"Is the Tipping Point Toast?" 01/28/2008, FastCompany.com

Some great points, and contentious arguments, are outlined in this article surrounding the idea that there are a select group of influential people that influence societal trends. This idea, outlined in Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point, has profoundly impacted the marketing industry for a number of years. The idea that certain people can "tip off" a trend, such as Hush Puppies in the mid-1990's as outlined in the article, gives a marketing agency a defined and scalable task: find and impact these select few.
Duncan Watts counters this contention with sophisticated computer models and large-scale studies, one of mirrors, though on a broader scale, Stanley Milgrams famous "Six Degrees of Separation" experiment in the 1960's. Though that initial study suggested a select 3 people accounted for over 50% of the final "degrees of separation" Duncan's study found this does not translate to a larger-scale experiment and was likely a statistical anomaly. The fact is, according to Duncan, successful trends have less to do with who starts them as it does with a societies general receptiveness to an idea or product. He uses forest fires as an analogy. No matter how powerful an initial spark is, if it occurs in a rain soaked, sparse forest with a well-equipped fire department near-by, it is unlikely to spread.
Duncan's ideas are well-conceived. No matter how influential a person (or group) is, they are not going to spark a societal trend based on their sole endorsement. Some of the methods used to support this idea have back-tracked successful trends to find that a few key-influencers helped spread the idea. This process takes for granted that the trend became successful though. I am sure unsuccessful trends would reveal a similar anomaly. I also feel they over-look the genuine nature of an endorsement here. They speak in great depth about key people with many social contacts beginning a trend, but I would like to see how these results vary when those people are paid to endorse the trend as opposed to genuinely discussing a product or idea they believe in.
People have become more and more sensitive to advertising in our society. A guard goes up as soon as we think we are being pitched a product or idea. Advertisers these days are tasked with approaching consumers while their guard is down, if they can do this they become much more influential. I imagine the same is true with trend setters. If their social network believes they are genuine in their endorsement the trends will be more likely to succeed.

Rating: 8/10

NYT Article: "All the New's That's Fit to Print Out"

In this July, 2007 article Jonathan Dee explores the efficacy of Wikipedia as an unbiased, authoritative news source and the hurdles involved in this endeavor given the vast online community of contributors involved with the site. In his quest Jon speaks with Jimmy Whales, the founder and "watchmaker-god" of Wikipedia along with various content supervisors known within the Wikipedia hierarchy as "admins". A position bestowed upon selected users (among the 4.6 million users at the time of this article) after nomination based on valuable contributions and review of responses to key questions. It is also the first step among a community of content "janitors" who have privileges to protect the integrity of the content on Wikipedia and preserve it's Five Pillars.

It is clear Jon values the intent of Wikipedia who's goal is to "make the sum of human knowledge available to everyone on the planet at no cost." It is also clear that he balances his respect for this noble cause with his academic and professional pursuit of journalism with one of the most respected names in print medium around, the New York Times. Multiple times throughout the article Jon outlines somewhat contentious exchanges with Jimmy Whales on who is contributing to the Wikipedia articles. He discusses one contributor who is a high school senior and suggests to Mr. Whales that contributors tend to be in their early 20's or younger. Mr. Whales suggests in response that editing encyclopedia entries is "not a young persons hobby".

Jon appears to justify the clear efficacy of Wikipedia, "which now accounts for 1 out of every 200 page views on the entire Internet", by suggesting it does not replace news sources (such as, oh, I don't know, the NYT) but rather regurgitates news already reported elsewhere operating as a "massive cooperative blog" while filtering "all the opinion out of it." It is clear Jon is attempting to outline the dichotomy of proper news and Wikipedia while expressing his respect for the endeavor and the individuals involved in it throughout this article.

(Side note: no "Wikipedia" registered in spell check?? Really??)

Rating: 8/10

Welcome

My name is Doug Bacon I am an Evening MBA student at Boston College. This blog is a course requirement for MI 621 (Social Media for Managers).