Let's Talk About Something Else [2007]
Launching a book makes you a book bore. I was preparing to regale you with sweet stories from the Balclutha heartland, my take on the world of bitter Grey Lynn bloggers and journalists, how it felt being mistaken for a PR consultant. [“Calls herself a social trends researcher” said one journo, “Note to self” said another “check out this exciting new career option”] and how fantastic the Hokonui Gold Hearty Breakfast radio show really is.
But I won’t. It was much more fun than I imagined it would be. And I’m even more in love with the 8 tribes concept than I was before we started writing about it. So no need to keep harping on about it.
Actually that’s a very Balclutha thing to say. Along with “good to see that you’ve done your homework” and “we’re all pretty pleased about it down here” – things actually said to me or about the book by denizens of the place itself.
At the other end of the spectrum are the young avant-gardistas, secretly very chuffed to have done a profile that scores so highly on Cuba Street [unfortunately you can’t say you’re Cuba Street unless you have the proof. It’s like saying you’re cool.]
They’re highly cynical and dismissive – as befits their tribe – “it’s probably just some grippy marketing handbook” said one – which I like the sound of.
But they tend to spoil the effect by going on to say something like “but at least it means we don’t have to be gidday mate Balclutha any more”. Perhaps that’s evidence of the “fluid intelligence” they’re said to possess in abundance.
Ah yes readers of NME everywhere can give yourselves a pat on the back. You have made the world safe for pasty white boys.
Of course the most interesting responses come from the Grey Lynn tribe – often happy to accept that they personally belong to an intellectual principled tribe, but really unsure as to whether there’s any validity at all to any of the others.
They hesitate to give any credence to such a simple and potentially populist theory, presented without a sign of a multivariate segmentation analysis to back it up. “Is this scientific or simply anecdotal?” asks one. Based on “qualitative” research says another – as if it’s a rather unpleasant disability.
No strike that – they would be compassionate if it was a disability.
You can’t tell them that surveys are one of the most artificial forms of communication around – or that the conditions for valid statistical analysis are rarely met in surveys of the general public. And don’t try telling them that segmentations have a lot more limitations than you’d think.
They want the numbers because the numbers are the truth.
Actually I first became aware of the mesmerising power of numbers back in the 1980’s when I conducted literally hundreds of student surveys for the University of Canterbury Students’ Association.
Otherwise rational lecturers would quite overlook the margin for error in their joy at finding their scores infinitesimally higher than those of their rivals [colleagues]. We put out a press release one year and were doubly surprised at the power of the printed word to wound sensibilities and enhance glories.
That hasn’t changed. Big areas of print convey instant legitimacy to an idea and underscore the wisdom of writing a book with a real PR guy who knows what he’s doing [though I now think we should call ourselves social anthropologists – since we recently discovered we both did the same course at Otago back in the day. Infinitely cooler to be a pop social anthropologist than a pop sociologist, I think.]
But the power of the spoken word and the printed paper is hugely enhanced by the capacity of the web to both spread and consolidate new ideas in super quick time.
A reference to the website on a radio show brings almost instant website traffic and yes, even online book sales.
Media synergy is a wonderfully descriptive phrase, which I may have just made up [after quickly conducting a sample survey] but probably didn’t. When you get it, relatively minor investments of time and energy are magnified. Like currency itself, the idea goes round and can even boomerang back.
So thanks for the chance to talk about something other than grippy marketing concepts and questions of validity.
I’m currently working on our version of the clever thing Freud did with denial – “You can’t see that you’re conflicted. You must be in denial!”
It’s along the lines of “Well you’re Grey Lynn: you doubt therefore you are!.
Cheers
Jill
8 Tribes: the hidden classes of New Zealand is available from Windshift Ltd. Email enquiries@windshift.co.nz for further details
Jill Caldwell is Director of Windshift Communications Ltd. Click Here to contact Jill directly This is a free monthly newsletter provided to direct subscribers and legitimate Windshift contacts only. No further use is made of subscriber information. [Copyright Windshift Communications Ltd 2006]
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...it’s probably just some grippy marketing handbook” said one – which I like the sound of.
