The Wall Street Journal-20080118-The Informed Reader - Insights and Items of Interest From Other Sources
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The Informed Reader / Insights and Items of Interest From Other Sources
Marketing:
A Case Against Pitching to 'Taste-Makers'
Forget social hubs and alpha influencers. To reach consumers, old- fashioned mass marketing might be the way to go.
That message, espoused by sociologist Duncan Watts, is making waves in marketing circles by refuting the notion that an elite group of taste makers spark consumer trends, reports Clive Thompson in Fast Company. The idea of the super-influencer, popularized in books such as "The Tipping Point" and "The Influentials" is compelling. But, in Mr. Watts's view, social networks are so complex that consumer trends are essentially random. Since it is impossible to know how one might start, advertisers have a better chance of succeeding by aiming at a broad audience than by spending money chasing highly connected people.
To test his premise, Mr. Watts conducted an email-based experiment that aimed to re-examine the 1967 "Six Degrees of Separation" study that was the catalyst for Malcolm Gladwell's blockbuster, "Tipping Point." Mr. Watts, who recently took a leave from Columbia University to work for Yahoo (and who himself might be described as an alpha influencer, observes Mr. Thompson), found that super-connected people played little role in how messages moved through society. The original study, he speculates, might have involved too few people to conclusively prove the "six degrees" hypothesis.
Some proponents of the taste-makers theory question Mr. Watts's conclusions. Ed Keller, co-author of "The Influentials," notes that trendsetters tend to be highly wired and "fonts of word of mouth." Mr. Gladwell is diplomatic, telling Fast Company that all his book and others' theories can do is uncover a little piece of a bigger picture. "When we put all those pieces together," he says, "maybe we'll have a shot at the truth."
-- Fast Company -- February
Economics:
A Recession Could Spur
U.S. to Think Globally
If the U.S. economy falls into a recession, the inevitable pain might come with a silver lining, says Slate columnist Daniel Gross: It would force U.S. companies and workers to become more global in their outlook.
Unlike past U.S. downturns, a recession in 2008 would have only a muted effect on the global economy, says Mr. Gross, noting that no other major economy save Japan faces imminent danger of a contraction.
That should represent a wake-up call for the U.S. "Many American companies simply haven't committed to being aggressive players in the global economy," says Mr. Gross. Big American companies typically still depend on the U.S. for the majority of their sales. By December 2007, Mr. Gross calculates, the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market accounted for 31% of the world's stock-market capitalization, down from 48% in January 2001. He says U.S. businesspeople need to start seeing foreign markets "not simply as a place to source cheap goods or raise expensive capital, but as the new home market."
-- Slate -- Jan. 16
Research:
Gender Bias May Play Role
In Scientific Publishing
Symphony orchestras discovered that female musicians had a better chance of succeeding at auditions when their identity -- and gender -- was concealed. Now, researchers say a similar tendency toward bias might be at work in scientific publishing.
Bias long has been suspected of playing a role in influencing which scientific research gets published. To test whether this is true, a team at the University of Toronto led by Amber Budden looked at the journal Behavioral Ecology, which switched to a double-blind peer- review process in 2001. The study found that 8% more female authors had papers published once authors' identities were hidden. Dr. Budden believes the findings should spur a debate about adopting anonymous review policies in scientific fields.
-- New Scientist -- Jan. 19
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