12/11/2013

Social Marketing Encouraging Exercise in the Elderly

Our new paper, examining how Social Marketing can be used to encourage exercise and physical activity in the elderly is now available pre-print from Social Marketing Quarterly.

Although physical activity is enormously beneficial for people over 65, only few researchers and even fewer social marketing activities have target this age group specifically. As this age group has quite different assumptions about and different needs in relation to exercise than younger target audiences, we show in the paper how a potentially successful social marketing intervention can be developed. We used grounded theory to explore the different needs and ways in which an intervention can target a senior target group. We then complemented this, by using developing a potential intervention based on the Transtheoretical Model.

The article is free for the next few weeks, thanks to Sage’s Management INK blog. To access the article, please click here.

2/11/2013

Papers 3 for Mac (…and kind of for iPad)

Mekentosj recently released a new version of Papers (now 3) … a paid upgrade for both Mac and iPad. I wasn’t too much of a fan of Papers 2 before, although the annotation features on the iPad were nice, and the syncing worked in some ways, but had some strange omissions: E.g. you could move articles from one collection to another, but the app did not sync changes in lables/read or unread status etc… actually pretty much all the fundamental stuff. I also disliked the rather clunky citations tool… Especially with both Zotero and Mendely being free, cross-platform and more convenient to use – which makes it easier to work on different platforms and together with non-mac colleagues (or colleagues who don’t want to shell out for the Papers licence).

Nevertheless, I was rather excited that Papers was completely redesigned and, I hoped that, even though the application is in Beta for Mac (NOT for iPad?) the past limitations would be overcome – and at least it would provide a seamless way to sync libraries etc…. Another great improvement, I hoped, would be that the related articles feature would be much improved. The old Livfe was simply confusing… So I downloaded the apps – and gave it all a try.

First off: Papers 3 for Mac
Well, good things first: The design is pretty similar, so not overly confusing. I’m not sure it constitutes “a brand new look” as the website claims – but hey.
Unfortunately, the good news ends there: The matching feature, which looks up article details used to work quite ok in Papers 2 – although I never could get it to work with any Athens authenticated search engine. Well… in Papers 3 it just delivered garbage for the three papers I tried. I have no idea what happened. Even searching for the title, which in Google scholar brings up each article as a first hit, Papers 3 did not manage.

Next up the “social functions”, i.e. the related articles. I tried this on a reasonably old (2008) article (“Regulation of Nutrition and Health Claims in Advertising”). Well… it offered 20 “related” articles – pretty much all of them useless (see picture above): All “related” articles were extremely old (1989?!), with most from the 1990s (really!) – and all pre-dating the article in question significantly. Several articles were missing the title – and appeared just as [Citation][C] – whatever that meant. And whatever made an article about shell fish consumption related – I have no idea. Comparing this to the two related articles that Mendely shows (with both actually related!) this was a particularly poor showing. Frankly, this much hyped feature seems fairly useless – to say the least.

So… would I buy the app for €59 (or €29.95 as an upgrade from Papers2)? Absolutely not. The app delivers nothing useful and new – and if you wanted to be cynical, you could say the upgrade is simply there to make you pay again. So, my view is: Thanks, but “no thanks”.

Papers 3 for iPad
Well… if the Mac version was a downer, the Papers 3 app just got worse. First off, the iPad app removes the ability to sync over Wifi with the main computer library, replacing it with a forced sync via Dropbox. Why?? I have absolutely nothing against Dropbox, but I just can’t see why I have to use it when I can easily sync via Wifi – and don’t have to worry about space limitations etc. And yes, I can see it is a good thing to add that functionality for people who would like to use it. But why removing the existing sync options?

I honestly can’t say much more about the “amazing new ways to annotate” and other features of the app – as frankly the app kept crashing every time I actually tried to read a paper, which frankly makes the app completely useless. Well, maybe I should have looked at the iTunes stores reviews – which basically mirror exactly my experience.

In short, the new app, rather than building on the previous version and making things better – it simply makes things worse. And just to add insult to injury, the app removes the one reasonably good feature, which made it easy to carry the same papers around on the desktop mac and the iPad.

In conclusion, not surprisingly, the £6.99 for the iOS version, while not being a lot of money, is an absolute waste of every penny in my book. Especially, coupled with an expensive desktop version, this is really simply unacceptable in my books. If you are a Papers user, I’d stick to my old Papers 2 – at least it sort of works…

Have you used Papers 3? What are your experiences? Please tell me I’m just unlucky… by using the comments function below!

4/08/2013

Choosing where to publish academic books

Books are, at least in marketing and in the UK academic world, sadly not often valued highly – at least in comparison to what is considered “real” publications in the form of academic journal articles. However, they are a great way to get your thoughts out there, present your research in much more depth and, maybe most importantly, to reach other target markets than purely academics. If you therefore decide to publish your own book (and let’s face it, it looks so much better on a coffee table than just the latest edition of the Journal of XYZ), you should nevertheless tread carefully when selecting a publisher.

The general “packing order” (in terms of prestige) are books published by well established university presses (such as Cambridge or Oxford University Press) and trade academic presses (such as Sage or Routledge), followed by, quite a distance apart, the general trade presses (such as Harper Collins or Simon & Schuster) – and , very, very far apart, the “option of last resort”: vanity presses. Check this post from Tanya Golash-Boza for a her view of which type of publisher to choose. Of course, you should also consider if your topic is a natural fit with the publisher – some publishers will only work with big selling text books for large modules, others like a more “traditionally academic” approach. Just take a look at your bookshelf to see the types of books you have there – I’m sure you can quickly spot the publishers who aim for the large audience of first year undergraduate modules – or the publishers who like to publish books which are a bit more “off the beaten track”.

While prestige and “fit” may be one point to consider, another point to consider is what the publisher will actually do for you: remember it is not just about nice ideas, but also about selling the book in the end, and making it a good book (which you may want to keep on your coffee table )!

From having worked with four different publishers, all in the trade academic area, I think the relationship with the editor is probably the single most crucial aspect of the publishing process. I have no experience how trade press or vanity publishers work – but from Tanya’s blog post it seems quite a different ball game. Also, the second part of this article in the Times Higher may be of interest if you think a vanity press is a good idea…(or any of the publishers emailing you with “publish your research now” in the subject line…). Remember though that editors can move, and that the replacement editor may have quite different ideas! I had the unpleasant experience of this once, where the editorial team moved from one publisher to another – and the new team decided that the book was no longer exactly what they wanted. Those things are, probably, rare, but they are quite a problem when they arise!

The other point to consider is probably how well you get on with your editor – and what role she or he should play when developing the manuscript. From my experience, I have had everything from the totally laid back editor who only wanted a finished manuscript that pleased the reviewers – to an editor who seemed genuinely interested in the topic, read drafts and gave feedback and suggestions during the writing process. My personal preference would be for the latter, but that is probably personal style.

Many people seem to forget that your book (at least for academic presses) will get peer reviewed: often not just by 2 or 3 reviewers like when publishing for a journal, but generally by 5 or 6 reviewers. Again, your editor’s role is pretty crucial here. The editor selects the peer reviewers, and although different to journal articles, the peer reviewers will know your name – but you won’t know who they are. Acknowledging all the vagaries of the peer review system, you can imagine that more reviewers means: more vagaries. Therefore, selecting them wisely is pretty important. The good news is, that they don’t have to agree, and that the editor is ultimately in charge of what gets published. Also, your editor might put some of their reviews into context. So having a relationship where you can have an open and frank discussion with your editor is pretty crucial when dealing with the sometimes contradictory feedback you are likely to get.

Finally, don’t think your relationship with the publisher (and the editor) ends when you deliver the manuscript. Actually, you are only about half way there: what follows is the final editing process – and then the marketing of the book.

As the manuscript gets miraculously transformed into that beautifully bound book for your personal library there are a lot of editing and other chores to be done. Again, my experience here has been pretty mixed. For example, one publisher I worked with used an agent to clear all the required permissions for pictures and illustrations. Another publisher thought it was not their job, and the author team had to get permissions. I know it sounds like a small thing, but chasing a hundred copyright holders is not a very pleasant task (for me…)…

Even then when the book is standing in your bookshelf you are still not quite “free” to enjoy your work: The book needs to be marketed. And again, there can be large differences in what different publishers and editors do, which conferences they attend and what their sales agents are told. Again, having a close relationship and the support of your editor is probably key here in making the book a success – as otherwise you might end up with a beautiful book that … well… you, and you alone, have at home.

As Tanya suggests, know what you let yourself in for by asking colleagues who have published with a your chosen publisher – and don’t forget to ask them how their editor was! Because which ever publisher you chose, your editor is the key person you will be working with. If you are not happy with the relationship from the start, then it might be good to think twice about signing up with that publisher.

Let me know what you think. Have you had any particularly good or bad experiences when publishing? Share it!

2/08/2013

Analysing Qualitative Data with Software: Leximancer

I’m currently spending some time “down under” as visiting academic at James Cook University in Queensland. One of the great things I enjoy most about visiting (and working with) academics half way around the world is that I get exposed to some rather nifty tools – like a software used quite widely in Australia for qualitative text analysis, but unfortunately not quite so well known outside of Oz.

If you have ever worked with big quantities of qualitative text and tried to categorise it, you are probably familiar with the “joys” of NVivo: it is a manual and very, very time consuming way to categorise what is in the data. As technology has progressed, new methods of “sorting” through lots of text have emerged: for example text mining, such as the tools provided by the National Centre for Text Mining in the UK – something which I used to identify “the big themes” in Social Marketing research in this article in Social Marketing Quarterly. Fast forward to 2013 – and Text Mining seems almost a bit dated, as with modern software, such as Leximancer, we can now not only produce quite boring tables of frequently used words – but actually create concept maps, showing how words form concepts – and how “closely related” these are on a map. See, for example, the bubbly “concept map” above: It visualises different “concepts” talked about by two focus groups (one from Bristol the other from Southend in case you are curious). Words that appear close to each other were mentioned often relatively “closely”: For example, “walking” and “heart” (as in walking is good for your heart). As walking and heart also appear close to the “tag” Southend, this suggests people from the group in Southend talked about this much more – than people from Bristol (who talked much more about smoking, for example). On the other hand, both groups talked about “time” [it takes to do exercise] similarly often – as it is almost equidistant between the two “tags”.

Using such a tool can quickly show, for example, if groups use similar words and word combinations to describe a concept – or if they use quite different words and ideas when they talk about a common theme. The software has also been used, for example in this paper, as a way to review literature – and compare different definitions (in this case of Social Marketing).

While Leximancer does make it quite easy to mine and visualise large data sets (and infinitely easier than trying to “code” them with tools like NVivo, it does however have some limitations: It is, of course, a piece of software, rather than a thinking, breathing human being. On the one side that is an advantage, as it isn’t susceptible to all sorts of biases and effects like the human brain when trawling through large amounts of texts. On the other hand, it does simplify concepts and doesn’t have a real brain: so some results may be a little random – and need the researcher to look out for how this occurs: For example wife and hospital occur frequently together. This may be, for example, because several participants in the group talked about their wife’s experiences in the hospital – rather than suggesting that somehow having a wife is inherently linked with going to hospital (I’m sure there is a joke in here somewhere…). Also, Leximancer (and text mining) does work at a quite abstract level – so if you are looking for surprising details in a large body of text, it is quite likely that the software will not pick it up. For this, you still need to read all of the text. But if a research question is to look for related concepts and thematic clustering – and representing this in a visually pleasing way, then Leximancer can a massive time saver.

30/07/2013

The 7S for Persuasive Mobile Apps – and the Functional Triad

In 1998, which is, of course long before mobile “apps” were wide spread, BJ Fogg suggested a “Functional Triad for persuasive computers”. The triad is, as the name suggests, focused on computer based – rather than mobile app based – persuasion. Fogg suggests that there are three”basic ways that people view or respond to computing technologies”. These three basic ways in turn can be used to classify the 7S Framework into three “meta categories”:

The first category encompasses “tools” which help an individual’s ability to achieve a specific behaviour. For example, a calculator enables a person to compute quickly and to correctly compute complicated equations.
The 7Ss also provides three tools to enable people to achieve a behaviour:
Simplify - makes complex tasks accessible and easily performed.
Sign-posting - enables the user to find out more information at a later stage as the user starts to search for supporting arguments for the behaviour change
Suggest - engages the user in constant goal setting

The second category “social actor” focuses on relationships. Fogg originally envisaged this as mainly a tool for creating social presence of computers. But, of course, with social networks computers (or apps) can actually become a virtual form of real-life social links. Therefore:
Socialise - enables people to use the tool as a means to engage with (non-)virtual social actors, while in
Support – the app takes the form of a virtual “friend”, for example by congratulating or cheering the user on when achieving behavioural goals.

The third category, “medium” provides an experience, for example a virtual environment in which to learn, review or practice behaviours. This is probably the most complex part of the triad to replicate in apps – as it is hard to, for example, create a virtual space in which to “try out” exercise. However, it is important not to forget that an experience can not only be “trained” beforehand, but also, be relived as a means of rewarding oneself. Therefore, self-supervise fits this concept (fairly) closely:
Self-supervising – gives the user the ability to relive and review the behaviour – or even to plan ahead, for example by using tools such as MapMyRun, where users can plan their next run.

Of course, the mapping of the components of the 7Ss to the functional triad is not hard and fast fact: it is perfectly possible to argue that, for example, “suggest” may actually function mostly as a social actor rather than a tool. However, given that Fogg’s triad has been used and documented extensively, it is likely that an app that uses all three categories (and the 7Ss) is more likely to have maximum behaviour change potential, than an app that ignores one or several of these.

21/06/2013

Hello and Bye Bye: Deactivate

Writing about social media has an interesting effect on me: I’m wondering how would life be without social media. I was, of course, alive in the 1990s – and vaguely remember the funny sounds terribly slow modems made when they connected to that wild thing called “the internet”. This was followed by quickly checking the very few emails and maybe a website or two – and then that was it. After all it was the cost of a local call at least – and even though per minute that was not that much … it quickly added up. Conversely, and maybe through the haze of time, I remember the intense discussions with friends or fellow students which were never interrupted by another notification whizzing you away from Central London and the person right in front of you – to the friend half way around the world to discuss some triviality. And of course, I remember the amazing excitement when receiving one of those pale blue rice paper things marked “AirMail” from friends somewhere… Maybe because of nostalgia, maybe because I’m curious what effect it will have on me - or just simply as a way to see what I”ll miss (or not) – but I have decided to give social media a rest for a few weeks.

As I’m going to travel over the next few weeks anyway, this time seems a pretty good time to “disconnect” – and focus both on my work that I plan to be doing while away – and on my writing. I’m not really planning on making any elaborate rules about what I will do and what I won’t do. As I “self-experiment” I’m not sure it would be very sensible to do so. I’m still actually in two minds about wether or not I should blog occasionally during this time – as I guess technically this counts pretty much as social media. On the other hand, blogging is less of a “social” activity to me than, say, twitter or facebook. Anyway, let’s see what happens… and I’m looking forward to being in touch with you again in a few weeks … when I’m back in the UK!

20/06/2013

eWOM: Why is Venting at Strangers more satisfactory

Why do people love to vent online? The emergence of electronic “venting” behaviour is well documented, and so are the concerns and potential consequences. Yet, the literature remains rather quiet about why so many people like to vent online – rather than talking to friends. Especially as one could expect, that, for example if a friend may be more likely to believe me and take appropriate action - than a complete stranger.

A possible [partial] explanation is a tricky bit of psychology: Friends are most likely to try and help – but that may not be what is wanted. I.e. when talking negatively about something, such as in the case of negative Word of Mouth, many people have encountered an interesting problem: When complaining to a friend, there is little satisfaction – but when you complain to a complete stranger, it’s highly satisfactory. This issue has been raised in previous research on WOM (e.g. Bearden & Oliver 1985) – yet unfortunately, it seems to remain largely ignored in the eWOM literature. Yet, it may actually give an interesting rational for people venting to complete strangers online – in preference to telling a few friends.

Let me start with an example: Recently, a friend complained to me about a service encounter. My instant reaction was to try to figure out what might have caused the problem, focusing mostly on trying to explain what might have caused the strange reaction from my friend’s counterpart. So, while I was attempting to rationalise the encounter in a genuinely well intended attempt to calm down my friend, this had quite the opposite effect on my friend: My friend felt that I was taking the opponents side – and, obviously, felt that, by implication, I was accusing him of being the irrational one. Clearly, having his confidant and friend “turn on him” was highly unsatisfactory.
As Bearden & Oliver would suggest, my reaction was not really untypical. However, this episode might explain why “venting” to a friend is frequently perceived as unsatisfactory – as friends often (in a maybe misguided) way try to help – rather than let the venting stand as it is.

Think of a similar situation, but with a complete stranger (I admit, in face to face WOM, this would be a rather unusual situation): If you vent to complete stranger in the street, the person is probably far less likely to try and rationalise what was going on. Rather, wanting to get out of the uncomfortable situation, the stranger, may simply try to get out of the situation by saying something like “oh how terrible of XYZ” and move away. As Bearden & Oliver suggest – a much more satisfactory resolution for someone “venting” – and looking for some sympathy or reassurance.

Of course, venting to complete strangers face to face is not exactly an easy option (unless yo want to be seen as “the crazy person”)… but online venting to strangers is the standard. Think of a typical negative Tripadvisor review: Few real life friends will ever know about the review – or even challenge any points made in the review. Rather the review is seen mostly by complete strangers. Strangers may, of course, contradict the negative review – although there is generally very little ongoing discussion.
Interestingly, again going back to the original Bearden & Oliver article, people may feel satisfied once they actually got their point “out there” – and “walk away” from the issue. In other words, the action of writing or even crafting (unchallenged) the review and getting it out there, may deliver enough satisfaction to “let go of the issue” – so any future contradictions are less likely to be seen in the same way as a real-time discussion with a friend face to face. In an interesting twist, Bearden & Oliver actually suggest that in some cases, if a public complaint has been made, the “feeling of satisfaction” can be so good, that even in the absence of a resolution, a consumer repeats a purchase of a product previously complained about – prompting them to conclude that complaints behaviour should be encouraged (although they were clearly not talking about very public complaints behaviour, such as in the case of TripAdvisor).

To summarise, the likely (even potentially well meaning) reactions of friends, which are perceived as unsatisfactory when complaining, may in part explain why the internet is an interesting – and attractive- forum for venting negative emotions or often bitter complaints. There are certainly other factors which may make the internet an attractive platform (such as the imagined reaction of strangers etc) – but the role of feeling unsatisfied with face to face complaining to friends should not be forgotten.

As always, it would be great to hear your perspective on this. Have you recently complained? Did you complain to a friend? On a website? To the service provider? Or all? Which was more “satisfactory”? Let me know!