Groupthink or the Bystander Effect?

Groupthink Allows Store Trampling Death

This brief video from cnn.com (1:18 in length) discusses how Groupthink allowed a Wal-Mart employee to be trampled by customers as the store opened at 5am this past Friday, known as "Black Friday" (the day after Thanksgiving where stores traditionally get into "the black," or start turning a profit for the year).

The video is actually pretty short and not all that informative, but my first reaction was that this incident was not caused by groupthink, but by what's known as the "bystander effect." Wikipedia defines the bystander effect as "a social psychological phenomenon in which individuals are less likely to offer help in an emergency situation when other people are present. The probability of help is inversely proportional to the number of bystanders." In contrast, we defined groupthink in class as a situation where the group, collectively, is dumber than the individual for a number of reasons (insulation from outside sources, fear of challenging assumptions, etc.)

Malcolm Gladwell writes about the bystander effect in his book "Blink" in relation to the famous case of Kitty Genovese, where a woman in New York was attacked and murdered while 38 of her neighbors apparently heard her screams and did nothing.

This article describes the whole story of what happened at the Wal-Mart. An amazing quote:

“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’ ” Ms. Cribbs told The Associated Press. “They kept shopping.”

Anyway, my point is that I think the use of groupthink here is a little off-base. Perhaps there is some overlap between groupthink and the bystander effect, but here, it wasn't that the crowd was dumb as a result of the fact that they were in a crowd. The crowd was dumb because they either a.) didn't realize someone had been trampled to death, or b.) assumed someone else would take care of it, and they could go on their merry way and continue shopping. I'd be curious to hear what other people thought of this.

Out of Many, One

New Blackberry Targets iPhone

And that one, still, is the iPhone. This is just a simple user review of the new Blackberry Storm from boston.com, outlining the features and comparing the Storm to the hallowed iPhone. The author goes through a number of bonuses that the Storm provides it users, but in the end determines that the Storm is "no would-be iPhone killer." Surprise, surprise.

Now I don't own either a Blackberry or an iPhone, and maybe it'st just a matter of personal preference. But I've been eager to get an iPhone since they came out, and if I don't receive one for the holidays this year (it is on mywishlist, mom, dad, and girlfriend, please take note), i'll probably bite the bullet and just buy one for myself. Why? The iPhone is just cooler. It just is, plain and simple. As we discussed in class, Apple still has the best designers and really has cornered the market on "cool." And for a sucker like me, well, that's enough.

Now I realize that at some point I may have a job that requires me to own a Blackberry, but for now, my cell phone is a personal item and I want the one that's going to make me happiest. So there you have it.

One of the stats I found interesting in this article is as follows:

"Apple's sold only 13 million iPhones [Blackberry has sold 19 million]. But it [Apple] sold nearly 7 million of those in the third quarter, giving it higher quarterly sales than BlackBerry for the first time."

Will the iPhone eventually catch Blackberry? Who knows. But my guess is that as long as Apple continues to innovate and design in the manner they've been doing, those Apple devotees aren't going anywhere.

So wait - Google doesn't rule the world?

Yahoo's Fate Unclear as Google Abandons Ad Deal

Turns out Google can't quite do everything it wants to. This article outlines how Google has scrapped it's proposed advertising partnership with Yahoo, anticipating that the objections of antitrust regulators might prove too strong to defeat. Not entirely surprising, I guess. Given that this partnership would have given them control of 90 percent of the search advertising market, I'm sure they would have been found in violation of some type of antitrust laws (not that I have extensive knowledge on the subject, but it seems like this would be a blatant violation).

I did learn a few interesting things that I didn't know. The authors, Joelle Tessler and Michael Liedtke, discuss the involvement of that other tech giant, Microsoft:

"The collapse of the Google-Yahoo alliance could become a coup for Microsoft.

Although it has publicly said it's no longer interested in buying Yahoo, Microsoft spent a lot of time and money trying to keep Google and Yahoo from coming together.

The world's largest software maker provided evidence that helped persuade regulators that the partnership would diminish competition. Microsoft also helped orchestrate the campaign that prompted major advertisers to lodge complaints against the partnership."

The plot thickens...

Apparently Yahoo is really struggling, and some of their board members are pissed that they didn't sell to Microsoft back in May, when their shares were at $33 a piece. Now, they're down to $14.20, and apparently considering approaching AOL/Time Warner about an acquisition.

Also news to me was the connection between Larry and Sergey and Jerry Yang:

"The Mountain View, Calif.-based company's main incentive for entering the deal was to keep Yahoo out of Microsoft's hands. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin also wanted to help Yahoo founders Jerry Yang and David Filo, who had encouraged them to turn their search engine into a business more than a decade ago."

Anyway, just a small roadblock on Google's path to conquering the universe...but a noteworthy one.

Would you like Fries with that?

http://www.fastcompany.com/news/2008/10/29-intel-asus-wepc-microsoft-xbox-360-avatars.html

How much longer before buying a computer is like going to the drive-through?

I found this article at fastcompany.com, and it's about a new website called WePC. Here's the brief synopsis, taken from the Fast Company article, written by Chris Dannen:

"...users can discuss the ideal features of their dream-laptops, and even “build” a virtual version of their perfect machine. Ideas contributed so far: waterproof keyboards, roll-up displays, complete upgradability, and so on. Naturally, the present-day specs of several Asus/Intel laptops are never more than a click away, lest you create your dream machine and discover that, Lo! It's the same as a computer Asus already makes"

So, clearly there's a dual benefit here: Asus is crowdsourcing their research to you, and when you go to make a recommendation, you find that, sometimes, what you wanted was already there waiting for you! So they not only make you feel like your input is appreciated, but they can make a sale as well, all in the same visit. Pretty clever. This reminds me of something like threadless.com, the t-shirt company who solicits t-shirt designs from the crowd, the crowd then votes, and the winner's design gets sold on their website to the masses. It's also much like the Zara model, where the company takes customer feedback and attempts to implement it - because who knows best what the customer wants? Well, the customer, of course!

So this got me to thinking: how long before buying your computer is like going to the drive through lane at McDonald's? Imagine: you walk into the computer section at Best Buy, pick the components/features/software you need, a technician runs to the back of the store, and 3 minutes later you've got your personalized cpu. Now, if Dell could manufacture a computer in 3 minutes, why couldn't they do it in the backroom at Best Buy? I know the software takes time to test, but surely that process could be sped up. (In fact, the article mentions how Best Buy has already started to do this, with certain models of Toshiba and HP. But it's in its infancy). Now, maybe I'm out-of-touch and this is already happening somewhere, but I haven't seen it yet - at least not to the extent that I'm describing.

The article goes on to talk about how Microsoft's XBox is now customizable in that you can create an avatar that will go with your profile no matter what game you're playing - but this part of the article was of less interest to me.

Anyway, interesting stuff, and I imagine this do-it-yourself computer customization is not far away for us. Would you like software with that?

Crowdsourcing at Presidential Debate No. 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJlnwVCA2eY (fast forward to 5:03)

So, last night as I was watching the second presidential debate of the season, about an hour into it, I got really excited about something - Tom Brokaw asked a question about crowdsourcing! This means one of two things: either a.) Jerry's class is, as he promised, incredibly relevant, or b.) I'm a big huge dork. My hunch is that it's some combination of the two, but that's neither here nor there. (Also neither here nor there: did you ever notice that Tom Brokaw has practically no upper lip? Perhaps there's some medical condition he suffers, in which case I'll feel really bad that I'm writing about it, but my girlfriend pointed it out and I had to concur.)

Anyway, thanks to the wonders of DVR, I pressed rewind and listened to the question again, just to be sure. And indeed, while he didn't use the term "crowdsourcing," his question was no doubt a reference to it. Here is what he said (asked directly to Senator McCain as a follow-up to a discussion about alternative energy sources):

"Should we fund a Manhattan-like Project that developed the nuclear bomb to deal with global energy and alternative energy, or should we fund one-hundred thousand garages across America, the kind of industry and innovation that developed Silicon Valley?"

(Click on the link here or at the top of the page and fast forward to 5:03 to see the clip of this).

Now, without revealing my political leanings, I will say that McCain didn't really answer the question. The beginning of McCain's response was as follows:

"I think pure research and development investment on the part of the U.S. Government is certainly appropriate. I think once it gets into the productive stages that we ought to obviously turn it over to the private sector."

After that, as is so often the case in these debates, he veered away from the question to address something Obama had said about him in the previous segment. So, I was disappointed that he didn't directly address the "Manhattan Project vs. 100,000 garages" part of the question, but still, it was pretty cool to see crowdsourcing arise as an issue to be addressed in a presidential debate.

You want my opinion? So glad you asked. I think it would be great for the government to undertake a crowdsourcing project, particularly in terms of renewable energy sources (which I personally think is one of the most critical, if not the single most critical issue facing our country right now). I mean if crowdsourcing has proven so effective for so many coroporations, why couldn't it work for a government project? (Perhaps the government has already used it in ways I am not aware of. If so, please excuse my ignorance).

Anyway, kudos to Tom Brokaw for asking the question and let me reiterate my dissapointment that it didn't get answered.

Wherefore art thou Friendster?

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20070601/features-how-to-kill-a-great-idea.html

So, with all this discussion we've been having (and I imagine, will continue to have) in class about social networking, it got me to thinking: what ever happened to Friendster? Remember, the original social networking site? (Or at least the first one available to the masses, if I recall correctly). I realize I am behind the curve in researching this, as Friendster has been an afterthought for a while now, but still, I was curious. So I decided to do some detective work.

As we all know, thanks to Google, "detective work" is pretty easy these days. So, I went to Google, typed in "what went wrong with Friendster?," and found the article above (click on the link to read it). It's called "How to Kill a Great Idea" and was written by Max Chafkin for the June 2007 issue of Inc.com - and it's fascinating. Again, some of you may already know the story, if so, my apologies. But even though this isn't a current article, it's well worth reading.

When I first started thinking about what might have caused the downfall of friendster, I assumed it was likely a technical issue - that they must have just missed the boat on some kind of software that sites like MySpace and Facebook were able to capitalize on. But upon reading the article, I learned that it was not solely a software issue - while that was a part of the problem, there were a whole host of complications that added up to one big bust - in fact, the article refers to it as "the biggest tech flop since the bubble burst."

As the article outlines, there were two main issues that led to the downfall of Friendster: software issues and management disputes - particularly, conflicts between Jonathan Abrams, Friendster's founder, and the Venture Capitalists who provided the seed money. But there was a lesser, tertiary issue that was a complete surprise to me. Chafkin explains it better than I can, so check this out (direct quote from the article - Chafkin's words):

"Scant attention was paid to Friendster's users. Lunt remembers marveling sometime in early 2004 at how Friendster's traffic would mysteriously spike at 2 a.m. Intrigued, he started looking at the site's log. Oh, my God, he thought, everyone is from the Philippines. He worked backwards, looking for "patient zero"-- the first American to "Friendster" a Filipino. He found Carmen Leilani De Jesus, a 32-year-old marketing consultant and part-time hypnotherapist from San Francisco, the 91st person to join Friendster. She was directly connected to Abrams as well as to dozens of Filipinos, who'd in turn connected to thousands more. In fact, more than half the site's traffic was coming from Southeast Asia.

"From a business standpoint, the revelation was devastating. Friendster, it turned out, was paying millions of dollars a year to attract eyeballs that were effectively worthless to its advertisers. Says Abrams: "We needed to make a tough decision"-- either spin off the Asian business or become the No. 1 Filipino social network. But because the Filipino users had come by way of their American friends, there was no easy answer. If Friendster cut the cord to Asia--either by drastically cutting back on engineering resources or by kicking the Asian users off the site altogether--it risked damaging its American user base. The Carmens of the world might look for a less restrictive site."

And indeed, as Chafkin goes on to say, that is exactly what happened. By the end of 2004, after less than a year in business, MySpace had surpassed Friendster. Amazing how that one connection to a Filipino user ended up putting Friendster between a rock and a hard place, contributing to its demise, right? It's something I never would have considered and found that incredibly interesting.

Anyway, I highly suggest that you check this article out if you don't know the story of Friendster. Well-written, incredibly revealing, and entertaining. And in case any of you are worried, Jonathan Abrams, the founder of Friendster, is doing just fine, thank you very much. He owns a bar/lounge in San Francisco and has a new web venture called Socializr.

I remember right after I graduated college in 2003, sitting in my apartment in Chicago and listening to my friend Joel tell me how cool Friendster was, and how I simply had to sign up. The next day I spent 5 hours working on my profile and connecting to friends (I was unemployed at the time) and thinking "Joel was right, this Friendster thing is really great!" Amazing how much things can change in a mere 5 years. I can't even remember the last time I checked my Friendster profile. Speaking of which, maybe I'll go do that right now...except that I just got a new friend on Facebook. Sorry, Friendster. You are so 2003.

Working the network

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/09/14/working_the_network/?page=1

So I noticed that Geoff commented on this article from www.boston.com on his blog (http://geoffreytorrance.blogspot.com), and without being redundant, I wanted to contribute to the conversation by adding a few comments of my own.

In the discussion about employers' use of social networking sites to evaluate potential employees, we generally hear about how an employer rescinds a job offer because they found inappropriate pictures on someone's facebook page, or a disparaging remark on someone's myspace profile. We tend to react by commenting on how silly it was for that student to leave potentially damaging information on their page, and that he/she should have known better. But I think there's a flipside to it that we don't talk about enough, and it's as follows:

Not only does access to these sites allow employers to weed out potential employees, but it also allows me, as a facebook/myspace/linkedin user, to weed out potential employers. My reasoning goes like this: if I know that a company has assigned someone to execute a virtual stakeout on me and creep around my facebook page, or google my name and see what they find, is that a company I really want to to work for? Or if I learn that a company has rescinded my offer of employment because they discovered a picture of me (gasp) consuming a beer, is that a company I want to work for? Probably not. I mean, aren't we by definition commencing our relationship with a lack of trust? When I go to an interview, my hope is that a company will make a decision about me based on what they see on my resume, what they glean from our conversation, and what they learn from my personal and professional references. If they feel they need to investigate further, I'm not sure that's a place I want to work.

Given, each side is entitled to do some research, within reason. If I am interested in a company, of course I'll likely try to talk to some people who work there, get some insider info on what it's like to be an employee there. The equation is unbalanced though, because I can't snoop onto the company's facebook page - because either they don't have one, or it's not going to reveal all that much. But they can certainly check out mine.

The caveat here is that if you're a professional, you of course need to be reasonable and make intelligent decisions about what you post on your facebook/myspace page. Those kegstand photos from that frat party in college? Probably leave them out. And the pics from spring break in Cancun? Maybe leave those off too. But if what I share on my facebook page is reasonable by my estimation, and an employer doesn't want to hire me because of it? So be it. That's not the kind of place I want to work anyhow.

Case in point: in the article on boston.com, the following story appears:

"In searching the site recently for new hires for his growing sales staff, Evan Gotlib quickly clicked past a guy who posted a photo of himself in jeans and T-shirt. 'I'm not going to hire that guy - he didn't take the time to put himself in a tie and a shirt,' says Gotlib, advertising director for IdealBite, a site that delivers daily eco tips to users."

So here an employer is making a decision based on very surface level information they found on a LinkedIn page. For all they know, this guy could be the next Bill Gates. But because they made a judgement based on his photo, they'll never know. And my guess is that Mr. jeans and T-shirt probably made a calculated decision about what to wear in his LinkedIn profile pic.

I don't intend for this to sound too much like a rant - I realize I'm going on and on here. My point is that there's a balance to be struck. I want to work for a company that recognizes that I'm a human being with a life beyond the office, and that I might, in addition to making widgets, indeed want, and need, to have fun once in a while. That's the kind of environment I'm looking for. And if an employer rejects me because they caught me doing just that in a facebook photo, well, I know the relationship was never meant to be in the first place.

Testing...

Hey everyone, this is Jonah and this serves as my test blog....