I have been reading a marketing introduction (Armstrong, Kotler, Harker, & Brennan, 2009) which certainly makes for much easier reading than academic papers. These are initial notes on how marketing might throws light on the user of the web for public engagement with science.
Marketing as a discipline:
• Marketing is primarily prescriptive not descriptive. The book tells or advises people on how to do it.
• The evidence to back up the advice is almost entirely based on case studies. In this sense it does not come close to the rigour of a science or even the social sciences.
Marketing, public engagement with science, and the web
• Clearly marketing uses the web – digital marketing is a new and important branch of marketing – but the web can also use marketing. To be more precise people using the web can benefit from marketing concepts and attitudes.
• Most importantly marketing has at its heart “creating and maintaining profitable long term customer relationships”. The concepts of customer and profitable need to be expanded (you might even say twisted) beyond their normal meaning if they are to apply generally to the web – “customer” translates into “user” and “profitable” translates into something like “satisfactory”. Taking into account this translation, this is a mind-set that ought to pervade anyone trying to offer services via the web and therefore the underlying technology and standards. The big success stories Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon are very much aware of this (Amazon is the first case study in the book). Other institutions less so. In particular scientists typically do not see the consumers of their product (research) as customers or users.
• On page 12 the book describes five different marketing orientations:
o The production concept – focuses on producing and distributing my goods and service as efficiently as possible. The vast majority of scientists see the web in this light. What an efficient way to make research available.
o The product concept – focuses on quality and innovation. Some scientists, to their credit, see the web in this light. It gives an opportunity to demonstrate or present their discoveries in imaginative or exciting ways. Science museums are particularly adept at this.
o The Selling concept – partially shifts the focus from the product to the customer – getting customers to buy the product or service – but concentrates on the short term and looks for a customer to match the product rather the reverse. Scientists probably come closest to this attitude at conferences or other events when personally presenting their research, it is hard to see its equivalent on the web. This is partly because there is no well-defined transaction to record success as there is when a commercial organisation makes a sale.
o The Marketing concept – this completes the shift to customer focus. The organisation defines itself in terms of customer needs that it has the potential to satisfy – the products and services are responses to these needs. The best way to identify and meet these needs is to develop long term relationships. This is an approach that is alien to most scientists and is likely to cause a negative response. Science should be pure and about discovering how the world is – not about meeting needs. The idea that the web would be vehicle for creating long term relationships with customers to meet their needs would be very hard to take.
o The Social Marketing concept – this goes one further than the marketing concept and takes into account not only potential customers but also social forces such as environmental considerations. Scientists are better disposed to respond to this attitude than a pure marketing approach – climate change is the obvious example. Nevertheless there is a still a presumption that society should respond to their science and the web is a tool for doing this – rather than a tool for building relationships and understanding the users’ needs and viewpoints.

Hypothesis and Experimentation

The scientific method

The hypothetico-deductive aspect of the scientific method focuses on the observation.  This observation leads to a guess or logical guess called the hypothesis that tries to explain how a system works.  From there, some predictions are made from this hypothesis and the experimentation or tests begin to try to prove it.

After the experimentation, the results can only be either consistent or inconsistent with the hypothesis.

These sets of experimentation will allow the hypothesis to be more consistent with the implementation of the project.  But it is important to link the results properly with the hypothesis.  This is where the statistics come in.

Statistics

Statistics are use in many different industries. Statistics will allow us to make decisions about large numbers of subjects which we can be able to group into some sort of systems.  This way we can see patterns or data that is not visible through ‘static’ numbers.

It is extremely important to understand how statistics work.  This is due to the necessity to analyse the information inside them.  If we can not produce a proper statistical model, perhaps we won’t be able to make a good decision about our project. Also, if we can not understand statistics, there is no way we can see errors or disprove a theory or result.

Graphs

Once we have developed the statistical models we also have the option of visualizing this data. Or perhaps analyzing more in depth the information provided.

Mean, Error, Percent Error, and Percent Deviation

All these arithmetical/statistical tools can help us to understand our data.  For example the Percent Deviation will allow us to understand or to see the whole extent of the data, not only the mean number.

σ =

∑d2 n-1

Percent Deviation

All statistical models are methods of obtaining the probability of success of our experiments which will help making a decision about our hypothesis or group analysis

Reporting Experiments

Through the report is where the explanation about the study. Peter Harris (2008) points 5 elemental items for the report.

• What you did
• Why you did it
• How you did it
• What were your findings
• What do you think it shows

This can then be translated to a formal document presentation like this:

• Title
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Method
• Results
• Discussion
• References
• Appendices

So, through this report we are intended to provide the information and the appropriate material. For this we also have to consider our reader.  Who is intended to see our information. This is important because perhaps we will have to give an introduction to our area of study. If we are presenting the document to Computer Scientists, perhaps we need to give and induction to Heritage or Visual Communication.

Within museums

The statistics and the report provided is also an intrinsic part of the analysis. Before even starting to provide model experimentation, it is important to provide a hypothesis.  Something like:

• What are the main reasons why small museums don’t have access to big collections?
• How many visitors does each museum have per year/per day/per month?
• How many times does an expensive collection travel through different museums?

It is important to start analyzing this type of information in order to visualize the real requirements not only of the project but also of the museum. problem or situation.

Bibliography

Brookshear, J. G. (2010). Computer science an overview. (11th ed.). Addison-Wesley,.

Harris, P. (Peter R. ). (2008). Designing and reporting experiments in psychology (3rd ed., p. 284). Maidenhead :: Open University Press,

McKillup, S. (2006). Statistics explained an introductory guide for life sciences (p. 267). Cambridge :: Cambridge University Press

In my first blog post called Self and business in social networks, I was refering to the concept of self and four methods through wich self-consciousness is achieved. In his first trilogy volume called The Rise of the Network Society, in the chapter Prologue: the Net and the Self, Castells explains that the first step in an informational society is the organization  by recognition of itself based on cultural attributes. This was the fourth method of self identification described in my post: 4. cultural perspectives – depending on the origin of the individual. In the second volume The Power of Identity, Castells defines identity as a source for the meaning and experience, distinguishing between three forms and origins of identity building:

1. Legimitizing identity – introduced by dominant institutions e.g. nationalism
2. Resistance identity – generated by the dominated minorities opposed to the institutions of the society
3. Project identity – based on some cultural values, a new identity is built

e.g. feminism challanging patriarhal family, reproduction, sexuality and personality on which societies have been historially based

e.g. green culture, smart meters, preserving nature

In the final chapter called Conclusion: Social Change in the Network Society, Castells sees the information networks we presented in our previous post as the organizers of activity and sharing information, as producers and distributors of cultural codes.

I see a similarity between Castells’s forms of building identities and Nietzsche’s history types:

1. Monumental history – study of nation’s heroes conducted in order to invoke them in all their greatness [1]
2. Antiquarian history – local history of specific social and civic communities [2],  history as consolation and reassurance, as the positive continuity that provides a people with its identity [1]
3. Critical history – the sort of history one utilizes when the monumental structures fail to inspire and when antiquarian musings become mired in unproductive thoughts and a conservative motionlessness [2]

Wikipedia differentiates identity as personal and social, where social identity is defined as a  person’s conception and expression of their individuality or group affiliations  (such as national identity and cultural identity).

In our next post we will look into Castell‘s last trilogy volume End of Millennium.

References

[1] F. Nietzsche, Untimely meditations

[2] Blogpost, Nietzsche’s Three Types of History in Literature: Stephan Heym’s THE KING DAVID REPORT

This week I turn to my second discipline, economics, as a basis for considering a different slant on my research question (how the Web changes competition between businesses). While having some degree of economics knowledge in my background, I have approached the subject area afresh in a systematic fashion with guidance from a book looking at economics for businesses (Sloman, Hinde and Garratt 2010).

My starting position is to look at the essence of economics: how to get the best outcome from limited resources. In other words, economics tackles the problem of scarcity which is a central problem faced by all individuals and societies. Demand and supply and the relationship between them are central to this analysis. Also key is the concept of choice (known as “opportunity cost”): the sacrifice of alternatives in the production or consumption of products or services.

Economics is traditionally divided into two main branches: macroeconomics and microeconomics. Macroeconomics examines the economy as a whole at a national or indeed international level (i.e. aggregate demand and supply), whereas microeconomics examines the individual parts of the economy. The latter includes all the economic factors that are specific to a particular firm operating in its own particular market. As microeconomics explores issues surrounding competition between firms, and due to limits in time, I will not be looking at macroeconomics in any detail (other than indirectly via a general awareness of the factors that affect economies as a whole, which in turn affect individual firms as an important determinant of their profitability).

From a microeconomics perspective, the choices made by firms are studied alongside their results. Such choices include how much to produce, what price to charge, how many inputs to use, what types of inputs to use and in what combinations, how much to invest etc. Making such choices involve rationality in weighing up the marginal benefits versus the marginal costs of each activity to best meet the objectives of the firm.

It is worth pausing at that point to make a comparison between the relevance of economics to business decision-making and the contents of my previous blog posts on management study’s approach to business activities and competition between firms. Both use similar terminology and look to the structure of industry and its importance in determining firms’ behavior. They also both look at ranges of factors that affect business decisions and consider the wider environment in which firms operate (including conditions of competition in relevant markets) in helping to devise appropriate business strategies. For example, Sloman, Hinde and Garratt also refer to how the pace of technological change has had a huge impact on how firms produce products and organize their businesses, together with a ‘PEST’ – political, economic, social and technological – analysis (compare my previous blog entry ‘Management 102’).

Where economics (more specifically, we can call it ‘business economics’) differs from management is its focus on how firms can respond to demand and supply issues. In other words, its emphasis is more on internal decisions of firms related to achieving rationally efficient outcomes and the effects of such decision-making on a firm’s rivals, its customers and the wider public.

In keeping with the theme of efficiency, economics has traditionally considered that business performance should be measured against a structure-conduct-performance (structure affecting conduct affecting performance) paradigm measured by several different indicators. Performance is also determined by a wide range of internal factors and external factors other than just market structure, such as business organization, the aims of owners and managers.

In returning to the theme of how economics differs from management/business studies, economists have traditionally paid little attention to the ways in which firms operate and to the different roles they might take. Firms were often seen merely as organizations for producing output and employing inputs in response to market forces. In other words, virtually no attention was paid to how firm organization and how different forms of organization would influence their behavior. This position has changed as economist interest in firms’ roles with respect to resource allocation and production (and how their internal organization affects their decisions) has increased.

Economists have also conventionally assumed that firms will want to maximize profits. The traditional theory of the firm shows how much output firms should produce and at what price, in order to make as much profit as possible. While it may be reasonable to assume that the owners of firms will want to maximize profits, it is the management (as separate from the shareholders) that normally takes decisions about how much to produce and at what price. Management may be assumed to maximize their own interests, which may conflict with profit maximization by the firm. In summary, the divorce of ownership from control implies that the objectives of owners and managers may diverge and hence the goals of firms may be diverse.

In their introductory section on business and economics, Sloman, Hinde and Garratt include an interesting case study on the changing nature of business in those countries where economies are knowledge driven and innovation is therefore central to business success. They include a quote from a European Commission publication (Innovation Management and the Knowledge-Driven Economy, 2004) on this point:

“With this growth in importance, organisations large and small have begun to re-evaluate their products, their services, even their corporate culture in the attempt to maintain their competitiveness in the global markets of today. The more forward-thinking companies have recognised that only through such root and branch reform can they hope to survive in the face of increasing competition.”

Thus, it is suggested that the dynamics of knowledge economies require a fundamental change in the nature of business. This is an interesting comment in considering the impact of the Web on competition from an economical viewpoint. Knowledge is fundamental to economic success in many industries. The result is a market in knowledge, with knowledge diffusing and cutting across industry boundaries. Another result is the increasing outsourcing of various stages of production and collaborations across industries. Furthermore, whereas in the past businesses controlled information, today access to information via sources such as the Web means that power is shifting towards consumers.

Next week I will turn to the concept of markets from an economic viewpoint and how competition is assessed via the theory of the market.

Just reading Repko’s book on Interdisciplinary Research. Very interesting to consider that,’ Interdisciplinary research is a decision-making process that is heuristic, iterative, and reflexive. Each of these terms – decision-making, process, heuristic, iterative, and reflexive-requires explanation.’

I’m finding this very intriguing, especially in relation to one of our courseworks that involves outlining the process involved in searching for and (hopefully) finding material on a randomly selected question that has something to do with the web at its heart. It is interesting that although we think of searching as ‘seeking’ there is sometimes an element of filtering or of looking for material that might reinforce one’s original ideas.

Have also been reading on economics in Afghanistan, Intelligent Agents (not secret ones), hypermedia, (just discovered The Humument – an old favourite of mine is about to be released as an app) bots (including narrative bots and social bots – here’s one I made earlier) and privacy. At present these don’t strictly appear to be to do with my original question, but some of the topics keep re-presenting themselves to me and so I’m keeping an eye on them, to see if they might develop into a personal theme. Have also been reading on spimes, hyperreality and skeuomorphs, and came across this blog from Matt Jones on The Internet of Things.

Have a good introduction to Sociology (Giddens) but need to also check to see what isn’t in it, as it’s quite an old copy.

Last week I wrote about organization contexts. This week I wanted to change tack to consider business planning and marketing, and how they fit within the competitive process (in particular, in the online world). Changes in the external world create uncertainty and management planning is a systematic way to cope with that and to adapt to new conditions.

Strategic plans apply to the whole organization or business unit, setting out the long-term goals and objectives of an enterprise (effectively, where it wants to be and how to get there). It will usually combine an analysis of external environmental factors with an internal analysis of the organization’s strengths and weaknesses. This can be referred to as a SWOT assessment (bringing together reflection on internal Strengths and Weaknesses and external Opportunities and Threats). It includes drawing information as described in last week’s post as Porter’s five forces analysis of the competitive environment in which organizations are situated.

Forecasting is relevant in dynamic and complex situations but encounters problems when the sector is marked by rapidly changing trends. So-called scenario planning is an attempt to create coherent and credible alternative stories about the future. For example, consideration might be given to how the internet (as a major force in the external environment) might affect a company’s business over the next 5-10 years. According to Boddy, this process can bring together new ideas about the environment into the heads of managers, thus enabling them to recognize new and previously unthinkable possibilities. This, in turn, facilitates the development of contingency plans to cope with outcomes that depart from the most likely scenario. On the downside, the scenario planning process is time-consuming and costly.

Once a plan has been formulated, the next stage is to identify what needs to be done by whom. New technological projects often fail, for example, because planners pay too much attention to the technological aspects and too little to the human aspects of structure, culture and people. Good communication and implementation structure are therefore key.

Hand-in-hand with planning is the topic of decision-making under management theory, including the ability to recognize a problem and set objectives in trying to find a solution. A company facing rapidly changing technological and business conditions needs to be able to make decisions quickly. Boddy gives the example of managers at Microsoft being slow to realize that Linux software was a serious threat which caused a delay in competitive reaction.

There are various decision-making management models, including: computational strategy (rational model); compromise strategy (political model); judgmental strategy (incremental model); and, inspirational strategy (garbage can model). It is interesting to make comparisons between economics and the first aforementioned model which suggests that the manager’s role is to maximize economic return to the company by making decisions based on economically rational criteria. Developments in technology have encouraged some observers, says Boddy, to anticipate that computers would be able to take over certain types of decisions from managers. It is true that new applications are used in many organizational settings when decisions depend on the rapid analysis of large quantities of data with complex relationships by using rational, quantitative methods (such as in utility companies). Such automated decision-making systems “sense online data or conditions, apply codified knowledge or logic and make decisions – all with minimum amounts of human intervention” (Davenport and Harris, 2005). Of course, a behavioral theory of management decision-making – as well as economics in general – is also possible.

Understanding strategic management decisions also helps to analyze an organization’s perceived relationship with the outside world set against the particular features of the market in which it competes. In the early stages of a market’s growth, there are often few barriers to entry and establishing customer loyalty is all-important, but this changes as the market matures and customers become familiar with the products being sold. Markets also vary in their rate of technological change. At one extreme, firms experience a slow accumulation of minor changes, while at the other they face a constant stream of radical new technologies that change the basis of competition. Managers need to identify the core competences that an organization has or needs to compete effectively. Analysis of the separate activities in the value chain can assist in this respect: the firm’s cost position and its basis of differentiation from its competitors to add value being two main sources of competitive advantage.

It is a moot question to what extent strategy perspectives developed when the competitive landscape contained only offline firms are still relevant in the internet age. The Web allows firms to overcome barriers of time and distance, to serve large audiences more efficiently while also targeting groups with specific needs, and to reduce many operating costs. However, it has been argued (Kim 2004) that some things stay the same – such as the need to invest in a clear and viable strategy. On that basis, generic strategies of differentiation and cost leadership still apply to online business. Nonetheless, a focus strategy (involving targeting a narrow market segment, either by consumer group or geography) is not as relevant to online firms as it is to offline ones because the Web enables companies to reach both large and tightly defined companies very cheaply. Indeed, Kim (2004) argues that online strategies may be proposed as forming a continuum of cost leadership and differentiation as an integrated competitive strategy rather than as alternatives as they are sometimes conceived (think of how Ryanair and British Airways now compete in closer proximity to one another due to the online effect).

Marketing has been defined as a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want through creating and exchanging products and value with each other (Kotler and Keller 2006). Its basic function is to attract and retain customers at a profit.

In order to identify customers, and select the marketing mix that will satisfy customer demands and succeed in achieving organizational objectives, managers need information about consumer demands, competitor strategies and changes in the marketing environment. Marketing is, therefore, an information-intensive activity involving understanding buyer behavior. Aware of a need, consumers also search for information that will help them decide which product to buy.

A marketing channel decision for companies is whether to make purchases of their products available online. This channel allows easy gathering of data for marketing purposes. This decision has been embraced by many businesses such as easyjet and lastminute.com. Using electronic channels of distribution is a differentiation tool, on the grounds that consumers prefer online convenience and see this as a product feature. Indeed, for many companies, online product distribution is a complementary channel used to widen product access to geographically remote markets (e.g. supermarkets, which often offer discounts over store prices).

This point ties in more generally to issues around how existing physical businesses can take advantage of the opportunities that the Web offers. For example, Virgin managers were quick to pick up on the fact that their businesses were ideally suited to e-commerce in the early internet years. To exploit this potential, they decided to streamline their online services with a single Virgin web address. This general topic is one to which I would like to return (in particular, I have taken out a book from the library by Groucutt and Griseri entitled ‘Mastering e-business’ which I would like to work through).

However, in the interests of balance, next week I turn to my other discipline and field of interest: economics 101.

After some time looking across the surface of a few subjects; logic, statistics, game theory and the psychology of group dynamics, I have found a focus for the two subject areas of interest. Game theory is tough, very tough and the maths leaves me out of my depth in 3 out of four library loans. But I will persist with it as I am more and more convinced of its value to post-data visualisation work, which is at the centre of my studies this year. The subject which sits at the front of the workflow is becoming more clear, the concepts within statistics and logic provide a set of resources to aid in the formation and collection of data and information. This requires me to spend more and more time on Khan Academy brushing up on A-level (and post-A-level maths – ouch).

I know I shouldn’t be looking to understand these subjects completely, that would be impossible, but reaching conscious incompetence is equally challenging. I will attempt to give an overview of Game Theory on the next post.. (!)

(Note: I am posting this in advance to compensate for the fact that I will be attending a 2-day conference later this week and may not be able to contribute to the blog according to the normal schedule. In other words, I have done double reading this week and I am posting this one week in advance.)

Social perception starts off with very simple ideas. To start with, these theoretical model says people perceive the world with categorised ideas, which is known as schema. These schemas include categories for people, self, events, and roles. These schemas are fairly self-explanatory. For example, person schemas contain all the abstract conceptual models of personality trades or person prototypes that allows a person to categorise and make conclusions from past experience of interacting with other people who are in this category. A typical statement will be, ‘ so you are a farmer, I have met a farmer before and he was like these are like that ’.

Regarding self-schemas, is how we look at ourselves, our past experience, and how we relate to the world around us. Event schemas is concerned with the sequential organisation of events in everyday activities. These would include anticipating events, setting aims and objectives, and making plans. Finally, role schemas are concerned with behaviour and traits of people with specific rule positions in society.

Schemas and stereotype and prejudice

This is an interesting concept. If fundamentally the way we process and understand the world is by categorisation and the use of schemas as suggested, then generalisation is unavoidable. For example, we may have a role schema for a senior medical consultant, or we may have a role schema for a young teenager. Each of these roles would have different characteristics and personalities, and likely as these characters are mentioned, each and everyone of us would have formed a picture of what we think these characters would look, dress, and behave. Under this understanding, stereotyping is both normal and necessary.

However, stereotyping is generally thought of negatively. For example, racism is a form of stereotyping. Discrimination of any kind has an element of stereotyping. Commonly, schoolchildren are taught not to judge a book by its cover so to speak. This creates a necessary conflict between theoretical models, human behaviour and generally excepted moral norms. The question is, does this mean we have to natural tendency to discriminate?

Fortunately, this is not always the case. It is argued that categorising in itself does not automatically mean discrimination. It is largely dependent on and the attitude of the individual towards members of the category. In other words, does it make any difference whether people are categorised according to age, gender or nationality? People are being put into categories all the time. In most cases, categorisation has not caused any problems. However, problems arise when unfair or even aggressive attitude is shown towards a particular group.

Take skin colour for an example. In a country where both the black and white mix well and see no distinction between themselves, skin colour categorisation has no problem. However, in countries where the blacks are seen as born to be slaves, categorisation becomes a problem. Or in a company where all the women are considered less capable and dedicated than their male colleagues, categorisation becomes a problem. Therefore, it is argued that attitudes is the determining factor.

Moving on

I am thoroughly intrigued by the idea of schemas and perception and attitudes. I will be following this up and see what I can find about formation of attitudes.

Social cognition is all about the cognitive activities and processes in the context of social relationships. The broad categories in social cognition would include things like social perception, attitudes, attributions, self and identity, prejudice and ideology. In this blog, I will focus on the some of the theoretical foundations of social cognition. This will be followed by a separate post discussing some of the broad categories mentioned above.

There are several main ideas under cognitive models. One of which is how we can use metaphors to describe the cognitive processes. For example, these processes can be described as an information processor. Another metaphor also commonly used is a naive scientist model. Under this model, people I said to understand the world around them in the manner of a scientist. They make observations, to hypothesise, they observe again, and eventually coming to a conclusion. Although many other metaphors are also used, information processor and the naive scientist model are by far the most common.

Another approach is called perceptual cognitivism. Under this theory, nothing sensed by the person can be said to be true or absolute truth. Everything sensed by any person is a perception of reality. However, it is argued that given the enormous amount of stimulus around us, it will be impossible to process them all. Therefore, it was proposed that schemas exist to allow categorisation of different stimulus, which in turns allows the person to reduce the amount of processing. This is called mental representations.

Under identity theory, a distinction between personal identity and social identity is made. Fundamentally, personal identity is strictly personal and does not involve any other individuals. For example, statements such as ‘ I am hungry ’, ‘ I am hot ’ and ‘ I love swimming ’ are strictly rational and does not involve any other individuals. By contrast, statements such as ‘ I am Chinese ’and ‘ I am a web scientist ’ shows aspects of social identity. Social identity is concerned with how an individual views his or her own relationships with other members of the group.

It has been shown that where categorisation exist, typical expectation or stereotype within the category is often exaggerated while those that are counter stereotyped behaviour are often underestimated. It has also been known that depending on how the individual perceive he or she compares with the other members of the social group, he or she may evaluate him or herself differently.

Moving on

I will be summarising what I have learned about social perception and attitudes in the next blog.