Ah, some of the formatting seems to have fallen out. In my original reply I formatted "main reasons why" with strike-through lines. The intent was to change… > Interestingly, the main reasons why the majority of consumers are still not interested …into… > Interestingly, the authors concluded that the majority of consumers are still not interested No wonder that you find it "adds no explanatory value and to the contrary, is somewhat disingenuous." Once the formatting falls out, it makes no sense and wasn't at all what I intended. Apologies for the mix-up. Given that some read the list in plaintext, I should not have tried to illustrate my point with formatting anyway. My bad. What I was trying to say is that the sentence as originally worded seems to accept and present the study conclusions regarding consumer interests as fact. But the authors report privacy issues in two separate categories which reduces the rating on that criteria, and that is just one of the ways in which the results are open to different interpretation. So I don't think it is valid to say "the main reasons why" but rather "the authors concluded" seems more accurate. That's the distinction I was attempting to make. My analysis of the study, as detailed in the blog post, basically boils down to "the methodology appears to have skewed the conclusions, they didn't give us sufficient information about the survey to make those conclusions actionable, and wording of the article is squirrely." These things should be self-evident to anyone reading the article. Even if the article had favored my position, I'd remain skeptical of the conclusions it draws for all these reasons. For that matter, I'm skeptical of any reporting of published studies because they almost always sensationalize the results and when possible I go read the original work. That's why the wording in your original post jumped out at me. I would have expected at least some skepticism from you and wondered aloud whether the wording was accidental or intentional. In your reply below you echo some of the same concerns about the unavailability of the results. Gekko's web site doesn't even mention the study. > It is tautologically obvious that the research authors will have sythesised these conclusions, in established marketing research tradition. Meaning the conclusions are more thoroughly spun than cotton candy, and about as nutritious? > I often find them both well informed and well thought through, if lacking a little in human empathy. Thanks. I'll take that as a complement since it isn't exactly damning praise to point out that the autistic guy has an empathy deficit. > perhaps you would benefit from taking the same broad approach to synthesis too I try. I really do. But I apply the same skepticism to all the sources that I use. What I find is that we are mostly asked to make decisions based on snippets and sound bites. To be fair, that's as deep as many people ever go and if it wasn't condensed for them they'd be completely uninformed. But the need to cater to that crowd has redefined journalism as short-attention-span theatre. If all you have is a single moment of audience attention, it is necessary to be as persuasive with the snippet or sound bite presented and so these nuggets of info are precisely crafted, and more often than not crafted with a particular result in mind. We no longer trust people with all the facts, even those willing to read source material and do their own analysis. Instead we just tell them what to think. But our competitors are doing exactly the same thing so the result is a barrage of conflicting messages, all condensed down to what someone with an agenda considers essential and designed to incite us to action on that basis. So when I see research that appears to have been commissioned by Marketing Week, that has been reported exclusively by Marketing Week, referencing source material that is unpublished by Marketing Week, that uses unequal degrees of granularity across different categories, is condensed down to 1400 words, and says things like "Thirty per cent of people are willing.." rather than "Thirty per cent of people SURVEYED are willing…", my bullshit detector goes off. Doesn't yours? Doesn't everybody's? When they then specifically call out conclusions that the finer-grained category is about half as important than the others I think maybe I've located a pasture patty. You suggest that I'd benefit from considering a wider set of opinions. Well, I would in good faith consider anyone's argument as to why the issues I've raised with this particular study are invalid. When people tell me that I'm too paranoid, that I see too much intentionality, I can't help but think of how that worked out in the IT security field. I saw Microsoft move Skype from a peer-to-peer model to a client-server model and said "that's probably so they can eavesdrop on the communications." I saw large companies installing corporate root certs in employee browsers and said that's probably so they can eavesdrop on the communications." I said that the only context in which the US government's "going dark problem" is actually a problem is if they are slurping up that data in real time and eavesdropping on everybody. I even suggested government might play the long game and would have worked to infiltrate the crypto libraries as a way to mitigate the effects of the going dark problem, which they had to see coming. Before Snowden, I was the flaky tin-foil-hat guy for saying these things, and much more. I was the conspiracy theorist. "Nobody could compromise the crypto libraries" I was told. "They are too heavily audited and tested. Too many people would have to have been involved and you can't keep a secret with that many people" they said. Except that ALL of those things actually happened, including back doors in the most widely used crypto libs on the planet. Maybe I do tend to see more intentionality than actually exists. That's precisely why I consider diverse opinions. That's why I invite constructive criticism and consider it in good faith. I want to eliminate false positives where what I think I see isn't really there because this shit can be really scary. But at the same time my pattern recognition has consistently and accurately identified intentionality that other people missed. In the fullness of time that pattern recognition has proven more right than wrong, even when it been so far on the fringe that I have endured ridicule for it. When I point it at PR and marketing, it sees runaway positive feedback loops driven by money, power or both, and sees these everywhere. It sees a world where almost every input is a crafted message driven by intentionality and every output is either captured or about to be. It sees a world where the prevailing business models are split between maximizing direct externalization of cost, or constantly ratcheting up the delta between perception and reality whilst extracting profit from the difference, or some combination of these. It sees a world where companies are so big that they can effectively define consumer demand by controlling what makes it to market, and are using that power to corrupt the original vision of Internet of Things in the service of data collection. It sees that these runaway feedback loops left unchecked lead to what I'd consider to be VERY nasty outcomes for most people on the planet (with a few relatively happy folks at the top). There will probably never be the PR/marketing equivalent of Julian Assange or Ed Snowden showing up to vindicate the tin-foil-hat perspective arising from y sense of pattern recognition. That doesn't make it wrong. Given its track record, I remain inclined to trust it. Kind regards, -- T.Rob T.Robert Wyatt, Managing partner IoPT Consulting, LLC +1 704-443-TROB From: Graham Reginald Hill [mailto:
] Hi T.Rob Thanks for your response. I have said it before and I will no doubt say it again; 'The lady doth protest too much, methinks!". I read through the research conclusions published in Marketing Week and then searched for the original research at Gekko (the market research agency who carried out the research that was reported by Marketing Week). Unfortunately, I did not find the original research. I assume that you at least read the Marketing Week article. Without access to the original research and its underlying methodology I must assume that the conclusions it drew were based in large part on the responses of the consumers surveyed. It is tautologically obvious that the research authors will have sythesised these conclusions, in established marketing research tradition. I find your statement that "... the main reasons why (the) authors concluded..." adds no explanatory value and to the contrary, is somewhat disingenuous. It makes the completely unfounded suggestion that the authors conclusions were biased in favour of an already established position and not closely related to the consumer responses. The rest of your email (and I assume blog post) is not only not informed by any further details of the original survey but worse, is biased by your own well documented position. In short, you fall prey to the same logical errors that you unfoundedly accuse the market researchers at Gekko of. What were the words you used, ah yes, 'spin doctoring'. I value your opinions. I often find them both well informed and well thought through, if lacking a little in human empathy. But I also value others' opinions too. It helps me produce a better, more rounded synthesis in the Hegelian tradition of enquiry. If I may be so humble as to suggest it, perhaps you would benefit from taking the same broad approach to synthesis too.
PS. I wil respond to your earlier email in due course. Unfortunately, I have more important work to attend to at the moment. Apologies -- Gesendet: Mittwoch, 20. August 2014 um 18:32 Uhr Thanks for the link, Graham! > Interestingly, the main reasons why the majority of consumers are still not interested in this smart devices are too high cost, lack of usefulness, too much complexity and fears over data privacy. I think you meant "Interestingly, the main reasons why authors concluded that the majority of consumers are still not interested in this smart devices are too high cost, lack of usefulness, too much complexity and fears over data privacy," yes? Or did you intentionally assert this statement as verified fact? I do not find the article actionable or useful. I started to write out my reasoning and it quickly turned into a blog post which can be found here: https://ioptconsulting.com/marketing-weeks-flawed-iot-survey/ In short, Marketing Week's new survey on consumer attitudes toward #IoT is as notable as much for what's left out and how it is framed as it is for the conclusions it draws. Pull quotes In discussing the aggregation of factors under the "unimportant" category: But [the survey category] “not considered important in my life” could also be that the functionality of the devices on offer is perceived as laughable. “You want me to replace a perfectly good wall switch with…my phone? BWAHAHAHAHAHA!” This is the group into which I fall. Admittedly this conclusion requires an informed and tech-savvy consumer. However, targeting the portion of the market who do not understand this creates and incentive and business model based on keeping them clueless, which also happens to facilitate the device-as-data-collection-portal paradigm. On the framing used in the article: "Perhaps when your audience is an industry driven by the collection and analysis of consumer data, suggesting that consumers have significant privacy concerns is taboo. Or perhaps the researchers genuinely wanted to drill down in this area because it is important but that intention got lost in publication. Hard to say what is going on and since the usefulness of the conclusions varies so widely depending on how you read the intent here, any credence we each give the study will tend to align with our own confirmation bias. Anyone can interpret the results according to their own views and that, for me anyway, renders the results meaningless." Kind regards, -- T.Rob T.Robert Wyatt, Managing partner IoPT Consulting, LLC +1 704-443-TROB From: Graham Reginald Hill [
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] Hi Doc This article in Marketing Week sets out what consumers think about smart devices - potentially a form of quantified self - in connected homes. Smart Homes Lack Consumer connection Interestingly, the main reasons why the majority of consumers are still not interested in this smart devices are too high cost, lack of usefulness, too much complexity and fears over data privacy. The research raises a lot of questions. Thoughts? Best regards from Bristol, Graham -- |
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