Supporters of the persuasion possibilities of Web 2.0 (twitter, Facebook, marketing as relationship, etc.) insist that there is something strong and supernatural to their New New Thing.  Consider this story from Google Fast Flip (more about that later).

Has your company spent seemingly countless hours tweeting on Twitter, networking on Facebook and writing the company blog? Have you found yourself wondering if it’s all a waste of time? Maybe that last Facebook fan page contest saw fewer entries than you’d hoped for, or that last Twitter-only coupon had fewer redemptions than you’d expected, but perhaps that’s not all that matters.

According to the the latest report by analyst firm Forrester, many people are looking at the face-value dollars and cents of social media marketing and, put simply, they’re doing it wrong. Beyond clicks and coupon redemptions there lies a case for social media marketing that shows its value is well beyond what we see on the surface.

Yeah, It Works, But You Can’t Count It (with Money).  And, if you do Count It and It Doesn’t Count, You’re Wrong!

Where to begin.

Persuasion is an obvious and countable thing.  It changes people.  And change can be as simple as “Yes or No.”  Realize the Rules.

If You Can’t Count It, You Can’t Change It.

Any persuasion agent who claims otherwise is deluded, untrustworthy, or perhaps both.  You cannot sell Change to clients if they don’t get any Change from what you sell.  And, if your client’s counting shows no Change, then what you are selling as persuasion did not work.

Think about it.  You cannot sell Change without getting Change.  Yet, some 2.0 folks will assert:

Many marketers can draw a straight line between investments in social media marketing and financial results, but many more cannot.  This doesn’t mean social media marketing is ineffective; it just means that marketers have to recognize benefits beyond dollars and cents.  Facebook fans, retweets, site visits, video views, positive ratings and vibrant communities are not financial assets — they aren’t reflected on the balance sheet and can’t be counted on an income statement — but that doesn’t mean they are valueless.  Instead, these are leading indicators that the brand is doing something to create value that can lead to financial results in the future.

And, then to tell them that they did it Wrong after you promised Change, is at best a short term tactic that holds clients at the front door as you make a hasty exit out the back door.  Claims of client error destroy your credibility.  You showed them how to do Persuasion SureShot Tactic Twenty Two.  They did it.  And It didn’t Count.  Blaming the accounting department or the guys in research is older than Exodus, but not Genesis.

Consider, too, . . .

Great Persuaders Don’t Need Rich Uncles, Kindness from Strangers, or Third Party Vote Splitters.

Hey, if Web 2.0 is the New New Persuasion Thing, then what It is, is what It does without any help.  It will not need a new system of accounting, ROI, or mathematics.  It will not need a Maven 2.0 in a corner office.  It will work.  Yet, articles like this always seem to end with something like, “Yeah, it’s 2.0 plus Fill In The Blank While I Cash Your Check.”

Look, if Web 2.0 is persuasive, it changes people in a direct, reproducible, and countable way.  Otherwise, it is a short term way for a few people to make a little money.

Web 2.0 reminds me of Web 1.0 when Pets.com was going to have a greater market capitalization than Microsoft one day.  Sure, there were a few big winners (Amazon, baby), but most were losers.  The Web changes neither the Laws of Thermodynamics or the Rules of Persuasion.  The web is just a technological device that transmits messages.  Yes, it is groovier than the town crier, but it still just carries messages.

P.S.  Is Google Fast Flip going to make Google relevant again?  Yeah, add a cut and paste of the news page and that groovy rotator interface.  Folks, I’m calling it.  We’re into the middle of the beginning of Web 3.0 – the age of information irrelevance.  Where’s the exchange of meaning?  Of value?  Of substance?  I know there’s a lot of glitter and glitz with persuasion, but Sweet Clara Peller, where’s the beef?

The New New Thing asserts:

You think your car radio is broken because it doesn’t display the name of the song and the artist. You tap a word on a paperback and wonder why the definition doesn’t automatically pop up. You swipe a digit across the screen of your cell phone and all you get are fingerprint smudges . . . Our touchscreen existence has literally rewired our brains . . .

Yes!

What shall we name this New New Thing that literally reWires our brains?

iPavlov.

Hey, kids, it’s not the technology that makes you; it’s the thoughtfulness.

reWired is only Low WATT zombies ambling along the Peripheral Route, Cue-ing along, Ding-Donging a song.

Again, Whitehead says it nicely.

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.

A consumer research firm, My Type, has broken through the chatter today with its scientific conclusion that iPad owners are “Selfish Elites.”  Of course, this conclusion is probably not true, but it’s a great headline that hits a prejudiced sweet spot.  (And, while I’m probably a Selfish Elite, I don’t own an iPad.)  Let’s look at details.

My Type uses a research method that is not scientific, but sounds like it is.  It’s kinda like kids dressing up in their parents clothes and playing Mommy and Daddy.  My Types dress up like scientists by using science sounding words, but all they are doing is poaching Facebook.  For example, they offer free Personality Quizzes that require you to give them complete and eternal access to your Facebook profile.  They save this information in a huge database.  Then they do “research” by comparing different groups – say Facebookers who own an iPad versus Facebookers who do not own an iPad – on the Facebook profile data.  In fact, this particular “research” on selfish iPad owners is done exactly like this.

Thus, if you want to be honest rather than cunning, you’d have to say today’s infamous results are based on:

1. people who’ve taken a My Type Personality Test (or other such product) and;

2. who’ve given permission to My Type to access their Facebook profile data.

Not exactly what you’d call a random sample or even a representative sample.  Now, it is a big sample.  My Type says they looked at data from over 20,000 people.  A number that big sounds useful, but it is not.  First, even stupidly small differences from foolishly big samples are “statistically significant” but practically useless.  Second, a big and biased sample is not better than small and biased sample – the sample is still biased.  And third, there’s no replication other than the pinging sound you hear when a dishonest shot hits the prejudiced sweet spot.

If you look at the “report” from My Type which is available from my old friends at Scribd, you’ll find tables and figures and numbers.  Download them.  Study them.  Repeat them at parties.  Just don’t bet any money, reputation, or consequence on them, because they are not honest, accurate, reliable, trustworthy, scientific, . . . gee, you get the point.

Now, even more interesting is how My Type is reacting to the coverage of this contrived report.  They are clearly monitoring the conversation and jumping in to clarify as needed.  Here, for example, someone claiming to be with My Type offered comment and amplification to the Wired reporting.  Let me quote:

3) We’re not claiming to be ultra-scientific here. The data is rigorous, the interpretation of the data is up for debate. Again, look at the report, lots of the raw affinities are given there (and “affinity” is defined). You can come to your own conclusions.

Ultra-scientific?  It that like Ultra-Pregnant or Ultra-Cool?  I haven’t taken or taught a research methods course in ten years, so is Ultra maybe a new technique?  And the “data is rigorous” but the “interpretation . . . is up for debate?”  Huh?  This sounds like an answer you write on an essay exam you forgot was scheduled for today.   (It’s also fun to read the rest of the comments from Wired readers.  Many of them smell the rat.)

Now, are there demographic and personality differences between people who own iPads and those who don’t?  Sure.  And can you market iPads differently for different people?  Sure-sure.  And, can you believe My Type’s results to guide your marketing?  No-no-no!

On this one, I’ve got to hand it to the folks at My Type.  All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere and there is absolutely nothing Sincere about this “study.”  But it brought them attention which might mean clients which might mean money.  However, I wouldn’t hire them to research anything beyond their own foolishness.

Look up.  Sniff the air.  Smell it?  Get ready for the end of the fear market and a return to the greed market.  Read the tea leaves and see smart computers in your futures.

One upstart in the AI race on Wall Street is Rebellion Research, a tiny New York hedge fund with about $7 million in capital that has been using a machine-learning program it developed to invest in stocks. Run by a small team of twentysomething math and computer whizzes, Rebellion has a solid track record, topping the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index by an average of 10% a year, after fees, since its 2007 launch through June, according to people familiar with the fund. Like many hedge funds, its goal is to beat the broader market year after year.

Wow.  Beating the S&P by 10% over 3 years.  How do they do it at Rebellion?

“It’s pretty clear that human beings aren’t improving,” said Spencer Greenberg, 27 years old and the brains behind Rebellion’s AI system. “But computers and algorithms are only getting faster and more robust.”

(What I wouldn’t give to be 27 again.  Almost the smartest guy on the planet, but always the smartest guy in every room.  And, I only got smarter . . .  until, well, you know . . .)

Ready for the Magic Words?

The firm’s current portfolio is largely defensive. One of its biggest positions is in gold stocks, according to people familiar with the fund.  The defensive move at first worried Mr. Fleiss, who had grown bullish.  But it has proven a smart move so far. “I’ve learned not to question the AI,” he said.

“. . . not to question . . .”  Please remember this when you read about Rebellion and lawsuits.

If you are old enough or well read enough you might remember ‘Adam Smith’ who started the postmodern wave of creative nonfiction writing in finance and business with his monster book, “The Money Game,” published in 1968.  George Goodman, the nym behind the pseudo of Adam Smith, introduced us to Wall Street and quants like Albert the chartmeister, Irwin the Professor, and the darkly foreboding Railroad Bill.  They all said and did the same things they are saying and doing today and as exemplified in the WSJ story about Rebellion.

All Bad Persuasion . . .

P.S.  If you missed ‘Adam Smith’ in the 1970s check him out.  George Goodman really did invent the new business writing that endures today.  Guys like Michael Lewis couldn’t exist without Mr. Goodman.  Plus Goodman’s books are still great reads.  He spotlighted Warren Buffett in 1973 in “SuperMoney.”  Talk about a guy with vision.

P.P.S.  Interesting sidebar on pseudonyms.  George Goodman writing as ‘Adam Smith’ enjoyed huge success in the 1970s and 1980s, but you’ll have trouble finding his work on Amazon.  If you type in “George Goodman” you don’t find his stuff and if you type in “Adam Smith” it’s even worse.  You need to know specific titles to find him in databases nowadays.  Check out the Wiki entry for George Goodman to learn more about his work and the man himself.  A most interesting life.  But, be careful with pseudonyms.  Databases won’t remember you!

You were there, kids, when It Happened.

China, powered by years of rapid economic growth, is now the world’s biggest energy consumer, knocking the U.S. off a perch it held for more than a century, according to new data from the International Energy Agency.

The US was by far the largest consumer of energy since the early 1900s.  Ten years ago, US energy use was twice as large as China’s.

So what?

“The fact that China overtook the U.S. as the world’s largest energy consumer symbolizes the start of a new age in the history of energy,” IEA chief economist Fatih Birol said in an interview.

History of energy?  It’s much larger than that, my influential friends.  Energy drives economics and economics drives Power, National Power.  And we understand Power and Persuasion, right?

Consider, too, what’s likely to happen in the near term.

The U.S. is still by far the biggest energy consumer per capita, with the average American burning five times as much energy annually as the average Chinese citizen, said Mr. Birol, who has been in his current role for six years.

China has just passed the US in total, but per capita the US uses five times as much.  China, obviously, isn’t going to stop its energy demand simply because it consumes as much as a nation.  It will keep going until its energy demand gets closer to the per capita US rate.

I believe that persuasion principles are universal and eternal; they apply for all faces and places, all times and rhymes.  Cultural differences change only the interface, but not the process.  Thus, the ELM works in Beijing, but it better speak with a Mandarin accent.  Or . . .

Zhè shì duì lìng yīgè rén, yúchǔn de!