ChittahChattah Quickies

  • [from julienorvaisas] Problem With Studies: Why They Get It Wrong [ABC News] – [Food for thought as we analyze, synthesize, prioritize and report our own study results.] People, including journal editors, naturally prefer papers announcing or at least suggesting a dramatic breakthrough to those saying, in effect, "Ehh, nothing much here." The availability error, the tendency to be unduly influenced by results that, for one reason or another, are more psychologically available to us, is another factor. Results that are especially striking or counterintuitive or consistent with experimenters' pet theories also more likely will result in publication. Even such a prosaic occurrence as clock-watching provides illustration of this. I don't think I look at the clock more than others do, but I always seem to notice and remember when the time is 12:34, but not when it's 10:56 or 7:41.
  • [from steve_portigal] Making culture, provoking culture (by making pie) [Grant McCracken] – [Grant sees in design-provocations the possibility to go beyond wishful-social-change-thinking and uncover rich new insights about people and culture. Plus, pie. Mmm, pie.] Our interest is sincere. We do want to know about them. We want to seize this opportunity to find out who they are, to listen to anything they're prepared to tell us. We are doing ethnography in tiny bite size bits. (Here too we want to consult the work on methodology.) Some people who wish to make a social difference don't really care to hear from the Pie recipient. They have a vision of the new world, and they mean to keep banging away at this vision until the pie recipient embraces it. But if we have learned anything about engaging the world it is that it can't be about us. Our best efforts must begin with a study of them.

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