A vanishing barrier to bullsh*t | The Daily Standup Ep. 96

[Dillon] (0:00 - 1:03)

People misconstrue that the voices that they see on a regular basis or that have been bubbled up in a social media experience are the best ones for them or are the most educated in the space when, in fact, that is not what the algorithms are meant to do. The algorithms are meant to drive engagement, so the clickbait-iest stuff typically wins. Things with good-looking, like pictures of good-looking people often win.

It ends up being, it is not in your best interest. And I think so often people simply stop always weighing what is in their best interest and they take this information at face value in a way that is detrimental. What's up, lifers, and welcome to The Daily Standup with Lifetime Value, where we're giving you fresh new customer success ideas every single day.

I got my man, Rob here. Rob, you want to say hi?

[Rob] (1:04 - 1:05)

What's up, lifers?

[Dillon] (1:06 - 1:09)

And we've got JP here. JP, do you want to say hi?

[JP] (1:11 - 1:13)

Vita Valorem, baby. Vita Valorem.

[Dillon] (1:13 - 1:21)

Vita Valorem. And I am your host. My name is Dillon Young.

JP, just keep that ball in your court, baby, because you got something you want to talk to us about, huh?

[JP] (1:21 - 4:43)

Shoot the J? Okay, here we go. So I want to talk about advice bias.

So this popped in my head because I was briefly perusing LinkedIn, like I seem to do these days. I can only be on there for a minute. It's like I'm holding my breath, and then eventually I'm like, ah, I've seen enough.

And please, I also don't want this to be necessarily like it's just going to be like me venting. I'm actually thinking about what emphasis do we place on the advice we're given based upon who is giving this advice? And so on LinkedIn, as you know, it's very easy to publish.

It's very easy to, let's say, parrot. Someone can easily parrot someone. Let's say one person has 100 followers, and they say something that's very profound, and someone who has 10,000 followers goes on to say something that is very profound.

Now, clearly one of them is going to reach a larger audience, right? I guess it's a bit philosophical, which I think Rob will appreciate. How much more is this advice appreciated because of the source?

Just to add some gradients to this, I think that we have multiple ways that advice gets published. So social media has a very low barrier to entry. Anyone can get on there, clickety-clack, post something, right?

It's out there. Your opinion is out there. Let's say you're going to write an article.

Even if you publish an article via LinkedIn or somewhere else, you typically got to take some more time to really formulate things. I know that make a very long post, but just let me cook a little bit. Let me simmer a little bit here.

You can put out an article. If Harvard Business Review comes out with something, and they're like, did you know that bologna sandwiches are actually better on Thursdays than Tuesdays, right? People are going to perk up because they freaking worship the Harvard Business Review.

Let us know if you want to be a sponsor. But that is an example, I think, of bias. Whereas if Widgets R Us post the same bologna sandwich article, where's the merit, right?

Obviously, I'm using these very silly examples. And then finally, we're talking about books. Someone could publish a book which has a higher barrier to entry, although not necessarily a higher barrier to bullshit, right?

I'm quoting Dillon. Don't at me, at him. Oh, whoa, whoa.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, baby. We all in this together. We all in this together.

So someone could put out a book and there's a higher barrier to entry, but it doesn't necessarily mean that what's in it is going to be great as well. It's easier to put out a book now than maybe it was even 20 years ago. I think it would be interesting for us to talk about that because we have a lot of people who watch the show.

I'm sure people are taking our advice with a speck of salt, a pinch of celery salt, some black garlic. I don't know, maybe that's me. You got to take my advice with a little black garlic, babe.

You know what I mean? That elephant garlic. You know what I mean?

No, I do not. Let me pass it. Let me pass it.

[Dillon] (4:43 - 4:44)

Let me pass it.

[JP] (4:44 - 4:50)

Oh, yeah, before we make any- Because I had the ball, now I'm going to pass it. I don't even know. So now- You're doing the thing.

[Dillon] (4:50 - 6:10)

Jump in here because I wonder, I think what happens is, this is prevalent in a lot of social media experiences. It's not specific to advice where people misconstrue that the voices that they see on a regular basis or that have been bubbled up in a social media experience are the best ones for them or are the most educated in the space when, in fact, that is not what the algorithms are meant to do. The algorithms are meant to drive engagement.

So the clickbait-y stuff typically wins. Pictures of good-looking people often win. It ends up being, it is not in your best interest.

And I think so often people simply stop always weighing what is in their best interest and they take this information at face value in a way that is detrimental to them in a lot of the same ways that you're talking about, JP. But Rob, what about you? What sort of philosophy do you have for us today or psychology?

Do you got a book to share?

[Rob] (6:11 - 7:19)

You lured me in with this topic. But yeah, I don't know. It drives me crazy because there is an obscene lack of scientific rigor at times in our industry, particularly in settings like LinkedIn.

And I love LinkedIn. Potential sponsor, LinkedIn. We love you.

But I will say that the world today really favors inflammatory absolutist content. You're effing up if you don't do this and 10 secrets that they won't tell you about. We're looking at the same content, right?

It's always about my belly fat. That's what it is. This one secret.

Customer success. Experts hate him. It's our jazz.

So, you know, but this is also an age old thing, right? Ancient philosophers talked about how like you had to critique the idea, not the person who said the idea. But if you add more like recent scientific psychological rigor to it, was that Plato?

[JP] (7:20 - 7:22)

I think it was a platonic thing.

[Rob] (7:24 - 8:16)

Plato was the one that said, don't eat me. Not toxic, but no. So what I'm thinking about two things, you guys have heard of the confirmation bias.

Have you heard of that? No. Can you?

We seek information that confirms our notions that we already have about the world. Or there's also one called the halo effect. It's we attribute more qualities or traits to a person or thing than the thing actually has.

So like maybe a person's like good looking. So we assume, oh, they must know what they're talking about. We just over extrapolate, over generalize qualities about a person.

So I don't know. I think it would be a very interesting world if you envision, imagine like a LinkedIn that has no profile pictures. What would that be like?

No names. What would that be like? Very interesting hypothetical.

[Dillon] (8:17 - 8:36)

Yeah, it's Reddit, which is my preferred destination. That's actually a good point. There you go.

And what's funny is Reddit is, JP, this is great. For all of our on video, JP has taken off his glasses. He's turned his hat backwards.

I guess you're mocking me. Is that what you're doing?

[JP] (8:37 - 8:38)

You're mocking me. No, this is the halo effect.

[Dillon] (8:39 - 9:25)

I'm like a finne cat. What's interesting about Reddit is then it becomes very merit. It becomes much more meritocracy-esque, right?

Like with the upvotes and the downvotes and the more people who comment on a thread. It works the way I believe it should, though I'm sure there's a blind spot there for me in terms of what Reddit is. What information am I missing on Reddit?

But it feels more pure in that way. And you can just flame people anonymously. It's great.

JP, how do you treat this? Is there like questions you're constantly asking yourself to try to avoid the sort of issue or do you just never buy into the bullshit? What is it for you?

[JP] (9:28 - 10:56)

Well, I think to put a capstone on this, I would say I don't let it necessarily just because someone is popular or does have a huge platform that invalidates their message. For example, I think that Simon Sinek is awesome, has a big old platform. I may get annoyed that people keep bringing up Simon Sinek because I may be like, well, there's got to be more people, right?

But at the same time, I think that from what I've read from Simon Sinek, it's actually really good stuff. So I don't think that it's invalidating just because someone does have a big platform. I think that what you've both done and what I think that we all want to see more of is the critical thought.

And I think critical thought is more of a breeding ground for nuance as opposed to hyperbole and extremist sort of thinking, which again, like you said, Dillon, was more about driving the engagement. And I think that sometimes people with these platforms have to incorporate that in their strategy as in like it's a necessary evil, I think in a way, because this is the machine that they have and they have to keep boiling the machine. We used to call this buoy content back if you go to the archives.

[Dillon] (10:56 - 11:06)

Buoy content. We'll link to the buoy content episode. Boys, we're out of time.

Fantastic topic. Let's talk about it some more some other time. But for now, we've got to say goodbye.

Peace.

[JP] (11:07 - 11:08)

Bye-bye.

[Voiceover] (11:14 - 11:44)

You've been listening to The Daily Standup by Lifetime Value. Please note that the views expressed in these conversations are attributed only to those individuals on this recording and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of their respective employers. For all inquiries, please reach out via email to Dillon at lifetime value media dot com.

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