Blog #9

In this blog post I’d like to focus on the portion of this reading from Made to Stick that is concerned with analogy. Heath & Heath use the example of a movie studio in Hollywood, emphasizing that they essentially make $100 million dollar bets on movie ideas hoping one of them will hit, listening to thousands upon thousands of movie ideas searching for the one that will make millions. The authors posit that the reason so much of Hollywood seems to be cut from ideas that have already become popular is because it’s true. A lot of movies are just variations on a theme. In this way, analogy is a creative act because while referencing something that already is in existence may seem to be totally effortless, it’s the interesting twist on an already-established storyline that really makes a good idea. That twist is hard to find, but when you do find it, your product or community can take off – people find something familiar within the construct of your idea so they can relate it to their own experiences, but you also provide something novel to excite them and motivate them to action. Analogies are important in coming up with viral ideas, because in order for something to take off it cannot be completely alien to consumers, but it needs to be edgy enough to be appealing.

Blog #8

This excerpt from Dr. Howard’s book focuses on what online communities must do in order to establish themselves as a leading authority in their field, the kind of place that you logically go to if you share the common interest of the community – in his terms, it is known as “significance.” There is no utility in being one of many other groups of the same kind – instead, it is crucial for online communities to find some kind of niche, even if it is within the same field as other communities, to make it stand out and thus be worth an investment of time and effort. To be significant is not just to have a lot of members, but members who are interested in seeing the group produce measurable results or have some kind of real output. That should be the true mark of significance – this is a problem that plagues my field of interest, South Carolina Democratic politics. We have a problem where a few people get together and start up an “independent” group of all Democrats and give themselves a liberal sounding name rather than working within the party, and they get lost in the noise. There are literally several of these on Facebook and with corresponding Twitter accounts, and there is a great deal of overlap in the groups so they are not able to stake out their identity. Now if these groups were each devoted to one issue or another they might be able to establish a niche like I was discussing earlier, but as it stands none achieves significance because it has no well-defined audience and has no real output – we are not winning elections, and they serve only to split up our party further, making it even more difficult to organize.

Blog #7

This portion of Made To Stick discussed the importance of establishing credibility in marketing by including vivid details that provide imagery that make audiences of prospective customers more willing to listen to any sort of effort you might make to sell your product. An example the authors use is that of the “Darth Vader toothbrush.” University of Michigan researchers put on a mock trial complete with jurors and witnesses to test how the credibility of witnesses resonated with jurors when vivid details were either added or omitted from the witnesses’ testimony to the court. The “Darth Vader toothbrush” detail was in the case of a mother who was fighting for custody of her son and was answering to charges that she was a neglectful mother who was not a constant presence in her son’s life and was thus unable to care for him. The toothbrush example was inserted into a witness’ testimony to put the image of a little boy and his Star Wars toothbrush obeying his mother’s instruction to brush his teeth in the minds of jurors to give the impression that she was indeed a caring mother, and the researchers’ results showed that it worked. Including vivid details when pitching a product or when attempting to attract people into an online community can be extremely effective because it makes it less obvious that you are trying to directly influence their thoughts and desires, and makes your product the main draw, keeping that foremost in your audience’s minds.

Blog #6

In Design to Thrive, Dr. Howard writes about belonging in online communities. I have some first-hand experience with this from a political campaign I worked on here in South Carolina, Vincent Sheheen’s run for Governor. While we ultimately came up short, we had an extremely professional social media apparatus, and one thing we implemented was something called the Sheheen Action Network. To me this seemed superfluous to have a social network within our website solely dedicated to our campaign. After all, we had a Facebook fan page where people could interact with the candidate by commenting on news stories or photos from the campaign trail. However, our social media consultant was wise to do so because the Sheheen Action Network was a way to foster a sense of belonging and a way to make our supporters feel like they were a part of something special that no one else was a part of – a secret club, in a way, even though anyone could actually join. Online communities are successful (according to Dr. Howard’s RIBS concept) by giving their members a sense that they are part of something by connecting them through their shared interests and beliefs, in this case a political candidate. Our internal social network got going pretty well, much better than I would have ever thought, and I am convinced that the sense of community and belonging all centered around our candidate and our campaign is what fueled that success.

Blog #5

In the passage from Neuro Web Design, Weinschenk posits that much of online and social behavior is governed by the principle known as social validation. We do things subconsciously because other people approve of them. This is not to say that we are dependent on other people’s approval, but we certainly are more willing to try things if other people tell us that they are good, and more willing to travel to places if people tell us they are entertaining for another example. Social networks operate in this way via functions such as the “like” button or through links to rating aggregators like Rotten Tomatoes or Amazon.com customer reviews. We are far more likely to buy something or listen to an album if our friends indicate that it is worth our time and money, and it is in this way that the seemingly innocent “like” thumbs-up button can be a powerful tool of business and commerce. So much of what we do is powered by the inclinations of others, specifically friends and family, that approval on Facebook or in the form of retweets on Twitter can actually drive markets for consumer goods. Social media is not just a convenient way to stay in touch, but it’s quickly becoming influential in how businesses market themselves to customers.

Blog #4

This particular passage is marked by the universality of journalism in the Internet age. These days, anyone with an inquisitive mind and an intrepid spirit can be a journalist, as it requires no official affiliation with a newspaper. These bloggers who double as journalists pose the same threat to traditional media that USA Today once posed to traditional local daily newspapers that Shirky writes about in “Here Comes Everybody.” While USA Today didn’t end up posing much of a threat to traditional media, which survives today, the moment where it struck fear into the hearts of papers nationwide has been a prolonged one in traditional media. Newspapers and local news stations alike are threatened by bloggers who gather a following over time – but one thing I have noticed is that traditional media is actually adapting extremely well. It is commonplace for traditional media outlets to have reporters who are very active on Twitter and Facebook, updating frequently with stories several times a day. When independent bloggers do well, it isn’t uncommon at all for them to be signed by a newspaper to be one of their reporters or commentators. Newspapers may be out of print in 20 years, but they will live on as a legitimate source of news on the internet, if not on actual paper!

Blog #3

To get an online group off the ground, you have to give your members the impetus to get going that they might lack otherwise. They have to have some kind of stimulus to get up and organize, and as their leader in the online group you have to give that to them. Some kind of stimulus has to call your members to action, like a contest of sorts or special privilege or reason linked to something you want them to do, otherwise your group will simply stagnate like anything else, and you won’t make any of the progress that you want your group to achieve.

Then you have to give your group the utilities necessary to achieve the ends that you desire, a way for your message to be disseminated among your target audience. Some of these tools have been available for decades, such as email lists and newsgroups which enable leaders and organizers to communicate with their followers, in order to move them in a way which can enable change or progress. Last comes a “bargain” which is only effective according to the author if the first two elements, tools and promise, are already in place. The bargain establishes what both leader and follower should do for one another, in order to establish some kind of group unity. “Here Comes Everybody” then explains in the simplest terms what Facebook, Twitter, and all the networking sites can do – effectively organize people in order to achieve their own ends, and establish a cooperation between partners of similar thoughts and desires.

Blog #2

Social networking allows us to form interest groups in ways we could never have imagined before.  I am a political activist with the South Carolina Democratic Party, and believe me, it is extremely difficult to organize like-minded people because for one it is extremely hard to find them in the first place, and secondly it’s tough once you find them to organize them.  Will Rogers once answered a question about his political affiliation by saying “I’m not a member of an organized political party…I’m a Democrat,” and I can say that the legendary Mr. Rogers is not far off at all.  But social networks allow us to easily identify supporters by keywords and go beyond just grouping friends and acquaintances together to put together people of the same political persuasion in order to pursue liberal policy goals here in South Carolina and make a real difference.

The most important point made here is that social networking isn’t just a convenient way to organize your friends, but it’s a way to organize people you might not even know yet to change the world in ways you could only imagine before.  Social networking isn’t a toy for amusement, even though it can certainly serve that purpose, but a way to move people in a way that can be truly influential.  I have found that social networking can be a good way to reach people that you not only don’t know yet, but have never even met!  We are still only beginning to explore the depths of the influence of social networks.

Storytelling - Not Just For Fun

Having spent my whole life listening to and telling stories, nothing in Squirrel, Inc. or Made to Stick was exactly groundbreaking.  I've always been dominated by the right side of my brain, so I couldn't really sympathize with Diana's plight, but that's to be expected - I don't know many up-and-coming squirrel executives.  I might jest, but this story says a lot about why contemporary forms of communication (PowerPoint in particular) often fail, and fail miserably.  While visual aids can at least force an audience to look toward the speaker and the front of the room, it doesn't force them to actively listen.  A well-told story can entertain, but it can also inform by giving the audience an opportunity to identify with the speaker.  A narrative lets the audience participate as well by placing themselves in relation to the story being told - without pie charts or bar graphs (or with them, as ancillary devices).


Made to Stick and Squirrel, Inc. both attempt to get at how good ideas are created, but ultimately how they are proliferated.  All the surveys and market research in the world are useless if you don't have a proper medium through which to communicate.  You can know what people like and what people want, but you'd better have a way to convince them that your product or your message would satisfy those criteria.  The kind of storytelling these books are talking about are not intended to be Shakespearean or anywhere near that intricate or eloquent; instead, it's the sort of storytelling that can hold the attention of a client or a customer long enough while also convincing them of value or what you have to say.  Squirrel, Inc. emphasizes the most important thing about a story designed to launch an idea:  it has to be delivered with conviction, otherwise it's lost in the shuffle that the disgruntled barfly describes as being crushed by the corporate managing committee.  For an idea to take off, it can't be indistinguishable from any other, it has to inspire excitement.  This kind of concept requires a person (or people) behind it that really believe in it, and pass that excitement on to the next, setting off a chain reaction - or "viral reaction," as it were.