Nicholas Christakis is a leading researcher focusing on the ways in which the social networks that we are embedded in (friends, family, work, etc) directly influence our behavior, health, and happiness.  Christakis recently presented at TED in February and the video was just made available this month:

Full disclosure: I have not read Christakis’ work–books, articles or otherwise (although his book Connected is on my list).  However, that won’t stop me from commenting on it.  Conceptually, I think this is fascinating research, particularly because modern technology allows for our social networks to be much larger and for us to have even greater exposure and interaction with first-degree members of our network, potentially amplifying the larger network’s influence on our behavior.  Granted, if you reduce the hypothesis to its simplest form–that people are influenced by those in their social circle–it seems somewhat obvious.  However, as with many things that we assume to be true the real revelation here is understanding the specific dynamics and mechanisms that make it so.  A few questions/comments come to mind:

• Self-selection and causality: Determining which direction the causality arrow points in this area strikes me as very difficult.  In general, Christakis seems to be arguing that social networks are causing behavior in individuals.  However, he does note that self-selection (or what he refers to as homophily) could also be at play–e.g. people tend to select themselves into particular groups because they feel comfortable surrounding themselves with like-minded.  I don’t see why there couldn’t be multiple causal stories here where the direction may be different at different times or for different issues.  Understanding which direction causality flows is critical, though, if one is thinking of implementing public policies to deal with, say, public health issues.  Are you targeting individuals or the social networks?
• Free will versus environmental determinism: The research also brings up an interesting philosophical question–what is the balance, then, between an individual’s ability to exercise free will and the deterministic influence of their environment (in this case, their social network)?  Christakis’ research points to a probabilistic relationship versus pure determinism (e.g. you are 47% more likely to be obese if members of your social network are, rather than guaranteed to be), but the question is still a tricky one.
• Business relevance: It certainly isn’t a revelation that, for example, consumers’ buying decisions can be influenced by their friends and social crowd.  Much ink has been spilled touting the need to create social proofs of one’s product or targeting influencers who can spread the desire for a product like a virus through their social network.  However, as mentioned earlier, Christakis’s research could open up new avenues if it is successful in identifying the specific mechanisms (and causal direction) through which social networks affect individual behavior and vice-versa.  Marketers would have  a field day.

Lundry quickly runs down the importance of infographics and data visualizations in the political realm.  Bottom line: people are hard wired to learn through visualization, and infographics can be very powerful tools in political battles over ideas and policy:

It amazes me that we haven’t seen a faster uptake among professional politicians of data visualization, especially considering the sheer number of political operatives, consultants, and strategic communication firms.  All it takes is about five minutes watching C-SPAN to realize that these folks are due for a major upgrade in the infographics department.

I also love Lundry’s updating of a famous H.G. Wells quote

Visual Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write.

Personally, I think you need both visual and statistical in there, but in general I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment.

AT&T did not file this lawsuit because Verizon’s ‘There’s A Map For That’ advertisements are untrue; AT&T sued because Verizon’s ads are true and the truth hurts.

Verizon in an official response to AT&T’s lawsuit that Verizon’s “there’s a map for that” ad campaign is misleading.

The background is that Verizon recently rolled out a campaign that uses a visualization of relational data to compare their 3G coverage to AT&T.  The visualization is pretty stark.  AT&T fired back that the ad was misleading, giving consumers the impression that AT&T doesn’t have ANY wireless coverage in most parts of the country.

Decide for yourself.  FlowingData has a great recap post with all the ads to date.

Over at Advertising Age, Ana Andjelic discuss why digital agencies aren’t ready to lead.  This article was originally posted over at her blog, i [love] marketing.  It is an interesting piece that dovetails nicely with the discussion we recently had around how to organize for innovation.

Digital agencies impress clients with their passion, drive and technology know-how. Clients then say: “You gave us a lot to think about.” Which often means that the account is awarded to someone else. Where digital shops fail is giving confidence to the client that all this momentum will be indeed executed in a well-led marketing campaign. All of this is not new. It is already described in organizational theorist James March’s exploration vs. exploitation dichotomy. The best companies have the optimal balance between the two; those less successful are doing too much of either.

The article focuses on agencies, but there is quite a bit that would apply to other sectors.  Read the whole thing.

The other item is an article over at the Chaordix blog by Shelly Kuipers (President & CEO). Shelly writes about her recent experience at a conference on data governance hosted by IBM. What was the general response to Shelly’s discussion of crowdsourcing’s level of data openness?

“No thanks, at least not yet.” I discovered that among major enterprises in attendance, there is still much work to be done to get social tools well understood and adopted. There seems to be an inherent need to heavily manage user behavior inside these companies via locked down systems and strict data governance. Corporations do not yet have confidence in the tools for fear of compromising confidential and proprietary data.

I am not at all surprised by this response–and I don’t think it is entirely unreasonable. While I am a fan of open-source approaches I also have my risk-averse/risk-mitigation side telling me to be wary. It is a tension that will take some time to work through.