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Social influence: clue to create a successful product

No responsible for marketing dream that his "Stone", one that would allow him to reach potential customers with the highest impact and least effort possible. The penultimate fashion was to identify early adopters , this group of innovators to adopt a new product and thanks to their influence lead to the adoption of it among his group of emulators. Marketing gurus still defend from the rostrum of the best business schools this model, which would allow the miracle to see how they get stuck, just throw a small hook, all consumers of the potential target. The thing has its importance because the current army of market researchers has failed to end the mass media, that pernicious practice torpedo fishing anchovies.

And it seems that those who sell this technology to find early adopters it will be easy. As my friend Felipe in an excellent article "The scheme of majority and minority leaders-all of society ignores the actual social fragmentation, as referred to a homogeneity that no longer exists. [...] Take a reference group to consider early adopter and diffuser can be counterproductive, depending on what social groups. "You can not say more clear. The increasing fragmentation of society concerning the unviable-or ineffective, both da-identification system that early adopters. Come on, that diversity grows so large that the effort is equivalent to having as many references as potential consumers, so it will be of little help in locating expert references.

Why is it so difficult to predict whether a product will be successful or not? A recent research published by the journal Science offers a little grip to the market researchers suffered. The article works on the "paradox of success" which attempts to describe the fact that some books, songs and movies are a hit exorbitant compared to other relatively similar products in which they have invested similar amounts in communication. A team of sociologists and economists have investigated this paradox through an "artificial market", in which more than 14000 participants could download online songs unknown to them, in some cases without information of those chosen by other participants, and other with that information. What we have seen is that social influence is one of the determinants of selection. It is true that the quality was also influenced, and that good songs were preferred to the poor. But among the most successful songs were bad songs well referenced and among those who were not selected were good songs that many did not bother to listen.

Therefore, the success lies in quality and some parts of social influence. A major reason for choosing a particular album or book is to know that other people-not necessarily the early adopters- have chosen before. That is, the selection of a product, while ensuring a minimum quality is not very sophisticated procedures. "If they liked a lot of people, seems to think the consumer, sure I like me." And if knowledge of this preference is extended, it will cause a chain reaction in the rest of potential consumers, will become a best seller. So things like we not only themselves, but because they like to others. It is understood in this way the enormous capacity of the radio-prescription formula: the more people hear a song, more people end up liking the music.

Does this solve how to anticipate the success of a product? Not affecting the channel or format for influence - ads?, "Blog? - But in what essential: we must ensure that people know that many people use. Remember the old philosophy of 68 - "one hundred thousand flies can not be wrong: eat shit all" - but signed by serious people pass through the fine sieve of the scientific method.

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Does it improve student performance computer or dumb kids again?

In recent days the media have been filled with news of the type " more time with computers, best math shout" or "The regular use of computers favors school better results." These reports allude to a OECD report, published recently, according to which adolescents regularly using the computer in his home or at school, students perform better in math and reading. But is it really? Well, it is less clear. At least, when the findings of this study contrast with other studies, appear more than justified reasons to doubt the reliability of this study, which has been developed through the exploitation of data from 100,000 students in 15 years made last PISA test.

According to the authors of this report, students who use a computer several years ago obtained in mathematics, above average results, while those without computer access or use it for just tend to be behind the level of their education. But at the same time, the report links to the mediocre results from disadvantaged social backgrounds of students. And here is where the doubt jump: the results are worse for students from disadvantaged families have less access to computers, or is just the low socio-economic context which generates bad results?

And is that the report conveys the impression of a superficial connection between computer access and achievement in mathematics. For example, on one hand recognizes that girls have a domain smaller than the boys in the use of computer tools, and the probability that a student has a computer at home is less, under the same conditions. However, usually girls prefer guys on the comparative studies of academic knowledge. "In this case the computer does not make a difference?

Furthermore, the report notes that students in Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Ireland and Japan are those with less positive attitudes towards computers. However, are well known to the success of some of these countries in mathematics in the latest PISA, especially those in Finland. Is that also in this case meets the prediction of the report?

In previous studies, the OECD linking success in the literature number of books at home, a predictor of academic success and general acceptance. Now, the authors of the report of the OECD believe that access to computers is a better predictor. But the prediction of academic success or to predict the socio-economic? Because surely you can find a correlation between academic achievement and to have or not dishwasher or large-displacement vehicles, or second home, o. .. In short, what the study shows is that students from high socioeconomic background are more successful in school. But that is so well known that the report has little to offer in this regard. (If you want to know a little better the report, you can download a summary presentation ).

read the same data differently

"Computers become dumb kids," said A. Orlowski at The Register , in reviewing an excellent study of L. Woessmann and T. Fuchs - Computers and Student Learning - also made from the exploitation of PISA test data. How is it possible that the same data shed opposite conclusions? Well, I think Woessmann and Fuchs made a much deeper analysis.

They combined the results of the PISA tests with data from the questionnaires that accompanied them, and saw that a first analysis shows a direct correlation between good results and the availability of computers at home and at school. That is, the first impression agreed with the conclusions of the OECD report: computer use is associated with better academic results.

But soon found that this apparent advantage does not derive from computer use, but the socioeconomic context, high context students are more computers at home and going to school better equipped. So when Fuchs Woessman and corrected to maintain constant values \u200b\u200bfamily characteristics, they found that computer access did not correlate with test results. Moreover, by incorporating the features of the school also saw the availability of computer at home was becoming a negative factor for school performance: the more computers had at home were the worst in math and language .

Obviously, this does not justify the headline "fools the computer returns to children, which can only be explained by the pursuit of sensationalism, poor journalistic practice. However, it seems is that the presence of computers at home seems to distract students and hinder the effective study. The report suggests that although it is certainly the computer increases some capabilities, it is likely that these new capacities will be at the expense of the loss of others (math and reading comprehension) that have more impact on the test.

The reality is that the reviews are not usually measure general skills that may improve with the use of computers. Therefore not evaluated the new skills acquired by the use of ICT, and until you change the assessment model, you can not give a clear answer to the value provided by the computer in education.

For those interested in further, I recommend reading the two reports which provide further information in this sense:

• -Review report " New learning environments in school education "
• -Review of the report "Technology & Learning "