We Know What You’re Thinking by Darrell Bricker and John Write of Ipsos Reid.

I thought this would be an interesting book to review on my blog.  You may be wondering why a mother of four, who blogs by night and changes diapers by day would want to right?  Well, I think it’s important to see the stats on what Canadians think and why they choose things.   I think it is effective marketing to be aware of what people search out and seek and in effect my lowly blog can benefit if I choose to incorporate some of that knowledge on this site.  If you’re Canadian, you should be familiar with Ipsos Reid.

We Know What You’re Thinking starts of by explaining how they come up with their stats.  I found it really interesting to know the basis of where their information was coming from.

I loved how this book started out with giving the pros and cons of each province.  I found it really interesting to know that BC read on avg. 33 books a year, but doesn’t read the Bible (the only province that placed lower was Quebec), but Saskatchewan (Go Green!) overall had the most readers stating that 78% had at least read a book a year! (I wasn’t counted in this survey obviously because I would have tripled Saskatchewan’s score! haha)

I was saddened to learn that 46% of fellow Saskatchewan-ees don’t attend any church and only 17% even thought it was of importance.  That really challenged me because I would have somewhat concluded we were similar to our Bible Belt cohorts in the USA.

Seriously though, loved this book!  I was intrigued by the information and it gave me a lot of Canadian facts.  After all the years of poking fun at my American neighbours for not knowing their anthem and knowledge of their country, I find myself surprised (or not really surprised) by our dumbed down educational statistics.  On the good note it sure gave me ammunition for homeschooling!  It’s not just in my imagination that my kids aren’t learning much from school! LOL

This book was interesting on a few levels for me, not only as an ex-marketer, but as a home owner– where to live, what I would look for if I were considering moving, –as a parent, where education lacks and what I need to make sure my children know, — and of course some just down home funny stats (like Quebec likes to sleep naked!) or that we love donuts (I blame Timmie’s on that one!).

While I was alarmed by some of the stats provided it was definitely a wake up call for Canadians to grab their brains back and get into the game of life!  I thought Bricker and Wright did a decent job of providing interesting information for the average (or not so average) Canadian.

I will mention that there are some sexual stats in here as well, and while I mostly skimmed over that because I didn’t really care about those particulars.  It was interesting to see how our self-image is at all ages …. from teens and weirdly enough in 40-65 year old men lol.   For the most part I don’t think any of it was extremely surprising finds.

BTW, not sure if it’s a spoiler or not, but according to stats the most favored donut in Canada is the Boston Creme but only 1% like the vanilla dipped with rainbow sprinkles!

** Thanks  to Harper Collins for providing me with this book for my honest and unbiased review.

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