Social Commerce

Social Commerce

I wish I could think up these nifty terms that really mean what they say. Best Buy has a Facebook brand page where they are exporting the entire BestBuy.com product catalog and assets through an API called Remix. The tabbed page is called "Shop + Share." You don't have to leave Facebook to "window shop" at bestbuy.com.

The Social Part of It
Some studies claim that 70% of customers are looking for peers to provide recommendations as part of their purchase decision. This brings customers and peers together in an environment where they are hanging out and communicating.

Right now, you can only look at items but soon, you will be able to purchase directly from this page.

The viral aspect has been phenomenal. They have grown from about 27,000 users to 900,000 users since they added the feature about a month ago.

The Fun Theory

Forget the Message, Show Me the Fun

DDB Stockholm (on Volkswagen’s behalf) has launched a series of “experiments” that are captured on video to test if making the world more fun will change people’s behaviors. This is called “The Fun Theory.”

The Fun Theory

The Fun Theory is an attempt to entice people to change their perceptions and behaviors by encountering fun ways to act environmentally responsible. The ultimate objective is to get these people to realize (and act upon) the idea that driving environmentally friendly cars is a pleasurable and feel-good endeavor.

The series of fun events include:

• Making a set of stairs into “piano keys”
• A recycle bin turned into an arcade game
• Using sound effects (cartoon-like) when people throw trash into a special receptacle

Experiencing the Message

What does this have to do with selling cars? Absolutely nothing and everything. This isn’t a about selling cars. It is about associating a name (VW) with fun and personally rewarding activities. In the "piano keys" stairs experiment, 66% of the people observed during the allowed time frame chose the stairs over the escalator.

The activities experienced firsthand by the people in the videos and those millions of people experiencing the activities secondhand through watching the videos. (The “piano keys” stairs alone has over 1 million viewers on youtube.com.) At the end of each video is a small “VW” emblem. Very subtle yet it is associated with an enjoyable moment.

The brilliance of this campaign is the fact that these people are being pre-conditioned to accept VW’s new BlueMotion Technologies brand which tout mobility and sustainability. They will have "learned" that contributing to sustainability of resources (take the stairs, recycle, etc) is fun. They are a part of a "tribe" of sorts that is like-minded in the pursuit of "saving" the planet through their actions. The brilliance lies in the fact that these people may not ever had taken that first step to joining the tribe if it hadn't been for the fun factor associated with this campaign.

*"Piano Keys Stairs" image found on Mashable(mashable.com/2009/10/11/the-fun-theory/)

Critical Thinking Capstone Essay

I Am My Own Gate Keeper

They Were My Gate Keepers
I am an information junkie. I always have been and assume I always will be. I can remember as a kid spending hours in the library scouring the shelves of books mainly in the pursuit of information on rocks, cats, horses and dogs. This was at a time when information sources were limited (compared to today):

• Three television channels
• AM Radio
• Local Newspapers
• National Newspapers (Wall Street Journal)
• Public Libraries (brick and mortar)
• Magazines (limited)

For most of us (in my community), the early to mid 1960s were peaceful times when we consumed information without questioning the content for validity, bias or accuracy. We believed the veracity of anyone in “authority” including news anchors, elected officials, school principals, and yes even the president of the United States. Information was easily controlled in terms of content and number of distributors. It was crafted, edited and distributed by and through a limited number of channels.

The media were still the “watch dogs” of freedom, but they also came from a time when reputation and propriety in a conservative sense was the norm, not the exception. This contributed to a “code of silence” that protected public figures (in particular elected officials). Therefore “all things known” were not necessarily published. An example of this was the image of John F Kennedy (JFK) and his wife Jackie. Outwardly they appeared to be a glamorous and happy couple yet beneath the surface life wasn’t as perfect as it seemed. JFK’s affairs were well known by insiders and the press but were kept from the public’s knowledge. As suggested by Lewis L. Gould, this image was shaped by “doses of fakery and falsehoods..” (Gould 2001).

In addition to the sense of propriety and code of silence, it would be nice to think that saving the nation from embarrassment was more important than the potential gains by media outlets to publish this information. Or even better would be that the press didn't have facts, only speculation and gossip so they didn't publish the stories. But for whatever reason this protection further served the purpose of having a “figure head” that was infallible and untoppled from the pedestal that we put him on. As humans, we want to believe the face value of things. We don’t want to have to think matters through.

Not So Kind and Gentle
In the last couple of decades I have seen a change in the way information is disseminated and content has certainly gone beyond the previously established constraints of propriety. No details are sacred. Public people's personal lives are no longer protected by the media. Rather their private lives are now fodder for the masses. Sensationalism sells. Fox News actually has a timeline of US political sex scandals (Fox News 2009). A published timeline is a quantum leap from the "code of silence." Curiously enough there appears to be an increase in the events per decade since the 1970s. The following data are from this unsubstantiated Fox News timeline:

• 1970s – 2 events
• 1980s – 5 events
• 1990s – 5 events
• 2000s – 8 events
  

Does this rise suggest a change in human behavior? Or is it suggestive of a wide-open media who will dig, discover and divulge through an enormous amount of media channels?

The Wild West
With the advent of the Internet, media have become like the wild west. No rules, limitations nor boundaries. People with camera-enabled phones are instant reporters able to snap and publish information almost instantaneously (as it happens). We now live in a time of “citizen reporters” who publish information without a formal review process that would verify the facts of the information. There are no checks and balances.

I Am My Gate Keeper
I recognize that because of the new structure of media, I have to be skeptical of the content, source, bias and agenda as I now know I should have been in that kinder and gentler time.
Learning about critical thinking has made me remind myself to look beneath that potential surface of “fakery and falsehoods” but more importantly it has taught me to also be cognizant of how I think about information that is presented to me. I have to question both the presented information and if I am approaching it with a preconceived bias or agenda. I have to be my own gate keeper.

As a consumer (and a marketer) I realize advertising displayed on a website that I am looking at isn’t coincidental. It is relevant to who the advertisers know is looking at that page at that moment. It is my job as my gate keeper to recognize why it is there and decide to pursue it or ignore it.

As my gate keeper, I recognize product placements, influencers and other tools to divert my attention as I travel through my day. I now use my first exposure to a piece of information only as a starting point. I use various sources in an attempt to substantiate it. As part of my profession, I refer to user behaviour data to build a strategy and tactics to execute that strategy. Learning critical thinking has made me question data even if it is from a reliable source. I prefer to verify it from a different source before I consider it to be sound data.

Ask "Who, What, Why and When?"
Critical thinking is essential to successfully navigate the onslaught of daily information and situations at a personal and professional level but absolutely required for scholarly work. As my time in the Media Psychology doctoral program at Fielding progresses, I will improve my critical thinking skills by questioning facts as they are presented to me. As I begin looking at information, I will ask myself what is the core posit, who is the source, why is this posit being presented and when was it written. To continue I will always refer to the "Elements and Standards Model" of critical thinking (Paul) which I think is an excellent tool to use to assess information thoroughly through critical thinking.

I will also depend upon my own experiences and listen to them when something doesn’t seem quite right. I will be a detective leaving no stone unturned, never settling for the obvious, always looking for verifiable truth.

Gould, Lewis L (2001). JFK: Celebrity in the White House. World Wars The Cold War. Retrieved October 18, 2009 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/coldwar/kennedy_celebrity_01.shtml

Author unknown. (June 24, 2009). Raw Data: Timeline of U.S. Political Sex Scandals. Political News. On Fox News Online. Retrieved October 18, 2009 from http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/24/raw-data-timeline-political-sex-scandals/

Paul, Richard (2009). The Elements and Standards Model. The Elements of Reasoning and Intellectual Standards. The Critical Thinking Community. Retrieved October 18, 2009 from http://www.criticalthinking.org/starting/Begin-CTModel.cfm

Social Media

Communication Revolution
Social media have revolutionized the way we communicate and have impacted society in several ways. It has made those of us participating in it readers, writers and editors. It has brought us together to share information, converse about that information and collaborate on ideas. It has provided us the opportunities to form groups of like-minded people in a virtual space.



Collective Action
It has also provided the opportunity to take these collective thoughts and act offline on them. Clay Shirky calls this “Collective Action.” While I was viewing his February 28, 2008 presentation at Harvard Law School's Austin Hall he said many things that caught my attention but two stood out:

• in a high freedom environment , people tend to use social media for entertainment


• in a low freedom environment , people tend to use social media for political change

While I agree with his statement about a “low freedom environment,” I disagree with his statement about the “high freedom environment.” There are many individuals and companies using social media outside of entertainment such as Kellogg, Yoplait and many others. To be fair to Shirky, his presentation was given in 2008 - before the 2009 US presidential election which changed the way campaigns will be run in the future.

High Freedom Environment – Obama Election

The Obama campaign used social media to build awareness and build collective action. He was able to connect various forms of social media to build an integrated network of like-minded people. These people wanted change and were online.

Through social media, Obama was able to:

• raise money
• raise awareness of his ideas
• organize people at the local level
• get people out to vote
• collect names and contact information

The network that came as the result of the campaign is now a million plus-name database that can be called upon easily and instantaneously. This online network was able to act offline and change the course of history.

Low Freedom Environment – Iran 2009 Presidential Elections

The collective action in Iran during the 2009 presidential election was different than the Obama networked collective action. Iran has tightly controlled and censored media, but when the 2009 presidential election result was announced, Mousavi proponents took to the streets in Tehran and it was all tweeted, posted, texted, videoed, photographed and published through social media tools.

The collective action was fostered by individuals not necessarily acting as an organized group yet their collective thoughts were just as powerful. I think that the government of Iran was surprised by the revolt but maybe more so of the social media tools that the public had. When individuals have tools to publish globally, it is difficult to keep them from doing so. These “citizen journalists” relied on social media – in particular Twitter and YouTube to inform Iranians and the outside world the real story happening on the streets of Tehran.

The Iranian government officials tried to shut down access to Twitter but it was a futile gesture. They had to rely on "strong-arm" tactics to disperse the crowds and stop the reporting from the streets. Although this collective action did not change the outcome of the election, it was still successful in that the Iranian people realized how powerful their voices are and that when they "speak" the world hears them.

What I Have Learned to Realize About Social Media

Social media:

• should not be considered solely as entertainment tools
• are powerful tools that can change the course of history
• are difficult for governing bodies to censor or control
• can be used for purposes of brilliance and silliness

Shirky,Clay. (February 28,2008) On new book "Here Comes Everybody.The Power of Organizing Without Organizations" speaking at Harvard Law School's Austin Hall on Feb. 28,2008 link

*"Social Media" image found on Google Images (http://compassioninpolitics.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/social-media-trends-2009jess3.jpg)*%22Obama" image found on Google Images (http://www.ddbseattle.com/blogs/alison_byrne_fields/assets/2531094926_144140293b.jpg)
*"Iran" image found on Google Images (http://ondeadline.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/expel-the-correspondents1.jpg)

Consumer Psychology

“Area Man Buying Not So Much a Soft Drink as an Image”

“SOUTHFIELD, MI— In a move Coca-Cola marketing executives called "a clear sign of our branding success," highway worker Chuck Burdon, 37, purchased a two-liter Diet Coke during his lunch break Tuesday, buying not so much a soft drink as an image.

'Let me tell you, I was mighty thirsty after all that paving,' a refreshed Burdon told reporters. 'Yet on a subconscious, psychological level, I wanted more than mere rehydration or refreshment. I craved an image. I craved being imbued with the sort of fun, carefree spirit seen in Diet Coke commercials. I also wished to feel like I was part of a larger community of discriminating, likeminded consumers who have the good taste to choose the world's most-consumed diet cola and not some inferior, lower-priced off-brand.'" (The Onion) read the rest of the article

Obviously, the statement above would be a marketer’s dream come true. In particular two master marketers:

• Clotaire Rapaille
• Frank Luntz
  

Their differing philosophies regarding consumer marketing research can both be seen in the article above from The Onion.

Clotaire Rapaille

According to his interview in the documentary The Persuaders, Rapaille claims that people don’t know why they purchase the items they do. The urge to purchase comes from an unconscious association between the consumer and the products they purchase. In the article from The Onion, the consumer wanted the product on a “subconscious, psychological level…”

Rapaille uses a three-part research method when conducting a focus group. This method eventually results in a word that represents that unconscious association or what he refers to as “the code.” The three parts of the method are:

• Reason – logical reason to purchase an item (fits my garage, well-engineered, great warranty)
• Emotion – emotions that come from an item (makes me feel good, makes me happy, makes me feel important)
• Primal Core – according to Rapaille, this is the reptilian response that actually makes the decision. This is the unconscious association.

Rapaille rejects intellectual approaches that can be found in the first two parts of the method for more abstract and possibly harder to verify responses. This can be to Rapaille’s advantage when brand managers want to check ROI on a Rapaille recommendation. Are these unconscious responses repeatable? Are they verifiable? Can the brand manager absolutely be convinced (through data) that the success of a campaign was based upon Rapaille’s recommendation or on the merit of the product?

Frank Luntz

Unlike Rapaille, Frank Luntz listens to what the public is saying, what it is watching, and what it is listening to. He looks for the words to use in marketing messaging that result in triggering emotional responses from people. His “Instant Response” dial sessions (Luntz, Masslansky Strategic Research) allow session members to spontaneously rate words that are associated with a product (or service). He wants that immediate gut reaction, the impulsive response, the emotional response.

Luntz targets the emotional responses of people because (according to Luntz) 80% of human life is emotion and 20% is intellectual.

By knowing what language works with consumers, marketers can redefine issues, products or services through subtle changes of the message such as changing “global warming” to “climate change.” This removes the emotional perception of political bias of “global warming” and changes it to a more emotional-neutral scientific (indisputable, data-backed) term.

Luntz’ approach to emotional language can be found in The Onion article where Mr. Burden says “I craved being imbued with the sort of fun, carefree spirit…”

The Onion’s satirical article clearly illustrates what marketers hope to be the result of their expensive, carefully crafted and executed campaign.

Goodman, Rushkoff. (nd) The Persuaders. In PBS Frontline. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/

Author unknown. (November 13, 2002) Area Man Buying Not So Much a Soft Drink As An Image. In The Onion. Retrieved October 4, 2009, from http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27642.

Author unknown, (nd) How We Do It. In Luntz, Maslansky Strategic Research. http://www.luntz.com/how_overview.html

*"Pepsi billboard image and copy" image found(http http://www.theonion.com/content/news/pepsi_to_cease_advertising)

Web Bias

“Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain” - Baum (1900)

Not good advice then and certainly not today. Toto had the good sense to pull the curtain back and reveal that the Wizard of Oz was a façade used to portray a great, powerful and all-knowing wizard when in reality the actual wizard was a mere mortal man with average knowledge and power.

The web provides a good environment and opportunity for facades that disguise biased, unsubstantiated and deceitful information because:

• anyone can publish content without barriers to entry such as editors, censors, watch groups
• it is easy to hide the true authors, agendas, and owners of a website

As critical thinkers, we have guidelines and tools to help us pull back the curtain as Toto did to reveal the truth of what we are viewing.

Guidelines for Evaluating the Website
The article “Evaluating Information Found on the Internet” (http://www.library.jhu.edu/researchhelp/general/evaluating/#c) offers guidelines to help uncover bias. The following is a partial list:

• Is the author’s name present, recognizable and does it include a biography?
• Is there a name of an organization responsible for the website?
• Is there a method on the website for contacting the owners or webmaster?
• Can the owners of the website be identified?
• Can the point of view be determined? Does the author provide a counterpoint to this point of view?
• Does the author cite references or sources? Are these sources provided or links provided?
  How current is the content? Does the content provide a date of publication or update? Is the information provided or cited also dated? Is a copyright date provided?
• Is the information presented in a way to instill an attitude in its readers? Is the mission of the author or group clear?

Tools and Methods for Evaluating the Website
The Virtual Chase (http://www.virtualchase.com/quality/checklist_print.html) provides tools and methods for evaluating websites in the article called “How to Evaluate Information - Checklist”. These tools and methods assist in:

• checking the ownership of a site
• spotting a fraudulent website address
• identifying phishing scams, fake web pages or websites
• researching the author of content
• how to determine objectivity of the content

Detecting bias on the web is not easy. However the critical thinker will perform due dilligence in evaluating the quality of the information that is presented.

*Oz photo from edspresso.com

Week 4 at NSO: Gatekeeping, The Psychology of Music, and Unplugging from the TEcosystem

Gatekeeping and Concepts of Self in Media


Gatekeepers – Traditional Media
I am at the mercy of gatekeepers in traditional media. I tend to watch and listen to the same channels on television and the radio, therefore I ingest information that has been filtered, edited, carefully crafted and deemed appropriate for the interests of the media outlet and its audience. These news stories are sound bites that fit in a 20 minute format and in the case of local news are ripe with tantalizing headlines dealing with:
• Murder
• Other crimes
• Car accidents
• Political misdeeds

What has changed our news from journalism to a wrapped up piece of sensationalism?

The Tool and Desensitization
Let’s take local television network news for instance. In the case of television news, the tool itself has helped shape what we view now. Due to the length of the actual time allowed (20 minutes) for the news stories and 10 minutes of sponsors’ advertising, it is very difficult to dive too deeply into social issues or other issues of substance. In order to keep the audience interested and not willing to change the channel, the news is filled more with sensationalism than journalism. Can this be due to our (the audience) desensitization from what media is serving up these days such as:
• Violent programming in our homes and theatres
• Sexually explicit programming in our homes and theatres
• Violence in the news
• The ability for us to be closer than ever to public figures through the media

Gone are the days of Murrow, Cronkite, and the Huntley-Brinkley team. These were the unattractive stalwarts of television journalism in the infancy of television news anchormen. Put these anchormen next to Brian Williams of NBC or the line up of lovelies at Fox News today and they would pale in comparison by appearance.

Could This Guy Get a Job in Television Today?




People on television news these days are beautiful. The women on Fox News appear as if they were hatched from a cookie cutter of perfection and eerily look enough alike to be sisters. Are these people who read the news to us becoming as homogenous as the news itself?

I doubt if poor old Chet Huntley could even get an interview these days. He might be brilliant and have much to say, but honestly, could we tolerate his lack of beauty for 20 minutes? I doubt it. I want my news to be buffered by blinding beauty when it is delivered to me. I want to fixate on what the anchor person is wearing or what color tie Brian is wearing or what Gretchen's hair looks like. That will somewhat lessen the impact of the ugliness of the content.

The Persuasive Role of Music

Music can change our perception of what we are viewing. By changing the tone, rhythm or melody, the audience can be transported from a scene of serenity to one of danger. If the visual is changed, only it is changed, not the music. However if the music is changed, the essence of the visual is changed. When music is combined with a visual, is the music the core of the media experience?

Nostalgia
Some music brings back memories of a visual. The music may have been written long before the visual was produced that it is associated with, but it can certainly transport one back to that associative instance when it was heard in the context of the film:

- “Shout” – Otis Day and the Knights, Animal House
- “Damn it Feels Good 2 Be a Gangsta” – The Geto Boys, Office Space
- “Bohemian Rhapsody” – Queen, Wayne’s World
- “An der schönen blauen Donau” – Johann Strauss II, 2001 a Space Odyssey
- “Also Sprach Zarathustra” – Richard Strauss, 2001 a Space Odyssey (and countless Elvis concerts)

Shopping
Music plays a very large role in shopping. Have you noticed the music in department stores, grocery stores, even at gas pumps? I wonder if it is so pervasive that people don’t notice it unless it is annoying. Music can:
- energize people shopping for clothes
- soothe people at spas
- provide a sense of well-being at grocery stores
- provide entertainment at gas pumps

Of course on the flip side, it can be annoying if it is not used appropriately. How about heavy metal at the spa? Or classical music at Old Navy? To be affective, the audience and their activity have to be considered. In other words, when used to persuade shoppers, music has to be in context to be affective.

Despite where it is used and why, music continues to be the age old tool that moves us.

How Plugged in Are You?

Uber Worker
I picture our world as a giant network of millions of wires connecting people, places and things. Connectivity has accelerated to a point that there is now a blur of that previous sacred line that separated “at work” and “not at work.” The benefits of being able to conduct work from anywhere away from the office are huge. One of the benefits is the potential for increased productivity. By being plugged in via the iPhone, Blackberry, laptop with wireless or broadband, or a home-bound computer, workers can communicate easily with clients, vendors and co-workers and perform work from anywhere.

Leisure Time
If our productivity and time “at work” are increasing, then our leisure time is suffering. Our way of life is more hurried and we are rushing our children along with us. The art of relaxation seems to be lost. People appear to have a need to be plugged in whether they are playing video games or listening to their iPods. Is this relaxation for them? Probably not in the sense of truly removing all external stimuli and just “not doing” for a while. As we are on the treadmill of living, do we realize that the progress of technology has set us back to earlier days when (due to a lack of technology) we worked very long hours to ensure productivity was optimal? Have we really progressed as a society?

Learnings from the Critical Thinking Portion of NSO

Three Things I Didn’t Know Before:
- Kubrick selected the music for “2001 A Space Odyssey”
- Music is a powerful influencer
- I probably knew this but didn’t consider how much time I spend “plugged in” to work even when I’m not there


Two Things I Will Tell Colleagues:
- My professors are incredibly talented individuals and I’m lucky to get to work with them
- The NSO Santa Barbara was an inspiring time that allowed for thinking, learning and exploring


One change I Will Make in My Own Professional Practice
I will tell my team about the power of critical thinking which will help them dealing with often illogical and emotional situations.