Blackbeard Blog

The talk that got me thinking the most at Research 2011 was by Charles Leadbeater, author of We-Think. He wasn’t talking about We-Think, though, he was talking about “intimacy at scale”, and specifically about an all-explaining DIAGRAM he had drawn on a powerpoint slide.

I am a big fan of diagrams, especially when they claim to explain everything, so as you can imagine I liked this one. I can’t find a copy of it online so I have DRAWN one here:

But did I think it worked? Well, let me try and describe it.

It was a quadrant analysis chart. On the left-right axis you had EMPATHY and on the up-down one you had SYSTEM. What did these words mean? Well, SYSTEM seemed pretty clear. You had low-system things, with low levels of formal organisation (or at least low levels of WORKING organisation), and high-system things, where people had built complex systems which basically worked.

EMPATHY was a bit trickier. It seemed to be about individual relationships, and the extent to which people cared about and could trust one another. Sometimes the meaning seemed to slip into “niceness” though, or at least a level of relational trust aimed towards doing stuff which Leadbeater and his audience approved of.

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This is now at least three, possibly four, really good conferences in a row for the MRS - excellent work by the organisers. I’ve become enough of a conference circuit regular now to say confidently that this is my favourite event of the year.

Here’s a selection of notes, ideas, broad themes etc. I felt came out of the event. Obviously my choice of which panel or session to go to was very influenced by my own interests and what I was involved in, so this is very much not a ‘helicopter view’.

BEHAVIOURAL ECONOMICS: LOTS of talk about this. Nick Southgate’s session was one of the best, even though it didn’t really deliver on its promise of showcasing practical applications of behavioural economics. Only one of the three papers - about using BE in sustainable development - really dug into the topics. The other two were more about innovative research methods (Unilever and its data-collecting toothbrushes) and something more like kaizen than the application of theory from Birmingham Airport. But they were good case studies, and the variety helped the session more than hindered it. What I took out of this is that behavioural change is about controlling the decision context rather than trying to influence the decision directly.

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Hello! I am at the Research 2011 conference in London tomorrow and Wednesday - just finished my rehearsals. If you’re there, here’s what I’m involved in:

Online Communities (Tuesday 11am):  I have a very easy gig on this panel, moderated by Rachel Lawes - I’m just there to nod sagely and provide comment as a wise old digital head (or some such!). The heavy lifting is being done by the three papers - a case study of a British Gas idea generation community, a paper from TGI giving that industry currency’s insight on how representative social media users are, and my pick of the three, a paper from Firefish looking at the use of community materials for direct, rather than indirect communications impact.

Nerdtopia! Geek Culture For Researchers (Wednesday 10.50am): This is my main event, a workshop co-run with Nick Gadsby about “nerd culture” - specifically focusing on fandoms, memes and gaming, and their research relevance. We have squeezed an awful lot of ideas, activities, cheap jokes and easter eggs into our hour’s running time, and there’s even room for a couple of useful insights too. It’s a labour of love, and of beer, so please please if you get the opportunity go to this.