best examples of that common interest is the work of the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED). Supporters and members include consumer advocates, financial institutions, Federal and state government workers, and academics.

Next: But it’s not a smooth adoption curve.

If you’d forgotten, you may recently have started to see more news about the Health Insurance Exchanges that are an integral part of Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act). These programs are beginning to take shape, due to come on line in January 2014. The Exchanges—connecting individual health insurance buyers with insurance companies offering qualifying policies—are the vehicles by which millions of Americans are expected to obtain health insurance, many of them for the first time. One set of formal calculations projects that as many as 24 million households should obtain health insurance this way by 2019. Most of the individual participants are expected to be people who currently do not have health insurance, for a variety of reasons. For example, many may work for small businesses that don’t offer health insurance benefits to their employees; that’s true of approximately half of all small businesses and it affects millions of workers.

The ACA has been controversial, so there could be more arguments, but the Supreme Court decision and President Obama’s reelection lessen the likelihood of further challenges. With procedural steps being taken to build the Exchanges, the question increasingly turns to making the Exchanges work so that they serve their purpose.

The Exchange situation reminds us of a prior piece of legislation, the Children’s Health Insurance Initiative (CHIP), that was designed to make health insurance available to the children of working people who made enough to be above the poverty line but still struggled economically—an uncomfortably large portion of our country. When CHIP was implemented an early discovery was that, partly due to the complexities of the rules, many eligible households did not realize it applied to them and consequently didn’t apply. A communications effort funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation called the “Covering Kids Initiative (CKI)” was designed to fix that problem by motivating potentially eligible participants to act on their own behalf. We were excited to be part of the strategic message-building team on this communications effort that helped the CHIP program succeed in expanding the numbers of eligible people who actually enrolled to get their children insured.

This motivation challenge plays to a top Artemis priority: helping organizations—whether government, private or a combination, as in the Exchange context—understand how people think about the issue at hand in order to build communications that reach the right people with meaningful messages that drive them to act.

Even in governing, the notion of bipartisanship is a challenge—especially at the national level. If you pay any attention at all to politics you know that our process of creating Congressional districts, combined with a growing American tendency to cluster with people who think similarly, has polarized the Congress. What we don’t talk about as much is that we ask Congress to decide on some of the most contentious issues possible. On the majority of issues they face there are winners and losers. As importantly, there are different understandings of facts (What’s the best strategy for creating jobs and stimulating growth? For creating peace in the Middle East? How much debt can the nation handle?), and the issues often touch on deeply held beliefs (abortion is the easiest example, but climate science, food policy and almost any social issue tap into the same deeply held ideas).

Life may have become more complex in the 21^st century, but earlier generations of leaders disagreed vehemently, too. Some of their solutions for coping with those disagreements can be instructive. We’ve always gravitated to an example in the 1960s and ’70s when Congress agreed that, in order to resolve diametrically opposed beliefs about how people would behave under different policies, the U.S. government would sponsor large-scale experiments in a range of social policy areas—health, housing, jobs, education, welfare and others—to improve knowledge and create an opportunity for common understanding. That stage of experimenting led to a number of bi-partisan public policy decisions based more on fact than opinion. Some of this type of experimentation persists today, but it’s hard to see its impact on the Congressional decision process.

That period of time also led to the creation of the modern generation of public policy graduate schools, where young professionals can learn how to build policies based on solid analysis. Over the last couple decades, those schools have flourished even as they have had to adapt to a world in which there are few non-partisan issues, only bi-partisan understandings. One of those schools we know well is the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, named after former Vice President Hubert Humphrey, known as the Happy Warrior and also as someone who bridged partisan divides. The school has an annual awards dinner that celebrates government leaders who have successfully tackled big, contentious challenges in ways that lead to bi-partisan solutions. We enjoy these dinners for this reinforcement of the idea that there can be bi-partisan solutions and because they celebrate leaders who have successfully worked to find them.

At a recent Michigan State University game our tailgate was in full swing on a gorgeous September day. A couple of dozen people hung around on the grass next to a full parking lot eating, drinking, catching up and completely enjoying the day.

A young man asked to borrow our cooler so he could stand on it and reach up to a street sign close to where we had settled. “I’ll give you some free Red Bull if you let me use it for a couple of minutes,” he grinned.

He dragged the cooler to the yellow cross-walk sign and taped a can of Red Bull and a pair of wings to the figure on the sign. He hauled our cooler back to the group, threw a few Red Bulls to the young guys at the tailgate and went on his way.

It was a great example of innovative marketing. What better place to demonstrate that your brand brings energy and fun to the get-together?

And the young men at the tailgate were happy to have the Red Bull to go with their Jagermeister.

He decided to take advantage of the time value of money, using someone else’s time—his son’s. At 50, his son has years to invest in more aggressive vehicles. Dad made a deal with my husband and me. Here’s the plan that he laid out: “I give you a chunk of money. You invest it however you want. You cut me a check every month at a decent interest rate (far above the interest rate I was getting on the CDs, but not too high). When I die, you disperse the funds to the family as I wish. Then, take your share and do with it as you please. This way, I have my retirement income coming in at a decent rate, you have the opportunity to make more on it if you can, and, at the end, you still get the chunk of money that I want you to have.”

An example of good thinking from a smart member of the Greatest Generation.