The Pursuit of Attention – Quotes

The pursuit of attention is now emerging as one of the electric organizing principles of American life. Not only are people pursuing attention in new ways, but there is evidence that we have begun to restructure our culture – including even our politics and economy – around the idea of attention as a glittering ultimate recognition and reward. Celebrities are the icons, but the pursuit of attention is now being diffused and institutionalized, hardwired into our beings through new systems of media, business, and technology, and fueled by new, aching deprivations that prey on our psyches. The result is a spreading virus of prosaic but dehumanizing behavior that subtly alienates us from one another and turns daily interactions into a veiled competition for recognition and respect.

- Introduction to The Pursuit of Attention, second edition, by Charles Derber. 1979, 2000

All my stripper friends
All my ex-boyfriends
We all want the same thing
We all want the same thing
Parties in the bar, reaching for the stars
We all want the same thing

- All My Stripper Friends, Tila Tequila

don’t go

SchipulCon in two days – Oct 45, 16, 2009 at the Houston Zoo

What started in 2007 as the Tendenci User Conference, was canceled in 2008 due to a very unwelcome hurricane, has now morphed into SchipulCon 2009. Planned by @MagsMac, the conference has a great lineup of speakers including Deirdre Breakenridge, the author of PR 2.0.

The full SchipulCon 2009 Agenda is posted on the site. And registration is here.

And of course a HUGE thanks to our sponsors without which this would not be happening!

the TRAGEDY of the commons

When we say “the tragedy of the commons” I really think it should be stated “the TRAGEDY of the commons” to indicate that it really is an all caps TRAGEDY.

Summarized on wikipedia as

… (the the tragedy of the commons is) a dilemma in which multiple individuals acting independently and solely and rationally consulting their own self-interest will ultimately destroy a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone’s long term interest for this to happen.

Hardin’s original article on the tragedy of the commons expands on this.

Picture a pasture open to all. It is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons. Such an arrangement may work reasonably satisfactorily for centuries because tribal wars, poaching, and disease keep the numbers of both man and beast well below the carrying capacity of the land. Finally, however, comes the day of reckoning, that is, the day when the long-desired goal of social stability becomes a reality. At this point, the inherent logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy.

…

Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit–in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.

Rationally it makes more sense for me to pollute. Rationally it makes more sense for me to over-fish. Treachery in fact pays. In a recession it is logical to steal. There is a reason you see “no dumping” signs by the side of the road – rationally it is more profitable for people to illegally dump than to pay the dump fee. It’s wrong, it’s unethical, it ruins the commons, but it is in fact rational.

And there are only three ways to avoid the tragedy of the commons. ONLY THREE.

1. Legislative (ex: make it against the law/rules),
2. Material (ex: tax it like a parking meter or a toll road) or
3. Social Pressure (ex: make a public negative example of the person, Stockades).

That’s it people. That’s it. There are no other solutions.Yes get creative within those three, but that’s it folks.

People are NOT going to sing Kum Bay Ya and do the right thing if it is in their rational best interest NOT to. Period. Some people will, but all it takes is one rational actor hiding behind Machiavelli. And there is always one. I have written about this before in the three motivations of people.

Understanding this makes listening to political debate painful. Tax the rich to provide health care to everyone else? What is the rational thing to do? To use as much health care (the commons) as possible which would bankrupt the system (irrational result). You would need rules (rationing) or fees (taxes and copays) or social disclosure (social pressure, but not a good idea for health care privacy). Ask a sociologist, that won’t work.

But this post is not about health care. It is about a tragedy of the commons in the form of an office break room. And while I rationally understand that it is in everyone’s rational best interest to not clean it at the end of the day, it is still a tragedy to observe. Rationally they are right to observe it is always miraculously clean in the morning regardless of if they participate in the cleaning!All of the benefits with none of the work. Woot! (a tragic woot, but woot none the less).

Hopefully the team will forgive me for using material motivation (removal of coffee) to encourage dialog and transparency (social pressure) to find a solution (process and procedures to ensure cleaning). And as the person who cleans the coffee pot more than any other, hopefully I’ll be down to only cleaning the coffee pot once a week as I lock up and head home. I can live with once a week.

Selective Benefits and Web Applications

The term “selective benefits” is usually thought of in relation to programs such as welfare as in this definition of selective Benefits:

Selective benefits are provided on the basis of a claimant’s income and circumstance. An example of a selective benefit is the Child Tax Credit.

We are not all treated alike by the other humans. For example numerous studies have shown “attractive people are more likely to receive altruistic behavior.” Humans being a murderous lot, intelligence is a true selective benefit that may keep you away from being the one “naturally selected.”

Business leaders refer to selective benefits as differentiation.  Reward the high performers! And in business benefits that are transparent, such as hours worked, are usually not the first place you see differentiation. Salary and monetary rewards are the first areas to differentiate as this prevents problems with other employees (This varies by role of course, commissions are typically public info between a sales team to motivate others, but that is a different post).

But what of selective benefits in web applications? The differentiated web app I think of first is slashdot with its famous  meta-moderation system. Karma points are awarded to those who contribute to the community in the slashcode application. Listening to Jeff Bates & Rob Malda speak at MSU in 2007 they commented that “if you put a number on anything it will become a competition between users.”

And we are so obsessed with the number of followers we have, and others have, on social networks that we have sites to measure, manage and rank each other! And we treat these people differently because, well, having 3,686,570 followers as Ashton Kutcher does right now means he has HUGE influence!

From the perspective of the person who enjoys these differentiations, they also receive selective benefits like free admission to conferences, access to other influencers, acceptance into good old boy clubs, etc.

Frequently the alternative to a selective benefit is a monetary expense. You can join an association or buy a house in that exclusive area. If you can’t get a pass to an event, you can usually buy a ticket (but not always). In other words, fame and access in real life and in social media amounts to selective benefits that have a real monetary value to the person who possesses them. So technically speaking, this is more than a game.

I can’t help but notice that flickr, the nicest social network I know of, does NOT show follower counts on your photo pages. Nor do they make it easy to see how many of your photos make it into explore. You need another app for that.

So to improve a blog or social network, should you make “rank” easily visible to everyone knowing the people who rank the highest will enjoy selective benefits that have monetary value? Does this build community? Or does that even matter and the bottom line is monetizing the site?

What about things like recommendations and testimonials? Should you confer additional site access to “verified” accounts?

Should social media do more to extend “selective benefits” to individuals based on rank (followers, explore, interestingness, page views, linkbacks, etc…)? Aren’t we supposed to be “levelling up” as the kids say?

Thinking…

As a society declines, it becomes more polarized

“As a society declines, it becomes more polarized as factions stake out turf they can cling to. Here, you have a choice. You can either embrace the widening middle ground now opening up between the polarities or exploit the passions on the extremes. Organizations that follow the latter course will look and feel more traditional and be able to cash in on the loyalty of a fervent customer base. The problem is that this direction has a short life span: it is not where the society is headed over the next twenty to thirty years. RenGenners can be found in the middle ground. But hitching your star to the RenGen movement means committing to innovation.”

- Patricia Martin, RenGen, 2007

Difficult times we live in folks. Don’t go polar. Stay cool. It’s gonna be alright. Really.