I always believed that if all the brilliant minds in this world would team up to do good around, the world would be a better place. People called me from dreamer to optimist to idealist to fool.

Yet these days we had a talk given by an UCL alumnus who works for the British Government now, who mentioned “behavioural architecture”. I can’t stop but thinking that this is something I would like to devote my whole psychological knowledge to: changing behaviours. For social good.

From behaviour architecture to social marketing was only a step. I was surprised to see there are a couple of professional bodies who devote their work for social good and there is even a conference on social marketing (set up only last year apparently, this is yet a new field).

To clarify, social marketing is not social media marketing. According to European Social Marketing Association, Social Marketing seeks to develop and integrate marketing concepts with other approaches to influence behaviours that benefit individuals and communities for the greater social good.

Social Marketing practice is guided by ethical principles. It seeks to integrate research, best practice, theory, audience and partnership insight, to inform the delivery of competition sensitive and segmented social change programmes that are effective, efficient, equitable and sustainable.

This is how my new aim in life begins: I am now specialising to become a behavioural architect, aiming to make the world a better place. Yes, you can call me a dreamer.