Tag Archives: trust

trust_sxsw2013

TRUST: Designing Social Glue #SXSW2013

I had the opportunity to speak at a #sxsw interactive session in Austin, TX (“Why trust is the new social glue” – March 11, 2013). I used the following short presentation as a framework for discussing trust points, trust enablers and how story and narrative can can be used to foster trust in a digital community (the issues around creating a trusted user experience).

As part of the session, we divided the ballroom at the Driskill Hotel into groups, each group evaluating the examples at the end of the presentation to collectively identify trust points (or the lack of) and discuss why or why not a particular piece of content demonstrated trust. Each group then shared (and debated) their opinions on the examples. The diversity of the group led to some very good, and far reaching, discussions, including how we evaluate and form a position of trust for brands and products and the role of culture and community in shaping our interpretation of trust markers.

I hope you enjoy the presentation as much as I enjoyed working through it at the session.

introduction_handshake

Influence and the Value of the Introduction

INFLUENCE. Sometimes a simple introduction and handshake is all you need.

Influence is all around us, present in almost every aspect of our lives. We live through it in school, through our teachers, mentors and friends. We see it in our family lives, as our children are influenced by our own behavior and morals. We especially see it in the broader society where people are often influenced by their favorite stars, idols or athletes – perhaps even going so far as to emulate their behavior in the misguided belief that if their idols are cool and liked, they can be cool and liked if they adopt the same behaviors or lifestyles (and no, it doesn’t work that way in real life).

INFLUENCE AS WE TYPICALLY SEE IT

In all of the situations mentioned above, we are dealing with influence from the perspective of a direct cause-effect relationship that involves an influencer and an influencee. Most commonly, we see personal influence where a person, or group of people, has direct influence over another person, or group of people (classic examples involve politics and peer-pressure).

We also often see influence in business and marketing, with companies striving to sway entire markets to purchase their products, often through educational campaigns (providing the consumer with the advantages of their product, its features and why it is a better option than rival products). In other cases, they may lean towards more subtle neuromarketing strategies, while others simply resort to blatant “value by association” techniques (if my favorite movie star uses that product, it’s probably a good product…).

We can even take a more observational view with regard to events and actions, tracking the influence that a particular event (or group of events) today, or in the past, may have on future events (witness the history of political upheaval in one nation helping to influence, or even drive, similar upheavals in other nations suffering from similar internal or regional issues).

“Influence is much more than just changing or causing a behavior”

But there is another type of influence that is more subtle, less direct, yet often more effective at achieving a long lasting impact – and all it takes is an introduction.

THE VALUE OF INFLUENCE BY INTRODUCTION

When we talk about introduction-based influence, we are referring to the bringing together of two or more people (or groups) that have the ability to complement each other for mutual benefit. In this case, there is no typical influencer – influencee relationship. Rather, the influencer is acting as more of a facilitator – an enabler of sorts – using the introduction as a way of creating an environment where ideas and collaboration can be fostered between the groups being introduced.

“Influence by introduction can produce some great, and unexpected, results”

Influence by introduction does not work well when there is a fixed outcome that the influencer is hoping to achieve (i.e., a specific course of action). Where it does work, however, is where the outcome that the influencer is hoping to achieve is less for their benefit and more for the benefit of the parties being introduced, or in situations where the desired outcome isn’t a particular action but rather a type, or level, of action.

Perhaps the parties being introduced are an analyst and a vendor – each looking for information and insight from the other. Or perhaps the parties being introduced each bring a particular strength or talent that, when combined, can create a powerful, collaborative working group,  perhaps even identifying and developing solutions to problems that none of us, myself included, may have thought about on our own. It’s all about opening up new opportunities.

“Any business can benefit from influencial introductions”

From my perspective, successful introductions are definitely a form of influence. Positive influence, like leadership, is based on trust, and introductions only work well if all parties trust, and respect, the person making the introduction. Who doesn’t like to hear from a friend or advisor: “I think you two both have some great ideas and skills – you should definitely get to know each other“?

It’s more than just a pat on the back, it conveys a sense of value, potential and belonging to the people being introduced. They may not even recognize that there is a subtle form of influence at play.

So how do you or your company view influence? Most view influence as a means to drive an outcome with a specific goal in mind, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But have you taken the next step?

Are you willing to use your influence, with your name on the line, to make that introduction, acting as the catalyst to allow others to create value on their own, where the outcome is far less certain, but perhaps with the potential to benefit us all?

I value your opinion, and all comments are greatly appreciated. You can also subscribe to my posts via Email or RSS.  Thanks for being part of the discussion – Fred.


googleinvasion

Are we Outsourcing Common Sense to the Internet?

It is a very human instinct to trust somebody the better we know them. And how well we know somebody is often a result of the amount of time we spend with them. This level of trust can often equate to how much we are willing to believe, or be influenced by, them.

Influence comes from trust.

Interestingly, many people assign human attributes to not only other people but items as well, including pets, inanimate objects (“I stubbed my toe on that stupid rock”) and, most importantly, interactive systems (such as computers). In fact, regarding interactive systems, we are rapidly moving towards the point where a growing number of people assign the same level of trust to an online venue as they might a real life friend or family member. This seems especially true in the area of search and information distribution systems, that are by design “user” friendly (translate “more humanistic”).

Unfortunately, in a world where we are all “publishers” and sources of information, not all information has the same value or trustworthiness.

As a result, many people are exposing themselves to a veritable web of incorrect or manipulated information. To some extent this abdicates our very human instincts of questioning and common sense to information sources that are inherently unreliable, easily manipulated or just simply overwhelm us in terms of the sheer volume of information that we have to deal with on a daily basis. In fact, it seems many are lowering their friendship & trust requirements to meet the abilities of the Internet-based systems with which they interact on a daily basis.

Let me illustrate with a few examples:

Example 1: Google v Bing (Nicaragua v Costa Rica)

For over a century, Nicaragua and Costa Rica have argued over a relatively small, yet seemingly important, slice of land along their north-eastern border (a dispute that was supposedly settled diplomatically over a century ago with the aid of the U.S. government). This dispute, now in front of the Organization of American States (OAS), has been renewed, with Nicaragua reclaiming the land and deploying military troops (Costa Rica, by the way, has no military of its own). It has even become part of a controversy surrounding the “rumored” desire of Nicaragua, Venezuela and Iran to build an alternative to the Panama Canal (there’s a conspiracy to bite into!).

Google, with the unenviable (but self-allocated) task of tracking global borders, is at the center of this renewed dispute, having used an admittedly erroneous map which featured an incorrect/out-dated border. Nicaragua has been touting the incorrect Google Maps version (which was subsequently/conveniently used as part of their justification to move troops into Costa Rica) while Costa Rica has been touting the correct Microsoft BING version (yes, BING got it right). Interestingly, Google Maps has since corrected their border, which Nicaragua in turn has requested not be corrected.

For many, being right equates to being first, or more well known, on the Internet.

On it’s surface, this would seem like a trivial non-event, especially given the history of the world and the inability of anybody to accurately map the world (a task that is extremely difficult as borders are constantly changing and the world is full of “disputed” territories). But Google has made their share of mistakes, including recently deleting the entire town of Sunrise, Florida (and it’s 90,000 inhabitants). More importantly, had Nicaragua not taken action against Costa Rica, I doubt that no more than a handful of people in the entire world would have noticed the error, nor would anybody else (and I’ll include myself here) had any reason to question its accuracy.

Example 2: The Wikipedia Incident.

I have a good friend who recently recounted an amazingly absurd event involving Wikipedia: the crowd-sourced online encyclopedia that has increasingly become an acceptable source of “it must be true if it is on Wikipedia” information. My friend is an expert in a certain field and happened to discover an error involving a certain event in early American history. Being the helpful guy that he is, he went through the Wikipedia registration process and corrected what was a fairly obvious error. However, the following day he discovered that his correction had been subjected to a classic “undo” and reverted back to the original inaccurate text.

Influence or control don’t always equate to experience.

After several “re-corrections” and a series of similar “undo” events, he finally tracked down the person that was rejecting his corrections – a person who apparently had a bit more Wiki-clout than my friend. After explaining that the information on Wikipedia was incorrect, and citing numerous written texts and documents as proof, his corrections were clearly and decisively rejected – the justification essentially being that the original text was corraborated by another Wikipedia entry (which itself was not only incorrect but used the original incorrect entry in a circular reference between the two entries, demonstrating that two Wiki-wrongs do in fact make a Wiki-right). So much for crowd-sourced intelligence when the crowd you are dealing with is a crowd of one.

Example 3: The $200M/Day Obama trip to India

This one simply defies logic. An official in the Maharashtra Government (a state in western India) is referenced by a story on NDTV.com which stated “A top official of the Maharashtra government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit has reckoned that a whopping $200 million per day would be spent by various teams coming from the US in connection with Obama’s two-day stay in the city.” This included, by the way, the erroneous renting out of the entire Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai and covering the costs of a (massively overstated) 3,000 person entourage (including the press, which works on their dime, not the U.S. government’s checking account).

This “creative” estimate from the “privy” official, as well as a subsequent NDTV.com report that 34 U.S. warships (including an aircraft carrier) were being diverted to support the President’s visit to India were picked up by the Drudge Report and subsequently became fact amongst the anti-Obama press in the U.S. By this time, a mere hour, of course, the $200M/day for the two days in India had become $2Billion: $200M/day for not just India but for the entire 10 day Asia trip (side note: we only spend $190M/day on our entire war effort in Afghanistan – see this nice rebuke by the WSJ.com). Despite a dubious source, and a series of incorrect enhancements courtesy of the instant Internet, the story gained traction – significant traction well beyond what normal common sense would dictate.

Where has our common sense gone?

There was a time when both our individual and collective common sense would have immediately questioned each of the three examples above. But increasingly that is no longer the case. We have replaced questioning of sources and common sense with a misplaced sense of trust to an often automated (or highly manipulated) information stream.

If we interact with an information system enough, we learn to trust it. This is not always a good thing.

We now live in a world where search engines (knowing that we’re more likely to click on search results at the top of the list) allow the manipulation of search results. We live in a world where not only can you sponsor Tweets on Twitter, but you can now sponsor Twitter Trends (talk about the ultimate ability to take advantage of “what’s hot now”).

Is there anything left that we can trust? Yes. Our common sense. And that is our challenge – to not only make sure that we ourselves question and fact-check what we see, read or hear (in any information/news medium), but to be a leader, help encourage, influence and empower others to do the same.

If we can do that, then perhaps we have a chance to restore some sanity and faith to this digital world in which we all live.


Note: Map Graphic courtesy of Erika Orban, Wikipedia image courtesy of Wikipedia, Barack Obama image source unknown