"The mind knows not what the tongue wants"

If I told you that data is the critical tool in how industries make you consume and saturate the markets with products. You most likely would say "no shit Sherlock". However, if I told you this, you wouldn't think that data is the tool to make people happy. A tool to horizontally reach demographics and create new business strategies and marketing styles.That one way of using data allows for organizations or companies to make people happy by giving them "something expensive, something to inspire to, to make them turn their back on what they think like now...". However, on a horizontal scale industries can use data to discern that there is the different kinds of mustard for different kinds of people. Data can demonstrate patterns and trends allowing industries to transform from good-to-great as Jim Collins says. Data can allow industries to change their tactics, and approach to a consumer base. It can dictate how research and development begins to progress for future product lines. Data is everything boys and girls. But enough generalities I will give some example to demonstrate my point. While watching the online video of Malcolm Gladwell he articulates how data can change corporate strategy. He illustrates how data can eliminate universals thus leading to horizontal market saturation. That horizontal saturation is a product from understanding data. That data showed it was worth wild and their was the ability to foster growth through the understanding of variables and veritably. He explains this by telling the story of Howard Moskowitz. Who is most famous for re-inventing tomato sauce.

Howard Moskowitz was approached by Pepsi. His task was to find the best diet Pepsi between 12% and 8% band of aspatain. After the data came in Howard realized that the data was a mess. While prior to Howard most corporations would just take an educated guess and market based off it. However, Howard suggested and in fact did break the data down into clusters and realized that the data showed something interesting. He realized that the question wasn't whats the best "pepsi", rather the question is what are the best "pepsis".

He then was approached to consult for vlasic and showed how they needed to be looking for the perfect pickles. He told vlasic they needed to not only improve their normal pickles but create a zesty pickle. Then he began to consult for campbells soup. He told them they needed to categorize and vary the sauces. He said they needed to vary them "according to every conceivable way that you can vary tomato sauce. By sweetness, by level of garlic, by tartness, by sourness, by tomatoey-ness, by visible solids." Then he took all the tomato sauces on the road to New York, Chicago, Jasksonville, and Los Angeles. Then he gave ten bowls of tomato sauce to people over a 2 hour period, after which they rated the sauces from 0 to 100. Once he had the data he didn't' look for one point of popularity, rather he looked at all the clusters and attempted to sort the clusters into marketable segments.

He realized Americans fell into three groups: sauce plain, sauce spicy, and sauce extra chunky. And of all three facts the third was the most significant. Specifically because in the 1980s you would not find extra chunky tomato sauce. Prego (campbell) said to Howard" you telling me that one third of Americans crave extra-chunky spaghetti sauce and yet no one is servicing their needs." To which Howard replied in the affirmative. So Prego went back reformulated their tomato sauce. After they released their extra-chunky tomato sauce it took over the spaghetti sauce industry.

"And over the next ten years they made 600 hundred million dollars off the line of extra-chunky sauces." Howard's astute idea of perfect pepsis, pickles, etc in combination with his poignant examination of data demonstrated that horizontal was the way of the future. People all over the industry realized that their approaches were all wrong. The other food corporation began to emulate this tactic to promote and stimulate growth. For example there were "14 different kinds of mustard, 71 different kinds of olive oil..."

Now you why is that important? It is important because "Howard fundamentally changed the way the food industry thinks about making you happy." It dispelled "assumption number one in the food industry." It "used to be that the way to find out what people want to eat--what will make people happy--is to ask them." However, the focus groups Prego and Ragu did for years did not reflect the data mostly because "people don't know what they want." Malcolm Gladwell quotes a phrase Howard loves to say: "The mind knows not what the tongue wants."

Howard made people realize they don't know what they want. To which Malcolm demonstrates (with some deal of levity) discussing how people really like their coffee versus how they request and say they like their coffee. Secondly Howard demonstrated the importance of horizontal segmentation. He dispelled the traditional practice of using data. It dispelled the notion that to make people happy you had to do it by giving them "something expensive, something to inspire to, to make them turn their back on what they think like now...". His deconstruction of the vertical model, and his vehement illustration of how all mustards, tomato sauces and so on existed on a horizontal plane. Thus eliminating the notion that "there is no good mustard, or bad mustard. There is no perfect mustard, or imperfect mustard." Howard asserts that "there are only different kinds of mustards that suit different kinds of people" Howard "fundamentally democratized the way we think about taste."

The third thing Howard did (articulated by Malcolm) was the deconstruction of the "notion of the platonic dish." He dissolved the idea that there is a perfect way to make a dish. He, Howard, eliminated the ought to be mentality in the food industry all from an examination of data. Howard's use and examination of data changed how the entire food industry operated and produced products. Howard broke the traditional methods thus created growth and development for an industry. He asserted that you should not use the data to attempt to find the "one thing" that a large amount want. Rather he suggested that the industry examine the data and find different varieties of a good that covered everyone in the market, for total saturation.

It's All We Know

There are surveys and questionnaires given to people all the time so researchers could get a better understanding of what it is people want and like. The more information we have and get, the easier it is to make decisions based on that, right? So you would think. However, I think the more information you have, the harder it is to analyze and really get the gist of it what it is you really have. Researchers do test all the time. What I find very interesting is how some researchers know their subjects are confronted with clearly differentiated alternatives before they take certain test or take different surveys. I read Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink, over the summer. In it, he talked about trying to get certain ideas and images in participants’ heads before taking a test or survey. For example, some of the subjects watched negative videos and listened to negative words, while other subjects watched positive videos and listened to positive words. This impacts the way people think and make decisions because of what the last thing they were thinking about was. And what makes people associate certain ideas with other ideas is previous data as well. Data and statistics, the numbers, are proof and sometimes that’s all people need to believe something and that always impacts the way people make decisions.

In one of my classes we looked at a lot of data and statistics about racism. When I look at things like residential segregation, class inequality, and occupational stratification there is an enormous amount of data about these things and a lot of times, they’re one-sided. For example, blacks tend to live in poor neighborhoods so when we pass by a poor neighborhood and see blacks, it seems normal. We seem the same patterns in this world and we’ve learned accept them because to us, that’s just the way the world works. What we read, hear, or learn from experience is what we tend to believe because that’s what we know and at the end of the day everything goes back to the data analysis that researchers come up with.


http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=628027

4 Ways that Data Analysis has Enhanced Societal Efficiency

1.) Population Skepticism: The ease with which large amounts of data can be compiled, analyzed and the results made readily available for the public, has added to the issues of trust that exist between the general public and the media. Results of data analysis are used frequently to prove a point due to how readily they can be obtained. Not all are legitimate, and the result is that people are beginning to critique data analysis more and more before they accept it as legitimate information. People can refine their searches and gain more accurate information.

2.) Science: Science as we know it would be nowhere near as successful as it is today, without the ability to store large amounts of data and analyze them quantitatively via the computing technology available to modern laboratories. Websites like PubMed and the National Center for Biotechnical Information allow for input of information and analysis of results almost within seconds. You can determine the evolutionary distance between species by typing the nucleotide sequence of a gene into a search engine, and in less than a minute, you can compare it with sequences found in the genomes of other species.

3.) Business: Corporations thrive when their commodity is in demand, and they are making a profit. The ability to quantitatively determine what exactly is in demand is an enormous resource for modern corporations. To be able to provide consumers with what they want helps business. Today, there are records of purchases by online buyers; there are surveys that specifically ask people what they like and do not like about a product. The ability to analyze results allows for greater profit based on customer satisfaction. This allows for greater efficiency in a McDonaldized society…increasing the profits of our most efficient corporations.

4.) Knowledge: Access to statistics regarding experiences, purchases, product satisfaction and disease diagnostics across populations, has given rise to a more cautious population. People take more time to “google” Honda vs Hyundai, or check out ConsumerReports before they decide which car to buy. He who is experiencing right upper quadrant abdominal pain, can research scientific journals or type his symptoms into WebMd before he deems it necessary to go to the hospital. With WebMd’s ability to refine search results from the multitude of medical cases in its’ database, the patient can get a better idea as to the severity of his illness.

People enjoy feeling like they are part of the majority. They like to compare themselves to others, because that is an aspect of human nature. One gains perspective as to where they stand in society. By quantitatively understanding the norms and experiences of the rest of the population, one can gage his actions with more confidence. More thinking takes place in the world of data processing, before actions are taken.

Not all results of data processing advancements are positive. But, one thing is for sure. Without the ability to compute large amounts of data for quantitative analysis, society would not be where it is today.

The Meaning and Impact of Data: From Individuals to Companies

Decision-making is a process of exploring the possibilities, and merging with a group or themselves in order to come up with a solution. Using data to make a decision can be explained in numerous ways.  Corporations, schools, students, teachers, scientists, researchers, innovation teams, and individuals use data to make decisions every day.  Making a decision based on data is common for everyone that is human.  We make decisions from what we read, write, see, and hear.

In dealing with the question of, how enormous amounts of data leads people to change their concept of how the world works involves sources like the media, press, and face-to-face conversations. Making sense of data and information to make a decision is in our human nature.  Some examples of the decision that we make are weather reports seen on TV, the prices of what food is in grocery stores, what school to go to, and what doctor to see.  Using the information that is available to us guides us through life.  During our days as humans we can decide not to deicide, and make decisions that we think are sometimes right and wrong.   

Thinkers and feelings are two categories of what kind of decision maker someone is.  A thinker may use things such as there reason, logic, and objectives in order to make a decision.  In order for a feeler to make a decision they use their, heart, and values.  This relates to the specific data that an individual chooses to believe or use.    

In the business culture data and decision-making is a very important skill to have not only to help others but individuals that are making a decision.  This brings up the topic of problem solving within a business, and a lot of the time this is put on the CEO, management, and team leaders.  In a professional environment using data to problem solve and make a decision requires recognizing the task at hand.  In a business and corporation it is important not to make decisions that will hurt the company. Sociology of Management, a current course I am taking discusses how good corporations make decisions that help and at times hurt a business. How the Mighty Fall, by Jim Collins one of he required books for class explains decision making and how data/information from successful and unsuccessful companies can help other corporations succeed. Decisions making has two major stages, problem identification and problem solutions.  Problem identification is “information about environmental and organizational conditions that are monitored to determine if performance is satisfactory in order to diagnose the cause of shortcomings, while the problem solution is a stage where alternative courses of action are considered and one alternative is selected and then implemented”.  How does this relate to the topic of how data leads people to change notions of how the world works?  Well, to make a decision in business there are steps that need to be taken to insure that the right decision is made. 

Data is collected from several parts of a company in order to hire the right people in order to put the right people in charge. Data is also collected to show and give other businesses a format to follow when hiring the right people. This is seen in a study done by Jim Collins, in How the Mighty Fall.  He describes two companies, Hewlett Packer (HP) and International Business Machines (IBM).  Both companies hire new CEO’s in order to achieve excellence after the corporations have fell tremendously in the early 1990’s.  HP hired Carly Fiornia, because the board at HP wanted a powerful, glamorous, exciting and celebrity leader.  In 1999, right before Fiornia was hired she was announced as the most powerful woman, right above Oprah Winfrey.  Fiornia did not succeed the expectations of the company because even though she was so powerful she didn’t use the right techniques and steps.  Fiornia made rash and fast decisions that helped the company in the short-run, but then hurt HP in the long run.  She was too busy with creating new slogans, and attracting media such as The Wall Street Journal, and even did a TV commercial.  She was eventually fired because the company began to fall.  In contrast to HP, the newly hired CEO of IBM, Louis V. Gerstner wanted to first concentrate on the task at hand and began to meet with management face-to-face to collect data in order to organize a plan for success.  He took a much different approach then Fiornia where his priorities revolved around basic activities, such as making sure the right people were in key seats.  He wanted to “regain profitability, increase cash flow, and put the costumer back at the center of everything” (Collins).  He took a much more pedestrian method, and declined to many interviews, and stories that media wanted to do on him because he saw that it would hurt the company and take it off track. 

When compared to Fiornia, and asked why he didn’t feel a sense of crises? He stated, “I have a sense of urgency that never changes whether we’re doing well or poorly.”  This is the right way to do things because he saw the large picture of things, while Fiornia didn’t.  In conclusion Gerstner increased profitability by slow and gradual change, while Fiornia used a more erratic pattern of change that did not work.    

This is just one example of many that show how data can change the way people’s notions of the world; in this case it was a company atmosphere.  Reviewing data, forming hypothesis, and creating the right plans of action helps not only companies but also every day people in society.  Both IBM and HP wanted to become great companies and they hired new CEO’s to help them do this.  Both companies collected data and information that helped them succeed and not succeed.  When a company fails the blame cannot only be put on the CEO’s/ leader but it is the data that the board of that company used.  Data is used to move toward a goal of creating positive change, and the decisions from that data can also be unsuccessful.
Why Data Matters

Innovation, invention, and implementation are also aspects within a company where data.  These are three aspects that companies use to become an effective and powerful force.  In order to become a successful competitor in the corporation world, companies must take risks, accept failure and work from their failures, and get everyone from small employees to large to participate in plans and implement them.  It is a company as a whole, and not just one person that collects data that they see important.  Getting the whole company involved in data collection is very important in decision-making because it is a deciding factor of a successful corporation.

Cyber Monday Takeover

Black Friday is a day that I want nothing to do with. I don't like people as it is, never mind standing in never ending line for hours with people who turn into animals over the last Xbox 360 Kinect. Sales on Black Friday are incredible but I can't be bothered. Every year my friends get hyped up to go to the Wrentham Outlets and try to convince me to come. It fails every time. I'd love to be a part of it but I would go absolutely insane. I'm sure many people feel the same way.
<--- NO THANK YOU People like to shop. People LOVE to shop when there are sales. Since Black Friday is such a hit, an online version of the 'holiday' would be awesome. It would allow people to benefit from all the great sales but relieve themselves of the headaches and desire to knock out the obnoxious people that surround them. In 2004 Black Friday raked in approximately 8 billion dollars. That statistic and those from previous years surged the birth of Cyber Monday, the online version of Black Friday.



Data and statistics derived from years of Black Friday were used to change the way people shop for the holidays. Although sales continue to increase for both Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I know for a fact that there are people who no longer venture out on that terrifying Friday. A few of my cousins told me this year they wouldn't be caught dead in the chaos of Black Friday. They said they have all they need in the comfort of their own homes on Cyber Monday. I believe that if Cyber Monday continues to grow, Black Friday will soon be no big deal. Cyber Monday reeled in 887 million dollars this year, 1 5 percent increase from last year. Black Friday sales only increased by .3 percent.
Although Cyber Monday may have revolutionized early shopping for holiday gifts, there could be a downside. It may sound insane but some people enjoy the Black Friday Rush. They like crowds, the day long adventure of standing in lines for hours before stores open and the battles over the 'last one'. The data may analyze the data in the wrong way. Maybe people like both Black Friday and Cyber Monday and if in the future Black Friday is erased, it would be a huge mistake. Cyber Monday is a perfect solution for my problems with Black Friday but no everyone else feels the same way.

1,547 Shoes…the complexity of choice

Let’s say you want to buy something, perhaps a new pair of dress shoes for a friend’s wedding this weekend. You don’t know exactly what you want, however you know that you don’t want to go through the hassle of buying shoes at the mall. You’ve heard of Zappos from a friend, and trust their good recommendation. Because Zappos sells more than just shoes, the process is a little more complex, but you hear they have lots of options, and since you don’t know exactly what you want, you think the options will help in your decision making process. So, you’ve picked a website to buy your shoes from, easy enough right? Well, let’s go through the steps to locate the perfect dress shoe:

1. Let’s assume you are male-click on Men’s
2. You are looking for shoes-click on Shoes
3. Because you have a life other than shoe searching, Zappos has kindly divided the 9, 935 results for Men’s shoes into 5 categories (Subcategory, Color, Brand, Size, and Width)
4. 5 categories-simple enough right? You tell me. There are 7 options within Subcategories, 29 Color options, 280 Brand options, 32 Size options, and 17 Width options, for a grand total of 365 options. Seems like Zappos in fact does think all you do is search for shoes.
5. Because you know you want dress shoes, go ahead and click oxfords in the Subcategory section-this narrows your choices down to 1,547.

1,547 shoes to choose from. Quite an overwhelming number, considering your search was narrowed down to just one website. While some may argue that this abundance of choice is beneficial, I choose to side with the opposition. To quote Barry Schwartz, noted psychologist and author of 2004’s The Paradox of Choice, the “effect of too much choice is paralysis, rather than liberation.” Schwartz highlights the popular misconception that the way to maximize freedom is to maximize choice. In reality however, this maximization of choice cripples the consumer, as people find it hard to make any choice at all with such an abundance of options. He contends that, “even if we manage to overcome the paralysis and make a choice, we end up less satisfied with the result of the choice than we would be if we had fewer options to choose from.” When we think about this notion with our example, it is rather easy to comprehend. With so many shoes to choose from, if you buy one and it's not perfect (and what shoe is truly perfect?), it’s easy to imagine that you could have made a different choice that would have been better. Thus, those black wingtip laceups which you thought were great when you bought them aren’t so great anymore, because you could have bought cap toe’s, or you could have bought a different brand of shoe altogether. Schwartz terms this as the “imagined alternative”, which prompts you to regret the decision you made, and this regret subtracts from the satisfaction of your decision, even if those black wingtip laceups were truly the best decision after all.

Our multitude of choices not only immobilizes our decision-making capabilities, they also contribute to self-blame. In the past, when only one type of dress shoe was available to purchase, any imperfection the shoe had was not our fault; rather it was the world’s fault, as there were no other options. However, in today’s modern society with countless types of dress shoes available, any imperfection the shoe may have is your fault. You could have done better with 1,547 shoes to choose from, there is no excuse not to have a perfect shoe. And this alarming thought not only applies to the search for shoes, it extends into consequential life decisions that consume our minds on a day-to-day basis. Like Schwartz says, “There is no question that some choice is better than none, but it doesn’t follow that more choice is better than some choice."

4 ways to snag hits on your blog- the quest for extra credit

The point of blogging is to be heard. We spend our time researching, formulating an opinion, and tactfully responding in a mere 700 words. If you’re like me, you don’t do this as a remedy for boredom, but want the fruits of your labor to be noticed. In the case of blogging, being ‘noticed’ doesn’t necessarily mean good or bad. People will agree and disagree. (Who doesn’t love controversy?)

The point is, your blog must make an argument to give people a choice of how they will respond. The topic, which for this class is technology, has for the most part been up to you, so make it something you’re interested in. I personally don’t love technology, so I found my most compelling arguments to come from my distaste. If you find your blog interesting, most likely someone else out there will too. I used David’s advice of using numbers and lists in my title, giving people an idea of what my blog is about, but leaving enough ambiguity to perk their interest and continue reading.

However, to accumulate traffic, I don’t feel it is adequate to rely alone on your blog’s interest factor. To be honest, much of my motivation came from the fact that as a 23 year old super duper senior, I’m ready to take school seriously and get good grades. I’m competitive. When I get a challenge like creating the most traffic, the incentive for those 20 points along with a hopefully guaranteed A, is enough to keep me hustling.

So how exactly does one hustle blog hits? It’s all about networking, which to me depends on how much effort you’re willing to put in. For starters, I posted my blogs on my Facebook frequently. When you have completed a blog, click “View Blog” and on the top left corner is an option to “Share.” You have the choice of posting your blog on your Facebook, Twitter, Google Read, or Google Buzz accounts. Take advantage of this feature, it’s easy and takes 2 seconds! Don’t pretend you don’t read your News Feed. I know you do and so does everyone else- if your blog is seen there, don’t you think at least someone will click? I also tagged a note to my posts letting people know my mission and thanking them for cooperating, clicking, and supporting my quest for extra credit.

 I also used my boyfriend’s account to post my blog again, hitting a whole new demographic of friends. Use your friends and their networks to spread the word. My dad was President of the Kiwanis Club in Chatham, so I used their Facebook site as well to post an ad for my blog. I guilt tripped some members into clicking simply by writing notes like, “If you love Doug Bryant, help out his daughter!,” or “Support Doug, support his daughter, and support Drew!” Kiwanis is linked to Circle K at Drew, so the Drew factor is always a hit.

Facebook is a great network, but you have to exhaust all of your resources. Use your email! Along with my own contacts, I hit up a lot of parent’s friends who were willing to check out my blog. Create an address book and with each blog, send it out to all of your contacts. I have Gmail, which saves every address I’ve ever emailed. I literally sent my blog to everyone. Don’t worry about sending to people you haven’t contacted in while. Re-acquaint yourself. There’s no shame in networking. Solicit! Solicit! Solicit!

Last but not least, there’s always the desperation card. Before I created a fairly extensive address book, I can’t lie and say I didn’t click my own blog at least 50 times. Go to the Morris County Library. There is no annoying ID and Password sign in, so you can quickly and easily access your blog. There are 35 public computers, use them all.

So there it is… all my blogging secrets. Creating traffic is easy. It’s all about networking, effort, and how badly you want to win. All of the tactics above are quick and feasibly done by anyone. You all have various networks you’ve created through your lives- use them. Don’t be too cool for school and think that just because these blogs are for class doesn’t mean they aren’t important. You put in the effort to write them, now put in the effort to make people read them! I hope you found this somewhat helpful and good luck with the remainder of your semesters!

Mallory.