Joshua Bell is an acclaimed violinist and an orchestra conductor. In 2007, he did an experiment initiated by The Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten where he donned a baseball cap and played as an incognito busker at the Metro subway station.
The result? Of the hundreds of people who passed by, seven stopped to listen to him, and one recognized him. For his nearly 45-minute performance, Bell collected $32.17 from 27 passersby (excluding $20 from the one who recognized him).
This was the day after his sold-out concert averaging $100 per ticket.
So what is different about these two events?
You guessed it right. It is the Environment.
This example is quite intriguing so I reflected on this a lit bit more and here’s my interpretation-
Let’s consider the sold out concert.
There’s a known reputation, a value and purpose for the artists skills. There is the ownership from the artist to deliver the commitment and an intention from the audience to make the best use of their investment of time, money and attention.
What about the metro station?
If you have ever been at one, for sure you know how rushed it is. Everyone is fixated on getting on their ride on time to get from one place to other (their journey to their destination). Chances are that occasionally one would have the time to look around, find something that gets their attention warranting a quick detour.
What about existing beliefs and convictions coming into play? Had people known the artist, then there would possibly be a different scenario. Maybe the artist could not play incognito without any pressure too.
Our environment impacts our behaviors and habits to a greater extent than other factors. James Clear has written about this extensively in several articles and even in his bestselling book ‘Atomic Habits’.
So in conclusion, one must observe their environment more closely, understand the correlations it has to the results and then look to intentionally design it better.
P.S In software engineering, we utilize different environments (test, development, staging, production) to deploy infrastructures and provision resources. These are each tailored for specific purposes for release.