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My (Philosophical) Take on "Influentials" v. Watt

With a bit of trepidation I am entering the conversation about Duncan Watt's research, as profiled in the Fast Company article, "Is the Tipping Point Toast?"  I say “trepidation” as there has been a great deal already written about this, much of it by smart, influential people.  However, as it is easier for me to really grok what I read by writing about it, I thought I'd share my perspective for those who are interested!

The battle fronts forming online run along the lines of “the theory of Influentials is dead” vs. “Duncan Watt's research is bunk.”  Or, to put it another way: word-of-mouth marketing targeting a small group of highly connected/influential individuals vs. mass marketing “target everyone” campaigns.  Does influentials marketing work or not?  Actually, how does influence work?

After reading a variety of articles/responses on this subject, I have come to the conclusion that we don't really know “scientifically” how influence works.  We do know that highly connected people can push a story/meme/trend along faster than non-connected people.  But when it comes to starting a meme/trend/story, it seems that luck has a lot to do with it.  Watt says that it comes down to the social setting being ripe for a trend to take off.  And the so-called “influentials” have little to do with actually starting a major trend. From the article:

Mind you, Watts does agree that some people are more instrumental than others. He simply doesn't think it's possible to will a trend into existence by recruiting highly social people. The network effects in society, he argues, are too complex--too weird and unpredictable--to work that way. If it were just a matter of tipping the crucial first adopters, why can't most companies do it reliably?

Actually, if you believe Watts, the world isn't just complex--it's practically anarchic. In 2006, he performed another experiment that chilled the blood of trendologists. Trends, it suggested, aren't merely hard to predict and engineer--they occur essentially at random.

Word of mouth and social contagion made big hits bigger. But they also made success more unpredictable.

A trend can be started by any “Average Joe.”  If the social conditions are ripe, it will take off.  If not, it won't, not even with the help of Super Joe Influential.  To me, this makes sense.  I am increasingly of the opinion that communication, as it actually works among people, is illogical, unpredictable, or, as Watt says, anarchic.  Even – perhaps especially – mass communications. Philosopher Alain Badiou writes:

Our world also exerts a strong pressure on the dimension of logic; essentially because the world is submitted to the profoundly illogical regime of communication. Communication transmits a universe made up of disconnected images, remarks, statements and commentaries whose accepted principle is incoherence.  Day after day communication undoes all relations and all principles, in an untenable juxtaposition that dissolves every relation between the elements it sweeps along in its flow. And what is perhaps even more distressing is that mass communications presents the world to us as a spectacle devoid of memory, a spectacle in which new images and new remarks cover, erase and consign to oblivion the very images and remarks that have just been shown and said.  The logic which is specifically undone there is the logic of time. It is these processes of communication which exert pressure on the resoluteness of thinking's fidelity to logic; proposing to thought in the latter's place a type of imaginary dissemination. (p. 30, Infinite Thought)

Badiou offers philosophical thought as a defense against the anarchic, frenetic content of mass communications.  Now, it is clear that his statement above does not take into account social media; it refers more to the old comment/control communications.  And yet, to anyone who spends a little time online, his mad, disconnected universe is a familiar, perhaps even comfortable, place.  And I am increasingly skeptical of the existence of a dualism between social and mass communications.  There are too many similarities (more on that another time.) Now, Badiou is noted for his placement of philosophical truth (ontology) in the realm of mathematics: set theory to be exact.  Not for him the philosophy of difference (Derrida) or desire (Deleuze, Lyotard).  And yet, he doesn't leave behind difference and desire, as it simply cannot be left behind. Rather, his subject is defined, actually created, by his/her decision to be a witness to something, acting in fidelity to an event, a decision born of difference or desire.

Badiou's subjects are the true influentials.  You can find them, according to Badiou, in the fields of politics, science, art and in love between two human beings.  These type of influentials interrupt the temporal madness with long thought, which in today's day and age, is actually a revolt.  Through their fidelity, their constant witness to something life changing (an event), they define themselves and influence those around them.  Can we find them in business as well? I think it is possible, although Badiou would probably have a hairy conniption at the thought.

Wow, I have gotten a little off base here in the long grass of philosophy.   What can it tell us about marketing?  Well, at the very least, it leaves me skeptical of traditional influencer-style marketing, at least when it comes to starting an important trend. Rather, perhaps it is passion that starts it off, passion that is reflected and rebounded within a social context ripe for it.  Passion that actually creates the subject who speaks of it: Average Joe becomes Subject Joe Passionate/Dedicated to (political event, scientific event, art event, love event – business/commerce/market event?).

I am not sure it is really possible to manufacture a trend via word of mouth marketing to influentials.  I welcome Watt's research as it starts to question some sacred cows of marketing, which is always a good thing.  For those seeking to start trends, I wish you luck.  I think you'll need it.

Entering from the Middle, Again

Deleuze & Guattari's first chapter of A Thousand Plateaus is about the rhizome.  This concept has been frequently used to describe the internet, the web and so on.  It is a complicated concept, and I don't intend to get into a deep discussion of it here.  The wikipedia definition might be helpful, if terribly skimpy and simplified.  Think if it as a map, an assemblage, with multiple entry and exit points as opposed to a tree-like structure of knowledge.  It breaks with dualisms and embraces multiplicity.  It is non-hierarchical and differentiation is of intensity.  Connectivity is at its core: "any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be."

The book consists of "plateaus" or chapters that introduces rhizome thinking into a wide variety of different disciplines.  I am finding it useful to help me think outside the dualism: command/control vs. distributed/networked communications models.  Even from the brief notes here, I imagine you can see how nicely it works for thinking about the social media sphere.  I want to sharing some thinking I have had about it, starting from education.

During my past few years of graduate study (first in science and technology studies, now in communications/media studies) I have been exposed to vast new worlds of knowledge.  Most of the time I have felt like a frustrated idiot, as I am reading books that refer to other authors I haven't yet read, other theories I haven't had a chance to parse yet, and a universe of proper names that are only now become clear (Wolf Man, Albertine, etc.)  In other words, I started in the middle and have been working my way outwards in a myriad of directions.  But there is no real middle, of course, only me.

My education process matches that concept of rhizome.  And, if you think about it, it has always been like that, if masked.  We are taught "basic concepts" and then we build on them.  But what one doesn't find out until later is that these "basic concepts" are often suspect, and should be questioned.  Once you figure that out, there is no true base anymore and you are floating free.  It is an exhilarating, terrifying and frustrating experience.  You have to re-learn what you thought you already knew, knowing that it might change.  So education becomes a never-ending process of learning how to question and how to judge.

Of course, these skills of questioning and judging are vital to navigating the online world.  Because it is the same kind of experience.  You start in the middle and work your way in multiple directions at once, with never a base and never an idea of what is really true.  You could interpret all these social networking platforms that are arising as ways to create a base within the "plateau" of the online world (if one can call it that, I am not sure yet).  As such, we need to be suspicious of them, because, as we are increasingly discovering, they are not being formed for our benefit (at least not for our benefit alone) but to provide an easy way to group people for advertisers.  Capitalism at work!  There is nothing fundamentally wrong about this, of course, but we have to be wary: to question and judge.

I think we need to think more about these platforms of aggregation and what they do and contrast them with the more ad-hoc networking that goes on between blogs (building a blog roll etc.)  One is more pre-constructed than the other -- but of course the latter is still constructed with the help of tools that contain within them certain assumptions about power, hierarchies and other social concepts.  That is inescapable. But I have choice to run ads on my blog or not vs. on my profile on Facebook, and that is a big difference.

So, I start again from (another) middle (there really isn't a middle) and follow a trace, a thought, and see where it takes me.  And again.  And again.

Update: I just read this post from Doc Searles, which also talks about what I am getting at here about social networking.

 

What is Significant About Twitter

I was a skeptic about Twitter, that aggregator of life's mini-sodes.  I resisted for months, until last week.  Since then I have become a convert.  The reason?  I like how it feels to use it.  I mean emotionally.  Let me explain.

I resisted Twitter as it seemed just another tool or widget I had to get my head around.  I had my first baby in January about the time it seems widgets exploded on the scene. The number of social media tools introduced became an avalanche and I simply lost touch with it all, even before I was in the hospital for 14 days, then dealing with a tiny newborn.  I was overwhelmed and irritated by it all, honestly.  "Hell, I can't even keep up with my blog, why would I want to add something else to the mix," I thought.  It was friend Guillaume du Gardier who finally broke down and tried it that convinced me to do the same.  I am glad I did.

A quick aside.  Something has been bothering me as I catch up on blogosphere (socmediasphere?) happenings and reportings on what is happening and so forth.  It seems like folks (esp. the pundits and anti-pundits) are missing an important point.  Maybe THE important point about why all this communicating, sharing, networking, blogging, tagging, tweeting, etc. is so significant.  It it that it is LIFE that we are seeing shared here.  It is our LIVING as we live it that we share.  And it taps into emotion as real as any physical life activity (and as we type, record etc. it IS a physical life activity, of course, but you know what I mean). 

All of us, as we navigate and create online are constructing our digital identities.  But don't think that these are somehow separate from our physical identities - nothing so neat and clean.  We are simply extending ourselves, growing larger...becoming-digital to put it in a Deleuzian context.  We are transforming ourselves as humans, transforming others, transforming the world.  Big stuff this.

So don't tell me that the sharing of trivia online is trivial.  We are sharing little bits of ourselves, of our emotions, particularly.  That sharing should be treated with respect (I am not saying respect what people say, merely respect THAT they are saying it. But let's not get too philosophical here.)  Online social sharing taps into that scary, dangerous, exhilerating libidinal economy discussed by Deleuze and Guattari, Lyotard and many others.

Ok, so that wasn't just a brief aside, but back to Twitter...

I said I like Twitter because of how it makes me feel.  Happy. Connected. Like I felt when I first started blogging. I feel like I am back in touch with the world.  I don't have the time to blog like I used to, but Tweeting is easy.  When companies are seeking to create new products and services or promote said products and services online, they really should be thinking about emotion.  Will their new stuff help me create a happy life?  Yes, big stuff indeed.

Characteristics of Authentic Online Participants

I have been heads down writing my thesis, thus my absence from the blogosphere lately.  As part of my work, I wrote the following piece, which explores a bit more deeply the Baudrillard post I put up a couple of months ago.  The article has been posted at the New Communications Review here, but I have pasted it below for you as well.  I look forward to your comments, as always.

Characteristics of Authentic Online Participants

We must be cautious of the utopianism that can be found around the emerging global network, exemplified by statements such as John Perry Barlow's "Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace,":

"We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear."

While it is seductive to think that distributed, many-to-many, loosely coupled web connections foreground a new political power to the people, it is certainly not that simple or straightforward. The dualism of command/control vs. distributed communications frameworks conceals the fact that both play the same game, just in a different way. Crucially, in both schemas, technology is used as a means to an end: power. Either in terms of concentration in the hands of a few (e.g., media conglomerates) or via collectivities of individuals that form around certain themes, the goal of both of these is to control the message -- or to put it another way, to seek to make someone take action against their will -- Weber's classic description of power. If we are really seeking alternatives to this type of politics of power, we must look outside this dualism. Or rather, look more closely at what is actually happening online and see if it does not present something different to us – a framework for authentic communications. To get there, we have to ask some questions. I'd like to focus on one here: What would the characteristics of the participants in this alternative framework have?

Blog as Safety Valve or Something More Ominous?

I am known to be a bit pessimistic at times, so I wanted to sanity check some thinking I have had recently that to me raises a warning about blogging, or more generally, consumer-generated content.

As the evangelists have stated, myself included, blogging (and other participatory communications tools) gives consumers the ability to more easily express their opinions about products, companies, and so forth, either through their own blogs, commenting on others, advertising co-creation, emerging web 2.0 services, etc.  Sometimes the opinions are positive, other times they are cries of anger/frustration about a product that doesn't work as promised, about bad service received, etc.

Here's my question.  Does this consumer commentary represent a safety valve, allowing them (us) to blow off steam, ease frustration etc. with little real expectation that something will change, that their problem will be solved?  Or do consumers truly expect real change to occur or real action to be taken?

I have been emphasizing in my discussions with people recently that their organizations really need to pay attention to expectations of real change, i.e.,if they say they are listening, they will need to prove it.  However, I am well aware that moving from online conversations to action in the physical world is a true challenge. 

So, can companies afford to pay lip-service (or simply ignore) consumer complaints in the blogosphere?  Because the same challenge is at play here too:  It is easy for consumers to talk, but harder for them to band together to take action via a boycott, lawsuit, visit to the board meeting, etc. 

If blogging/consumer commentary online is simply a safety valve, then companies can work to defuse issues via conversation in the most radical cases, but perhaps safely ignore the more marginal cases (a risk-benefit analysis aiding them to assign resources appropriately to participating in the online conversations).

But what if that commentary is a symptom of something bigger?  Of a more widespread, pervasive cultural discontent with the interactions of business and society?  Might the blogosphere then become a source of a positive feedback effect, increasing the numbers of unhappy consumers while bolstering their perceived ability to force change?  And if these consumers are, in fact, ignored [a crisis of expectations ensuing] will that confirm their feeling of general powerlessness, tipping them into rage that explodes beyond the online world?

In one respect, it seems kind of silly that anger about a computer issue could lead to people marching in the streets, but think about it.  That issue is just one of many where consumers feel completely powerless these days.  Compounded, all these issues combined with the ability to easily share their anger with others, could indeed create action in the physical world.  Scary action.

So, from this wider perspective, perhaps organizations should indeed work hard to diffuse issues online and make changes offline to prevent future issues.  That may serve the greater societal good. But that is not necessarily an argument that will result in an increased budget to handle the problem.  A true conundrum.

Now, I am clearly pushing the edges on this one to be a bit provocative, but I am truly interested in discussion the questions I have raised.  I look forward to hearing from you!

Goodwill Online: A Key Factor for Persuasion

As I continue to flesh out my network framework for communications, one of the areas I am digging into is one's online reputation or authority and how that is a factor in persuading people to take action (buying a product, telling someone about it, and so on).  In my research I came across the report, "To Tell or Not to Tell" about word of mouth marketing by Dr. Walter Carl of Northeastern University.  While interesting in and of itself (disclosing you are an agent for a WOM campaign has no effect on the outcome of the conversation), it also pointed me to another article, "Goodwill: A Reexamination of the Construct and its Measurement" by James C. McCroskey and Jason T. Teven. While incredibly technical, it did provide me with some interesting food for thought.

Studies have shown that a key factor for persuasion is "the image of the source in the minds of receivers."  Some of you will recognize this as Aristotle's "ethos".  A (much) later study by the Yale Group identified this as "source credibility".  McCroskey & Teven's article stated that there are three generally accepted dimensions to ethos/source credibility:  competence (qualification, expertness, intelligence, authoritativeness), trustworthiness (character, sagacity, safety, honesty) and goodwill/intent toward receiver.  (The authors call this last one the missing dimension as it was ignored over time due to lack of measurability, which this paper's argument is designed to overcome.  Assuming you agree with their analysis, we'll believe that it does exist as a third dimension.)

The important thing about goodwill is that it is a "means of opening communication channels more widely" and is a significant factor in believability/likeability overall.  This means that it is an important factor for persuasion.  There are three elements of goodwill:  understanding ("When we see someone exhibiting behaviors which tell us they understand our concerns, we feel closer to them."); empathy ("This involves behaviors indicating that one person not only understands the other's views but accepts them as valid views, even if he or she does not agree with those views.") and responsiveness ("Responsiveness is judged by how quickly one person reacts to the communication of another, how attentive they are to the other, and the degree to which they appear to listen to the other.  We tend to see people who behave responsively toward us as caring about us.").

So, what does this means for persuasive communication using participatory tools?

The first two factors of persuasion, competence and trustworthiness, are arguably covered adequately by traditional marketing/communications techniques and tools.  However, brochures, ads and press releases are not tools for handling the third factor: goodwill.  The latter is handled much better via participatory tools like blogs and wikis, because built into those tools are mechanisms for communicating understanding, empathy and responsiveness.

So, are participatory tools then the missing link for persuasive communications?  It would seem so.  Used in conjunction with traditional tools, they can quite possibly increase the persuasive impact of your campaigns.  And let's remember, these new tools can also support the first two factors: competence and trustworthiness.

Transparency and Possibility

I read something today that got me thinking about what participatory communications can and can't do.  I am wading my way (painfully at times) through Theodor Adorno's Aesthetic Theory.  In his chapter on "Art Beauty: Apparition, Spiritualization, Intuitability" I ran across the following line:  "...this transparentness gnaws away at [artworks'] possibility."  Now, he is talking about the spirit of art, and it gets a little technical from there, but this phrase, and a following one that talked about "the encipherment of the artwork" sparked something for me I wanted to share with you.

I have written before about how I think transparency -- of process in particular -- is necessary for ethical communications.  Others have written about transparency in terms of the truth of what you are writing/podcasting/etc.  The dilemma that appears for public relations, marketing, and, especially, advertising, is that too much transparency might ruin what we are trying to achieve -- "an emotional connection with the brand" is one way of putting it.  In other words, explaining the facts of a razor aren't nearly as powerful as showing a handsome man with his face being caressed by a beautiful woman.  The second contains mystery, possibility.  The first does not.

How, then, can participatory communications tools like blogging or podcasting, create that possibility (assuming this is still a needed item for persuading people to take action)?  A transparent conversation about the facts doesn't seem to cut it.  That's not to say that there isn't a place for that conversation, of course, but rather that we still need the production of possibility, which might -- might -- require more formalized, produced material (ads, commercials, etc.).  I am not entirely sure about this, but I think a conversation about the value of possibility vs. transparency and how the former can be achieved through participatory means could be interesting.

In the Culture Industry Adorno writes about how we as consumers know we are being manipulated, yet even so go along with it (buying the products advertised and so on).  He has a rather dystopian view of high capitalism, to say the least, but he is not really wrong, as far as I can see it.  I tend to think that participatory communications could provide greater freedom for individuals; that is why I am studying it.  As both consumers and organizations become more adept in using the tools, I think that the transparency-possibility conundrum needs to be thought through in more detail.  I welcome your ideas, opinions and comments!

First, One Must Understand Capital

In my quest to construct a theoretical framework for understanding what is happening and what is possible for the practice of participatory communications, I have had to go back and refresh my understanding of Capital, starting, of course, with Karl Marx.  Whatever you might think about "Marxism" and its failures, Marx's brilliant exposition of what capital is and how it works remains illuminating today.  We cannot understand our culture without starting here.

I have read bits of Capital (not cover to cover, but the important stuff). I have also read various critiques of it over the years.  One book I find particularly important is David Harvey's The Condition of Postmodernity.  Published in 1990, this book cuts through the "isms" (in an often pithy way) and lays out a thesis that demonstrates postmodernism is simply another reflection of capital's movement, not something that exists outside of it.  If you want to get a sense of what modernism was (is) and the postmodern reaction, this is a very approachable book to read.

Harvey's politics ring throughout the book (viz. his discussion of Reaganomics as "economics with mirrors" which has some strong relevance for today!), and he is seeking a place of resistance to the force of capital.  To him, postmodernism and its fragmentation is NOT that place.  Here's his description of capital:

Capital is a process and not a thing. It is a process of reproduction of social life through commodity production, in which all of us in the advanced capitalist world are heavily implicated.

In other words, everything is for sale, including our bodies, our leisure time, our attention.  Everything is ruled by capital.  This is not a good thing in terms of the emancipation of the human being (the human spirit).  Harvey is seeking, if not escape (which might be impossible) then a way to fight back.  He writes:

...it becomes possible to launch a counter-attack of narrative against the image, of ethics against aesthetics, of a project of Becoming rather than Being, and to search for unity within difference, albeit in a context where the power of the image and of aesthetics, the problems of time-space compression, and the significance of geopolitics and otherness are clearly understood.

Harvey's project in this book was to provide that context.  What I would add to this is that we need a platform where it is possible to accomplish this.  I suspect that platform is the Internet.  Because, isn't that what participatory communications is doing?  Providing a way to have narrative (conversations) vs. image (traditional marketing)?  Renewing a discussion of ethics?  Enabling us to create a new, digital identity?  Form groups across space and time in order to take some kind of action in the world?

Surely we can see the forces of capital massing at the borders, seeking to take it over.  Read Lessig's The Future of Ideas for a good explanation of the coming (its already here) war.

I read book's like Harvey's for ideas, which I then start questioning from the framework of the online world.  It is fascinating work.  It is also hopeful, as I must admit, my project is towards finding that space of resistance as well.

Stupidity and Passivity of the Masses are Dangerous Assumptions

I was struck again today in my reading at two (related) assumptions that appear again and again in social/cultural theory and philosophy, to wit: People (the masses) are passive and stupid.  I think these are dangerous, if not catastrophic, assumptions to bring to an analysis of what is happening today in media, culture and society.

A few thoughts...

First, we can't look at people as an amorphous mass.  Technology, for one, allows us to get far more granular in understanding what people are doing and how they are behaving.  Treating people as a mass is a political move designed to hide more than it reveals.

Second, people aren't stupid.  Let's look at an example from science, where the contempt for laypeople ("they couldn't possibly understand what we're talking about") is rampant -- and inaccurate.  Laypeople can become extremely well educated on subjects they have a personal stake in.  For an excellent, well documented example of this, read Steven Epstein's book Impure Science, about how AIDS activists influenced AIDS research.  The assumption of stupidity here is simply an excuse not to make an attempt to explain what is happening (and therefore keeping the mystical power of science intact).  Same thing goes for the cult of the "expert" vs. amateurs...

Third, people aren't passive.  Look at what is happening today with blogging to see one example.  Rather than being passive consumers of packaged TV content, for example, people are creating like mad online.  Now, some intellectuals might sneer that what is being created is a boring body of trivia ("...who cares what someone had for lunch, and if I see another picture of a cat I'll barf...").  My response is that they are completely missing the point!  While most people might not (at this point) be creating Knowledge (with a capital K), what they ARE creating is their digital identity.  They are taking the first steps in becoming global cyborg citizens!  And this, I'd argue, will have immense implications for societies and cultures around the world in the coming years.

So, I am very suspicious of theory that rides on the back of assumptions of stupidity and passivity.  I am also very suspicious of theory that demonstrates technological determinism.  Rather than enslaving us, technology that allows us to manage and create knowledge can only free us!  We should embrace our cyborg selves.

A New Way of Thinking About Objectivity

I am spending a lot of time these days reading philosophy and sociology in an attempt to better understand the nature of communications, an important step in my quest to construct a new framework that takes into account the tidal wave of changes we have been experiencing with the introduction of the Internet and the growth of participatory communications.  I've shared some of my thinking with you in the past (you can find much of it in the communications evolution category to the right), and I will continue to do so.

One thesis that I am currently developing treats objectivity as a constructed, technological product.  This way of thinking about objectivity has important implications for influence, authority, interpretation, persuasion, propaganda, and, of course, public relations.  I don't have this all baked yet - but I thought I share some of my thinking with you both because by writing it down here in an effort to explain it, it helps me to clarify my own thinking, and also because I hope you can critique it, offer additional sources etc.

A few keys to this argument follows.