Friday, November 27, 2009

Quiet People Have Opinions Too

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http://comics.com/pearls_before_swine/2009-11-24/

Groups can make great decisions together, but it's hard to ensure that everyone participates.  Quiet people may not contribute as much, and you miss their unique perspective or expertise.  The most assertive group members drive the dialog; their opinions have the most influence.

We believe Thinkmeter can help. Thinkmeter leads groups to better decisions by ensuring that everyone's opinion is counted.  Thinkmeter is an easy way to set up a decision and quickly see which options are the winners and the losers.  This can help to focus discussions: you can quickly eliminate the poorly rated options, and help make participants feel they've had a voice.

And, just to be clear:

Thinkmeter helps you make better decisions.
Thinkmeter helps you make better decisions.
Thinkmeter helps you make better decisions.
Posted by Max at 6:14 AM
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4 comments:

  1. Or, Thinkmeter can help you make A decision. There are many totally indecisive or stall-long-enough-there-aren't-any-good-options-left groups out there. You know the kind. Their members say things like, "I don't care" or "you choose" and meanwhile every cheap motel room gets booked and the family - er, group - is staying in tents by the side of the road.
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  2. Great cartoon - and great idea (i.e., Thinkmeter)!

    A small caveat: I think it can be very valuable to offer a channel through which quiet people with strong opinions can express themselves, but I wonder whether there is some risk in creating a channel through which loud people with weak opinions can have more sway. Anyhow, I think it's a worthy experiment, and I'll be interested to see how it is used.

    Speaking of experiments, I've seen references to this "solitary repetition = social consensus" study elsewhere, and finally tracked it down. Here's a reference for the article:
    "Inferring the Popularity of an Opinion From Its Familiarity: A Repetitive Voice Can Sound Like a Chorus"
    Kimberlee Weaver, Stephen M. Garcia, Norbert Schwarz and Dale T. Miller
    Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2007, Vol. 92, No. 5, 821–833
    http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/psp925821.pdf
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  3. @cindy - good point. I myself am guilty of being indecisive (which i can play off as being "flexible").

    @joe - Thanks for the feedback, and great reference. I wonder if that paper is the one referenced by Goat in the Pearls Before Swine comic? I think that paper deserves its own blog post...
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  4. lol very true. notice how politicians often make use of repetition in threes
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