Book Review – Free: The Future of a Radical Price

I’m speechless …

Sign at a BP gas station

Adoption of Personal Technologies

In 1928, two American researchers began an interesting social experiment: they offered farmers a dramatically improved type of corn seed. The researchers were curious to see how long it took the farmers to switch to what was clearly a better product. By 1933, only four of the 259 farmers had made the switch. The next year, 16 more gave it a try. In the following three years 21, then 36, then 61 more farmers switched. After that, farmers continued to switch to the new seed but in smaller numbers every year. In 1941 the final two farmers came on board.

Like farmers switching to a new seed, people who adopt a new technology do so in a predictable way. Initially only a very small number of people buy the new product; others gradually follow. Eventually even some of the most reluctant people buy it.

A good example of this trend is the personal computer. When the personal computer first appeared, only the most serious and committed technology buffs bought one. Over time the computer became more popular with consumers. Today, most households in North America have at least one personal computer.

Categories of Adopters
People who accept and acquire a new personal technology are called adopters. Adopters can be grouped into the following categories.

Innovators
Innovators are extreme risk takers, willing to try an unproven product. Innovators represent the first 2.5% of people to adopt the product.

Early Adopters
Early adopters embrace new technologies before the remainder of the population. Early adopters are so eager to have the latest devices that they’re willing to put up with bugs, flaws, and high prices in the early models. These people willingly test out new products and tell the manufacturers what works and what doesn’t, and what they like and dislike. Early Adopters represent about 13.5% of all consumers.

Early Majority
The Early Majority is made up of people who adopt technologies after they’ve been recommended by the Early Adopters. Only after these products have been approved by the Early Adopters is the Early Majority willing to try them. The Early Majority represents about 34% of all consumers.

Late Majority
The Late Majority consists of people who adopt new technologies only after they’ve become very popular and the price has come down significantly. The Late Majority represents about about 34% of all consumers.

Laggards
Laggards are very slow to embrace new technologies because of skepticism, disinterest, or financial constraints. About 16% of all consumers fall into this category.

This graph shows the cycle of adoption I just described.

Where do you fit on the curve? Are you the first in line to buy the latest gadgets or do you wait a while to see what others think of it? Or do you hold out till the bitter end, unimpressed by all the hype?

Make a Case Against Racism Podcast

A few months ago I worked with the good folks at Embrace BC on a very interesting project called The Make a Case Against Racism Top Countdown (MACAR).

MACAR is a music podcast featuring songs and interviews from BC musicians such as Alpha Yaya Diallo, Sandy Scofield, and Delhi 2 Dublin. Each musician/group has a multicultural background and/or message to their music.

Go to the Make a Case Against Racism web page and click on this graphic to hear the podcast. Enjoy.

Will You Be My Friend?

 

The other day I received a Facebook friend request from a former classmate in my Master of Educational Technology program. Without giving it a second thought, I accepted.

The thing is, I’ve never actually met the guy. Over the course of several semesters we traded numerous emails, bantered back and forth in discussion forums, and collaborated on a few online group projects. We know a fair bit about each other from our schoolwork. But we’ve never met face to face.

Nevertheless, I think I know this guy better than many of the people on my Friends list. And to me, this speaks to the power of the Internet and online communication to bring people together in meaningful ways. It’s certainly not the same as sitting down together and chatting over a cup of coffee, but it works.

I’d  like to share with you some excerpts from a paper I wrote a couple years ago on this topic. In this paper I looked at the pros and cons of communicating with others in an entirely online environment, devoid of any face to face contact. Some of the research is a bit dated now, but I suspect the results are consistent with more current studies.

Any thoughts on my paper, I’d be happy to hear from you.

Some researchers doubt whether computer-mediated communication (CMC) can truly bring people together. Rather than providing us with a sense of belonging, CMC leaves us depressed, lonely, and socially isolated (Kraut et al., 1988). Others argue that CMC—specifically online, asynchronous technologies —can result in the unravelling of social and political patterns and in space-time dislocations (Franklin, 1999). Some even question the merits of attempting to make connections with people online as it takes time away from the real, face-to-face relationships we have already established (Nie et al., 2004). In short, these people argue, CMC is a poor substitute for face-to-face contact.
In some ways I agree with them. I can attest, for example, to the frustrations inherent in communicating with classmates in chat rooms that, while virtually synchronous, still lack the immediacy of face-to-face conversation. CMC operates according to the “my turn then your turn” rule. You post a comment, and wait, sometimes only moments, but often minutes. And in the absence of the visual and non-verbal cues that are present in face-to-face communication, your mind can start playing tricks on you. Why isn’t this person responding to me? Was it something that I said? Should I have posted that comment? People, in general, prefer communicating in media where they can see each other and gauge the other person’s reaction directly (Sproull & Kiesler, 1986); computer-mediated communication is thought to be dissatisfying in that regard because of its inability to convey important information such as facial expressions, body language, posture, dress and nonverbal, vocal cues (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976). CMC may also leave people feeling dissatisfied because it provides insufficient social context information (Kiesler et al., 1984).

What’s more, in the absence of real, face-to-face synchronous contact and the cues it provides, we may resort to a well-known social psychology problem called the fundamental attribution error (Wallace, 1999). One of my classmates expressed this well in one of his discussion forum posts, with reference to text messaging:
I believe the problem [is] that text messaging isolates users from many of the cues we normally use to interpret each other’s meanings. A longish reply-time might be misinterpreted as anger or confusion when in fact it was just having to backspace a misspelled word.(anon, 2005).

Computer-Mediated Communication: The Advantages
The key difference, as I see it, is that computer-mediated communication—email, instant messaging, chat rooms, and the like—are bridges that connect people at a distance. Whereas in face-to-face situations they can be seen as cold and artificial substitutes for real contact, in an online world, CMC is necessary and a benefit; it brings people together in a meaningful way. Having the ability to interact with others through a variety of tools allows people to share ideas and experiences, and most of all, to feel like they are socially connected.

Research shows that computer-mediated communication can lead to meaningful relationships, especially for people who are otherwise isolated (McKenna & Bargh, 2000). Those who join online communities also have more contact with family members than do non-users, and they make meaningful friendships with people they meet online (Katz & Aspden, 1997). What’s more, the speed and efficiency of computer-mediated communication leaves people with more time for other things, such as face-to-face interaction (Coget, Yamauchi, & Suman, 2002). Even researchers who initially reported that use of the Internet has adverse effects on social relationships and creates feelings of loneliness have since changed their tune, thanks to the introduction of socially-connecting technologies such as email and instant messaging (Kraut et al., 2002).

It also appears that students participate more in online discussions than they do in face-to-face classes (“Benefits of Using Discussion Boards in Your Classes,” 2005). The quality of the conversation appears to be better as well. Students can take the time to read through their course notes, surf web sites for additional information, and then craft their responses more carefully than they could in a live classroom (Kassop, 2003). The improved quality may also be due to the social nature of the medium; students may be more thoughtful in what they say online because they know there is someone on the other end of the line who will be reading what they say and will be ready to comment on it (Wisenthal, J., as cited in Barette, 2005). The social dynamic motivates students to think more carefully about how they express themselves.

Many theorists, such as Vygotsky (1978), talk at length about the importance of the social dynamic in any learning setting. An online setting is no different. People want to know that they are not alone on the Internet, that on the other end of the cable or modem there are people like them who are engaged in a common enterprise and willing to interact with them along the way. In the absence of such a community there is no desire to stay involved (Woods & Ebersole, 2003). Computer-mediated communication provides the glue that connects people together in an online environment.

Conclusion
Many researchers argue that computer-mediated communication is a poor substitute for face-to-face communication. Rather than joining people together, it creates feelings of isolation, loneliness, and detachment. Users may also form false, and sometimes unflattering, impressions of others due to the lack of direct contact and the absence of cues such as body language and facial gestures.

Others argue that computer-mediated communication is a very positive and rewarding medium. It affords people time to think carefully about what they want to say before they contribute their thoughts. It also provides those who are reluctant to speak up in a face-to-face situation with an opportunity to express themselves freely. Moreover, if properly structured and supported, computer-mediated communication can foster meaningful and lasting social relationships.

The research in favour of computer-mediated communication supports what I have seen take place in the MET program. Through the regular use of computer-mediated communication, students in this program have formed strong social relationships; we have come together as a community of learners. And, I would argue, we talk more and know more about each other than do people in some face-to-face communities. We are far more communal, for example, than are people in the neighbourhoods in which we live. Neighbourhoods often consist of people who have little in common besides a similar address. Members of an online community like ours, on the other hand, may be separated by geography but we are joined by similar interests and aspirations. Our distance from each other is not a barrier to communication or a sense of belonging.

Computer-mediated communication has allowed us to join together in ways that we couldn’t in a real setting; there is no need to arrange a physical space where we can meet in the same place at the same time. We can log on when we want and where we want, and take part in an ongoing discussion. And with regards to the MET program, these discussions are not limited to a few minutes of class time; they frequently last for a week or more, with dozens of student postings. Everyone is expected to contribute to the discussion. And your thoughts and ideas linger behind after you have gone. There is a record of who you are and what you believe in the comments that you post.

Open for Business

Yesterday afternoon I attended a very interesting video conference on the topic of open data in government. For those of you unfamiliar with the topic, it’s pretty much as the name suggests — governments making some of the vast amounts of information they collect freely available to the public to use or mash up as they see fit (within the specified terms of use, obviously).

Open data is relatively new, but it is already being used and transformed in many exciting ways. For example, here’s an interesting open data-based geo-spatial mashup I saw the other day. If I was shopping for a house in San Francisco, this is the kind of stuff I would like to know before I make my final choice.

Anyways, back to yesterday. The session focused specifically on what the city of Vancouver is doing around open data. To learn more about what Vancouver is doing, start with this article or go straight to the City of Vancouver open data website. The data site contains links to all of the information the city is offering up, in a variety of formats. It also contains terms of use for the material, as well as a wiki where developers can share ideas on how they might use this data to create cool new applications and web services. The Vancouver initiative is still in its infancy, but there are lots of lessons learned that will prove valuable to other jurisdictions thinking of opening their data as well.

I applaud the world of open. It makes governments more transparent and accessible. It gives the public access to data that, technically speaking, they have paid for with their tax dollars. And it creates an environment in which new ideas and new applications of existing information can emerge.

Of course, not all government data would be of interest to the general public, or be suitable for dissemination. Crime data, for example, would need to be scrubbed of names and other sensitive information before anyone could use it. Other privacy concerns undoubtedly exist as well.

It will be interesting to see where open data takes us. Surely the collective intelligence of the general public will find a ton of uses for it that were never dreamed of by the government that created that data. Time will tell.

Setting Sail

After standing on the sidelines for the past few years, I’ve finally joined the 120+ million authors in the blogosphere.

What can I say? I’ve been pacing myself.

I have lots to say about technology and education. Stay tuned for my first real post, coming soon. In the meantime, click on About to learn a few things about me.