Crowdsourcing Problems, Revisited

24 Saturday Apr 2010

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Last year I explored the idea of crowdsourcing problems. The gist of the post was:

The crowdsourcing of problems could accelerate the time it takes businesses to identify gaps in current product or service offerings and spend more time developing better solutions to those problems for businesses and/or consumers. Of course, the danger is that we don’t just want innovators focusing on immediate problems as it may lead to unexplored paths (which, often times are the most interesting and groundbreaking). However, I would think that certain types of innovators and firms would select themselves into a more direct problem-solving approach to innovation versus a more open, exploratory exercise.

The same could easily be said about academia. Often times the hardest part of research is determining what it is we need to solve for and which problems are (or, should be) a priority.

Related to this idea, a colleague of mine, Charlie Carpenter, points to a really interesting initiative by the Division of the Social Sciences at Harvard–determining the “hard problems” in the social sciences. On April 10th, a number of heavy hitters from the social sciences met to discuss what these knotty problems were and how to address them. The site collects all the discussions by the speakers (be sure to check them out). It also asks visitors to take a poll, the purpose of which is to help determine what problems are the hardest, the most important, and what problems the speaker may have missed. You can view and take the poll here. The group has also set up a Facebook page to allow folks to continue the discussion.

I think this is a great initiative. Of course, the degree to which it is helpful will be determined largely by three factors: Continue reading

All the net’s a stage

28 Wednesday Oct 2009

Posted by Bill Petti in Uncategorized

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Erving Goffman, Online Communities, reputation, signals, social networks, social science

Andy Oram over at O’Reilly Radar writes a really interesting piece on the work of Erving Goffman and how it relates to identity and the web:

Goffman's classic text

[Goffman's] fundamental contribution is how he slants his premise that we present a front in all our behavior before others. You have to understand that this posturing is real and pervasive, but rarely a consequence of out-and-out deception, or because we have succeeded in deceiving outselves. Usually we simply associate certain behaviors as appropriate in certain circumstances; some stylization is inherent in our interactions.

For instance, just as a certain attention to style–or a stubborn flouting of its demands–enters into the clothes we choose to wear in public, there is inherent artificiality in our choice of screen name on a social network (unless an account related to our real name happens to be available). And whatever we choose certainly expresses something we want to reveal about our nature. This doesn’t mean we are deceiving ourselves or others–we are being ourselves, but in a stylized manner.

Goffman’s approach certainly applies online, because our postings–even our instant messages–are more deliberate acts than our informal behaviors in real life. Although some participants play at being flippant and spontaneous on Facebook walls and microblogs, they must have greater consciousness of their effects on the viewer than most dinner table guests or concert attendees. Our online personas, therefore, conform even more closely to Goffman’s idea of everyday life than our everyday life does.

Goffman is by far one of my favorite social scientists and a major influence on my graduate research and my worldview in general. I recommend the entire piece.

More Momentum for the Social Sciences–Nobel Edition

14 Wednesday Oct 2009

Posted by Bill Petti in Uncategorized

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Economics, Nobel Prize, political science, social science

For those that have not yet heard, the Nobel Prize for Economics (actually named the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel) was awarded this year to two recipients, one of whom–Elinor Ostrom–is a Political Scientist. As Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution notes:

It’s a nod in the direction of social science, rather than economics per se. It’s another homage to the New Institutional Economics and also to Law and Economics. It’s rewarding larger rather than smaller ideas, practical economics rather than abstract theory.

For those interested in a deeper discussion of her work, Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber provides an excellent overview and personal reflection on Ostrom.

As a political scientist, this is especially gratifying and I think reflective of some broader trends in social science, whereby the best insights and research culminate from the cross-fertilization of ideas from multiple disciplines within the social sciences (as well as the hard sciences). If you look at some of the more recent winners, their work transcended the discipline of economics and had a much broader impact on the study of human behavior and social dynamics broadly.

Personally, my research focused on decision-making, signaling & reputation, and conflict. The work of recent winners, such as Thomas Schelling (game theory), Daniel Kahneman (behavioral economics), A. Michael Spence (signaling), John Harsanyi & John Nash (game theory), and Douglass North (path-dependence, neo-institutionalism), all played a role in how I approached (and continue to approach) those issues.

Maybe a day will come when the prize is renamed the Nobel Prize for Social Science–another step towards the social sciences getting their day.

The ‘Soft Sciences’ to get their Day?

11 Friday Sep 2009

Posted by Bill Petti in Uncategorized

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Big Data, social media, social networks, social science

In a recent report, Garnter proposes that as corporations try to benefit from the growth of social media they will come to rely more and more on employees with formal, advanced training in the social sciences.

Stanley Milgram

Gartner Vice President Kathy Harris discusses in some detail four areas of jobs needed in the near future. Though she never really uses the words “social networks” the implication is that most companies aren’t really geared toward taking advantage of the impact of these online communities, and that the numbers will be too large to ignore, regardless of the business you are in.

“Many of the needed technical capabilities originate in the social sciences and are aimed at usability and adoption of technology-related business services,” Harris said in a release. “These capabilities embody the notion of ‘action at the interface’ between the enterprise and its markets or between business management and technology management. Therefore, organizations are likely to shift the responsibility for leveraging technology outside centralized IT organizations and into the business units responsible for growth and innovation of revenue, products and services.”

Erving Goffman

To me, if you combine the plethora of data being generated by Web 2.0 technologies with the inherent social and behavioral aspects of these technologies, it screams for individuals that have training in sophisticated research methodologies (both quantitative and qualitative) as well as substantive subject’s that relate to sociology, psychology, and behavioral economics. It may be creating a perfect storm where individuals with this particular skill set finally find themselves in high demand outside of the Ivory Tower. As a trained social scientist myself, I also hope it puts to bed, once and for all, the short-sighted notion that the social sciences don’t really belong in the category of ‘science’ compared to their physical cousins.

(Via Jason Spector)

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