3/15/11 Reading

These pages in "Made to Stick" focus on two parts of the acronym: S for simple and U for unexpected. Simple is strangely enough, all about keeping things simple to get a message across. The example of the army and all of their planning is given, and how "no plan survives contact with the enemy". To be simple isn't simply shortening an idea or plan, or dumbing it down. It's about getting to the core of the idea in the quickest fashion possible. Keeping things simple. Or as Michael Scott says, KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid. Some examples are Southwest Airlines and their quest to be "the" low-fare airline, a very successful quest for over 30 years. Bill Clinton's campaign slogan "It's the economy, stupid", and the Dunn Daily Record and its core of local coverage are other examples the book provides of simple prevailing through finding the core idea.


Unexpected is all about doing something to stimulate your audience. You do something out of the ordinary that makes them remember your message, it makes it "stick". It's like the idea was made to stick or something. The flight attendant giving a different safety presentation is an example. She sticks to the facts of the presentation but presents them in an unexpected way. Surprise and interest get people's attention. The Nora Ephron example shows that its all about finding the core idea, not simply regurgitating facts. In her journalism class the lead to the story wasn't simply rephrasing the information they were given but getting to the core of the idea.

Some examples of unexpected would be the pet giraffe in the DirecTV commercials, which makes them instantly memorable. Also unexpected would be any other ads with talking animals, or other flashy stuff designed to make them stick in your mind. Simple is the general rule for car commercials, many of which stick to the point of : this is the mileage it gets, this is the price, this is how it compares to a Japanese car. Some car companies go the unexpected route, such as the new Chrysler one where they recount all the cities Detroit is not, while giving new life to a song that is suddenly nine years old and making me feel like an old person.

3/8/11 Reading

This reading is about the "S" in RIBS, significance. Dr. Howard lists the ways that a community can become significant: be well recognized, established as the "go to" place for accomplishing your user's goals, valued by people your users respect, populated by people who are serious and passionate in their field, and distinguished as a reputable brand to your users. He also talks about the paradox of exclusivity. People want to be part of a group, but they don't want to be part of a crowd. If becoming a member is too easy, they won't value the other members. They want to not only be part of a group, but an exclusive group. The more exclusive, the more prestige. He uses the example of Facebook as a site that used exclusivity to gain popularity. Instead of making it public so that they could maximize users immediately, they made it private so that it would be more exclusive and therefore, more desired.

Dr. Howard offers these techniques for developing significance:

1. Provide a story that shares a vision. The power of storytelling has been a common theme in our readings this semester. It is something we all know how to do, and all can relate to. A good story can link people together through their understanding as well as their ability to pass on that story to others.

2. List Members Accomplishments. This is sometimes seen on message boards where users will have their number of posts next to their user name, or some other medals or awards for their participation in the social network.

3. Participate in Influential Communities to Create Trails Back to Yours. This is an interesting technique, for instance commenting on a high traffic area in order to draw them back to your "home base" or social network where the discussion may continue. What you post about may be relevant to your social network tangibly or abstractly, as long as it leads them back to you.

4. Build your social network or community in a custom space. This will increase feelings of exclusivity, if it is not in a public or commonplace space.

5. Make connections with other leaders in social media. This will allow you to stretch across platforms and reach even more users. For instance utilizing twitter and facebook, or amazon and linkedin as the book provides as an example.

6. Celebrate Celebrities. Utilize celebrity for your purposes.

7. Create a Contest, game or video. This will get members involved, as well as show who is the "best", and create more of an awareness of status on the site which others will hope to attain.

8. Mobilize your existing members. Use your group as a tool.

3/1/11 Reading

This reading is all about credibility and how you earn it. They bring up the example of a rumor "endorsed" by the FDA and the Manheim research institute. The news story never appeared on the evening news, so that cast suspicion on it being true, no matter how much it was "credible" because of the names FDA and Manheim being associated with it. It just goes to show that authority is where a lot of credibility comes from. They bring up another rumor, although this one is actually more of an urban legend, in the "boyfriend story". It is an example of detail leading to credibility. The more detail you add, the more tangible and concrete your story, and that makes it seem more real, and thus more believable.

Vivid details are one way to establish credibility, and another is introducing statistics. These numbers can be persuasive on their own but when put in more relatable terms you have the "human-scale" principle. The "sinatra test" and the example of Safexpress show another use of an example to build credibility. Making testable claims will also build credibility. "See for yourself" type campaigns encourage usage of a product while also building trust and credibility.

Emotional appeals also are important. Ads like the "truth" commercials aimed at tobacco corporations appeal to your emotions while also using some facts, making them doubly effective because they make you have an emotional response-usually anger. You can also appeal to what some people care about more than anything-themselves.

2/22/11

This chapter is all about belonging in online communities. The ways that belonging can be fostered in such communities are:

Initiation rituals- some examples of this would be fraternity/sorority hazing, or "hell week" seen in the Navy SEALS and in military schools like the Citadel. The initiation ritual helps to bond users together.
Stories of origin- to get across what the organization values it is helpful to discuss where they got their start, and what fueled their origin. Those same values or principles will hold true today as well, letting members know what kind of a group they are joining and what it holds to be important.
Leveling up rituals- once you have become a member of a group, you want to move up in hierarchy to the higher levels of membership. The book brings up the boy scouts merit badges as an example, as well as Six Sigma. Levels can make people strive to get better but could also alienate those who do not rise in the ranks.
Mythologies- using stories to illustrate values and inspire the desired behavior of the members of the group. These would be like the seven stories seen in Squirrel Inc: a story to ignite action, a story to share knowledge, a story to get people working together, a story to lead people into the future, a story to neutralize bad news, a story to communicate who you are, and a story to transmit values.
Techniques: create and distribute a story of origin-make sure your users know where you came from and how you got your start. Facebook's origin story is widely known, even if they don't distribute it themselves.
create an initiation ritual-make something that binds users together as a shared experience they all had to participate in to begin to belong to the group.
encourage your leaders to share mythologies-tell stories to serve as models
encourage members to share myths and stories about themselves
create leveling up ceremonies
establish routines and protocols-"fight club" rules, for instance. the 8 rules of fight club established the rules for all members and bound them together in the obedience to them.
establish symbols, colors, and visual identities
use a membership application as a initiation ritual

2/15/11

Neuro Web Design begins by discussing the amount of decision making that is unconscious. It refers to the brain as 3 different things: the old, the mid, and the new. Most of the processing of the old and new, which are based on survival and language thinking, and planning respectively, happen unconsciously. While this is kind of disturbing to think we aren't really in control of much of our behavior, the book presents a lot of science behind the idea.

The next chapter refers to the idea of self validation. The need to fit in is hardwired into our brains and our biology. When we are unsure of what to do, we look to others for a clue. This results in " bystander effect" as seen in the case of Kitty Genovese. The more bystanders there are, the more they will look to each other to help, instead of springing into action themselves.

Chapter 3 concerns the "network of obligation" between human beings. Cards sent out mean cards returned, out of a sense of obligation, even from strangers in one study. Chapter four is about the limited availability of a product increasing the demand. When something is deemed to be in limited supply, the demand skyrockets. This effect can be seen pretty much anytime Apple releases a new product: long lines form, prices skyrocket. The people go through all this and pay all that money because the product is rare and thus its perceived value is higher than it really is.

Design to thrive brings up twelve techniques to encourage site participation:
Make the text fun, add emoticons
Use a subscription application form
Mentors Teach
Seed the Discussion
Use Stars to show membership dedication levels
Rank the value of the members messages
remove the fear factor by providing examples of how to participate
create a safe environment by sending out "tickle messages"
create a regular event
don't automatically archive
discourage attempts to send conversations to other blogs, web sites, or discussion groups
ban redistribution servers and cross-postings

2/7/11

Shirky focuses in this portion of reading about the way information is presented today, and who it is that is doing the presenting. He starts with a anecdote about his uncle who hated USA Today because of its flashy layout and color images. The lack of respect he showed for the new form of news is a lot like the lack of respect shown to new media such as bloggers who some people consider as reliable news sources in this new landscape.

The way that information is put out today differs because now everyone is a source of information. Whether it is more official such as a blogger, or just someone who puts links in their facebook statuses, everyone is capable of disseminating information to a large audience through the power of social media. Shirky talks about what it is to be a "professional" in a certain field. Thanks to this newfound power to share information the lines between amateur and professional are rapidly being blurred. A flickr account may make you a photographer but does it make you a professional? Things that used to be regarded as amateurish such as blogs are becoming more and more mainstream. More traditional news sources are now employing bloggers to put out information in a faster and more efficient manner. For instance, ESPN has bloggers assigned to all the teams in the major sports, often taking their writers from established news papers like the New York Post, and taking them from newspaper writer to professional blogger. Wikipedia and the ability to edit the posts furthers the concept of everyone as source of information. So many people rely on wikipedia that it works, too many people use it for the posts to be fraudulent. The information is needed, written, and edited all by the users, making it a self sustaining system.

Design to thrive brings up four areas that will be the social networking "battlefield" of the future: copyrights vs. intellectual property, disciplinary control vs individual creativity, visual technological and new media literacy, and decision making contexts for future markets. The first two I think relate the most to what shirky was saying. Copyright vs. intellectual property is a battle being waged in almost every media industry. Music, movies, television have all been revolutionized by the internet. While music was crippled by this new outlet, it is slowly learning how to use the internet. Television has embraced the internet as a way to find new viewers while also maintaining ad revenue by selling ad space on sites like Hulu. Disciplinary control vs individual creativity I think relates back to professionalism. The rigid borders of the old way of doing things are rapidly diminishing and disappearing, control is lessening more and more. Websites, at least in this country, aren't controlled by the government and individual creativity is more and more taking over in place of disciplinary control.

Reading January 31

The final chapters of Shirky focus on what it takes to create a successful online group. The three things you need, in order, are a promise, a tool, and a bargain. You make a promise that a group can get behind. The promise has to be something out of the ordinary, to get potential users attention. There is enough to do already, they need a good reason to get involved, even if it is just an implied promise and not an explicit one. That is, imply what is possible without stating it explicitly.

Then you give them the tools to work toward that promise. Tools are becoming more and more numerous. As Shirky says, the launch of Twitter happened during the writing of the book. New ways to connect with each other are being created all the time. "As tools get better, the size of what is plausible grows". When tools are new they are at a disadvantage however, because not a large amount of people are using them. Twitter has slowly grown into something mentioned on newscasts and sitcoms as a socially recognized part of culture, but when it first began only certain people were using it. As these new tools have more time to grow they become more and more useful.

Finally, a bargain is needed to bind the users together, a bargain that will help them all work together towards the promise. The bargain may be the most important factor, as the tools and promise are nothing without a bargain to regulate the community and determine what kind of culture the online community will be. "The bargain can't be instantiated as a set of contractural rules, because users don't read the fine print". The bargain needs to be straightforward and clear, because it has to appeal to a wide subset of people.

Shirky brings up some interesting examples of groups that used these three things. Most interesting is of course talking about Egypt, considering the recent events there. The internet is taken for granted here but in many places around the world it is still something closely monitored and controlled. It is so tightly regulated because in places where information is controlled, social media and the internet become a weapon.

The bargain that wikipedia made to stay non-commercial to appease the spanish users, moving from a .com to a .org was a very interesting example of a move made for the users rather than the company responsible for the website.

Reading Week 2

Design to thrive seeks first to define the differences between a social network and an online community. For instance, a social network has an organizational structure focused around an individual user's one on one relationships, while a online community has a organizational structure focused around a shared purpose, rather than the individual relationships of one user. While these are two very different kinds of communities, they are both worthwhile, both for users and those who would invest in them. Some reasons shared for building such communities include increasing creativity, reducing training and support costs, and reducing travel costs. It also lays out the ribs: four elements necessary for long-term success. They are renumeration, influence, belonging, and significance.

Here comes everyone starts off with the tale of a stolen phone, and how the internet contributed to its return. The story was posted online, gradually building up a following of people who recognized and sympathized with the injustice of lost items being kept from the rightful owners. Eventually, the collective buzzing was so loud that the NYPD changed the status of the phone from lost to stolen, arresting the girl who was in possession of the phone. The group was powerful enough to get a policy changed over a stolen phone, what else may be possible when they band together?

Shirky proposes that everyone belongs to multiple groups in their lives, making us all inherently good at group effort. Much how the other reading said that storytelling is such an ingrained part of our lives that it comes naturally and is the best way for us to understand things quickly. He introduces the clusters of connections, coordinating things with a group of four is six times as hard as with two people, because of the number of connections needed to make it happen. Essentially, Shirky is saying that while we are all capable of great things when we work together in groups, getting everyone to work together is not so easy. It's only when we are able to all share and make the connections necessary for cooperation that group work and the great things that can be accomplished by groups are possible.

Jan 18th Reading

Squirrel, Inc. begins with a female squirrel named Diana speaking to the bartender about the difficulty of getting her ideas heard by the bosses at Squirrel, Inc. Through their conversation the bartender gets her to see the power of storytelling as it relates to getting new ideas across. He argues that we are all intuitively able to tell stories, and that stories are something everyone can relate to, no matter their age. So he coaches her on how to best get her story across, giving her tips on how to improve and shape her story for maximum impact. Some of his suggestions include: identifying an incident where the change was successfully implemented, specify where and when this incident happened, extrapolating the idea if necessary, stripping it of unnecessary detail, giving it an authentically happy ending, and linking the story to the idea of change with phrases like "what if..". Now that Diana knows how to tell a story, she must learn the best way to implement it. She must relive the story to keep it fresh as it is told, focus on perfecting a few stories to be told over and over that will work with a broad variety of audiences, and constantly practice the story so that it comes off in a conversational manner that will be easier for the audience to enjoy. There are seven types of organizational storytelling. Stories to: ignite action, share knowledge, get people working together, neutralize bad news, communicate who you are, lead people into the future, and transmit values. Whyse uses the traditional narrative arc: a beginning middle and end with an inciting incident, crisis or climax, and denouement. Storytelling can also be used to build trust and reveal who you are. Finally, Hester tells a story to get individuals to work together. To do so: bring the group together physically, establish an open agenda, start with a moving story, create a process of sharing meaningful stories among the members of the group, and have an action plan ready.

Neuro Web Design is also concerned with the way stories and pictures can speak to a wide variety of audiences and the subconscious. A story conveys information but also allows us to feel what the characters feel. We process information as stories and turn stories into mental pictures. The internet and social media are also tools to communicate. There are 3 steps in Mass Interpersonal Persuasion: Discovery, Superficial involvement where you try out the service, and true commitment when you get active and loyal in a site. Made to Stick presents an urban legend that is instantly memorable along with another passage that decidedly isn't. This book is all about finding ways to make information stick, like the malnutrition of movie popcorn. There are six principles to "sticky" ideas: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions, and stories. Stories can become more personal, such as when they use an inspirational figure. The book highlights the case of Jared from the Subway commercials. He acts as an inspiration for people who want to lose weight.

There are examples of storytelling all over the internet. Facebook is probably the greatest example of storytelling bringing millions of people together. Every profile tells a story about its creator, every picture and every post illustrate something to someone. The stories on facebook link millions of users in a collective conversation. These same kinds of stories can be found on message boards where a different type of conversation is being had, but conversation nonetheless. The internet was created because of a frustration over the difficulty of communication, and now it is the ultimate tool to communicate in this new technological world.


The readings all made compelling arguments about the power and influence of storytelling. Squirrel Inc. broke storytelling down into a series of mechanical steps that I think may rob the inherent creativity of storytelling from a reader who follows it exactly. There are many ways to get a story across but not necessarily a fool proof formula that will fit all situations. Made to Stick had very interesting examples of how to get ideas to stick, such as filling a table with greasy food to finally get the point across to consumers about the popcorn they were happily gobbling up.