Public Mind is trying to make a general-purpose site for creating critical mass, supporting a number of different patterns — product feedback (there’s a whole category on Skype), commercial petitions (“A better belt clip for my Ericsson T68-i cellular phone”), and novel product ideas (“A child’s cellular phone that just has two buttons, talk and hang-up”.)
When you see a proposal you support, you can click through to a page that tells you what’s going on (the “Skype for Mac” page has news of the recent beta tests), but most pages have some version of this message:
Currently, this special request group is not yet big enough to attract the attention of a company or organization. However, you can help your request group grow to speed up and improve your chances that someone will seize the opportunity and propose a solution through Public Mind.
To help this group reach critical mass (get big enough), you need to take action now. Email your friends, associates, and co-workers about Public Mind and your special request. The more people who join your group, the more likely you’ll get what you want.
Of course, they don’t tell you how big critical mass is for any given idea.
I go back and forth on these things — critical mass is obviously a useful thing in lots of situations, and on the plus side, they’re very up-front about no spam and opt-out, and the site is more organic than a purely “Sign our poll” thing.
However, this is so explicit about getting “critical mass” as a first-order goal that it makes me suspicious anyone in management will take it seriously. Part of the reason critical mass matters so much is that it’s hard to achieve, and therefore a good sign of real interest or concern. Lowering the barriers to people saying “Sure, I want my kid to have a phone like that”, even if they don’t really care and wouldn’t buy one if it was on offer denatures the thing that made the message important in the first place.
1. Harry Max on July 8, 2004 4:29 PM writes...
As the founder of Public Mind, the best way I can illustrate the flexible meaning of critical mass is to give you a real-world example:
Skype, for example, took the "Skype for Linux" request seriously at about 500 members. The request group reached 1185 members at the time that Skype sent its third message to the group informing it that the client was available. The net/net is that it really depends on the value of the group and its membership to a potential target company or organization.
Now, "Skype for Mac" is on the top of Skype's list (and development priorities). If, in fact, you joined either the Linux or Mac request groups early on, you would have received progressively more interesting emails from Skype, via Public Mind, keeping you in the loop and informing you of progress.
Another interesting example is "Skype for Pocket PC". In this particular case, Skype had already been working on the client software before the request group had formed. However, once the request group reached a couple of hundred members, Skype used Public Mind to query the group members and solicit beta testers; driving them to a dedicated forum. When Skype released the software, they archived the request group so, although it was successful from Skype's and group members' point of view, it is no longer visible through Public Mind end-user interfaces.
I think of Public Mind as enabling what I call "communities of action" (as opposed to communities of interest or communities of practice). Although each request group represents a set of people with the same "want", I understand that they are not true communities per se. However, as you might imagine, request groups can be fully enabled with wiki's, blogs, threaded discussions, and ecommerce.
IMHO, one of the most important, yet hidden, aspects of Public Mind is the offer engine. An offer can be extended to the group by Public Mind on behalf of a third-party. An offer can be, "Do you want to pre-purchase this product?" Or, in the case of "Skype for Pocket PC", "Do you want to become a Beta Tester?"
The offer engine is, in effect, a mechanism to gain commitment from individual group members. New group members may see the offer via the Public Mind response page, and existing members receive it in email. You can imagine how this will be used for selling merchandise, collecting donations or money, or executing the beginning of a classical on-line transaction.
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Permalink to Commenthmax
2. Harry Max on July 8, 2004 4:29 PM writes...
As the founder of Public Mind, the best way I can illustrate the flexible meaning of critical mass is to give you a real-world example:
Skype, for example, took the "Skype for Linux" request seriously at about 500 members. The request group reached 1185 members at the time that Skype sent its third message to the group informing it that the client was available. The net/net is that it really depends on the value of the group and its membership to a potential target company or organization.
Now, "Skype for Mac" is on the top of Skype's list (and development priorities). If, in fact, you joined either the Linux or Mac request groups early on, you would have received progressively more interesting emails from Skype, via Public Mind, keeping you in the loop and informing you of progress.
Another interesting example is "Skype for Pocket PC". In this particular case, Skype had already been working on the client software before the request group had formed. However, once the request group reached a couple of hundred members, Skype used Public Mind to query the group members and solicit beta testers; driving them to a dedicated forum. When Skype released the software, they archived the request group so, although it was successful from Skype's and group members' point of view, it is no longer visible through Public Mind end-user interfaces.
I think of Public Mind as enabling what I call "communities of action" (as opposed to communities of interest or communities of practice). Although each request group represents a set of people with the same "want", I understand that they are not true communities per se. However, as you might imagine, request groups can be fully enabled with wiki's, blogs, threaded discussions, and ecommerce.
IMHO, one of the most important, yet hidden, aspects of Public Mind is the offer engine. An offer can be extended to the group by Public Mind on behalf of a third-party. An offer can be, "Do you want to pre-purchase this product?" Or, in the case of "Skype for Pocket PC", "Do you want to become a Beta Tester?"
The offer engine is, in effect, a mechanism to gain commitment from individual group members. New group members may see the offer via the Public Mind response page, and existing members receive it in email. You can imagine how this will be used for selling merchandise, collecting donations or money, or executing the beginning of a classical on-line transaction.
..
Permalink to Commenthmax