After a long holiday season break, there are lots of Quick Hits worth catching up with, so here's a massive New Year data dump:
A cool Knowledge@Wharton article (sub required) takes a look at the art of finding the all-important "first mouth" to generate a successful word-of-mouth marketing campaign. Drawing on an example from the healthcare community, the study found that "socio-metric" leaders--identified by asking other physicians to identify colleagues with whom they felt comfortable discussing the clinical management and treatment of the disease, and up to eight doctors to whom they typically referred patients--were the most powerful sources of credible information, and that many of them did not fit the stereotype: many were self-effacing rather than self-promoting.
The headline says AIG Proves Reputation Matters, which might be either over-stating the importance of the story or stating the obvious, but this Atlantic Business piece is interesting. It draws on a Bloomberg report that "AIG's life insurance unit's reputation is suffering from problems that were caused by its financial products division" despite the fact that "life insurance had nothing to do with the troubles at AIG." Its conclusion: AIG should spin-off the "innocent" parts of the business and allow them to establish their own identities and their own reputations.
The delightful and insightful Wendy Kaminer takes a look at the Tiger Woods fiasco, or rather the media's coverage of it and its reliance on so-called experts and observes sharply that "that pop culture promotes expertise especially when none is required. When extensive knowledge and experience are essential"--think climate science, or recent vice-presidential candidates--it seems to prefer "common sense" to any kind of empirical knowledge or relevant expertise.
Ah, Exxon, still handling crises with all the skill and sensitivity that made the company's response to the Valdez disaster 20 years ago such a textbook example of the art. The charge that the company responded to an oil-spill near the Chad-Cameroon border by giving the affected villagers three promotional Esso-branded backpacks is bad enough; the fact that it apparently failed to respond to repeated requests for comment suggests an institutional failure to learn from past mistakes.
Speaking of organizations that continue to act according to type (it's easier to change your image than it is to change your character), the American meat industry--which several years ago worked overtime to prevent regulation that would have restored international confidence in its safety procedures--has been shooting itself in the foot again. Meat Trade News reports on a lawsuit by Nebraska Beef against churchgoers who were victims of a meat-related e-coli outbreak. Says the publication: "From a public relations standpoint, Nebraska Beef's lawsuit against the church-goers was a complete disaster." Who'd have guessed?
Via the Freakonomics blog (which I still read, despite its authors bizarre resistance to empirical evidence when it comes to global warming), I learned about an interesting Israeli effort to encourage organ donor-ship by moving those who carry donor cards to the top of the list to receive organs in an emergency. This seems like a healthy manifestation of the incentives discussed in Nudge, one of last year's most interesting books. I'd like to see it duplicated elsewhere, but I suspect in the U.S. it would prompt an outcry about religious freedom from those whose superstitions prevent organ-harvesting.
Ben Goldacre's Bad Science column at The Guardian< http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/12/bad-science-goldacre-climate-change"> asks why half the population of the U.K. does not share the scientific community's belief that man-made climate change is a reality, and decides that the media deserves much of the blame: "The media privilege foolish contrarian views because they have novelty value, and also because 'established' views get confused with 'establishment' views, and anyone who comes along to have a pop at those gets David v Goliath swagger." I'm not sure his explanation is particularly original, or comprehensive, but in the wake of the Copenhagen damp squib the arguments require repetition.
The Economist's Free Exchange blog, which makes economics clear even to illiterates like me, calls "bullshit" on a Brookings Institute argument that essentially claims anti-climate change measures can't be revenue positive or companies would already be taking them. Isn't it odd that even after the bubble-and-bust cycle of the past few years, there are intelligent people who believe that the markets--or rather corporate leaders--are both omniscient and perfectly rational?
The New York Times (hat tip, in this instance, to my wife) takes a look at some innovative digital and social media efforts coming out of the fashion industry, from Burberry's "street-level views of men and women in their trench coats" to Hermes, which has "has one of the most imaginative sites going," while looking at some laggards--Prada, for example--for whom creativity seems to end on the fashion house floor.
The Hill, a supposedly sophisticated observer of the political scene notes that Joe Lieberman's favorable ratings have dropped 10 points while his unfavorable rating has risen, and then writes what is surely one of the most bizarre sentences in recent journalistic history: "It is difficult to pinpoint when or why Lieberman has taken a hit: In the past two weeks, he not only crucial in helping remove the healthcare bill's public option and Medicare buy-in provisions, but also subsequently announced that he would join with Democrats to support the bill after those provisions were removed." So basically, Lieberman is single handedly responsible for denying millions of Americans access to good quality, affordable healthcare, and The Hill can't figure out why he's not exactly Mr. Popular.
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