The movie Next had some fascinating ideas, even if the plot was Lost in 60 Seconds. The act of predicting the future inherently changes it by knowledge of it. So how do we predict what people will think is "good?" Or how people will react so something we say or create?
One of my creative writing professors once said of character choices, "It's not conjecture. The reason must be there." People do what they do, statistically and individually, because of their priority of incentives. Malcolm Gladwell writes all about that in Tipping Point. By knowing incentives, and therefore future choices, we are able to change behavior. In Minority Report, Cruise throws a ball across a table; the detective catches it before it drops, illustrating how we actively project into the future. Stumbling on Happiness stresses the point that, even if we can't predict how we're going to feel in the future, we make choices that will affect our future as though we could. It's impossible to know how we'll feel in the future. But it's very possible to project successful outcomes (i.e. happiness) if, like Nicholas Cage in Next, we do it by trial-and-error feedback.
From Seth's Blog:
"No one 'pre-predicted' the astonishing success of Flickr or Google or Twitter or Bill Clinton's first run for President. Sure, it was easy to connect the dots after the fact, but that doesn't count.Of course, there are plenty of failures to go around (I know that I've got more than plenty). Just because everyone hates it doesn't mean it's good. Execution is everything. Execution and persistence and the ability to respond to the market far outweigh a pundit's gut instinct. But, the thing to remember is this: if everyone loves it, it is almost certain to have troubles."
There was another quote I heard somewhere: "Perseverance beats raw talent." It seems true that improving a process or product makes it better than designing a "perfect" one to begin with. Meanwhile, Blink says that the gut instinct of someone with experience can be much more powerful than the logistics of research and development. If that includes thumbs up-or-down on a marketing solution, who has the final say? The expert, or the masses?
Those would be the "Phone a friend" or the "Ask the audience" options from Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? Assuming the show is a statistical tool, even if it has its flaws, the resulting accuracy should be an indicator of what the best source of information is.
"...More recently we see the remarkable accuracy of the audience in the show “Who wants to be a millionaire.” The ‘ask the audience’ question delivers a remarkable 91% accuracy versus 65% for the phone a friend 'expert'.
The secret is that under the right circumstances a crowd is smarter than its smartest individual. The combined knowledge of the masses is a powerful and highly accurate tool."
Video game designers have been using players' mass feedback since the first forum went online. Large agencies and consumer analysts are finally taking online feedback seriously, saving so much time and money they can probably fire most of their salaried researchers. Here's an article from AdWeek. As Malcolm Gladwell wrote in Tipping Point, it is up to the connectors and mavens to take interest in a new idea if it has any chance of spreading. Those are the people most involved, personally, with a brand, product, system, etc. It isn't up to the marketer to decide what will be good; it's up to the people who want to be involved with it.
Except that creativity doesn't happen by consensus. It takes individual creativity to be truly innovative. Mass review can only give feedback and suggestions. In the end, it's still up to a single person to come up with an inspired idea. They'd just need the help of legions of opinions and critiques to make that idea better, to the point where it matters.
- jkl
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