I have been listening to interviews of Rory Sutherland a lot these days. Sutherland is the Vice-Chairman of the Ogilvy & Mather group of companies. He often shares some really great examples of advertising, behavioral psychology, marketing and design.
I came across this gem from an interview.
What actually happens instead is that 10 people misunderstand it, express their outrage. In the old days, newspaper reporting actually involved getting out of the office and going and visiting people to canvas their opinions, and therefore, mad people with extreme opinions were difficult to find, because there weren’t very many of them.
On Twitter, if you want to create a scandal, all you do is go, there’ll be some bad people here, oh, look, here they are, hashtagblah, blah, blah, Cut and paste, put it in the newspaper… too easy.
Too easy. And it’s the mainstream media, not the social media, that are most to blame, because they take what is a totally minority whack job opinion, and they make it seem a mainstream opinion
The reasons why outrage is expressed are obviously more nuanced. This quote is a good filter to remember.
I am one of the organisers of WordCamp Asia this year. It will take place in Mumbai. I do come across a lot of unkind mentions about me, the event, and even India for that matter.
I usually handle criticism well, but not everyone can react calmly. Offering a quick solution seems helpful.
People who often have the most social capital, can make their criticism look cataclysmic. People with the most social capital can also tap into others with with similar social capital. This can quickly become a cycle. Rewarding with attention by reacting to outrage more than reacting to contribution. Eventually, everyone starts to believe that the best way to be get noticed is to outrage.
Contributors are often trying to find a happy place and feel a sense of belonging. Many of them do not wish to raise a ruckus on social media to simply attract attention. These folks simply walk away never to return or reduce their involvement drastically.
Speaking up is important, but if you are the listening type, then being able to separate noise from signal is far more important.
If you lead a community, you might need to engage those who generally do not speak up more proactively.
The full interview is pretty cool. It is a lot less about what I wrote above but the quote I shared is around the 4:30 mark.
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