WEBVTT - John Dick 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:08.319 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob Left Sets podcast. My 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:12.800 guest this week is CEO of Civic Science, John Dick. 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:16.600 John Bob good to be here. I met John we 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:20.000 were on a piano for an Access TV show. Because 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:23.120 Mark Cuban is involved on the board of Civic Science 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:26.880 doing Grammy predictions and John is in town. He sends 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:31.960 a weekly email talking about trends in the world at large. 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:34.680 Because ultimately, what would you call your company? Wouldn't call 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:37.360 a polling company. I would call us a polling company. 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:39.239 I wish there was a sexier way to describe it, 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:42.360 but we're a new breed of polling company, okay. And 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:46.440 he's always revealing fasciniating insights, so I thought it'd be 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:48.320 great to have him on the podcast. Let's start from 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:52.160 the beginning. You're in Pittsburgh. Correct, Why Pittsburgh the next 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:55.240 big thing? Pittsburgh is going through a tremendous renaissance. But 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:57.760 actually we're there. The company is there because carnegiel And 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:01.440 University is there, and the talent and technology that powers 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:04.720 the foundation of our company came from there, and so 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:07.240 um and it's a great place to live, and it's 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:10.200 a really emerging city with lots of talent and just 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:12.480 a smart place for us to Are you from Pittsburgh 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:14.560 born and raised? Yeah? Did you go to Carnegie Mill? 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:16.840 I did not. Where do you go to to Rollins 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:19.880 College in Winter Park, Florida? Okay? So then how did 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:22.640 you hook up with all these new technology things at 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:25.319 Carnegie Miller. Well, I started a company earlier in my 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:28.160 early twenties. Um sold that company in my late twenties. 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:31.399 What was that company's called GSP. We helped early stage 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:33.760 tech and biotech companies do business with the government, very 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:37.920 different business. And so I exited that company and had 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:40.559 the business plan for what became Civic Science shortly after, 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:43.119 and I knew it had some technology needs and found 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:44.679 a couple of guys that knew how to solve those 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:47.120 technology needs. Okay, So why did you want to be 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:50.480 in the polling business? Because it's broken? And uh, well 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:52.880 two reasons. When it was broken and at a little 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:57.560 slower Why is it broken because people don't participate the 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:00.840 way they used to because we're too busy. Um, it's 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:03.560 not a pleasant experience for people to participate in polling 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:06.680 as it's sort of originally constructed. My phone's ringing while 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:08.440 I'm having dinner, or I have to sign up at 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.079 some web page and answer surveys all day for five bucks. 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:15.240 And it's just not a user centric experience for anyone. 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:19.360 And so what happened is landline phone ownerships started to plummet, 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:21.680 and the people who have landline phones don't look like 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:23.239 the ones who don't, and so the quality of the 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:25.880 data started to suffer. And then posters said, well, that's fine, 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.240 we'll we'll call cell phones. But people don't answer cell 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:31.200 phone calls from numbers they don't recognize, or at least 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:32.880 the people who do don't look like the ones who don't. 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:35.160 And then you had the advent of what are called 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:38.519 survey panels, which are these websites people sign up at 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:41.519 and answer surveys for money. And those people don't look 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:44.639 like either of us. They are too much time on 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:47.840 their hands. Okay, just one other thing, generally speaking, because 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.000 you've lived in a place in Los Angeles, you're constantly 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:53.800 getting email whatever, Come participate for fifty a hundred dollars. 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:56.600 What are those panels worth? Well, I mean, what are 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.880 they worth? They certainly are powering a lot of decision 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:02.680 making in commercial America. I don't think they should be 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.359 because the people who answer those surveys don't look like 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:08.200 the real world. They are people who are highly incentivized 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:13.120 by that financial incentive, and so they're heavily biased. Um, 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:17.919 and then that financial reward inspire some of the wrong 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:20.240 behaviors too, And when you're trying to research someone as 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:23.440 opposed to getting their honest opinion about something. So that's 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:25.720 all been broken, and it started breaking twenty years ago. 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:28.520 It started to really sort of, Um, the chickens kind 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:30.800 of came home to roost in the last election cycle. 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:32.720 We see polling just isn't working the way that it 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:34.440 used to. Okay, we got we got a bunchet things 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:36.760 on what is the other reason you wanted to go 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:38.960 into this business? Because I think it needs to work. 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:41.080 It needs we need to figure out a way to 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:46.520 understand what people think. There was a mindset ten or 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:49.200 fifteen years ago that social media was somehow going to 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:51.840 replace survey research is the way that we understood what 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:53.920 the world thinks, and it just doesn't work that way. 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.480 I'm not myself on social media. I'm a curated version 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:02.800 of myself. We need a discreet means of understanding people's opinion. 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:04.720 There's a reason we pull a curtain behind us on 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:08.200 election day, because if our opinions are subject to scrutiny 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.760 and peer pressure and invective, then we um, we don't 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:14.440 tell people what we think. Why did everybody get it so? 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:18.080 I mean, now we have Nate Silver, who now presently 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:19.479 at five thirty eight, used to be The New York 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:23.320 Times the previous election cycle. He balances polls. He got 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:26.560 it wrong, although he will say he thought the odds 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:29.080 of Trump being successful. Hire New York Times got it 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:33.800 completely wrong. What did we learn there? Well, on a 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:36.520 national level, from a popular vote standpoint, the posters were 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.400 pretty strong. I mean they said most of the averages 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:41.560 said Hillary Clinton would win by three percent, and she 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:45.360 wrote one roughly by three Um, we're broke down. Was 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:47.680 at state levels, where a couple of hundred thousand votes 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:49.919 across three or four states were able to swing the election. 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:52.640 What did we learn about it in the grand scheme 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:54.919 of things was that there was an entire universe of 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:57.880 people out there who were piste off and we didn't 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:00.919 know about it. Um. One of the reasons, and we 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:03.600 study this a lot in our own data, Conservatives tend 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:06.400 to be much less outspoken on social media than their 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:10.320 liberal counterparts are. Why because they believe that when they 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:14.360 speak out on conservative issues, they are opening themselves up 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:16.400 to attack from the left, and so they tend to 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:20.040 keep their mouth shut. We've studied this extensively, and so 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:25.040 there was an entire um sub layer of us, the 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:27.799 US population that was piste off. But because they weren't 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:30.320 trumpeting it from the rooftops on social media, we didn't 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:33.920 know about it, and we didn't know about it until November. Okay, 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:37.080 so you move back to Pittsburgh, you align with these 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:39.120 people at Carnegie mellon what are the next steps in 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:41.720 starting civic science. Well, we had a lot of technology 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:45.440 and to build what was that technology, database and database 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:48.240 architecture designed to kind of find all the stuff we 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:49.839 can find in our data. We had to prove that 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:52.919 the data the methodology we were inventing worked. Now, the 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:56.479 methodology you started with when was this two eight? Is 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:59.479 that the same methodology you're still employing. Absolutely, So explained 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.000 to my what you with that methodology. So we encounter 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:04.960 people and polls and quizzes across the web. Inside of 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:07.600 content they're reading, it might be a polar quiz you 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:09.640 might see on a buzz feeder or Facebook of what 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:11.960 kind of wine or what kind of Simpson's character are you? 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:14.640 But more it's an opinion type of poll of the 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:16.880 day that you might find in an article you're reading 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:19.239 on your local newspaper, on a site like Paris Hilton 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:22.600 or Univision. We're generally asking somebody a couple of questions 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:24.520 at a time, no more than three or four, because 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:26.359 we know that if we add too many questions, we 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:29.599 start to see a decline and participation and that's no good. Um. 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:32.880 We give people back, um instant results, which we think 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:36.120 is really important. So I answer a question, you know, 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:39.480 what is my favorite color? And after I click, I'll 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:41.960 see what everybody else's favorite color is. Sure. Sure, we 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:46.640 don't generally ask favorite color, but yeah, sure, yeah, And 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:50.040 and we think there's some a lot of particularly today. Um. 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:52.520 And what we hear back from people is they appreciate 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:55.440 that we're giving them the answers right back. It's unvarnished, 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.480 unfiltered truth that here's what the world thinks, and here's 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:01.800 what people like you think, and it's not being passed 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:04.200 to you through the lens of a media company that 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:06.560 may have some bias now with somewhat Okay, what is 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:10.560 incentivizing them to answer the questions to begin with? Uh, 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:14.920 it's that intrinsic benefit of a feeling like I'm participating 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:19.640 in something good, be the interestingness of the results that 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:22.320 I get back feeling like, Okay, I just learned something 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:24.000 about the rest of the world by virtue of my 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:27.240 participation in it. And do you compensate the sites where 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.400 you're quizzes are now? So how do they end up 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:35.920 being placed there? Um? They it's effectively a bartering arrangement. Um. 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:39.480 But what they they learn things from the information that 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:41.960 we gather that help them grow their businesses, that we 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:44.720 help them improve their editorial functions and their ad sales. Okay, 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:47.720 So let's say you're on website A. You would approach 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:48.920 them and say, I want to do this, but I'm 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:51.080 going to share data with you that's going to be 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:54.760 your compensation. Correct. So how many sites are you presently on? 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:59.360 Well over a thousand at last count. Um? Very uh 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:03.200 piece together to give us a diverse representative view of 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.280 the US population. So we want to make sure we 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:07.880 have ample number of media companies that reach hispanics. An 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:11.600 ample number of media companies that reach women and so forth. Um, 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:15.440 the media companies make a distinction from us that the 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.560 size of our poll sitting on their web page, that 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:21.200 we are delivering more value to them from that information 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:22.800 than they would get from a banner ad that was 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:24.960 sitting in that same place. And as long as we 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:27.920 can maintain that equilibrium, we can continue to collect that data. 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:31.400 How do you choose what sites to place your quizzes on? Um? Well, 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:33.640 it's we have a team who goes out and sells 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:37.720 that essentially, and we do we prioritize at any given time, 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:41.240 We prioritize sales to publishers or partnerships with publishers who 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:45.640 meet demographic imbalances in our sampling. So if we if 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:47.800 we notice over time, hey we're starting to get a 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:51.120 disproportionate number of men answering our polls, we want to 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.920 go and target sites that have a disproportionate audience of women. Okay, 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:58.840 I am someone who never re answers those questions, So 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:02.719 that begs the question are certain people ultimately not included 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:05.160 in the sample? Yes? What do you do about that? Well, 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:07.880 it's a fundamental flaw. UM, I guess what we tell 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:10.200 the marketplace. And what we can prove in our research 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:14.120 is that because we've limited those barriers as much as possible, 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:16.280 that our audience looks more like the real world than 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:18.959 any other methodology you would think of. So you're not 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:20.920 going to be the person who signs up and answers 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:23.800 surveys all day for five bucks either. Um we are. 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:26.520 We are all missing some portion of the US population. 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:29.079 We're just missing a much smaller portion of the population. 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:31.280 And do you sit in your office and say, how 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:33.599 do we reach those people? You just tell your customers 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.160 some people are unreachable. Um, we're not giving up. I 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:39.840 think we spend a ton of time trying to understand 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:42.880 what types of questions or what kind of interaction will 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:46.240 bring people who otherwise don't want to participate to participate in. 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:48.200 Our response rates as a result, have gone up a lot. 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:51.800 The percentage of of people who see our polls on 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:54.439 a website and answer them has skyrocketed in the last 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:57.280 two years because we've invested very heavily in solving that problem. 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:00.839 I would assume it's still below ten percent. Sure, sure, um, 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:02.760 but if you think about what's that, how's that relate 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:05.000 to say, the likelihood of somebody clicking on an ad, 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:08.080 it's a hundred times more than that, right, because there's 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:10.640 there's something engaging about it, as opposed to, Oh, I'm 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:12.280 gonna click on this ad and somebody's gonna try and 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:14.080 try to try to sell me. And how many people 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:18.480 work at SIVEN Civic Science? Um? I think? And are 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:20.600 they all in Pittsburgh? All in way of one person 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:24.440 in New York? Okay? So what kind of companies uh, 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:30.959 by your data? Um, pretty broad, large ones, primarily very 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.720 bigger sort of fortune five hundred types of enterprises. Consumer 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:41.200 facing companies were really strong and tech and telcom, media, banking, healthcare, restaurant, 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:45.480 and some retail. Okay, we were talking off camera, and 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:48.120 these are all household name the names you think they are, 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:52.520 they are, but let's assume point of discussion. Telcom Okay, 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:57.040 it is a very competitive marketplace. Everyone already has a smartphone. 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:00.240 There are four competitors in the United States. What you 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:03.760 be able to tell a telecom company, Uh, there's going 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.400 to be a mix of things about attitudes towards their 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:09.400 specific company and their specific products. There's going to be 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:12.480 a mix of things about trends within their category. So 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:15.280 which of their competitors and maybe are more vulnerable than 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:17.440 others at a given point in time. And then the 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:20.079 more valuable stuff we do tends to look at how 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:24.280 various larger consumer trends and macro forces are affecting consumers 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:26.679 and how that relates to what mobile carriers they're going 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:30.199 to use, and and and um, how much of their 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:32.040 plan they're going to use. One thing we learned was 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:35.599 really fascinating pre and post election was the composition of 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:38.319 the people who were likely to switch mobile carriers changed 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.319 very dramatically from the summer of two thousand sixteen through 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.600 the summer. And what did your research tell you, Um, 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:48.960 Democrats were more likely to switch mobile carriers after the 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:53.720 election than they were before because they, UM, I switched 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:57.280 my mobile carrier generally to get a better financial deal, right, 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:01.840 and so it tends to correlate with my personal financial 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:05.760 situation or my consumer confidence. And so once um, Donald 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:08.880 Trump was elected, these people, UM, a lot of Democrats 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:11.120 began to have a bleaker view of the economy and said, 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:12.640 you know what, I better go find a better deal 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:14.600 for myself. And we saw a higher rate of switchers 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:17.160 among Democrats during that period of time as opposed to 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:19.120 the summer before when they tended to be more likely 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:23.400 to be Republicans. Now, sitting here as a lay person, 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:29.320 one could say, also Sprint was offering comprehensive plans with 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:34.079 very cheaper free phones. T Mobile was very cheap, So 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:37.560 one might say, really it was plans were so cheap 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:41.520 people were incentivized for that reason as opposed to consumer confidence. Well, 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:45.560 but still there's I chase a cheaper opportunity when I'm 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:49.200 looking when I have a less positive view of my 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:51.360 personal finances. So I would whether there was cause and 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:54.320 effect there or whether those companies were smart enough to 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:56.760 capitalize them what they knew was coming, which was more 0:12:56.800 --> 0:13:03.439 price sensitivity in their core markets. UM. Hard to tell. Okay, Now, 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:07.360 many all these companies do use consumer research, but there's 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:10.439 a school of thought that research will tell you where 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:12.880 you've been, but it won't tell you where you're going. Oh, 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:15.840 that's the big part of our ethos as we focus 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:19.439 on looking through the windshield. So how do you do that? UM? 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:22.960 We look a lot at patterns and trends in this 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:25.920 history of data now that we have UM, those trends 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:29.120 tend to have a trajectory that we can look two months, 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:31.440 six months out and see where they're headed. We ask 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:33.880 a lot of questions that are forward looking of people. 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:36.160 What are your intentions? How likely you to do something 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:41.000 in the future. Um, there's ample backward looking data that 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:43.600 credit card companies have and people on the web have 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:46.040 based on things I clicked on yesterday and bought yesterday. 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:48.320 We don't we don't need to augment that information. We 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:51.600 focus on where are people going to be spending their 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:55.040 money next week or next month. But you look famously, 0:13:55.080 --> 0:14:00.320 Steve Jobs did no consumer research, and he would come 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.439 up with products that people literally hadn't heard of, I 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:07.280 didn't think they needed, and then would clamor for good, 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:09.680 good work if you can get it. Okay, So he's 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:13.280 an anomaly. He's the outline absolutely. Okay. Yeah, how about 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:18.000 Elon Musk probably of that ilk. But I think those 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:21.880 people are the exceptions, not the rule. Okay. So where's 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:26.880 it going? Well, Um, it's a mix of exciting and 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:32.280 terrifying all at once. Um, we are seeing some amazing 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:36.240 see changes right now, a lot of things related. UM. 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:39.920 I don't think we fully appreciate yet the impact that 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.000 social media will have on our culture forever. I think 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:45.440 we intuitively get some of it, but I don't think 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:47.280 we're going to be able to diagnose any of that 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.080 for decades. But one of the things that that that 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:52.560 we notice a lot in our data is and and 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:55.200 everyone kind of can relate to this, is that because 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:58.840 I'm this kind of curated version of myself on social media, 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:00.880 I use social media as a way to make myself 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:03.080 look funnier and smarter and a better parent and more 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:05.040 adventurous and a better eater. And I think about that 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:07.640 consciously or not when I choose what to share, where 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:10.880 to check in. Uh. The flip side of that is 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:14.120 I have a high disincentive to say anything that is unpopular. 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:16.720 And so we see and it goes back to the 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:19.760 common I made earlier about the election. People who believed 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:22.120 it was unpopular to support Donald Trump in two thousand 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:24.440 and sixteen just didn't talk about it, but they showed 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:26.200 up on election day and did. Now we're seeing it's 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:28.600 a little more um. People are a little bolder about 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:32.120 their support now than they were in But what's happening 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:36.920 is unpopular opinions tend to be suppressed on social media, 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:40.720 and so we have a sense of consensus that doesn't 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:44.320 really exist. But yes, if if, if you remember the 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:47.480 summer of two thousand and fifteen, UM when the Supreme 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:49.400 Court was ruling on gay marriage, it was a very 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:53.480 popular thing to have this rainbow tinted profile picture as 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:56.760 a as a solidarity. Right around that same summer, the 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:01.120 South Carolina State Legislature was being was debating taking the 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:04.200 Confederate flag down from over the state Capitol building. There 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:09.600 were no equivalent Confederate flag filters over anybody's profile pictures, 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:12.440 which is kind of surprising to me because I grew 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:14.560 up in a pretty rural part of Pennsylvania, where I 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:19.040 know lots of gun toting, right wing evangelical Christian types. 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:21.000 You'd think that I would have an equal number of 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:24.320 rainbow printed tinted profile pictures and Confederate flag ones. But 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:28.400 I didn't, um because once Facebook had become a wash 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:33.120 with those rainbow filters, everybody who believed otherwise had a 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:36.800 significant disincentive from saying anything to the contrary because they 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:39.640 knew they'd be open to attack. So narratives that emerge 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:41.960 on social media and take take hold are very, very 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:44.200 difficult to change, and the impact that has on the 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:48.000 popularity of music, the popularity of brands and fashion. It's 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:50.800 it's almost a measurable today. Okay, Just so I understand 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:54.520 it is is it a skewed view of reality or 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.320 does it change reality? Or both both? I mean, I 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:01.200 think I think what we're what what what I'm suggesting 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:03.080 is that when we look back on this period of 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:06.960 history that it will have changed reality. Um. Well, I'm 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:11.080 a big believer that the reason the younger generation is 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:14.399 not as racist and gay marriage is accepted because they 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:18.800 saw a rainbow of colors and uh, different choices on 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:23.800 MTV and MTV dominated. So are we saying the same 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:27.920 thing that social media will ultimately affect what people believe? 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:31.080 There's no question about it. I think that it is. 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:40.800 Once a wave of popular opinion washes over, it moves people. Um, 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:43.720 it gets them to reconsider their points of view. Some 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:46.919 it gets others to really stig their heels in. So 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:50.080 what what are we learning with the backlash against Facebook 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:54.680 and social media presently? Well, there's a lot of technical 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:56.880 reasons for some of that that I don't think Facebook 0:17:56.880 --> 0:17:59.760 should be blamed for. Um, this has all been happening 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:02.560 so fast, nobody, It's not like everybody saw it coming 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:05.720 and told Facebook to prepare itself. This was a whole 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:07.679 new frontier for them. I think they can fix it. 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:11.120 I think what we're learning about from the election through 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:13.520 now is what and and social media is driving a 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:17.280 lot of this, which is this incessant kind of tribalism 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:21.080 in America that we have where um I want to 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:23.920 and it's and it's affecting UM this or what we 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:25.720 call sort of the stay at home economy as well, 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:27.720 people don't want to go out in public as much 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:29.159 as that. We have a question that we track in 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:31.320 our database, which is do you would you say that 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:32.879 you want to go out, that you're going out more 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:34.840 or less than you did six months ago? Thirty three 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:37.080 percent of people and the last time we looked at 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:38.560 the state of a few weeks ago said that they're 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:40.919 going out in public, want to go out in public 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:44.680 less than they did six months ago. Why every time 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:47.240 there's a shooting, one person says or more people say, 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:48.760 I'm not going to go out today, I'm just gonna 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:50.800 stay home. And and we've made it super easy for 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:53.440 people to stay home. And we're controlling our surroundings, were 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:57.080 curating the people that were around in in two thousand 0:18:57.040 --> 0:18:59.000 and fifteen, we had at we have a question that says, 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:01.440 do you generally like to be around people a lot? 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:04.760 It's very simple question. Percent of people in two thousand 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:07.119 fifteen said yes, I like to be around people a lot. 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:11.760 Today that number so it's about a decline in that 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:13.720 and that and that, and that doesn't seem like a 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:16.680 huge number or might. But what it's telling us is 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:18.399 people are saying, I don't want to go out and 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:20.680 sit in a restaurant and run a risk of sitting 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:23.000 next to somebody who's ranting on about some political issue 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:24.680 I disagree with. I'm going to stay at my home 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:27.840 where I've where I've curated my friend group on social media, 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:30.399 I've curated the media that I'm going to read and watch, 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:33.399 and I want to create a safe nest around myself. 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:35.320 And I think social media has helped to propagate a 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:39.920 lot of that. And so projecting five years out as 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:45.120 opposed to three months, do you have a thought on that? Yeah, 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:47.920 I think it's gonna continue to play out that way. 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.320 I think we're going to have UM. I think people 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:55.000 are a large portion of people are inherently introverted, but 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:57.560 it was always hard to be an introvert um. Now 0:19:57.600 --> 0:19:59.640 I can have everything delivered to my doorstep. I never 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:01.280 have to the shop. I never have to leave to 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:04.640 see a movie. I actually and what happened. What's happening 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:07.800 is the commercial marketplace is moving towards those people were making. 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:09.120 We're saying, if you don't want to leave your house, 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:12.600 you never have to. UM. Companies are vying to own 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:16.680 my quote unquote ecosystem. They want to have my internet, 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:20.159 my cell phone, my content, my They want my refrigerator 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:22.959 to talk to my doorbell, to my smartphone, to my 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:26.280 watch on my hand, and the companies are all fighting 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:28.320 to own that so that when I choose to stay 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:31.439 home and never leave, I'm only using one company. And 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:35.280 I think maybe five years from now that peaks and saturates, 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:39.040