“Free Information, as great as it sounds, will enslave us all” by Jaron Lanier on Quartz

We will becomes slaves to the data, relying on it to give us the success we want, but in reality, most of us will never find it. The people will the massive power to make the data actionable will become fewer and fewer. 

The big problem with big data. 

Recently I took a Skillshare class entitled “How to Explain an Idea” taught by Mark Pollard. The essence of the class, at least how I saw it, was that you can’t baby your ideas; you need to rip them apart, tear them down to the bones and then build them with careful, methodical steps to reach the end you want. I know, it sounds like a slightly violent description, but it is not an easy process. I loved this idea (analytical minds need to be fed and, yes, pun intended).

 Almost a week later, Christopher Butler asked me to review his latest book, The Strategic Web Designer and I jumped at the chance. I am not a web designer and nor do I claim to be, but, much like Pollard’s class, Butler’s book begs the reader to look at creating a website with a different perspective, a different process - an analytical and strategic one. It is not nearly as easy, or obvious, as it sounds.

There is one chapter that has stuck with me since I finished the book: “Your Website is Not For You.” Again, seems shockingly obvious and simple, but it is not. Everyone, not just designers, interprets and understands things with an innate bias. We see things the way we want to see them and tend to do things that will confirm that (also know as Confirmation Bias). It is not so dangerous in most circumstances, in fact it is almost unavoidable, but it is dangerous when you are creating a platform that needs to work for someone aside from yourself. Chris accurately calls this dilemma “project narcissism” which is what happens “when you make the mistake of thinking that something meant for someone else is all about you.” Well, you might not be thinking that “this is the me show” but the end product comes out that way. So how do you avoid it?

Well, simply, do all you can to get to know your users. It is not an easy task; it will not happen quickly and it takes a lot of self-awareness (both are big asks). One of the key methods that Chris lays out is very familiar to me: one-on-one interviews. As a student of anthropology and sociology (and all around nerd concerning various topics under those umbrellas), I learned early on that you will not learn anything relevant, useful, or real about groups of people by reading books (another person’s interpretation basically); you need to go out and learn firsthand. Now the interview is, to me, the simple part; it is the analysis after that really matters - how will you interpret your results.

 “…Once you’ve completed your interviews, you’ll need to being translating your interviewees into three to five segments. Having the perspective of your observer to balance out to balance out your subjective recall of the interviews will, again, be indispensable, as segmenting personals is an intuitive, rather than scientific, process. Its goal is to generalize your personas and qualify them for uniqueness, realism, describability, user-base coverage and influence upon the decisions you will make about your website. Remember, the purpose of this exercise is to go beyond learning about your users in order to learn from them.”

Of course, being the ‘professional’ in the room, it is easy to think that you know what you are doing and what these people really want (oh come on, you know you think that sometimes), but really you don’t. And you won’t until you talk to them. Place a large emphasis on the “from” rather than the “about” when it comes to understanding who you are designing for.

Now, once again, I am not a web designer, but I have always been driven by the desire to understand why we do what we do; what drives our behavior. That is probably what drove me to the social sciences and psychology. Why do we do the things we do and how can we make experiences, products, services, environments and so on to conform to and encourage those behaviors. Design, in any form, fits perfectly into that quest and in some cases provides the answers.

Perhaps the reason that this chapter in particular stuck out to me is my unwavering opinion that quantitative data alone and second-hand interpretations will not yield any meaningful insight into groups of people. Yes, it is can thought-provoking, interesting and used to help support your qualitative findings, but it should never be the extent of your research. And, focus groups do not count. It is more about putting yourself in the mindset of the person you want to learn more about. How do they think? What motivates them? This is why I am a tireless cheerleader for ethnography, in design and beyond it.

Getting ‘on the ground’ with your users, the group you are studying (let’s call it what it is) is critical to understanding the cultural influences, group influences and how they compound with individual motivations. A key part of that is participant observation - actually becoming one of them, ‘walking among them’ you could say. True anthropologists will do this for months and years, but that is not exactly a scalable or efficient (in cost or time) for a website, but marketers (like myself, though I hate that label), designers and beyond can adapt the ethos of that methodology to gain a deeper insight and ultimately better starting point to not only create user personas, but also create meaningful products, services, experiences and more.

Much like that Confirmation Bias that ties us to our own opinions and tints the lens through which we view the world, we ‘professionals’ become biased towards processes we use to meet an end goal and that is a problem. Once again, I come back to Mark’s “How to Explain an Idea” - it is really all about challenging what you think you know and finding new ways to gain greater insight into the end goal you want to achieve, whether that be a product, a research paper, a tweet or a simple sentence. It is about spending less time on the ‘what’ and more time on the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of things, from the ‘why’ behind user behaviors to how you apply that knowledge. 

Tweet

I have come to the realization that the relationship that I have with my phone is, well, complicated and perhaps verging on the intense side. The ‘ah-ha” moment came during my family’s Easter brunch after my sister was offended by my perfectly normal phone-use behavior. I sat down with my plate of deliciousness and instinctively pulled out my phone to take picture (yes, I am one of those people). My sister, already settled at the table, immediately had a conniption, “why do you always have you phone?! It’s so rude!” Now, being the youngest of four, I am used to being berated by my older siblings, but my sister had a point; why am I so attached to my phone?

Since the Easter incident, I’ve been trying to answer the question of why we all have experienced that mild to moderate panic attack when our phone is misplaced or checking it compulsively every five minutes. I have always thought and analyzed through theoretical frameworks, solidified as sociology-anthropology major; so that’s how I’ve managed to explain it. Three central theories and concepts help to shed light on why deck-of-cards-sized electronic device has become a member of my family. Or a fifth appendage. Bear with me; I am about to get a little academic.

It Means Something to Me - Symbolic Interactionism:

Symbolic Interactionism (SI) was coined by George Herbert Mead and expanded by Herbert Blumer. Essentially, SI posits that humans and objects have attributed meaning that is derived through interactions (Source - Wiki). These meanings vary from individual to individual and, according to SI, are ordered hierarchically for each of us.

“Humans act towards objects (including the self) in terms of the meaning of those objects.” (Pg. 6) Certain objects, if they allow us to achieve a certain end, will have greater significance and meaning to us (Pg.12). This is where my phone fits in; it is a means to an end. It is not necessarily the device itself that has significance, but rather what it enables me to do and who it connects me to. It is a nexus of interaction for me, that meaning-producing catalyst, that not only is important to my construction of self, but also how that self is validated and expanded through the interactions with others on this device. And this thinking took me to one of my favorite sociologist and Interactionists, Erving Goffman

 I Have Performance Anxiety - Dramaturgical Concept:

According to Goffman’s dramaturgical concept, the social world is massive performance based around the expression of self and the desired (or undesired) impression of others. His lasting idea is that we alter out behavior depending on the impression we would like to have (a bit evil mastermind, I know). Now, I am not implying that I consciously use my phone as some sort of mind control device, but rather view it as another ‘stage;’ It is a location of performance. I am a fairly avid tweeter and Instagrammer, both of which are types of performances that I typically (or solely in the case of the latter) engage with on my phone.

The phone itself, as I mentioned before, becomes a tool, but in this case to regulate, manage and maintain my identity and the impressions others may have of that identity. Again, this sounds a little evil mastermind, but it is not exactly a conscious process. I do not consider what I am doing as ‘impression management,’ but rather after taking a theoretical lens to it, that is what my behavior can be interpreted as. In that vein, my phone, with all that lives within it, is vital to that process.

This brings me to the question of need and outside the sociological world and into psychology.

I Just Need It, Ok? Maslow’s Needs:

(image from Wikipedia)

Maybe you’re familiar with that colorful pyramid and maybe you are not; basically, as each level of our needs is met, we work towards achieving, and are now able to do so, the next level. So, if I can breath, am well-fed, have a home and a job, a routine and no one is trying to kill me or chew my face off (this is a legitimate concern), I am motivated to seek “love and belonging”, followed by “esteem” and, finally, “self-actualization.” Now where does my iPhone come into this equation? It does not exactly play into my physiological and safety needs (though some could argue it does), but it, again, acts as means to achieving an end.

Take love and belonging and esteem for example. Both rely heavily on interactions (remember how important those are?), which my phone enables me to do. For example, I have friends and a family, but I am not always with them; my family is in Boston, Chicago, and Germany and friends are smattered throughout the country, but my phone enables me to text, talk and even see these people if I want. So, it fulfills a need.  When it comes to esteem, achieving self-esteem, confidence and respect, is not thing something that my phone alone with do for me. Going back to Goffman and SI, the tools and services within that phone are means to the end. Of course a lot will have happen away from my phone, but in a lot of ways, given how I engage online, my phone contributes to it (hence why I have a mild erythema when I can’t find it).

So, after all of this, where did I end up? Like my thumb, it’s a tool I would be lost without. I might be giving my phone too much credit, after all, it is not necessarily the phone itself, but rather what it connects me to. Although is there really a difference? Not really.

After going through SI, Goffman, and Maslow, I’ve come to see my phone as a facilitator of interactions; interactions that I draw meaning and identity from and needs met through. From SI, the interactions I have within it make it meaningful; from Goffman, I express myself and impress upon others through it; from Maslow, it helps me meet my needs, everyday. All three of things help me to construct some from of an identity and, as much as I hate to admit it, my phone is a part of that.

So, yes, I will keep it within reach (if not in my hand), I may check it a little too often for your liking and I might snap a picture of a meal or two. It’s just who I am.

 Originally posted on Moment’s Blog

- “Social Curation is much more than just a market” by Oliver Starr (of Pearltrees)

Although Starr might be a little biased, owning a curation product, he does make relevant and important points about curation and its longevity. The act of curation is not limited to online content consumption. As Starr points out, we curate and have been for a long time, in our daily lives. Curation is essentially our way of making sense of the infinite pieces of information around us, the objects, the people, anything really. We have to organize these things and figure out what is the most important to us. When I go through my bookshelf and figure out what books I want to keep on display (“War and Peace” is still there, have to look scholarly…) and which ones I am ok with putting in my closet for safe keeping. 

Adapting that behavior to the web and its exponential, neverending content makes perfect sense and in fact is completely necessary. It would probably happening before businesses started capitalizing on it and making it a buzzword that we have been bashed over the head with this year. What will be interesting is to see how the act of curation changes as businesses try and cash in on it. Curation is a very personal, subjective activity;so, trying to add objective, branded content in there will be a tricky process and need to be done carefully. 

Just a thought that occurred to me this morning. 

My title is Marketing, but I do not like to refer to myself that way. Marketing is an archaic term. To me, that is dead. Marketing with analytics, numbers, marketing research and focus groups and theories based in business aren’t as important. Mind you, they still matter, but there’e a shift. 

I prefer to think of myself as a sociologist/anthropologist/technologist/curator/creator who wants to understand the consumer, the buyer, to make the product more appealing for them. Make them want to use it. Help make that brand experience more valuable. 

Messages are on the out, digital products are the future for marketing. 

- Ben Kunz talks about “Facebook, Google Must Adapt as Users Embrace ‘Unsocial’ Networks” On Bloomberg BusinessWeek

I completely agree with Ben. I think that the rise of these social giants such as Facebook has created a sort of fear or distrust in users. We are not comfortable having our social networks be so large. This is an entirely new concept when it comes to constructing the self in relation to others; if you throw in a few hundred to even thousands that is just overwhelming. 

There is a backlash starting against the social giants and the large networks of people that come with them. We want to be able to return to our comfort zone, our natural and familiar social tendencies. The locally, more personally-curated and monitored networks will continue to thrive, but I don’t think that they will replace or really take away from the social giants like Facebook. Facebook will still matter as a social network; we’ll still want that larger connection, but will also want to retreat to our smaller networks. It is about finding a purpose for that larger social web of connections that perhaps we are finding difficult and still navigating. 

—“Facebook: Like?” on More Intelligent Life

It’s fascinating to think about how these social networks have completely altered the way that we interact with one-another. Although I think that Lee makes a great point, that Facebook has not replaced a social life, it has altered it a significant amount that we need to take note. We have changed the way that we socialize and express ourselves in social situations. Facebook has allowed us to compartmentalize parts of our lives (which we could do before), but now with greater ease. 

Facebook has made social life more of a performance. 

— “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” in The Atlantic

The backlash of hyperconnectedness, we are finding the real world more and more anxiety inducing, pushing more and more into our digital lives/selves and farther from the the real others. 

- “Why Storytellers Lie” by Rob Beschizza 

We tell stories to give our lives order, to make them somehow more rational. Such an interesting idea, especially when you apply it to our insane use and love of social networks, which are essentially methods of storytelling. Yes, they allow us to share and connect, but there is a deeper meaning to why we use them and stories might just be at the core of it. Did social networks and our always-connected-devices finally give us the outlet we needed? Validation that our the stories we portray of our lives have order and purpose because others are out there doing the same thing?