Cognitive Surplus Discussion Topics

We'll be discussing the book cognitive surplus for the next couple of weeks. When you read it, you should be focusing on the main issues. What is cognitive surplus (CS)? Who has it and how do they utilize it? What are traditional domains we use it in and where do you think it will be used in the future? What are the necessary components to leverage CS? What types of groups are the benefactors of CS and what makes people choose one group over the other? As you notice, these are bigger picture questions that you should get from the book. I won't be testing you on names or specific dates, but you should understand specific concepts and marketing applications.

Now, this book can be used to discuss some interesting customer insight ideas and how they may deviate in the online space. I've come up with 4 discussion areas that I hope will carry us over the next two weeks (and remind me that we need to form groups and talk about the project on Tuesday!):

#1. Consumption: What are we actually "spending" and "consuming" when we consume? What are the currencies of interest? How do these currencies differ and what are the exchange rates? What does that mean for marketing decisions?

#2. Identity: What is our identity? How do social networks reflect this and how does online social networking affect this? Why do we care about identities in CI and marketing? You may want to think of consumption decisions this affects as well as products (such as Google+) and product categories (tattoos, luxury goods) or even brands where identity matters. Are there ones where identity doesn't matter?

#3. Aggregation: What is the value of aggregation? When are individuals better/smarter than groups and when are groups better/smarter than individuals? How does aggregation fit in to the innovation process, especially in idea creation? How does behavior change when it is aggregated (e.g. what happens when you de-individuate people and create anonymity)? What are the dangers of aggregation in the marketplace? Are there dangers associated with non-aggregation?

#4. Value: How do we figure out "value" in the marketplace? How do "market forces" and "winner's curses" work in aggregated markets? Who captures the surplus value in aggregated markets? Can we change this? What are other product aspects (besides typical physical product attributes) that drive consumer perceptions of value?

I'm so sleepy...

Obviously, I've been making too many decisions recently, so I'm going to go home, take a nap, and have a chocolate shake. In the meantime, I recommend you read this great article on "decision fatigue" that was in the New York Times Sunday Magazine this past weekend...

first post of a new year

I realize that 95% of material posted on the internet is probably just reposts of material that is already there. What I'm less sure about is if this a problem. Three aspects/properties of the internet make me feel that this lack of creativity (I'm using the word in the sense of development of original content - not as a judgment of the value of the information being repurposed) may not only be a detriment, but may actually be a good thing:

1. The Internet is really big. There is already tons of original content out there. And every day, people are still generating tons more; more than I or anyone can read/use. Every once and a while I think of a clever thought  or come up with a great example through the blind squirrel principle. These thoughts, while clever, are not usually that original - so it's nice that I don't have to invent the wheel and rewrite the thought but can just "borrow" the description from another source (just be careful not to try to take credit for someone else's work!)

2. And it's only getting bigger. We're not going to run out of space (although in theory, we've run out of IP addresses for domain names or something last year). So re-posting stuff that already exists out there isn't going to fill the thing. It just makes a messy closet a tiny bit messier.

3. So how do I find anything? Even if it only contained original content, there would be too much stuff to slog through. Therefore, one of the beauties of people reposting the good stuff is that it actually acts sort of like an aggregation agent. If more copies of the best stuff exist, you are more likely to stumble across the good stuff - especially if there are places that collect information that is more likely to relate to what you need.

So now I'm going to post a link to an article about aggregation, the internet, and creativity. I think it's a great place to start to see how the ideas in Cognitive Surplus can relate to all sorts of issues. In this article from the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Rob Walker discusses a website called Kickstarter. Prepare to discuss this in class (and think of other, similar crowd-sourced websites...).

Books for MARK 30243: Customer Insights

Here are the books we're going to read for class in case you want to get a head start. These books are much more interesting (and a whole lot cheaper) than a textbook! The first book we will read will be Cognitive Surplus. See you in a couple of weeks!

Weekly Book Reviews - Language

This week I thought I'd try to give some books about language from a couple of different perpectives

This is a great introduction to psycholinguistics. Pinker does a great job explaining how individuals learn language and how our brains are hardwired to do this. It is a fairly easy read of a potentially complex topic and you will definitely feel smarter after completing this. From an academic standpoint, Pinker can sometimes be controversial (and he doesn't always agree with others on such topics as neuroplasticity or linguistic categorization - but these differences tend to lie in the persnickety erudite academic details) but his snarkiness makes him a great writer to read as he can turn a quick phrase and draw you into the text.






I'm a HUGE fan of Bill Bryson. And if you have time and like travel writing, I can't recommend enough, A Walk in The Woods. In that book Bryson hikes the Applachian Trail and is completely inept doing so. In Made in America, he examines the wonderful language of "American" and how it is beautifully different than "English". This is done mostly through rambling around and giving us different etymologies of  objects in America (including some interesting stuff on brand names - and how you can often tell when a product was developed by its name). It also goes into place names, regional dialects and sayings, as well as discussing the origin of many common words and sayings. It's a classic source of useless arcana.

With package sizes getting smaller, why are we still getting larger?

I love that there are three stories that are in the papers every year and still seem to come as such a shock. We've already seen the first (how consumers have too many choices) and now an intrepid classmate has found us a story from Tuesday's New York Times that talks about how companies are downsizing our products to reduce costs. Interestingly, February's Consumer Reports also ran an article on downsizing. You need to click on the section headers on the left to read all 5 sections of this article, but in it you can see the experts saying everything that you already know (and some great examples). Who knew that Tropicana is no longer half a gallon (64 oz.) but is now sold in 59 oz. containers? I guess the nice thing about an arbitrary number of ounces is that the next downsize is that much easier... I still find it amazing that with all our new sweeteners, diet products, and downsized products, we still find creative ways to get fatter and unhealthier every year. Go us!

Weekly Book Reviews - Everything you need to know about children to ruin their lives

Leaning how kids learn is important for two reasons. The first is direct and obvious; if you know how they mentally develop, you should be able to help guide them through their mental growth. You may not make them that much smarter, but you can easily prevent them from staying dumb or getting dumber. The second is a selfish reason; if you know how kid's mentally develop, you can better understand why you do all those dumb things that you do. You might just be able to prevent yourself from continuing to make those dumb mistakes (and getting dumber).

This is my all-time favorite book about child-rearing and developmental psychology. I will warn you; it is a completely difficult read. It is written by a neuroscientist, and she doesn't water things down that much or pull her punches. I still don't think I completely understand the beginning. It starts with conception (actually I think it starts even before conception) and explains all the hormonal reactions that take place in a women's body. These, it ends up, are important, because they can affect early fetal development. It then walks you through what develops throughout gestation - and I was never good at biology, so I got a little lost. I then goes on to talk about all aspects of the brain and mind development for the first five years of life (including developing motor skills, language, sensory perceptions, etc). Not only is it good to know this stuff - but knowing it allows you to better understand all the other stuff you read about development. And it will help you to understand what advice/information is truly important from a developmental standpoint and what is likely to be more trivial. This book is worth the effort.


OK, this book is an easier introduction about the mind. Like the first book, it is written by scientists; so you know they aren't just making stuff up. This one is written by developmental psychologists and is a much easier read. In fact, even thought this book takes place slightly later in the chronological development of a child (it really isn't as concerned about pre-birth) this book might help ease you into the topic and provide some frameworks for the book above. The authors do a great job really explaining not only what and when and why a child learns stuff, but also how scientists figured these things out. Usually, a clever experiment has to be designed to test for all this stuff since if you ask an infant a question, they don't tend to provide a comprehensible answer (and their tiny fingers aren't that good at holding the pencils required to fill out surveys).




By this point, you're probably worried that there is so much to know and so much you should be doing that you are guaranteed to f**k up the life of any small child you come in contact with. That is where this book steps in. This book makes you feel better by realizing that children are hardwired to learn (and we are hardwired to teach them) and the best thing we can do is just get out of our own way and play with them. And it uses science to back this up. And it gives you reasons why you should hate Baby Einstein and all those early educational toys. It's a win-win.