Elevator "Door Close" Buttons Do NOT Work...

Face the Rear! Elevator Group Think

mpolatin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:18:49 +0000

James Surowiecki loves talking about the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that, he argues, are often better than could have been made by any single member of the group. But most recently, I’ve been intrigued with Elevator Group Think and the psychology of conformity. This is all too relevant for Strategists, because we spend much of our time listening to groups think aloud — much too much. I’m not advocating becoming a Google Planner, but there has to be a better way out there. What is Elevator Group Think? It refers to a series of experiments known today as the Asch conformity experiments. Basically, an elevator is a microcosm showing how we act and conform to others in the real world. Just watch this video. But Surowiecki to the rescue. He reminds us (in The Wisdom of Crowds) this experiment went on to reveal something equally important — that while people slip into conformity with striking ease, it also doesn’t take much to get them to snap out of it. But that’s the rub — how do we snap them out?

The Similarities Between Planning and Fight Club…

mpolatin — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:53:29 +0000

Tell me this quote doesn’t sound like it could be a Planner talking?

You wake up at Seatac, SFO, LAX. You wake up at O’Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, BWI. Pacific, mountain, central. Lose an hour, gain an hour. This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time. If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?

I’m constantly getting questions about how to break into Strategic Planning, and honestly answering this is more difficult than responding to my 3-year-old son when he asks ‘Where does hair come from?’ The point being, there is no clear rhyme or reason, which is a beautiful thing. But we can sometimes get caught up in this mystery. A recent blog post by Rob Campbell, Asia regional head of planning for Wieden + Kennedy, caught my attention. Rob writes: ‘planners – love to make a big deal out of being curious…Let’s be honest, curiosity is a basic human trait and even if planners execute this more than the majority [which I'd say is open to debate] they’re no where near as curious as people in the finance, technology, R&D or criminal investigation industries, to name a few.” Rob is spot on. All too often we set up Planning as some form of creative Black Magic. Something that can’t be described or discussed –The first rule of Planning is: You do not talk about Planning. The second rule of Planning is: You do not talk about Planning. We Planners have no magic powers (other than being loquacious and absurdly profound at times). In fact, quite the opposite, we are ‘liberators’ as Rob succinctly writes. It is our role to help liberate our client business. Now, rather than being seen as the mysterious agency people who lurk in the background, Planners are the ones who release the hounds! There is something tangible here. But alas, how does this help us in regards to breaking into Planning. Well, we don’t need to frame it up as a special club only for the curious few — but we can introduce it as a club for those who truly want ‘to understand and represent our client audience.’

So, my advice?…Go to your cave and find your power animal.

Living Vicariously Digital: Why do we Like to Watch People watch People?

mpolatin — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:05:37 +0000

Perhaps one of the most puzzling memes online today is our obsession with Reaction Videos. Especially, given this time of year when we have tons of videos of people opening packages and kids unwrapping gifts. Not to mention the recent Star Wars reveal video that is going around. But what is it about these that excites us? What do we care what strangers think about getting a iPad2 or watching “Scarlet Takes a Tumble” ? Well, it’s like looking in the mirror. As they say, you only get one chance to make a first impression and — you only get one chance to experience something for the first time. So in some ways it’s consumers trying to relive the moment they first saw/witnessed something. Trying to grab that fleeting moment and enjoy it once again. Living vicariously digital…(just imagine if you could film someone reading this post you just read, so you could can enjoy it again like the first time — over and over again) …

Thinking About Thinking: The Anchoring Effect

mpolatin — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:48:34 +0000

Sometimes it’s frightening when we examine our own decision making — especially when we realize how random and arbitrary it all is. It can be unsettling to know our judgment can be so heavily influenced by randomness — and it happens every day. Daniel Kahneman covers this in Thinking, Fast and Slow, a bizare tour of the mind where he outlines the faults and biases—of fast thinking, and reveals the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behavior. Most notable is our tendancy to be swayed by The Anchoring Effect , the common human tendency to rely too heavily, or “anchor,” on one trait or piece of information when making decisions. Usually this pertains to numbers. For instance, when German judges, before mock-sentencing a shoplifter, were asked to roll a pair of dice rigged to come up either three or nine, those who rolled nine said on average eight months, while those who rolled three said five months…

Backdraft, Brainstorms and Flashpoints: You Check that Door for Heat?

mpolatin — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 16:17:02 +0000

I just heard a description from an arson expert that got me thinking about how we sometimes mistake a good brainstorm for one cohesive great idea. This fire expert was talking about investigating arson cases and how they can determine if a fire was set simply by looking at the burn pattern. He was talking about a flashpoint, the lowest temperature at which a fire can vaporize to form an ignitable mixture in air. The quote that struck me was: ”The difference is, it goes from being a fire in a room — to a room on fire.” Now, think about that perceptual shift. Similar words. Very different meanings…So all brainstorms are merely just fire in a room — but it’s those very special sessions where the room is on fire…To quote Backdraft: ”When the doors open, if it’s hot, don’t get out.’

How Group Dynamics Influence Us: Unreported Crimes

mpolatin — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 11:42:44 +0000

Much of what we do in advertising strategy is try to make sense of ‘group think’ and societal trends. Often we are quick to jump to conclusions or point to some quant data that can answer the question for us. But there are few baffling rules that continue to trouble sociologists regarding human behavior — and one of those is how seemingly moral, law-abiding citizens fail to report crimes they witness. Most recently this has surfaced in the hit-and-run death of a little Chinese toddler on a busy street and, of course, college (American) football in the US. Obviously we all believe that regardless of how scared we are, we’d step in and stop a crime, or at the very least call the police immediately. But social psychology research on “bystander” behavior suggests that many of us might actually turn away. Why is that? Sometimes we are so quick to get involved in other people’s business. But other times, perhaps when we are most needed, we shy away and let fate play out…Perhaps Mark Levine, a social psychologist at Lancaster University in the U.K., puts it best when he says ”somehow, when we’re with other people, we lose our rational capacity or personal identity, which controls our behavior.”…So what exactly is Group Think? And how does this reflect on our approach to brainstorming and other endeavors where the Wisdom of Crowds are supposed to take hold?

What would you do?

Hemingway, Social Media & Concise Storytelling (see below: 99 Words)

mpolatin — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:43:19 +0000

Ernest Hemingway is said to have claimed his best story was also his shortest — and I tend to agree. In just six words he captures a lifetime: ”For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” But seems he was ahead of his time in more ways than one. Social Media is now inspiring concise writing and quick storytelling. From the Twitter haiku movement — “twaiku” — to simply capturing your day in a Facebook status update, we now have literary boundaries encapsulated by technology — and we are all just cool with it. Less is more. And with apologies to The New Yorker, educators may just be right.

A Meaningful vs. A Moral-ful Life

mpolatin — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 13:38:52 +0000

Anthropology is a tricky business. Sometimes it’s difficult to separate the real world from the imagined. A new book by Susan Wolf tackles a similar quandary — when we start to think about if a meaningful life must be a moral life? It is written in ‘Meaning in Life and Why it Matters’ that there are values we associate with a good narrative and its characters that are distinct from those we associate with good morals. For instance, a fictional character can be intense, steadfast or subtle — like Ishmael in “Moby-Dick,” the quiet intensity of Kip in “The English Patient,” the steadfastness of Dilsey in “The Sound and the Fury” or the subtlety of Marco Polo in “Invisible Cities.” This mirrors real life — whatever is ‘real’. Wolf writes, that when a life embodies one or more of these values and feels engaging to the one who lives it, it is to that extent meaningful. So where does that leave us? Do we judge ourselves as literary characters? Or do we hold ourselves to a lower standard?

Semiology: No Charcoal in your Hotel Room

mpolatin — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 12:21:43 +0000

Traveling globally so much I can’t help but become a student of semiotics. I find it fascinating to see how typical information is communicated differently in unique regions. Semiotics, which is a general philosophical theory of signs and symbols dealing especially with their function in both artificially constructed and natural languages, is very cool and a great way to understand a regional culture. All I have to do is get to the airport or hotel and check out how they communicate info — and i can learn a lot about their culture. There are important anthropological dimensions to this and if I had the chance to go back to school, I would probably study this.

Got it?

Let’s Make a Deal — And Never Trust your Gut Decision (or Monty Hall)

mpolatin — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 14:56:17 +0000

Who didn’t love Lets Make a Deal? Monty Hall, despite being creepy, can tell us a lot about how to make decisions and how we value information given to us. Thus, we have The Monty Hall problem: Assume a room is equipped with 3 doors. Behind 2 are goats, and behind the third is a new car. You are asked to pick a door, and will win whatever is behind it. Let’s say you pick door 1. Before the door is opened, however Monty opens one of the other two doors, revealing a goat, and asks you if you wish to change your selection to the third door (i.e., the door which neither you picked nor he opened). Of course, you think, I will stick with my gut decision. But that is wrong. Never trust your gut in this situation. You have been given more information and you should factor this in. (watch now and see how it works)

The correct answer is that you do want to switch. If you do not switch, you have the expected 1/3 chance of winning the car, since no matter whether you initially picked the correct door, Monty will show you a door with a goat. But after Monty has eliminated one of the doors for you, you obviously do not improve your chances of winning to better than 1/3 by sticking with your original choice. If you now switch doors, however, there is a 2/3 chance you will win the car (counterintuitive though it seems). So don’t always trust your gut. Sometimes you may have unwittingly been given more information…take it and run:

		winning probability
pick	stick	1/3
pick	switch	2/3