Abnormativity

Blogging Evolution

noreply@blogger.com (Robert J Neal) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:10:00 +0000

My blogging experience has evolved. I have a new blog at http://moralizingstrategy.wordpress.com/. The new blog will focus on the ethical interaction of interactive strategy and persuasive technology with people.

This blog (Abnormativity) will most likely change its focus to community based economics and the role of interactive technologies for promoting it. Let me know what you think.

Peace

Social Networks, Corporate Control

noreply@blogger.com (Robert J Neal) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:13:00 +0000

I was perusing MIT's OpenCourseWare for their Social Visualization course and I came across a truly phenomenal flash application. I posted an idea I had about showing relationships between corporations and their evils some time back, and while this is not exactly the same it does follow the same idea.

It's called they rule and while it's not entirely easy to use, it allows you to create your own maps or view maps that other people have made. Try clicking on 'Load Map' to see existing network chains. Some of these maps are very telling and it's nice to have the data presented in this way. I wish it was more publicized and more up to date (the data is from 2004, not too long ago).

Check it out and if you know of any other similar projects drop me a comment.

Community Based Economics and Taxes

noreply@blogger.com (Robert J Neal) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:14:00 +0000

Reason #813 to support community based economics...taxes.

When you make a purchase there are a series of steps of taxes that are encountered. Forgive my oversimplification, but consider the following example. You purchase one Americano from Starbucks each day $2 * 365 = $730.

Local Taxes
8.1% of that stays in your state in the form of sales tax. $59. Assuming a liberal 15% labor cost produces $100 * 2% = $2 in state income tax. So far, in local taxes we have $61.

Local Taxes (but not your community)
We'll assume a 20% product/food cost, $146 * 8.1% = $12. And we'll assume overpaid executives, regional managers, marketers, etc. up the chain take 4%, $30 * 2% = $.60 in state income tax. Let's say 10% net profit, $73 * 7% = $5 state corporate income tax. So in our oversimplified example we have $17.60 going to someone else's community.

Note: we don't care about federal taxes in this example since they are the same either way.

Your contribution: $730
Your community's taxes: $61
Someone else's: $7.60

Now is the fun part. Multiply all of those numbers by a guesstimate of 500 transactions a day.

Your community's contribution: $365,000
What you get back: $30,500
What you needlessly give away: $3,800

That's just one Starbucks store. There are 6,800 stores in the US, divided by 50 is about 136 in your state. So, one corporation is sucking $3,800 * 136 = $516,800 a year out of our community in the form of taxes. Furthermore, that's only the tax implication. In another post, I'll elaborate on some of the other monetary implications.

Persuasive Technology Interview with BJ Fogg

noreply@blogger.com (Robert J Neal) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:23:00 +0000

This is a great interview with BJ Fogg. I feel like ethics was skimmed over a bit. Especially with statements such as

"If you understand what resonates with people, based on their profile, you will be able to change their behaviour and manipulate them"

With that type of content and an explicit question about ethics it seems like a good level of discussion about ethics is called for. Aside from that minor drawback, there is some very interesting and enlightening content.

Goal Centered Design and Disruptive Innovation

noreply@blogger.com (Robert J Neal) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 22:29:00 +0000

I've been bothered by the term disruptive innovation, or disruptive technology. Perhaps the root is in some misunderstanding of mine, but it seems the goal is simply to provide individuals solutions to their problems. However, this is no different than goal centered design.

Maybe it is different, but if the goal is to provide individuals with tools that allow them to accomplish their goals in the best possible way, then both approaches should have the same end. I will point out though, that some disruptive innovation is meant to be disruptive just to be disruptive, but how does this help the individual? And if you are not helping the user of the product accomplish their goal, then what is the point?

Goal centered design should always be about challenging the status quo and should always provide better results than existing solutions. It seems to me that if your goal centered design is successful it will be 'disruptive' if, and only if, that is the best solution.

It's still seems to me to be an open question, why should we focus on disruptive innovation instead of, or in addition to, goal centered design?

Viral Facebook Apps and Ethical Persuasion

noreply@blogger.com (Robert J Neal) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:07:00 +0000

I have not posted about the ethics of persuasive technology, because I have not had time to finish reading Berdichevsky and Neuenschwander's article yet, but I saw Yee Lee's post The Four Viral App Objectives (a.k.a., “Social network application virality 101″) today and I wanted to point out some implications.

There is a certain point where being viral just to be viral is the sole purpose of the social network app. Where the fulfillment of user's goals has been abandoned in favor of market saturation and I think that is a scary place to be. I think Bill Hick's view of marketing applies to that type of app. It almost seems irresponsible to present the list without the ethical disclaimer, although I loathe disclaimers. Furthermore, I doubt the disclaimer would provide much, if any, deterrence for those who would abuse the information.

Lee provides a great list, and obviously some well appreciated insights into what make an app go viral. These tactics can be used by legitimate interaction designers to incorporate into their user's experience. But I worry that the laundry list style of how to make people spread your app, especially without mentioning quality of content, will be abused by the marketing types out there. Further still, it might not give the full picture for those new to interaction design.

Despite my reservations I appreciate the research and sharing of knowledge and hope more comes. I will certainly keep these findings in mind the next time I have the opportunity to design a social networking app.

Persuasive Technology and Interaction Design

noreply@blogger.com (Robert J Neal) — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 04:02:00 +0000

The principles of persuasive technology should be applied to the principles of interaction design. If the goal of interaction design is to design so the user can accomplish her goals as easily as possible, then persuasive technology is a natural fit.

It is possible to persuade or seduce the user into performing the task that they need to perform to accomplish their goal. Cooper and Reimann point out that the goal is what the user hopes to complete and the task is just a means to that end (2003, About Face 2.0). Therefore, the tasks should be made as easy and inviting as possible. This is where I see seduction and persuasion falling into place.

Khaslavsky and Sherdoff use Philippe Starck’s juicer as an example (1999, CACM Vol 42, No 5). It takes the mundane task of juicing a fruit and makes it exciting by way of sensory stimulation. Interactive applications should also stimulate and entice the user to perform the task that helps to accomplish her goal. Stimulation can be sensory, mental, or subliminal.

For example, the free rice site provides mental stimulation to entice the user to achieve the goal of getting food to starving people. This is much more effective than the hunger site which only provides the good feeling of having accomplished a goal. However, without the enticing quality of the game, the user has little desire to come back each day to click the button. In both cases the user wants to feed the hungry, but one example is much more effective than the other. One example makes the task desirable and therefore the goal much more enjoyably reached.

In a goal centered design the designer should always find the best way to achieve the goal. And while Cooper, et al recommend the least amount of tasks possible, I believe the previous example shows that, in some circumstances, interjecting an enticing task makes the goal easier to attain and more enjoyable.

Persuasive Technology and CBE

noreply@blogger.com (Robert J Neal) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 02:50:00 +0000

What are some of the ways an interactive strategy company could incorporate community based economics (CBE) into their clients interactive strategy?

Keep in mind that persuading the user is not manipulating the user. Rather it is going from unconscious effects to conscious effects. Dr Fogg says "a persuasive computing technology is a...system...intentionally designed to change a person’s attitudes or behavior in a predetermined way", but we should keep in mind that unintentional effects are pushed onto users even if the designer is completely unaware of them (Communications of the ACM, Vol 42 No 5). Furthermore, we should change that paradigm so the designer is aware and is designing the effects for positive social change. The premise being that we are already effecting the users behavior unbeknownst to them or us, therefore there is no sufficient reason not to move that effect into consciousness.

There are some easy, moderate, and more challenging ways that a strategy could enhance the persuasion of CBE on the end user. First, a simple example could be found by way of a manufacturer. A manufacturer's website often provides a distributor or reseller locater. The results are listed by proximity to the user with the closest result first. Arguably that concept could be challenged so that local distributors (non-chain stores) are presented first, since that provides the most benefit to the end user. However, users are programmed to recognize only immediate benefit (hence people purchasing hummers or corvettes) and consequently this suggestion might not go over well. A more passive suggestion is to emphasize listings of locally owned, non-chained distributors. For example, making the listings bold.

A moderate example for, let's say a local vineyard, would be to incentivize purchases and visits for people in the region. That could be in the form of discounts, special opportunities, donations to local charities or schools, or even bonus items. Keep in mind that consumers that purchase locally are already winning since their dollar is staying local. In addition, the consumer has the opportunity to interact with real people.

Lastly, a more aggressive example is using the agency's local contacts and the client's local contacts to create a business network. For instance, the vineyard from our previous example could be set up with a local delivery firm instead of using something like UPS or FedEx for their local deliveries.

An agency that really cared about their community would probably advocate something akin to Ithaca Hours and is arguably in one of the best positions to initiate such a program since an agency is able to touch such a diverse group of businesses and organizations.

Community Based Economics (CBE)

noreply@blogger.com (Robert J Neal) — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 04:54:00 +0000

Community based economics is the idea that we should consider our community as an important factor in our economic decisions. Our economic decisions include the source of our groceries, where we buy our tennis shoes, our house, where we work, where we gas up, and all other economic decisions.

Consider a day in your life. Wake up, eat some yogurt by Yoplait, or more accurately General Mills, from Minnesota, then drink a glass of Fry's, wait Kroger's, store brand orange juice from Florida, and some Folgers in your cup, from Africa perhaps. Anyway, as you slip on your comfortable Nikes. made in China, and your spiffy sports coat, made in Indonesia you begin to wonder how the cotton got to Indonesia, and the rubber for your Nikes...how did that get to China? Forget about it, grab your Samsonite briefcase, made in Europe, and your Starbucks mug...China again. Run for the door and jump in your Nissan Altima, then rush to work burning fossil fuel from the middle east.

Ahh, the global economy. We are able to get the best products at the best prices anytime we want with no drawbacks. Because if there were drawbacks the market would correct them, right? Well, no. The market, contrary to popular conception, is not an objective wizard behind a curtain. The market is a fictitious entity made up of you, me, and another fictitious entity called a corporation. That fictitious entity is made up of you, me, and most other suckers on the planet. We are the market. We need to find the problems with our current economic state, and since we are the corporations, and more importantly the direct financiers of the corporations by contributions made with each purchase, we need to implement the changes to fix the problems.

In the first three hours of your day you managed to touch over half the continents on earth. Transferring wealth, which is cut by a million greedy hands continually throughout its journey across the world. Community based economics means to stop that and some would like to replace corporate globalization with civic globalization. Why? Why ruin our perfectly good lives?

To be continued...

Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Robert J Neal) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:23:00 +0000

Personally I am not a big fan of facebook. I find it difficult to use and annoyingly cluttered. I hate the news feeds, the apps, and the advertisements. But facebook is popular. Very popular. Nearly 60 million users and 65 billion page views per month according to Wikipedia. It's popular so it must be good right? I guess, as good as Britney Spears was or MC Hammer.

My likes and dislikes aside, it is important to communicate with people. To do that you have to speak their language, where they live. Right now, 60 million of them are on facebook. That's why Stanford has a course in it and interactive marketing agencies are eating it up. Well, that and it's a new shiny toy to play with, or at least make money off of.

What do we learn from this as socially conscious individuals? We need to learn the language to persuade people to social justice. Whether it be a community based economics campaign or a feed the hungry campaign. And admittedly, the first time I heard of Stanford's Persuasive Technology Lab I was a bit hesitant to embrace the idea. But what better organization to study persuasion on the web then an academic one? The corporations have been studying persuasion, or manipulation if you will, for a long time and not sharing the details. Now anyone can learn about it. That means that we not only will know what websites due to be more persuasive or credible, but we can use those principles for social change. Or if you're a marketing agency to make money and enslave people.

Where to start? A couple of months ago I had the privilege of talking with Professor Armendt from ASU, where I am a philosophy student. A couple of his interests include decision theory, and modeling social interactions. I asked him to relate it to online social networks and he gave me a lot to chew on. Part of which was the application of game theory to these concepts. I suspect this is covered by our friends at Stanford whose blog documents student apps and why they fail or succeed.

In conclusion, getting to know the inner workings of persuasion, and how people use and benefit from social networks such as facebook, gives us the key to leveraging the technology people use today. Whether we like the technology or not, that is our audience. And it is different than having Britney Spears or Oprah as a spokesperson, since with a development platform we decide the content without having to pay off a big headed publicist.

Are You Experienced?

noreply@blogger.com (Robert J Neal) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 19:51:00 +0000

The user experience (UX) on the web is not simply the user interface (UI) of the website, nor the UX of the website. The UX of an organization's web presence is now inclusive of social networks, search engines, the website, user groups/communities, youtube, embedded components, and mashups. Too many times when an organization decides on a new web design it is purely for aesthetics, or usability, content, or any other singular property important to a website. Rarely they will recognize the importance of integrating all of these aspects into the ultimate user's experience of the website. But even this is not enough.

The user's experience on the web should include how they find your presence, whether it's on your site or embedded in some other web object (i.e. social network, blog, website). It should also include the experience the user has when she integrates your presence into her mashup, social profile, or blog. The UX is not optional. There is no other reason to put your presence on the public internet except that user's experience it. And it is certainly not enough that it just be magnificently beautiful. What's important to note is that the user experience for your organization pervades all corners of the internet, even those you don't plan for. So plan for it. Plan for your user's experiencing it in ways you don't imagine by not building your site in a box. Furthermore, you should not expect, nor wish for, the user's experience of your web presence to begin, take place, or end on the internet.

Strategy for Good, Boo Evil

noreply@blogger.com (Robert J Neal) — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 18:14:00 +0000

I recently had the privilege of sitting in on a strategy presentation by the director of strategy for our company. I was impressed. It was a holistic approach to interactive marketing rather than a prescription based, hide the symptoms with some ad words and a pretty design technique that most interactive agencies are using today. It really got the gears turning in my mind and besides being intrigued I think it re-energized my enthusiasm for the internet.

If some of these principles were applied to government, not for profit, and local businesses it could be a boon for change. Specifically I think that a campaign toward community based economics is where this should be targeted. All these principles carry over directly and can be taken even further if we apply the holistic approach to the macrocosm. That is, our company is helping individual corporations, but the principles, while helping individual local companies can also help the community based economic structure. It could do so by always keeping in mind CBE when developing the strategy, rather than simply promoting a single corporation to greatness (i.e. higher profit, more power).

Ralph Nader says we need civic globalization not corporate globalization(1) and I agree. Furthermore, I think the internet should be and can be used as a way to reverse corporate oligarchies and promote local economies. I think that the strategies that our company does so well could be used for this purpose. Bill Hicks got it right with marketing (2). However, it exists and we should understand how marketers manipulate, control, and influence our behavior. We should counter these techniques with techniques that inform, promote, and bring together communities. Don't get me wrong, marketers use these techniques already, but their interest is in the dollar, the ROI, the image. There's a lot of learning and helping that needs to happen to turn the tide of corporate conglomerates, and homogenized products and messaging. Let's start!

(1) http://www.un.org/dpi/ngosection/annualconfs/53/nader.html
(2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

Six Degrees from Murder

noreply@blogger.com (Robert J Neal) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:08:00 +0000

There are a lot of bad corporations that many people frequent on a day to day basis. These people fund the quasi-terrorist corporations freely and openly. I am not entirely sure why a lot of people are as self-centered, or at the least willfully negligent, as they are. However, I have found a huge problem in finding legitimate sources for local-to-global justice, environmentalism, etc. that do not require extensive or even moderate reading. How do I know that Coca-Cola is an accomplice in murder unless I first know to search out that information? I am certainly not able to rely on the media to tell me their advertisers are socially unjust.

So is born another idea. I have not worked out all the details, but perhaps in a future post I will. Basically, I envision a three dimensional network (think Telerik's Silverlight Cubes meet Thinkmap) where a person can browse by product, category, or corporation. They can then select their sin (i.e. murder, pollution, sweat shops, etc.) and follow the chains to show how that item is connected to that sin. For example, Coca-Cola would be chained to its bottling plant in Colombia, which would be chained to the murder of Isidro Gil. The person could then delve deeper into the details or be content with the visual information provided.

I also imagine the 3D cubes being able to be rotated to provide alternatives that are further away from whichever atrocity worries the user most.

This is just a sketch of an idea. It needs to be architected. Don't hold your breath.

For the alternative party

noreply@blogger.com (Robert J Neal) — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 14:41:00 +0000

We are all busy. The distractions keep us so. Work, play, hobby, family, cause, religion, entertainment, boredom...they all keep us from devoting much time to civic life. However, I think we can overcome this limitation to a certain extent with technology.

Among many of the challenges the alternative parties face, one is people's dedication to a cause that spans lifetimes and often does not produce the gratification available from some other causes. This leads to high turnover which in turn contributes to lack of organization, vision, and progress.

The concept I would like to propose is not revolutionary or entirely unique, although I believe its application to be slightly different then used in the past. I have in mind web applications such as basecamp, trac, and the mechanical turk. I would like to turn these to the application of the greater good.

The outline of the application is thus: users, tasks. Simplicity is an asset. The tasks would be rated in two areas: time and difficulty/specialization. Time is self explanatory; it would let the user know how much time, recurring or one off, that the task would take. Difficulty/specialization would let the user know how much mental effort is required and whether they would need some specialization to accomplish the task.

This would allow anyone who wanted to help to find tasks suited to their schedule and ability. It would be distributed computing at its best. Many other features could be added. For example, if a user signs up for a task, but does not complete it in a timely manner it could go back into the pool of tasks needing to be completed. Users could sign up for notices if similar tasks are added in the future. Many more are available to the imagination.

I would like to run through a quick example of how tasks might be set up as I see a deficiency in the current system. A person might be asked to submit paperwork for a certain end, perhaps legislation, ballot access, or candidacy. The person may be extremely busy, but have the specialty, or requirement as in the case of an office holder, to compose this paperwork. The problem is we are really asking this individual to find the correct organization, find the paperwork (usually it has to be picked up physically and is not available electronically), fill it out, then submit it. This is a tedious and time consuming set of tasks. These tasks, in my mind, would be distributed. One task would be to locate the paperwork and the appropriate destination, which anyone might be able to do. Then the person with the specialty of composing the content could do their part as a separate, but dependent, task.

In this way we can distribute the burden, and burnout, of everyone in the organization. In addition more people can become involved the might have previously felt they could not contribute. Indeed, the idea is to get people plugged in to the organization in a way that fits their schedule and specialization best. This is expedited by tasks that are well defined and readily available.

Gender Distaneqaulity

noreply@blogger.com (Robert J Neal) — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 16:13:00 +0000

We're all mechanisms for the engineers to fine tune. No humans here. No interest in personal development. No eye toward gender balance. Segregation is the key to keeping people under control.