The side benefits of big bad lies

I found this research to be truly fascinating (for a simpler summary, try here).   

The less surprising finding is that white lies are the glue that holds tight social networks together.  You can’t overdo it or your social network turns into a love-festing mush.  But at moderate levels, it keeps conversation social, friendly, and makes it easier to give bad news when you supplement it with niceties.  There is some other research that the HR performance evaluation of the criticism sandwich (a good thing to warm them up, the real critical thing, and then another good thing to bandage the damage) is counterproductive. But in general societal relations, we have long known that saying nice things has an overall positive effect on society.  The Talmud refers to this as the “Every Bride is Beautiful” approach. 

But the second finding of this study is the one I want to highlight today.  It deals with the effects of black lies.  The ones that benefit the person telling the lie, but harm the person on the receiving end.  These are clearly anti-social at the one-to-one level.  But there is a society-level silver lining that you all should know about.  When people use exploitative lies like these, they have to keep moving.  This is the “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me” effect.  So what these black liars do is to create diverse bridges among a variety of subgroups that might never have been in contact.  When they are not caught, they create simple links between clusters by bringing knowledge from one cluster over to the next one and so on and so on as they keep one step ahead of the posse.

When they are caught, the different clusters have a bonding opportunity in exerting joint punishment on the miscreant.  This can create stronger connections than most bridging ties generally are able to. 

This Week in EID - Ep 23

Another great week in terms of getting huge response in the comments.  Some even showed up on the EID site directly.  Critical mass, here we come.  Still, many more on LinkedIn groups.

The two that were the most popular were the design principles v standards post  and the Real Age post

I was selfishly hoping to hear from David Brooks on my Cognitive Humility post  since it was originally based on his article.  But no such luck.  

I also got a great comment on an old post from May that was so complimentary it made me blush.  Thanks !!!!

Thinking like a customer

I experienced a good demonstration of marketers who still think in company terms rather than customer journeys.  I was at a Fair Trade Fair at a stall selling chocolate.  I love really high cacao chocolates, especially dark 95% cacao bars (I've never found 100!). So my first question was what the % cacao  levels of their bars were. 

The user (me) experience thought process: What is important to me?  Cacao level, taste, price, fair trade . . . Since I was at a fair trade fair, I could assume that one.  So really, all I needed to know where the other attributes.

The vendor thought process:  How do I (his company) differentiate our bars from the competition?  We are fair trade.  We certainly don't compete on price.  Most companies offer a variety of cacao levels.  So when I am staffing a booth, I should focus on the fair trade attribute.

See how these two things are in direct conflict?  If it was a dark chocolate fair, perhaps I would be sold by a fair trade argument.  But in customer journey, it makes no sense. 

Becoming a mensch in 7 steps

I am riffing on a column from the September 29 issue of Time magazine by Kristin van Ogtrop.  She mentions several of these, but I am adding, subtracting, and changing them around.  And I added the “mensch” part.

1. Do something nice for someone completely anonymously.  No possible way to get acknowledgement, credit, or appreciation from the recipient or anyone else.  Just for the sake of it.  And not by paying for something.  You have to put in some physical and/or mental effort.   Concentrate on how good it feels when there is no personal reward.
2. Take care of someone, even an animal, in a serious and committed way.  Volunteer regularly at a nursing home long enough to develop attachments to the residents. Read stories to young patients in a cancer ward (again, regularly enough to develop attachments).
3. Do an unpleasant job.  We have all seen (at least on commercials) the Dirty Jobs guy.  If you saw his TED talk, you will know that he admires how much respect his coworkers have for themselves and for each other and for their work.  Develop some of that respect for people who have jobs you never plan to do yourself (except for now).
4. Cook a meal for a family (at least 4, but 6-8 is even better) that is healthful, filling, tasty, and costs less than $2 per person.  Realize how many people around the world don’t have it even this good.
5. Write a heartfelt, handwritten, personal letter to someone.  Preferably a thank you letter or an admiration letter for something really good they did.  Use real stationary if you can find any.  Use a serious writing style – no LOLs.
6. For an entire year, every time you buy something give away an equivalent to someone who needs it. If you buy a new electronic device, donate one to a school.  When you go grocery shopping, donate some food to a food bank.  When you buy clothes, donate some old clothes to a shelter.  When you fly, donate the frequent flier miles to charity.
7. Unplug from everything for a week.  Not just your digital toys.  Go somewhere you can be totally alone with your thoughts.  No connectivity and no people.  Think about how many people do this without choice – dying patients who have been abandoned by their family.  Prisoners in solitary.  Shut-ins. 

Red wine instead of exercise

Of course, I have serious doubts that there is much basis in truth to this.  According to the headline, one glass of red wine is the equivalent of one hour of exercise.  I am not sure if 5 glasses of wine translates to five hours of exercise, so you will have to read the article details. But I also have doubts about the first one.

I am sure that the science was done in the usual way that science is done.  Science is a very focused, targeted, investigation of limited hypotheses with specific subdomains of application and with a certain level of uncertainty.  It is when the media (or even worse - bloggers!!!) get their hands on it, that we get the earth shattering headlines that suck us into the story.

But in this case, I am going to focus on my wonderful powers of self-delusion.  I love red wine and I have given up exercise for a little while. This seems to be the perfect solution to my dilemma.  I just have to believe it.  I just have to combine self-delusion, the placebo effect, confirmation bias, and identity resonance.  And abra cadabra.

This Week in EID Episode 22

Sometimes it surprises me which articles get the most response.  I leave the sophisticated analytics to Keith, but when I cross-post on LinkedIn groups I see how many comments and likes the discussion gets.  Sometimes I participate but other times it seems to be doing quite nicely on its own. 

For the past couple of days, the Ed Tech article from Tuesday has been lighting it up.  The thrust of the discussion is about the contrast between designs that focus on promoting real education and those that are geared towards business metrics – cheaper, wider distribution, spiffy tech, long features lists to promote – you know the drill here.  Keith and I are already queueing up education-related topics for the future, maybe one a week.

Another topic that seems to be getting traction, although it is early still, is Wednesday's article on the hospital user experience and how it can improve health outcomes.  We have long known about the power of positive thinking.  It shouldn’t be a surprise that when patients are treated with dignity they experience less pain, fewer side effects, and heal faster.  Turns out, care-givers do better too.  Fewer errors, more efficient and effective care.  So I already have another one of these on my list – perhaps for early October.

Thursday’s post that cited the Daily Tech News Show was fun because the host contacted me on Twitter with some great compliments on my article.  I often get retweeted, but Tom took some real personal time.  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.

And then the one that I thought would get the most comments didn’t.  That was Monday’s article on behavioral nudges in the insurance industry.  Usually the behavioral science folks are pretty reliable commenters on LinkedIn.  But not this week.