I’d Buy That for a Dollar
I suppose I’m one of the few Americans who actually likes the dollar coin. As a kid I was always fascinated with the John Kennedy half dollar coin. They seemed so huge, so important, that once I had one, I didn’t want to spend it, I wanted to keep it forever.
That seems to be the general problem with public acceptance of dollar coins now. Once you have one, you’re more likely to keep it than to spend it.
But I discovered some years ago, when the golden Sacajawea dollar coin was introduced, that instead of piling up in a Mason jar, the dollar coins they made handy tips at restaurants, and were perfect for the Sunday collection plate. Giving a golden coin or two just somehow felt better as a gift than wrinkled, worn paper dollars.
The Sacajawea coin was a bit more popular with the public than was the Susan B. Anthony coin, but since the Anthony coins were introduced to, and mostly rejected by, the public in the late 1970s, something changed: inflation.
The cost of parking and transit had risen in the intervening years to the point that it made more economic sense to use a dollar coin instead of a token for subway rides or parking-garage fees.
Last night I was reminded of the literally “token” role that dollar coins play in parking and transit. I was leaving a parking garage downtown and only had a $20 bill to pay my $6 parking garage fee. To my delight and nostalgia, when I fed the $20 into the exit-gate machine, instead of paper money in the change window, out came tumbling $14 worth of those familiar silver and golden coins. The picture on the left is a selection of some of the coins I received.
It’s true that $14 in dollar coins is a lot heavier than paper money, but I think that’s OK. It’s a reminder that money literally and figuratively has weight in our society, and that we should think carefully how we spend it.
Follow me on Twitter at @charlesprimm.
Getting Nudged at the Gas Station
A book I can highly recommend is “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness” by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. I even included a link to their blog on my blogroll.
I have to confess that I didn’t seek out the book on my own. Rather, I was assigned to write a book report about it in a consumer behavior class I took in grad school.
But boy was I glad I read it. The authors lay bare the ways that companies gently guide consumers to behave, and consume, in ways that are more profitable for them.
Nudges are not outright coercion, just subtle prompts that rely on mental inertia to do their work for them.
Amazon.com is famous for nudging customers toward ordering at least $25 worth of merchandise in order to qualify for free shipping. You don’t have to; they’re just letting you know.
But once you’ve ordered the minimum in order to get free shipping, the checkout page nudges you toward paying the standard shipping fee. You have to actively select free shipping in order to get it. That’s how nudges work. They rely on people taking the path of least resistance.
Recently I was filling up the tank at a gas station and realized I was being nudged.
Note how the cartoon finger is pressing the button on the right (click to enlarge), which of course is where the super-premium gasoline is dispensed. I was free to press any button, but I bet that just enough folks take the path of least resistance and select the most expensive grade of gas. Why not? It’s so easy. But taking the path of least resistance is often the most costly path.
So stay aware of how companies “helpfully” suggest options, and remember that no one has your best interests at heart the way you do.
There’s Famous, and Then There’s Infographic Famous
It’s amazing to see the creativity at work lately in the area of infographics. As I’ve written before, this informational, educational art form has been around for a long time. But 2012 really seems to be the year when it caught fire.
PR Daily 12Most.com’s Anita Hovey recently listed some of the top infographics in the world of social media. Among the best was “Seven reasons to embrace online culture,” by J6 design. From “showing you are human” to “don’t ignore negative online reviews,” these are great tools to have in your toolkit if you find yourself having to convince the boss to include social media as part of your office’s overall public relations and marketing efforts.
But, since social media has empowered the “me” in all of us to an extent never before seen, my favorite infographic has to be “What About Me?” from Intel. This free online service mines your Facebook and Twitter feeds to create a custom infographic about little ol’ you.
Here’s mine. This is the thumbnail version, so click to see the larger version. Fascinating, huh? I think so, but then, that’s just me. And it can be you, too.
I’m not so sure it will make me famous, though, or even infographic famous. And maybe that shouldn’t even be my ultimate goal. I’m just happy looking at a graphically pleasing, informative display about the details of my online life, in a way that can help me be a better communicator and a better person.
Follow me on Twitter at @charlesprimm.
For Good Communication, Less is More
One of the best tips I ever got while working in radio journalism was to never forget the phrase “less is more.” After researching a story, interviewing an expert on the topic, editing the audio clips, and beginning to write, I felt a bit like an expert myself. That made it tough to choose which of my babies to kill. Figuratively, of course, as I worked to remove fifty percent of the excellent words I had just written, while keeping the central idea of the story. It’s not easy.
Turns out I was doing it backwards. This great article from Erika Andersen of Forbes via Lifehacker boils down the “less is more” concept to three central rules of clear communication:
- Listen. It’s the first and most important part of communicating. If you don’t know what the other person is saying or thinking, how can you effectively connect with them? You can’t.
- Cut to the chase. You absolutely must get to the point quickly and simply, or your audience will wander away. Every story should have a beginning and an end, so just get from A to Z without wasting a bunch of time on L-M-N-O-P.
- Read the room. Are the people you are speaking to yawning and checking their e-mails? Time to stop talking. Saying more words likely won’t make it better.
These rules may be hard to follow, but the results will be worth the effort.
Follow me on Twitter at @charlesprimm.
Facebook’s BranchOut App Turns Up the Heat on LinkedIn
Much like McDonald’s old McDLT sandwich packaging tried to “keep the hot side hot and the cool side cool” by separating the fresh-off-the grill hamburger patty from the fresh-from-the fridge tomato and lettuce, social media users frequently try to keep their public identity and activities public and their private identity and activities private by using multiple social media platforms.
This desire to curate or control how our different publics see us is one of the reasons that career-oriented social media sites such as LinkedIn have flourished even as Facebook pursues its ambition to be the world’s one-stop social media destination.
Facebook’s response to upstart competitors usually takes one of two forms: it buys the company or it creates very similar functionality and then kills the competitor because of its huge existing user base that other sites or services cannot overcome.
We saw Facebook in buyout mode recently when it announced it was purchasing the photo retouching and sharing company Instagram. Now we may be seeing Facebook in “kill the competitor” mode with its launch of BranchOut, the professional networking app that draws data from existing Facebook profiles to connect people in similar industries.
This presents a danger for LinkedIn. Even though it had the “first-mover advantage” in growing the professional social media niche, the Facebook juggernaut has the ability to dwarf LinkedIn’s network, given time. This Mashable article by Sarah Kessler states that while BranchOut currently has only 25 million registered users, as compared to LinkedIn’s 150 million users, BranchOut has access to the full 845 million Facebook accounts around the world.
I would imagine that LinkedIn’s leadership team is working to avoid the fate of the McDLT, which was eventually discontinued along with its innovative packaging. Only time will tell if Facebook’s “all things to all people” recipe for success will win in the end.
Follow me on Twitter at @charlesprimm.
The Google+ Redesign Looks Oddly Familiar
Of all my social media platforms, I think I use Google+ the least. Well, technically, I use my old Myspace page the least, because it has been years since I even logged in.
That makes Google+ the second least used of my social media platforms. So it was with a bit of skepticism that I read the news that Google+ has done a big redesign of its site.
My first thought was “if a social media platform fell in the forest, and no one was there, did it make a sound?”
But after watching the video, and then logging in to the site, I realized there was something about the new look that was very familiar.
The way the wide-format images appear at the top of the page, the way status updates are displayed, it all looks suspiciously Facebook-like.
There are definitely some innovations, such as a customizable “ribbon” of moveable icons in the left-hand navigational column instead of static images or text. This is the kind of fresh design concept that Google will have to depend on if it wants to continue competing with Facebook.
But if the next Google+ redesign starts looking suspiciously like my old Myspace page, that’s when I may have to call it a day.
Follow me on Twitter at @charlesprimm.
Trying to Stay Focused? Don’t Check Facebook
Although I have occasionally criticized Facebook in this space, for purposes of full disclosure, I hereby state that I do enjoy logging in to Facebook and looking at pictures and status updates from my friends.
The “stickiness” of the site is like a siren song, calling me to scroll down further, further, just a little further, down into the bottomless well of information. As you might have guessed, this is by design: the longer we stay, the more revenue we generate for Facebook as we look at ads on the site.
But just because it is good for Facebook does not mean it is good for us. As it turns out, new research shows that checking Facebook just once is enough to distract us from being productive while we are trying to work.
This recent story in Psychology Today discusses a study of how people were able to maintain their focus in the midst of electronic distractions such as the Internet and smartphones.
It turns out that checking Facebook was a major momentum-killer for those trying to focus on a task and be productive. It did not matter if they checked Facebook once or a dozen times: the damage was done and concentration was lost.
I think I already knew this, but the best science often tells us what we already know. Now comes the hard part: actually refraining from checking Facebook when I am under tight deadline pressure.
I’ll let you all know how that turns out.
Follow me on Twitter at @charlesprimm.
Cautiously Optimistic 