This is the first in I have no idea how many posts on creating an equation for defining and measuring online engagement so that all present and future possibilities will be satisfied. I can already hear NextStage's IP attorney sighing. When we wrote up the original patent in 2000 I was covering user applications and technologies that are just now making their way out of the labs. Thinking down the road is something I do a lot of.
Mathematics is many things to me. Both a philosophy and a language, it is also a means of expression, both of self and to others.
Let's handle the philosophy first because it will probably be the easiest for the most people to handle.
What is the purpose of an interface (like a webpage, for example, and let's extend it to any digital media)? To create a relationship.What is the purpose of a relationship? To establish trust.
Okay. And trust, as I've shared before, is a measure of an individual's non-conscious belief they can manage the pain of a relationship (see my comment #117 in TheFutureOf blog). Trust isn't a binary function of the psyche, conscious or not. It may seem that way with some individuals and it seems that way because most people aren't trained in what is called Theory of Mind and Mind Reading (in the anthrosocial sense. Go read Reading Virtual Minds for a primer on this). Basically there are different levels of trust and different kinds of trust and whatever form of "trust" you use, it comes down to a statement of vulnerability.
What is the purpose of trust? To regulate social frames.
Note that the use of "social" doesn't equate to "person-to-person". It has to do with how and with what people align and associate themselves (this has a lot to do with the psychology of branding). Social frames are the cultural and group dynamics we willingly place ourselves in. Example: in western culture, the trust and vulnerability we demonstrate to a lover in a bedroom is very different than what we demonstrate in corporate negotiations. But both are forms of social negotiation and are demonstrations of vulnerability and trust.
How do we set the tone for these negotiations? Via sociocultural and psycholinguistic cues.
How can digital media (website, etc) provide the cues for negotiation? The same way people do; sociocultural and psycholinguistic cues as expressed via images, models, actors, colors, text, ...
Switch reference frames
What is the most expensive thing you can give someone? Your attention.
Because? You make them the most important thing in your universe when you do so.
What is the one thing everybody wants? To be unique, special (even people who want to be "a part of the crowd" are making that their unique feature).
How do we let them know they're special and unique? Websites have tended to be a buffer between the company and the consumer, essentially saying "You can only touch me in these ways." But humans crave things that human hands have touched. In the world of increasingly sophisticated web apps and social media, where groups from and dissolve in internet time in order to achieve one goal, where consumers push and pull far more than companies can, the human touch is what will drive the next set of web technologies and the consumer attitudes that will drive them.
The Result
Hence the level of intimacy (the "in touch"iness of a website) as determined by engagement (as the brain-mind equates cognitive focus with physical and social distance) will be a priori a required measurement moving forward.
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Not sure how much it dissolves this post, but I disagree with the precepts in this post. The purpose of a relationship is not trust. I'd agree that an underpinning of a relationship is trust, but the purpose of a relationship is to engage in an exchange. It could be an exchange of ideas, an exchange of money for goods or services, an exchange of companionship or intimacy (which, for certain governors and others, may also involve money). If we feel someone has nothing to offer us, we avoid them.
Also, I am not sure that the purpose of trust is to regulate social frames, but that is more that I do not have a ready made definition for social frames that makes me comfortable with that statement. I'd agree if the purpose of a relationship is to allow an exchange, then trust and vulnerability are going to govern that exchange. I'll even go so far as to say that trust is balanced on the belief that one will gain more pleasure than pain from making oneself vulnerable. That trust can be applied to bank loans (where collateral and a reliable legal/financial system is intended to limit the pain), flying (trusting our safety to self interest of airlines/pilots), and sharing personal information with a friend.
I wouldn't have gone into that explanation if part of me didn't disagree with the statement. The root of my concern is more that I don't think trust has a "purpose". Attempting to establish trust has a purpose, but trusting is done without intent and, thus, without purpose. In fact, when I say "I am trusting you with this", what I am really saying is, "I am making myself more vulnerable than is warranted given the trust I have in you, so please don't make me realize the anticipated/foreseeable pain."
Posted by: Windkiller | March 18, 2008 4:30 PM | Permalink to Comment