Www.pol.gu.se/digitalAssets/1315/1315799_briendl-gustafsson.pdf. Some of Sarah Palin's Ideas Cross the Political Divide. From Sushi to Tunisia: A Guide to Swaying Majority Opinion - Hans Villarica - Life. A study on network theory finds that the tipping point needed for a committed minority to win over the majority is just 10 percent How do you topple a tyrant or popularize a foreign cuisine? According to a recent study in the journal Physical Review E, mobilizing an unyielding minority of 10 percent may be enough.
Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Network Science and Technology Center created and analyzed various models of networks where a minority strived to overtake the majority's opinion. They found that three conditions are key: a majority that is flexible with their views, a minority that is intractable, and a critical threshold wherein about a tenth of the population advocate the minority opinion. "I'd hesitate to reduce the spread of sushi in America to a formula. " — Trevor Corson "The governments of these two countries survived for decades in the past, despite more or less visible opposition," says coauthor and center director Boleslaw Szymanski.
Image: 1. Social Power and the Coming Corporate Revolution. The Public Laboratory. Understanding Communities through Ethnography. Guest Post by: Dhiren (Market Sentinel) Ethnography promises new insights for companies seeking to understand communities. A few weeks ago I caught up with ethnographer and technology researcher Tricia Wang to learn how. DS: As a sociologist and ethnographer, what are the core outputs of your studies at the moment? TW: My primary output is analysis of how new technology users are living at the intersection of macro processes. Examples of questions that I ask are: What does the future of the internet look like? What happens when the next 300 million migrants with digital tools are able to get online? I hang out with people and spend a lot of time trying to see the world through their eyes.
DS: What are the types of questions that you are asked the most? TW: People want to know how new users engage with their devices, how they access information, and why their tech behaviors are so different from Western consumers and contexts. However, the notion of the “peer” is relative and is cultural. How do you Make an Intelligent City? The 24 Hour City Project.
Through technology we have created new ways to collect, show, and share data. Beyond that dry term, “data”, is a vast range of possibility, and gamification is demonstrating how we can show and share information in the hopes of becoming more fit, more healthy, and more knowledgable. These are largely personal goals made social through technology, but what of inherently social goals? How can we use these new technologies to create better services, better communities, and better cities? Earlier this year, iStrategyLabs, the National Buildings Museum, IBMs Smarter City Program, and Time Magazine came together to ask “What makes an intelligent city?” Bonnie Shaw, Director of Social Innovation at iStrategyLabs, shared the beginnings of a project that tries to answer this question–the 24 Hour City Project. The group came together to discuss the use of technology in the environment and for the future of our cities, but they did not stop at discussion.