Voting Is Always Good, Right?

In today’s “social everything” environment, rating and voting have been added to all sorts of software, including classic project management systems and idea capture tools. Is voting the answer to higher quality decisions in product and project management?

On the surface, voting sounds completely reasonable. Who wouldn’t want to know which features or defects get the most votes, so that the work that is most important to the largest group of users gets done first? The fly in the ointment for voting-based decision making is in some hidden assumptions—assumptions that are not universally true. Below are a few of underlying assumptions, with some guiding questions that may help to decide if your next big decision should be decided by votes alone.

Are The People Who Vote Representative Of The Whole?

Will everyone vote? If not, are will the people who answer show a skewed sample of results. Perhaps we are seeing the opinions of early, highly active users. In internal organizational polls, perhaps one part of the organization is more energized to vote on the topics at hand. Maybe the topic self-selects for a particular personality type of responder, and one that is not typical of the people who did not respond.

It is tempting to say “Well, yes, it may not be truly representative, but some information is better than nothing!” This position is fine on the surface,  but what if you make a major strategic decision based on 15% of your population of users or employees, and it’s not the 15% that represent the true feelings of the bulk of the population? What if this part of the larger group has notably different views than the mainstream of the group (ok, it’s an obvious question now, but it had to be asked.)

Does Understanding The Question Matter?

Important questions are often nuanced. They involve many factors, and are not just a simple “Does this quick summary statement make sense to you?” question.

If most of the interested population does not understand the side effects and long-term impact of the choice in front of them, can they answer the question in a useful way? If they cannot do so, will you end up with misdirected answers?

How Does The Question Affect The Results?

Polling companies have learned through the years that the way you ask a question can have a dramatic impact on the way it will be answered. This is just as true of “which bugs do you want fixed most” and “which feature is most important to you” questions as it is of polling to predict government elections. Seemingly benign choices of wording and the order information is presented can cause the answers to reverse.

Is Popularity Related To Strategic Importance Or Tactical Importance?

One of the tricky parts of voting is that it asks people to rank the relative importance of things. This sounds like just what we want, but it also plays to whether the person voting is more likely to think that a tactical short-term win is more important than a long-term win. A danger point with this aspect of voting is that many people will short attention to longer-term strategy needs in favor of short-term “quick hits”.

If infrastructure and strategic work is consistently set aside for later (much of which is totally invisible to those outside of the product and project teams), the end result can be devastating. If not handled, this can create a situation where rather than making advances on both fronts, the visible tactical front is going well, but at a certain point it all grinds to a halt, the strategic work has to be done in one huge effort, and from a public perspective all progress stops while the internal debt is paid.

What If Only The Visionary “Gets” The Vision?

There are plenty of cases of products, and entire categories of products, that would never have appeared if the launch decisions were made entirely on voting. Would we have a multi-billion bottled water industry have appeared if the manufacturers had made their decisions based on asking “Do you want to pay for bottled water?” Would the iTunes store have been created if users were asked “Do you want to pay for downloading music that can only be played on our players?”

Can You Live With The Results Of The Vote?

This one comes from the “Don’t ask the question if you don’t want to hear the answer” pile. Creating a vote-driven environment suggests that decisions will be based on the results of the votes. It can cause a lot of angst to create this perception, and then to go against a clear vote, if expectations were not clear. Sometimes all this takes is saying up front “We are asking for you to rate these things. We want to hear what you think. At the same time, there are other factors that may not be clear to the outside world, and in some cases we may end up heading a different way than the vote would suggest. ”

Is Voting Any Good?

Votes are useful as part of quality decision-making. Decide in a vacuum, and you may miss key possibilities. Decide only by votes, and you may suppress a billion dollar idea. Ask for votes without managing expectations… and you may trigger a user rebellion. Voting results are useful, and sometimes surprising, as a part of the big picture. Good luck with your next big decision, and maybe with a combination approach you’ll find your next big win!

2011-01-10 Added link “Can Pathological Politics Be Reversed?”

Handling Bad Behavior Online – Strategies and Implications

Please join our global discussion group
on Tuesdays at 12pm noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm Eastern time

This Tuesday, Jan 11 at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™

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This Week’s Topic

Handling Bad Behavior Online – Strategies and Implications

Bad behavior in online environments is a well known phenomenon, with its own character and implications. While some of the enablers for bad behavior are understood – relative anonymity, physical distance, the ability to sign off at a whim, the very low probability of ever encountering others in the discussion in person – best practices for handling such bad actors are varied. Suggestions for handling bad online behavior range from “don’t feed the trolls” (advice to totally ignore any sort of bad behavior) to “embrace and extinguish” (work towards turning an apparent opponent into an ally).

These behaviors cross the lines of online and in person, and repeatedly there have been cases where it at least appears that in person behavior has been influenced by inflammatory, “baiting” behavior online.

It is not always obvious which strategy is best for a situation. This week we’ll discuss the nature of bad behavior online, and discuss relative benefits, risks and likely outcomes of strategy choices in handling online behavioral issues.

Join us Tuesday at 12PM noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm U.S. Eastern time for an interactive discussion, and thanks for being part of “We Are The Network”!

If you do not have a Second Life account and would like a quick start to attend the session, please contact me for more information.

Best regards,

Joel

Reading links below – have fun and see you soon!

The Bad Boys of Cyberspace: Deviant Behavior in Online Multimedia Communities
and Strategies for Managing it
http://users.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/badboys.html

Dealing with Bad Behavior
http://www.troubledwith.com/ParentingTeens/A000000555.cfm?topic=parenting%20teens%3A%20rebellion

How Belonging to an Online Group Affects Social Behavior
http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=69910

Troll (Internet) – Wikipedia definition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29

Understanding Your Toddler’s “Bad” Behavior – FamilyEducation.com (is this applicable?)
http://life.familyeducation.com/behavior/toddler/53221.html

ABC – Palin’s “Crosshairs” Ad Dominates Gabrielle Giffords Debate
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/sarah-palins-crosshairs-ad-focus-gabrielle-giffords-debate/story?id=12576437

Inflammatory Rhetoric as the Context of Assassination
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/6/1/737389/-Inflammatory-Rhetoric-as-the-Context-of-Assassination

Assume Good Faith
http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/AssumeGoodFaith

Can Pathological Politics Be Reversed?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathleen-reardon/exposing-the-sources-of-r_b_806459.html

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Please Note – Mixed Text and Voice Session:

We Are The Network is an open, mixed voice / text discussion session. Please feel free to participate in voice or in text, to your preference. The facilitator and some participants will be using voice, so you may wish to enable voice in your viewer so that you can hear the voice portions of the session.

To enable voice, choose Preferences from the Edit menu, click the “Voice Chat” tab along the left of the form, and then make sure that “Enable voice chat” is checked. Again, speaking is not required for this session, however if you do not enable voice, and use speakers or headphones, you will not be able to hear part of the discussion.

Thanks for attending!

Joel Foner (Second Life: Joel Savard)

http://joelfoner.com/about

http://twitter.com/JoelFoner

Is Offshoring a Race to the Bottom or Race to the Top?

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every Tuesday at 12pm noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm Eastern time

This Tuesday, Nov 16 at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™

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This Week’s Topic

Is Offshoring a Race to the Bottom or Race to the Top?

The debate about offshoring, the practice of moving jobs to other countries—usually with the objective of lowering costs—raises consistent and harsh debate. There are arguments about whether offshoring is “good” or “bad” and whether it creates problems or enhances the local job market. A presumption of many is that by offshoring lower-end jobs, this will be a race to the top for the country sending work overseas, as more people can focus on the higher value “race to the top” jobs. Others claim that this is merely a short term gain which will generate a “race to the bottom” globally, leaving a wider gap between rich and poor, and further centralizing power.

Is offshoring a race to the bottom, or a race to the top? What will the short, mid and long-term results of continued globalization and offshoring look like?

Join us Tuesday at 12PM noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm U.S. Eastern time for an interactive discussion, and thanks for being part of “We Are The Network”!

If you do not have a Second Life account and would like a quick start to attend the session, please contact me for more information.

Best regards,

Joel

Reading links below – have fun and see you soon!

Wikipedia Offshoring Definition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshoring

20 Defenses of Offshoring and Why They are Wrong
http://www.aea.org/20_refute.htm

A web discussion on Offshoring Benefits
http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.776222

Banks: Offshoring, Not Outsourcing
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/mar2009/gb20090310_619247.htm

Companies Using Offsh0ring to Drive Benefits Beyond Labor Arbitrage
http://www.everestresearchinstitute.com/News/10694

IT Offshoring Skeptic (with extended discussion in comments)
http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/IT_skeptic/it_offshoring_skeptic.shtml

Related link: A Slightly Skeptical View on IT Outsourcing
http://www.softpanorama.org/Articles/slightly_skeptical_view_on_it_offshoring.shtml

Global Outsourcing (Illinois CPA Society)
http://www.icpas.org/hc-insight.aspx?id=14398

Industrial Robots: An Alternative to Offshoring (vendor pitch, but interesting point from a completely different direction!)
http://www.robots.com/blog.php?tag=476

How Can I Get Event Announcements (choose one or more)?

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Please Note – Mixed Text and Voice Session:

We Are The Network is an open, mixed voice / text discussion session. Please feel free to participate in voice or in text, to your preference. The facilitator and some participants will be using voice, so you may wish to enable voice in your viewer so that you can hear the voice portions of the session.

To enable voice, choose Preferences from the Edit menu, click the “Voice Chat” tab along the left of the form, and then make sure that “Enable voice chat” is checked. Again, speaking is not required for this session, however if you do not enable voice, and use speakers or headphones, you will not be able to hear part of the discussion.

Thanks for attending!

Joel Foner (Second Life: Joel Savard)

http://joelfoner.com/about

http://twitter.com/JoelFoner

Are there Human Limits to the Performance of Organized Education?

Please join our global discussion group
every Tuesday at 12pm noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm Eastern time

This Tuesday, Nov 9 at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™

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This Week’s Topic

Are there Human Limits to the Performance of Organized Education?

Improvement of organized education, the process of teaching and learning typical in public and private schools of education, has been a focus area for generations. A central premise of the seemingly never-ending debates and discussions is that children and young adults can learn far more than they currently absorb, and that the failure to do so is the result of a inadequate educational system.

What if the performance of organized education is more limited by human factors than by systemic design decisions? Are there human limits that bound the performance of organized education? Is the performance of organized education boundless, and waiting only for the right combination of process and staff to unleash a dramatic improvement? Is there a point in the continuing advancement of human understanding, global communication, social and technical complexity that human learning will reach a limit, independent of the process used to impart it?

Join us Tuesday at 12PM noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm U.S. Eastern time for an interactive discussion, and thanks for being part of “We Are The Network”!

If you do not have a Second Life account and would like a quick start to attend the session, please contact me for more information.

Best regards,

Joel

Reading links below – have fun and see you soon!

Schooling Resources, Educational Institutions, and Student Performance: The International Evidence
http://ideas.repec.org/p/kie/kieliw/983.html

Educational Performance Indicators: A Critique
http://ideas.repec.org/p/wop/wispod/1052-94.html

Higher Education: Dangerously Close to Becoming Irrelevant
http://www.openeducation.net/2008/08/12/higher-education-dangerously-close-to-becoming-irrelevant/

Is Science Education Broken?
http://www.genomeweb.com/blog/science-education-broken

Sir Ken Robinson – Changing Education Paradigms, RSAnimate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

U.S. Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC)
http://www.eric.ed.gov/

The Vision of Education Reform in the United States: Secretary Arne Duncan’s Remarks to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Paris, France
http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/vision-education-reform-united-states-secretary-arne-duncans-remarks-united-nations-ed

How Can I Get Event Announcements (choose one or more)?

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* Follow Joel Foner on Google Buzz (joel dot foner at gmail dot com)

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Please Note – Mixed Text and Voice Session:

We Are The Network is an open, mixed voice / text discussion session. Please feel free to participate in voice or in text, to your preference. The facilitator and some participants will be using voice, so you may wish to enable voice in your viewer so that you can hear the voice portions of the session.

To enable voice, choose Preferences from the Edit menu, click the “Voice Chat” tab along the left of the form, and then make sure that “Enable voice chat” is checked. Again, speaking is not required for this session, however if you do not enable voice, and use speakers or headphones, you will not be able to hear part of the discussion.

Thanks for attending!

Joel Foner (Second Life: Joel Savard)

http://joelfoner.com/about

http://twitter.com/JoelFoner

Will Misinformation and Disinformation Win?

Please join our global discussion group
every Tuesday at 12pm noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm Eastern time

This Tuesday, Oct 19 at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™

Click here to teleport to the Epoch Institute in Second Life™
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Wells/97/56/27

This Week’s Topic

Will Misinformation and Disinformation Win?

Misinformation (incorrect information that spreads inadvertently) and disinformation (incorrect information purposefully spread to accomplish a set agenda) are hardly new. The internet has enabled misinformation and disinformation to spread wildly, with the hope that other voices will over time counter it.

In this session we’ll discuss differences and similarities of misinformation and disinformation in the real time Internet age, and explore whether they have expanded, whether there are any “natural checks” on the spread of misinformation and disinformation, and whether ultimately misinformation and disinformation will crowd out real information due to sheer volume.

Join us Tuesday at 12PM noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm U.S. Eastern time for an interactive discussion, and thanks for being part of “We Are The Network”!

If you do not have a Second Life account and would like a quick start to attend the session, please contact me for more information.

Best regards,

Joel

Reading links below – have fun and see you soon!

Misinformation (definition in Wikipedia – esp as differentiated from disinformation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation

Counterknowledge: How we surrendered to conspiracy theories, quack medicine, bogus science and fake history, by Damian  Thompson
http://counterknowledge.com/book/

The Misinformation Superhighway
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/401/internet-politics.html

The Morass of Misinformation on the Net
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/ZDM/story?id=97336&page=1

Rapport-Building and Susceptibility to Misinformation in Investigative Mock-Crime Interviews
http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/2/9/3/7/p229379_index.html

Planting Misinformation in the Human Mind: A 30 year investigation of the malleability of memory
http://learnmem.cshlp.org/content/12/4/361.full

How Can I Get Event Announcements (choose one or more)?

* Subscribe to EMail alerts at http://joelfoner.com

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* Follow Joel Foner on Google Buzz (joel dot foner at gmail dot com)

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Please Note – Mixed Text and Voice Session:

We Are The Network is an open, mixed voice / text discussion session. Please feel free to participate in voice or in text, to your preference. The facilitator and some participants will be using voice, so you may wish to enable voice in your viewer so that you can hear the voice portions of the session.

To enable voice, choose Preferences from the Edit menu, click the “Voice Chat” tab along the left of the form, and then make sure that “Enable voice chat” is checked. Again, speaking is not required for this session, however if you do not enable voice, and use speakers or headphones, you will not be able to hear part of the discussion.

Thanks for attending!

Joel Foner (Second Life: Joel Savard)

http://joelfoner.com/about

http://twitter.com/JoelFoner

Can Real Food be Faster than Fast Food?

Please join our global discussion group
every Tuesday at 12pm noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm Eastern time

This Tuesday, Sept 28 at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™

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This Week’s Topic

Can Real Food be Faster than Fast Food?

We eat fast food. We eat a lot of it. The amount is going up, and going up dramatically over the last couple of years. Why is this? Some people say it’s about speed and convenience. Some say it’s cost. Perhaps the answer is simpler.  People can’t figure out how to cook in a way that fits the reality of today’s lifestyle and so in the absence of a way to “make it work,” fast food becomes the only way to “get it all done in the small amount of time left” in a day.

We watch “chef battle” cooking shows, where people who have years of culinary training create gourmet meals in amazingly short times. Does this help? Maybe, in that it gets people thinking about cooking themselves. However, just as photoshop fakery of model pictures creates an image of people that is unattainable, these shows create an image of cooking that is similarly unattainable to many.

Whenever the topic of food and cooking appears in our We Are The Network discussions, the group gets totally energized, and it basically derails whatever else was going on, so I figured this week “let’s just go with it.”

Is it really possible, without any gaming of the numbers or process, to actually cook real food at home in the same or less time than it would take to take the fast food route. Before you leap up and say “of course it’s possible” – let’s talk about the full time investment, including preparation, cleanup, shopping for food – everything.

If you’ve already got this “all figured out,” let’s hear about your magic for choosing recipes, food shopping, when and for what, which kitchen skills you need to work on to make things flow quickly, techniques to get things done quicly, and how to not end up with a mountain of cleanup (a time sink that real people know about, but the recipe books so conveniently ignore when they say “simple, 30 minute prep”!)

Bring your ideas. Bring your recipes. Maybe don’t show up hungry (don’t say I didn’t warn you!), and let’s have a fun and very different session.

Join us Tuesday at 12PM noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm U.S. Eastern time for an interactive discussion, and thanks for being part of “We Are The Network”!

If you do not have a Second Life account and would like a quick start to attend the session, please contact me for more information.

Best regards,

Joel

Reading links below – have fun and see you soon!

Jamie Oliver’s TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food | TED.com
http://www.ted.com/talks/jamie_oliver.html

Eating at Fast Food Restaurants more than Twice a Week is Associated with More Weight Gain and Insulin Resistance in Otherwise Healthy Adults (U.S. National Institutes of Health)
http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/dec2004/nhlbi-30.htm

Fast Food Booming in Wake of Global Recession (report on 3news.co.nz)
http://www.3news.co.nz/Global-recession-sees-increase-in-fast-food-consumption/tabid/372/articleID/93326/Default.aspx

Fat and Calorie Content of a Fast Food Meal versus a Home Cooked Meal (Monster Information Please – data source for article)
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934642.html

Food Matters – A Guide to Conscious Eating (Mark Bittman)
http://content.markbittman.com/books/food-matters

The Food Matters Cookbook – 500 Revolutionary Recipes for Better Living (Mark Bittman)
http://www.amazon.com/Food-Matters-Cookbook-Revolutionary-Recipes/dp/1439120234/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1284660910&sr=1-1

Copycat Cookbooks – Cook Your Favorite Restaurant Recipes at Home (These are obviously not the real recipes, but designed to taste similar!)
http://www.fastfoodrecipes.net/

How to Cook Quickly (About.com)
http://homecooking.about.com/od/howtocookbasics/How_to_Cook_Basics_Quick_cooking_instructions.htm

Fast Food for the Home Cook (Squidoo)
http://www.squidoo.com/fast-food-cooking

How Can I Get Event Announcements (choose one or more)?

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* Follow Joel Foner on Google Buzz (joel dot foner at gmail dot com)

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Please Note – Mixed Text and Voice Session:

We Are The Network is an open, mixed voice / text discussion session. Please feel free to participate in voice or in text, to your preference. The facilitator and some participants will be using voice, so you may wish to enable voice in your viewer so that you can hear the voice portions of the session.

To enable voice, choose Preferences from the Edit menu, click the “Voice Chat” tab along the left of the form, and then make sure that “Enable voice chat” is checked. Again, speaking is not required for this session, however if you do not enable voice, and use speakers or headphones, you will not be able to hear part of the discussion.

Thanks for attending!

Joel Foner (Second Life: Joel Savard)

http://joelfoner.com/about

http://twitter.com/JoelFoner

The “I Have Proof!” Game

Please join our global discussion group
every Tuesday at 12pm noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm Eastern time

This Tuesday, Sept 21 at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™

Click here to teleport to the Epoch Institute in Second Life™
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Wells/97/56/27

This Week’s Topic

The “I Have Proof!” Game

Let’s find out if it’s possible to “prove anything on the net!” This week we’ll play a serious game called “I Have Proof!” Here’s how the game works. We’ll all pick a “for” or “against” position, and then pick a topic. We’ll set a timer for five minutes, and try to find coherent persuasive proof on the Internet for our chosen position. Then we’ll compare proof and arguments to see what we have in hand. I suspect we can find reasonably persuasive proof in both directions on any topic we can think up – let’s see if it’s true, and what we learn in the process!

Join us Tuesday at 12PM noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm U.S. Eastern time for an interactive discussion, and thanks for being part of “We Are The Network”!

If you do not have a Second Life account and would like a quick start to attend the session, please contact me for more information.

Best regards,

Joel

Reading links below – have fun and see you soon!

… a few links with articles presenting countering views on various topics… just as a starter

Hensarling, Johnson Take Opposite Views of Debt Mess
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/washington/tgillman/stories/061310dnbusdebt1gridlocksider.197f3a4.html

Immigrant Program Stirs Clash of Views
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/04/AR2009030403488.html

Expert Opinions Clash on Authority of Turkey’s Top Court
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=expert-opinions-clash-on-the-authority-of-the-constitutional-court-2010-06-14

How Can I Get Event Announcements (choose one or more)?

* Subscribe to EMail alerts at http://joelfoner.com

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* Join the We Are The Network group in Second Life™

* Join the We Are The Network hippoGroup ( this does not take up a group slot – tap the “We Are The Network” sign at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™)

* Follow Joel Foner on Google Buzz (joel dot foner at gmail dot com)

* Join the JoelFoner.com – We Are The Network Fan Page on Facebook

Please Note – Mixed Text and Voice Session:

We Are The Network is an open, mixed voice / text discussion session. Please feel free to participate in voice or in text, to your preference. The facilitator and some participants will be using voice, so you may wish to enable voice in your viewer so that you can hear the voice portions of the session.

To enable voice, choose Preferences from the Edit menu, click the “Voice Chat” tab along the left of the form, and then make sure that “Enable voice chat” is checked. Again, speaking is not required for this session, however if you do not enable voice, and use speakers or headphones, you will not be able to hear part of the discussion.

Thanks for attending!

Joel Foner (Second Life: Joel Savard)

http://joelfoner.com/about

http://twitter.com/JoelFoner

Is Today’s Pop-Psych Right… You Can’t Change Anyone Else?

Please join our global discussion group
every Tuesday at 12pm noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm Eastern time

This Tuesday, Sept 14 at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™

Click here to teleport to the Epoch Institute in Second Life™
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Wells/97/56/27

This Week’s Topic

Is Today’s Pop-Psych Right… You Can’t Change Anyone Else?

Once upon a time, the focus of management, marketing and sales was spin, change people’s interests, views, and desires towards your goals. For the last few years, it seems that the pop-psych current thinking has flipped to a completely opposite position, that not only can you not change anyone else, the only thing you can do is hope to attract them to you, and to attract them to change.

Is one or the other of these positions more accurate? Are there ways to change another person? If not, then why is advertising and marketing still effective, and why does management focus on improving performance (which could be looked at as a direct attempt to change behavior towards corporate goals)? If we can change other people, why do so many attempts to do so result in failure, even to the point of destructive side effects? Does refusing the concept of changing others result in a self-focused, narcissistic society? Does one or the other position, by design, improve society over time?

Join us Tuesday at 12PM noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm U.S. Eastern time for an interactive discussion, and thanks for being part of “We Are The Network”!

If you do not have a Second Life account and would like a quick start to attend the session, please contact me for more information.

Best regards,

Joel

Reading links below – have fun and see you soon!

How To Convince Someone to Believe in Anything, 2knowmyself.com
http://www.2knowmyself.com/Psychology_convincing_someone/Convincing_someone_to_Believe_in_anything

A Quick Overview of “Spin Selling“, Eric Wolfram
http://wolfram.org/writing/howto/sell/spin_selling.html

How to Change Peoples Attitudes, Guy Kawasaki
http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/the-world/article/how-to-change-peoples-attitudes

How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie (summary of his book)
http://www.westegg.com/unmaintained/carnegie/win-friends.html

You Can’t Change Other People, Lisa Bosley
http://coachlisabosley.blogspot.com/2010/02/you-cant-change-other-people.html

You Can’t Force Other People to Change – But You Can Help Them
http://www.thechangeblog.com/help-people-change/

Why People Can’t Change, Nan Einarson
http://www.helium.com/items/1357526-creating-change-comfort-zone-negative-self-talk-law-of-attraction-how-to-change-your-life

How Can I Get Event Announcements (choose one or more)?

* Subscribe to EMail alerts at http://joelfoner.com

* Follow @JoelFoner on Twitter

* Join the We Are The Network group in Second Life™

* Join the We Are The Network hippoGroup ( this does not take up a group slot – tap the “We Are The Network” sign at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™)

* Follow Joel Foner on Google Buzz (joel dot foner at gmail dot com)

* Join the JoelFoner.com – We Are The Network Fan Page on Facebook

Please Note – Mixed Text and Voice Session:

We Are The Network is an open, mixed voice / text discussion session. Please feel free to participate in voice or in text, to your preference. The facilitator and some participants will be using voice, so you may wish to enable voice in your viewer so that you can hear the voice portions of the session.

To enable voice, choose Preferences from the Edit menu, click the “Voice Chat” tab along the left of the form, and then make sure that “Enable voice chat” is checked. Again, speaking is not required for this session, however if you do not enable voice, and use speakers or headphones, you will not be able to hear part of the discussion.

Thanks for attending!

Joel Foner (Second Life: Joel Savard)

http://joelfoner.com/about

http://twitter.com/JoelFoner

Which Secrets will we Find in the Social Web?

Please join our global discussion group
every Tuesday at 12pm noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm Eastern time

This Tuesday, Sept 7 at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™

Click here to teleport to the Epoch Institute in Second Life™
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Wells/97/56/27

This Week’s Topic

Which Secrets will we Find in the Social Web?

Personal information is now scattered throughout the web, stored in and exposed by thousands of social networks, millions of blogs, email lists and other collections. Systems like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter provide a mindbending amount of information about people and their relationships, and these are only the “big three” out of an ever growing number of “social” systems.

Marketers are, of course, digging in to this treasure trove of information to improve results, however we are likely at the very leading edge of understanding the impact of public social information. What will the social web expose about us on the personal, societal and species level? Will we learn things we never knew? Will we learn things we wished we never knew? Will it change the way public and corporate policy is developed and analyzed? How will it change the way we interact and relate to each other?

Join us Tuesday at 12PM noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm U.S. Eastern time for an interactive discussion, and thanks for being part of “We Are The Network”!

If you do not have a Second Life account and would like a quick start to attend the session, please contact me for more information.

Best regards,

Joel

Reading links below – have fun and see you soon!

Social Network Analysis, A Brief Introduction, OrgNet.com
http://www.orgnet.com/sna.html

Untangling the social web, The Economist
http://www.economist.com/node/16910031?story_id=16910031&CFID=142286486&CFTOKEN=65273296

Social Network Analysis for Behavior Change, Tom Valente
http://woodlandownernetworks.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/valente-lecture/

Online Behavior Analysis and Modeling Methodology, Maj David Robinson (slideshow)
http://www.slideshare.net/Annie05/online-behavior-analysis-and-modeling-methodology-presentation

Bibliography of Research on Social Media Sites, compiled by Danah Boyd
http://www.danah.org/researchBibs/sns.php

How Can I Get Event Announcements (choose one or more)?

* Subscribe to EMail alerts at http://joelfoner.com

* Follow @JoelFoner on Twitter

* Join the We Are The Network group in Second Life™

* Join the We Are The Network hippoGroup ( this does not take up a group slot – tap the “We Are The Network” sign at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™)

* Follow Joel Foner on Google Buzz (joel dot foner at gmail dot com)

* Join the JoelFoner.com – We Are The Network Fan Page on Facebook

Please Note – Mixed Text and Voice Session:

We Are The Network is an open, mixed voice / text discussion session. Please feel free to participate in voice or in text, to your preference. The facilitator and some participants will be using voice, so you may wish to enable voice in your viewer so that you can hear the voice portions of the session.

To enable voice, choose Preferences from the Edit menu, click the “Voice Chat” tab along the left of the form, and then make sure that “Enable voice chat” is checked. Again, speaking is not required for this session, however if you do not enable voice, and use speakers or headphones, you will not be able to hear part of the discussion.

Thanks for attending!

Joel Foner (Second Life: Joel Savard)

http://joelfoner.com/about

http://twitter.com/JoelFoner

Bias and Discrimination – Where Are We Headed?

Please join our global discussion group
every Tuesday at 12pm noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm Eastern time

This Tuesday, Aug 31 at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™

Click here to teleport to the Epoch Institute in Second Life™
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Wells/97/56/27

This Week’s Topic

Bias and Discrimination – Where Are We Headed?

Bias and discrimination get lots of focus in both general discussion and political arenas, and have for many years. Have we made substantive progress to date, and regardless of that answer, where are we headed? What is the likely trajectory of both public discourse and the “reality on the ground” for bias and discrimination? Are we headed for a world that demonstrates less bias and discrimination, or will they be presented in different and perhaps more disguised fashions (or both or neither)?

This week we will talk about the nature of bias and discrimination, how they are found and presented today, and where we think the public and private path leads going forward.

Join us Tuesday at 12PM noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm U.S. Eastern time for an interactive discussion, and thanks for being part of “We Are The Network”!

If you do not have a Second Life account and would like a quick start to attend the session, please contact me for more information.

Best regards,

Joel

Reading links below – have fun and see you soon!

Novartis Verdict Opens Door for More Gender Bias Lawsuits, Inc. Magazine
http://www.inc.com/news/articles/2010/05/novartis-gender-bias-case-opens-door-for-more-lawsuits.html

Even Bias Measures for Standardized Tests are Biased
http://race.change.org/blog/view/even_bias_measures_for_standardized_tests_are_biased

Selective Discrimination, Robin Hanson
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/05/selective-anti-discrimination.html

U.S. Job Site Bans Bias Over Gender Identity, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/us/06gender.html

NIH Funding Opportunity Announcement: The Effect of Racial and Ethnic Discrimination/Bias on Healthcare Delivery
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-08-083.html

Confronting Racial Bias has Surprising Motivation, LiveScience.com
http://www.livescience.com/culture/who-confronts-bias-100803.html

A Fix for Discrimination: Follow the Indian Trails, Vivek Wadhwa – TechCrunch
http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/21/a-fix-for-discrimination-follow-the-indian-trails/

How Can I Get Event Announcements (choose one or more)?

* Subscribe to EMail alerts at http://joelfoner.com

* Follow @JoelFoner on Twitter

* Join the We Are The Network group in Second Life™

* Join the We Are The Network hippoGroup ( this does not take up a group slot – tap the “We Are The Network” sign at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™)

* Follow Joel Foner on Google Buzz (joel dot foner at gmail dot com)

* Join the JoelFoner.com – We Are The Network Fan Page on Facebook

Please Note – Mixed Text and Voice Session:

We Are The Network is an open, mixed voice / text discussion session. Please feel free to participate in voice or in text, to your preference. The facilitator and some participants will be using voice, so you may wish to enable voice in your viewer so that you can hear the voice portions of the session.

To enable voice, choose Preferences from the Edit menu, click the “Voice Chat” tab along the left of the form, and then make sure that “Enable voice chat” is checked. Again, speaking is not required for this session, however if you do not enable voice, and use speakers or headphones, you will not be able to hear part of the discussion.

Thanks for attending!

Joel Foner (Second Life: Joel Savard)

http://joelfoner.com/about

http://twitter.com/JoelFoner