In Steven Pinker’s eloquent review of Gladwell’s new collection of essays, he coins a new calamity – “the Igon Value Problem,” mocking Gladwell for his misunderstanding/misspelling of the term “eigenvalue” as igon value. The Problem, as defined by Pinker is,
when a writer’s education on a topic consists in interviewing an expert, he is apt to offer generalizations that are banal, obtuse or flat wrong.
Now, I’m laughing all the way home, believe me, but I’m concerned that our industry is one that is fueled by Igon Valuation. Is it not true that there’s a deep hunger for sweeping generalizations in lay speak? A thirst for buzzy buzz words to capture compelling psychological constructs? Isn’t that essentially what industry analysts are lionized for?
My concern is that this Problem is keeping answers at bay. There are solutions available to some of today’s more complex business problems, but they’re waiting to be “Igon-valued” before catching on. Take the measurement of social technology usage, for example.
Meanwhile, academics are often brought on to firms with fear– left in the back room, lest they promise to dumb down everything they’re thinking of uttering client-side.I too have criticized Gladwell for his banal generalizations, for his cursory foray into psychology and statistics, for somehow stealing the credit for entire literatures– but I’m constantly reminded that Gladwell is hailed as a business guru! His books are on the business best seller lists for months, years.
I’ve come to the conclusion that business wants things Igon Valued. In a recent embarrassment at Web 2.0. Expo NYC, danah boyd was publicly humiliated for speaking too densely, quickly, and smartly… I used to think it was compelling stories about data that were lacking, but I’ve now decided banal generalizations are more effective. Please tell me I’m wrong.
I think the essence of business problems are waiting to be solved by a combination of social network analysis (SNA), text analysis, and some good, old-fashioned, proper attention to human beings– not all things that have been here all along, but things that are readily accessible now.
By measuring connections through SNA, we can identify things like:
- who’s connected to whom in an organization, however informal those connections are.
- the roles people play in communication and collaboration – whether they’re information brokers, originators, or hoarders (alas, a potential opportunity to make blatant generalizations!)
Through text analysis, we can determine things like:
- the nature of signals exchanged– when work is really getting done as opposed to socialization!
- how honest or emotional colleagues are with one another
Through asking the right questions on surveys, we can:
- explore perceptions of trust, motivation, awareness, competition
- help validate the root cause of any given problem
Compare today’s business intelligence to what Dr. Dena Rifkin wrote recently of how our medical interventions — our attention to “benchmarks and checkboxes” are failing the patients:
As a profession, we are paying attention to the details of medical errors — to ambiguous chart abbreviations, to vaccination practices and hand-washing and many other important, or at least quantifiable, matters.
This too is true in business– we’re paying attention to quantifiable units because they’re there, buzzy concepts because we want to keep up with the Jones’.
Be wary of buzz words. Certainly there are outliers, flukes, and things you can accomplish without methodical, long-winded statistical pattern analysis or reasoning, but for the most part, some depth is necessary. Furthermore, means to the depth already exists — we’re not waiting for it to be figured out, just waiting for it to be popularized.
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Divide and Conquer to Solve the Business-IT Disconnect Problem |
the problem you talk about is rampant in all fields, especially the field of investments. the greatest savants are usually the ones that have the greatest losses if you follow them. That’s guaranteed to happen. .The public has to pay as Bacon would say. The problem leads to the purpose of the useful idiot. Who are the useful idiots in your field. In mine, why I’d start with ” the sage”.. Everything he says is designed to talk his book and curry favor with those who mite want some of his chips as opposed to the chips he would prefer they take from others.. Thank goodness that you are not talking your book in your post and add gravitas and dignity to the field. vic
Interesting post!
First, on the public humiliation, read the what I call poetic and deep text of Danah’s talk here: http://bit.ly/4pdApE. Then read it again.
Way too deep and complex for a 15+ minute preso. An hour of interaction would be better, and well worth it I think
Compare that to Baratunde’s fun-filled 15 minute preso which left me 2 messages: Baratunde’s great fun, and hashtags rule
Second, you’re absolutely right of course, take a look at Western religion, where this Big Book is Igon Valued to you so you can be religious and just go on with your life at the same time not needing to worry about anything. Splendid concept, huge sucess for millennia
Btw you might like Martin Veitch’s post on “12 crap things IT people say” http://bit.ly/3YdtJP and http://bit.ly/7YIFvE
He’s not to fond of buzz himself, it seems…
On SNA:
I like Brian Solis’ blog post today on the Social Media (R)evolution (http://bit.ly/5W4LqL) showing the Social Technographics Ladder. However, it’s not a hierachy, it’s a hoard of course
Mentionmap (http://bit.ly/5W4LqL) does a very nice yet short job on it. I really love that
Text analysis:
Autonomous Hashtag-linking and interaction could “map” such a network relation-wise. That’s a lot of buzz but: just imagine the tags #beer #wine #men and #women and you’ll quickly get an idea (assumption?) of the characteristics of such a network and the people in it
That could all be dynamically automated, after which “we humans can move in” to ask the right questions
It’s actually very doable, at least in Twitter and other social networks. People love adopting standards, look at the microsyntax for Twitter (http://bit.ly/8OiZYR). The fun thing is, it’s all de facto standards!
I think it’s best to just show a solution if it’s too complex, not narrate it or read from a piece of paper.
We’ll actually be working on that in the coming weeks
Thanks, Martijn, for all the links to additional resources. Per danah’s talk, there are some really great points and themes about the new information ecology/ flow in her paper. Sadly, although talking about the importance of alignment, she wasn’t aligned with the audience and thus couldn’t compel. This seems to call for, not only a new model of information brokerage online, but translation– where Igon-Valuators can sit courtside, translating important ideas into 140-character bytes/ 3 bullets… Looking forward to your forthcoming solution!
…let’s remember that this wacky (typical) hostile behavior is a SYMPTOM and not the “problem”…the problem is that the ideas and delivery blew the brain fuse of a lot of ppl….who cares…
….thatz why we avoid conferences…if it ain’t already accepted wisdom…most ppls defenses come up immediately…the research on group information processing is pretty clear on all this…kool ideas shud only go to the folks who already “get it’….pablum for the rest…
…she had the worng info for the wrong ppl…getting slapped down is a good quick way to learn…don’t you think?
…i thought it wuz Igor value…..muhaha….
…we posted this on her blog -
…… guys, especially type-a, tech guys minds:
- Do not track what women are saying well
- Do not pay attention for very long
- On social media, tend to regress quickly to: A. hostility, B. inappropriate sexual comments
……you gotta always expect the hostile/aggressive/soxual guys to flame on and block ‘em immediately….. in social situations where a type-a guy is stressed the hostile/aggressive/soxual behavior take over. you can count on it…..predictable.
…taking it personally, either for sender or receiver, doesn’t track the data…it’s just impulsive acting out….”externalizing” behavior….i like that word…
….me agin….
…u gotta get hip to gender brain differences….the main reason we have a fetish for #’s and somed is cuz, the mainly, type a-guys who control the budgets…that’s the way their mindz work best…abstract/conceptual ideas do NOT work with them…
…to that kinda of mind it’s a hammer and everything is a nail…this will NOT change….in fact under stress, like NOW!…all brain tendencies just get amped up…good and bad….
….i could post a very kool but completely techie/confusing vid on this…u oughta let us post casts and stuff on your blog…
….are they RIGHT…well sure…and so is EVERYBODY else….have you heard the line that “…it’s only real if it can be easily measured…”…we saw how far that got the Wall St.!
Hear, hear!!!!