A version of this article was published on PsychologyToday.com in the blog “Positively Media.”

Dexter is a Showtime series about a serial killer with a code. He only kills the bad guys who deserve it. We love Dexter precisely because he finds bad guys [...]]]> by John & Pamela Rutledge

A version of this article was published on PsychologyToday.com in the blog “Positively Media.”

Dexter is a Showtime series about a serial killer with a code. He only kills the bad guys who deserve it. We love Dexter precisely because he finds bad guys and kills them before they can hurt us. In a world plagued by terrorism, lost jobs, shrinking retirement accounts, political scapegoating, outsourcing, and freeway shootings, it’s nice to have a guy around with strict code of honor who doesn’t mind getting his hands a little dirty to restore order. There are many television programs on this theme that identify and defeat bad guys using a spectrum of innovatively-employed physical and mental talents: Leverage, Human Target, White Collar, the Mentalist, not to mention the uber-avenger Steven Seagal, whose movies frequent Spike TV.

Humans are order-seeking creatures. Our brains work hard to make things fit into the patterns we know; the patterns that we can predict and that make us feel comfortable. The ability to predict is what defines our intelligence, according to Jeff Hawkins (see his 2007 TED conference talk). Making sense of patterns by matching incoming information to the things we already have in storage is how we know what’s going on, and tells us how safe we are. If what we see or hear doesn’t fit with how things are supposed to be, we get scared. When we get scared, we seek order more than ever. We will do almost anything to get it.

Hindering this drive toward cognitive consonance is the fact that humans are hard-wired to notice things that are dangerous. Out in the wilds, noticing the lion was much more important for our survival than the noticing the tree. Right down to our eyeballs, we are made to detect movement. If things are stationary, they can’t hurt us. If things change abruptly (or run and jump), we have to watch out. And we do. All the time.

This hasn’t gone unnoticed by the mass media, marketers, or politicians. Fear messaging gets our attention. We’ve been on orange alert ever since 9/11. In the absence of real emergencies, there is no shortage of topics to escalate to a fever pitch and blame when necessary: crime, drugs, outsourcing, video games, television, illegal immigrants, China, Iran, North Korea, Internet, corporate conglomerates, and Wall Street.

The trouble is, that leaves us in a permanent state of craving for someone to blame and someone like Dexter who promises to restore order by making them pay.

Nobel prize winner Eric Kandel repeatedly shocked sea slug neurons and learned that nerve cells never fully recover from repeated assault. As a society, we are suffering from a kind of post-traumatic generalized anxiety disorder, a by-product of a decade of rapid change, economic difficulties, and relentless fear tactics. We are all convinced that there is danger at every turn.

Dexter may be addicted to killing, but we have our own addiction for order. We’re in a permanent state of fear arousal about the state of the world, vibrating away like Kandel’s sea slug. We want order and we want it badly. So badly, in fact, that we are willing to be a morally flexible and embrace Dexter’s methods of achieving it. In real life, moral flexibility is a slippery slope. History is replete with examples right here in the US of abusing people’s rights under the guise of restoring a sense of order in society. Dexter is just a TV show, a fictional narrative, albeit at the more violent end of the vigilante continuum. We might, however, want to take note of the overall themes of popular programming. They are a good barometer of our social anxiety and vulnerabilities. It is not a big leap to get from Dexter’s code to things like McCarthyism or Guantanamo, all in the name of good.

If you had any doubts about the impact social networking tools and social media have on the world as we know it, watch this Advertising Age video of Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz talk about the changes they’ve made in their approach to reaching skiers and snow enthusiasts. While this is [...]]]> Published on PsychologyToday.com “Positively Media.”

If you had any doubts about the impact social networking tools and social media have on the world as we know it, watch this Advertising Age video of Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz talk about the changes they’ve made in their approach to reaching skiers and snow enthusiasts. While this is a great example of responsive and proactive marketing, it reveals bigger trends about how social media technologies are changing the way people interact with information and how that impacts their behavior.

Five Things to Remember About Social Media

1. A picture is worth a thousand words but a video says it all. Video is a powerful communication tool. That seems obvious, of course. Humans process information from images far more efficiently than words alone. Video is an image on speed-it engages different sensory inputs and delivers an image stream. Social media allows for the distribution of videos to be immediate, targeted, personal, and accessible on-demand through YouTube, emails, mobile devices, and websites. Websites, in fact, may be the distribution dinosaurs of the bunch because people have to go to the site to find stuff. New tools are making it easier and easier to bring information to us, not matter where we are.
2. Honey we shrunk the time. The acceptable time lag for receiving information has radically shortened. Our expectations are now that we can (and should) get what we want to know right away. Decisions are made with real-time information. Who wants to book a ski vacation three months ahead and find out when you arrive that the snow’s no good? The implications of this for your customers is that if you can’t make good information easily and quickly available, they are going to be frustrated and it will reflect on their opinions about the competence and reliability of you, your product or your service. It doesn’t matter if you sell ski vacations or boob jobs.
3. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. The expectation to have real time information for our decision-making means we expect transparency, authenticity, and, heaven forbid, honesty. And we don’t just expect it about products we buy. We expect it from politicians, doctors, friends, and service institutions. If we don’t get it, we feel disrespected. There is no trust-and no business-where there is a perception of disrespect.
4. Together again for the first t ime. This new environment has to be part of your strategy whether it’s for marketing or media literacy. You can’t separate social media from marketing and management and successfully run a business any more than you can separate content production and user-choice from critical thinking about message analysis in media literacy training.
5. It’s the system, stupid. Social media is based on networks. If you hear the word “system,” and still think it’s a con or a n institution independent of you, you need to reorient. It is no longer possible to act in isolation. We are part of a system that all works together–for better or worse. Just like supply and demand, we are in this together. More importantly, systems have very different properties than unidirectional information flows. Messages travel across network hubs and nodes. This means that everytime information hits a hub, it automatically disseminates information to all its nodes. Imagine how germs spread in a room full of kindergartners and you’ll get the idea.

Rob Katz is a smart guy. By empowering his customers with current and accurate information about ski conditions, rates, and services, he is building a deeper, richer, and much more reciprocal relationship with them than he ever could have with ads in Condé Nast traveler. Using social media this way develops relationships based on trust and providing value rather than selling. Priceless.

Away messages vary (one hopes) [...]]]> Are there psychological implications of chat status in GChat or iChat or AIM? Think of them as today’s answering machines. They are an opportunity to express some aspect of yourself. Sort of like vanity plates without the level of commitment or having to stand in line at the DMV.

Away messages vary (one hopes) depending upon whether the chat account is used for business or personal, but all messages display shades of personality and technological expertise. Their brevity demands that you tap into existing social metaphors if you want to deliver a message, such as obtuse references and in-jokes that only certain people will get or that evoke a commonly accepted stereotype. Nevertheless, our personality does dictate how we interact with the world. Why should status messages be any different?

If you use the supplied away messages and you’re young(ish), it means you can’t be bothered with something so trivial as customizing your chat status message and besides, you send messages to your real friends on Facebook anyway. If you use the supplied status messages and you’re old, it means you don’t know they can be customized but that you feel very good about figuring out how to work chat at all.

Often, the content is about the type of content more than the content itself. For example, sensitive-types post depressing lyrics from Indy music so you’ll know they are deep.

Introverts keep their away message up all the time because the people who know them, know they might be there even if the status indicator says they are away. They will send a chat anyway. On the other hand, if the introvert doesn’t want to answer, he/she can claim they really were away. It’s okay to set personal boundaries. This is one way of doing that. It’s sort of high tech call screening.

Extroverts (and Narcissists) always want to be available even if they’re not. Extroverts post constant updates about what they’re doing so you can be involved in their every activity. They can’t believe you can possibly NOT want to know what they’re doing. It’s sort of a slow-moving Twitter thread without obnoxious promises about making money or getting followers.

Intellectuals post thought-provoking and erudite remarks often involving other languages or quotes form Nietzsche or Kafka drawing on the standard “I’m an intellectual” stereotype.

Humorous and quirky off-the-wall status messages mean that you are supposed to remark on the author’s cleverness or at least respond in kind.

Invisible is for eavesdropping in a stealth and stalker kind of way. That positive way to think about this is that it’s a great chance to emulate positive social interactions (social learning theory kind of stuff). The negative is, well, it’s just stalking and kind of a power trip.

Status messages provide context for the message-receiver from the message-sender. What tools we select and what we choose to say is mostly dependent on whom we’re talking with. Both sides of the equation matter for communication to happen at all.

A recent survey by the Career College Association reported that 9 out of 10 Americans think college is important for career opportunities and 67% believe that education is the key to competitiveness in the global economy. Turns out education can also [...]]]> A version of this article ran on PsychologyToday.com in my blog “Positively Media.”

A recent survey by the Career College Association reported that 9 out of 10 Americans think college is important for career opportunities and 67% believe that education is the key to competitiveness in the global economy. Turns out education can also be the key to keeping your job in an economic downturn. Recent employment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that not only do people with more education earn more, but in tough times like these, education provides a buffer against unemployment. The unemployment rate for people with a bachelor’s degree or higher as of October 2009 was 4.6%. However, compare that to the percent of people out of work with less than a high school diploma– 4%. When it comes to unemployment, 10% is a lot. The desire for more employment options is also fueling a spike in enrollment of adults returning to school.

The good news is that technology can help. First, it allows you to build a persuasive argument to inspire your kids. You can find employment and earning potential numbers (including charts) at the Bureau of Labor Statistics website so at the dinner table you can show your kids why it’s so important to get an education. (Make sure you translate the numbers into a currency your kids will understand, like clothes or cars.)

More importantly, however, communications technologies make education available to people–both young and old–for whom it was previously out of reach. Traditional higher education programs can be prohibitive for a number of reasons: cost, geography, admission requirements, or home and family demands. Also, according to a report by Howell, Williams, and Lindsay Thirty-two Trends Affecting Distance Education: An Informed Foundation for Strategic Planning , the current higher education infrastructure isn’t equipped to handle the number of college-bound students coming down the pipeline, not to mention the swelling number of nontraditional students looking to further their education and career options. In 2001, 42% of all students were over age 25. Adult learners are the fastest growing segment of the higher education population.

Brick and mortar institutions can’t offer the flexibility to facilitate the needs of many, particularly adult learners, so it’s exciting to see different solutions using distance learning models springing up. For example, the Big Bend Community College has established satellite “Community Knowledge Centers” to provide broadband access to their programs. The military is instituting a virtual school program to help the kids in military families stay on track through frequent relocations. The Conterra Telecom Services is connecting eight high schools in the Navajo Nation to the Northeast Arizona Technological Institute of Vocational Education. Where the average distance between high schools is 101 miles and 78% of student have to travel over unpaved roads to school, providing high speed Internet access can make a huge difference.

With the technology we have today, there is no reason why quality education cannot be available to anyone who wants it. In a perfect world, everyone would have a chance to stroll leisurely past ivy-covered halls carrying a swell book bag on their way to a lecture by a Nobel laureate. But it’s not. Only about 25% of the population is able to attend a four-year college. Distance education is a powerful way to help expand access and options to the rest.

Contrary to widely-held beliefs, distance-learning is not a sorry second best. It is possible to have very meaningful relationships and learning experiences in asynchronous environments. I know. I’ve been on both sides of the equaiton. Just like in face-to-face courses, much of the success of an online course is due to the energy the teacher and students invest. But it is the convenience and flexibility in scheduling of the distance learning format that allows most students to continue their education. While there are potential downsides, of course, the disadvantages are vastly outweighed by the alternative–no education.

The U.S. could learn from places like India’s Indira Ghandhi National Open University. It provides educational opportunities through distance and open education targeting disadvantaged populations. There are kids working as busboys working in Kuwait studying to be engineers, thanks to this system. We should take notice of both the opportunity and the motivation and energy of so many who are working to take advantage of it.

The world is becoming a smaller place, thanks to technology. This means that competition for jobs, not just goods, is in a global market. The disparity in unemployment across education levels is an example of this trend. If you haven’t seen the viral video “Did You Know” on YouTube, watch it to get an idea of the magnitude of this global shift.

Unemployment numbers underscore the importance of an education in slow economic times. But in the global economy, we not only need to get an education, we need to keep learning.

That people are interested in something [...]]]> There’s a story about the demise of Facebook in the Washington Post: Worldwide ebb for Facebook. I like the logic–when a company’s been around long enough for someone to make a movie out of it, then it’s probably on the downhill slide, even if they do get Justin Timberlake.

That people are interested in something new shouldn’t be surprising to anyone in business, marketing or evolutionary psychology. Same ol’, same ol’ won’t cut it, especially in a world where expectations about the speed of change have reached new highs. But rather than speculate on trends and following the migration across social media tools of whoever’s cool, it’s time to revisit some words of wisdom from the original management guru, Peter Drucker.

Organizations must be organized for innovation. Using economist Joseph Schumpeter’s term “creative destruction,” Drucker said companies should be:

..organized for the systematic abandonment of whatever is established, customary, family and comfortable, whether that is a product, service, or process; a set of skills; human and social relationships; or the organization itself. In short, itmust be organized for constant change. The organization’s function is to put knowledge to work–on tools, products, and processes; on the design of work; on knowledge itself. it is the nature of knowledge that it changes fast and that today’s certainties always become tomorrow’s absurdities.” (Drucker, 2006, p. 140)

Just because companies like Facebook, Twitter, and all the rest are using new technologies and breaking new ground, doesn’t mean they aren’t subject to the same needs for good management practices that cultivate innovation. It will be up to Facebook’s management, not a few trendsetters, if Facebook is to stay prosperous and viable.
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Drucker, P. (2006) Classic Drucker: Wisdom from Peter Drucker from the Pages of Harvard Business Review. Cambridge, Harvard Business Press.