This week, the Behavioral Research Department says goodbye to our summer interns – CarterAllen and MetalStorm001. Both have played key roles in the success of our summer Virtual Worlds Research Program. Together, they have conducted research on marketing, branding and avatar behavior in a range of virtual worlds including:

• HiPiHi
• Doppelganger
• Habbo Hotel
• ToonTown 
• There.com
• Entropia
• Kaneva
• RuneScape
• Whyville
• And of course, Second Life

MetalStorm001 and CarterAllen have become so immersed with in-world experiences that I refer to them by their avatar names here. But just before I send them back to school and back to the realities that come with the real world, I wanted to ask them a few questions about their virtual world experiences so far. Here’s what they had to say.

What is your favorite virtual world and why?

CarterAllen: Kaneva was my favorite, mainly because they seemed to merge the real world with the virtual world. Many of these worlds, like RuneScape or Entropia, are so far out that they hardly seem possible, and these fantasy aspects are why they’re such a big draw for many users. However, Kaneva combined aspects of a virtual world like Second Life with aspects of a 2D social networking site like MySpace, and this made the world a sort of halfway point between the virtual world and the real world. It’s targeted specifically at users who are less interested in extensive fantasy worlds, but more interested in spending time online for social interaction.

MetalStorm001: I would choose There.com. There are several reasons. A)  There is a very large area of land to explore and many cool themes for islands and such. Such as an island designed to look like an alien planet and a city called Saja, which is located above the ground, floating in the sky. B) I like that in There.com, if you do not pay for the subscription, you can level up your skills to get awarded free stuff. That way, even if you don’t want to spend money on the game, you can still customize your avatar and have your own house. C) I also enjoy that there is always an activity being held somewhere in There.com pretty much all the time, all you have to do to find people is look for an activity in the activity bar. D) I also love that real bands come into the game to play in concerts that you can attend. E) I also like the ability to customize your avatar in many ways, from changing their appearance, to whatever you want them to wear, from goofy clown noses to cool t-shirts.

What is the most surprising thing you learned in your virtual worlds research this summer?

CarterAllen: The most surprising aspect for me is how fast these worlds are growing. For instance, Second Life has grown from 6 million avatars to 8 million avatars (a 25% increase) in the last two months. Yet, more than anything else, it almost boggles my mind that people are willing to spend their hard earned dollars on virtual items (land, houses, clothing, concerts) that don’t even really exist. More than $1.25 million real dollars are usually spent in world in Second Life on a day to day basis. This is proof more than anything else that virtual worlds are more than just a passing fad. 

MetalStorm001: First, I’m surprised that so many people take virtual worlds very seriously and spend a large portion of their time in world. Second, I’m amazed that the amount of custom made items is almost infinite… I mean, I have ridden on everything from a sports car to a giant floating Great White Shark! Thirdly, I learned that no two virtual worlds are the same, even though some strive for the same goal as their competitors.

Will you go in world after you leave this internship?

CarterAllen: Honestly, probably not. This is partly because I think if I picked up virtual world browsing as a habit, I don’t know how I’d ever get anything else done at college. The other part is that, while I’ve immensely enjoyed researching and learning about these worlds over the last three months, it’s still not something where I’ve then felt like, “Wow, this is something that I have to get into.” For me, the concept of a virtual world where people actually interact, much less spend money, is in itself almost surreal and challenges our traditional view of reality.

MetalStorm001: Yes, There.com is entertaining and I would like to continue playing after I leave my internship here at Spunlogic. Probably, because I have it on my computer and a couple of my friends play. If my friends didn’t play, I probably wouldn’t, because I wouldn’t know anybody and it’d be complete strangers online. I will also go into World of Warcraft after my internship, because I’m currently paying for that game and I find it very entertaining and fun to play.

What are your thoughts on the future of virtual worlds? How will they change or evolve?

CarterAllen: I think the evolution of virtual worlds over the next five years is going to be very interesting. Like most somewhat controversial issues, there are distinct positives and negatives that come with these booming virtual worlds. On the positive side, worlds like Second Life have created virtual meeting spaces for businesses. This never before has been possible. Two people from opposite ends of the world can now interact and hang out in the same club, side by side. The social networking possibilities are limitless. At the same time, virtual worlds may open up a new can of worms that even ten years ago we never could have envisioned. There was an article in last week’s Wall Street Journal about a man whose real-life marriage is on the ropes because of his Second Life relationship with another woman. I think it’s a given that virtual worlds are going to grow like wildfire in the next few years. Whether that’s such a good thing or not remains to be seen.

MetalStorm001: Virtual Worlds will never die. They provide us with an alternative with which to escape from reality and become someone other than ourselves. I think more companies will get in, even though a lot of companies are already in-world. People will always play, but if they keep making more virtual worlds, eventually there will be too many. There are already some that aren’t making it because there aren’t enough people going in them. With more and more virtual worlds popping up, they’re going to continue to run into that problem.  

To the naked eye, a dog’s tail wags when he’s happy. But careful study reveals something more. Recently, a team of researchers used cameras to study tail wagging. And in doing so, they made a remarkable discovery. When dogs experience positive emotions, they wag their tails a little more to their right. When they experience negative emotions, they do the opposite.

Sometimes, a dog’s tail wags when he’s not happy.  But we’d never know it – even if we watched him very closely. Even if we loved him very much. It reminds me that there’s so much more to this world than we can experience with our eyes alone,  that our world is so rich with things to discover … but our eyes are only one of many tools we can use to study it. It also reminds me that sometimes other tools work much better. Because oftentimes, our discoveries are largely dependent on the tools we use to make them. As in the case of dogs. As in the case of many other things …

Well it’s official. Two of my greatest loves (data visualization and real estate information) were married recently in this video. And what a beautiful couple they make – a powerful example of how even the most complex data sets can be communicated in a language that anyone can understand.

Speculativebubble, you fascinate me.

Here lately, LOST is losing it — at least for me. In previous seasons, things were different. Work came to a grinding halt every Thursday morning as hours of LOST water cooler conversations ensued. We’d TiVo back and forth through LOST commercials like mad fools, logging onto secret websites to dig for clues.  LOST theories ran through the office like wildfire — blackberries going off in meetings with one liners that could go back and forth into the night. The purgatory theory…the ‘it’s all just a big dream’ theory…the writers are on crack theory…It was like the year between the Matrix 2 and Matrix 3. Endless possibilities. Unlimited potential. But something’s different with LOST this season. This season, we’re back to work.

So with all this extra time on my hands, I’ve been thinking. What’s changed? The characters are the same. The set’s the same. The story is heading the same direction. But there’s one fundamental difference. And it’s kind of hard to ignore. This season, we got to meet The Others. And as it happens, The Others really aren’t that scary.

In previous seasons, we were forced to ponder questions like “What do The Others look like? How many are out there? How far are they willing to go?” In our minds, The Others were a dangerous group of primitive people…or ferocious monsters…or people possessed by some evil deity…or whatever else scared the H out of us. Now that we’ve met The Others and have gotten to know them, things are very different. Now, they’re just a group of slightly off key adults singing Kumbaya in some outdoor recreation center.

Is our rapid loss of LOST engagement surprising? Perhaps not. After all, the funniest comedies don’t give you all the lines. The best mysteries don’t give you all the clues. The scariest movies never show you the monster. No matter what the genre, it seems that audiences are most engaged when they aren’t given all the details — when they are forced to make inferences instead. And when you think about it, this is really a timeless concept. Take Helen of Troy.  She’s possibly the most beautiful literary character of all time — all because Homer never described her face. All we know is that she was so beautiful that the grandfathers of the soldiers who died in battle over her could look upon her face and understand what all the fighting was for. Now that’s hot! So many people have imagined her differently. In the 60s and 70s, she was a twiggy, thin lipped woman dressed in psychedelic cloths. In the 80s, she was a curvy full lipped woman wearing a black unitard and pink aerobics sox. If you’re into brunettes, she’s a brunette. If you’re into read heads, she’s a read head. Helen of Troy will always be beautiful because it doesn’t matter what you’re into – she’s that.

So how does the concept of inference apply to our industry? Should we design our brands to flex with audience expectations – to let our audience dictate what they want to see? Could ‘inferential marketing’ (if you will) be the key to reaching the highest levels of audience engagement – the key to universal brand appeal? Given the effects of inference in so many other media forms, perhaps it could.

Give the brain a taste of what you want it to know and the mind runs wild. Give the brain too much and the mind stops –making room for other curious things.

Ten years ago, I discovered a new food at an Icelandic breakfast table, Vla — a kind of yogurt you can drink. Packaged in a boxed milk container, Vla was a smooth yogurt that came in several flavors. I loved Vla. It was so unique. I had never tasted anything like it before. Invented by the Dutch, the Icelandic people had been drinking Vla for years… it just hadn’t quite reached the US markets. Several years after tasting Vla, I stumbled upon a similar product in an Israeli convenience store. It was designed to give you a cool boost in the desert heat. Unlike Vla, this product was packaged in individual plastic containers — perfect for any desert traveler on the go. Years after that, I found a similar product called Dannon Light and Fit in an American grocery store. Packaged in a small bottle, shaped like an hourglass, Light and Fit was a smooth yogurt drink designed for athletic people who wanted a fast and healthy snack.

Sometimes the greatest new things aren’t new at all — they’re just reincarnations of old things in new places. I think of that often as I watch our fascination with User Generated Content grow. People love to talk about User Generated Content like it’s a new thing in media — a phenomenon that shocked our industry, becoming an overnight success. But here lately, I’m starting to wonder whether it’s really new at all.

Consider reality TV shows like American Idol. On Idol, everyday people get to compete for fame. Everyday people create most of the shows’ content. And even if they aren’t brave enough to get in front of the cameras, everyday people decide on what they see by casting votes. There’s a TON of participation on Idol — more votes were cast for that show last year than any presidential election.  And there are so many other shows like it. Survivor, The Real World and even Jerry Springer are no exception. In each, most of the content is generated by the user. Radio talk shows like Howard Stern work the same way. People love to call in and give their perspectives. And that’s the show — real people giving real perspectives. One time, I was listening to an Atlanta radio station where some guy in his mid 20’s was planning a special date… with his step sister. They’d been separated before college but were recently reunited. The guy thought it might be wrong to date his stepsister… but in his words, “She’s smokin’ hot!” You can’t imagine how many people called in with their two cents on that. That show was so funny I missed my exit on the way to work.

User Generated Content is a new phenomenon for the Internet, but is it really new to media? Or is it just a reincarnation of a very old concept – one that has been successful in so many other media forms? Some would say that Reality TV and radio talk show participants have less control over content when compared to Internet contributors. After all, producers can modify tapes and recordings to give shows their own spin. But ultimately, don’t web administrators sensor online contributions in basically the same way?

Every time a new and successful idea is introduced online, I ask myself whether it’s new at all. It’s usually not. A single good concept can be reborn in so many new places — becoming an overnight success time and time again. I’m not a fortune teller, but I believe I’ve got the power predict the next big thing in any new media form. The past and the present are my crystal ball. 

When I meet someone who defines superior customer service, I never forget them. And I’ll never forget Mr. Hutchens. Mr. Hutchens is a real estate agent working in the Atlanta area. There are dozens of reasons why I believe he delivers perhaps the highest quality customer service in real estate that Atlanta can offer. Since we’re all in the business of customer service, I thought I’d mention a few.  

1. He LOVED his job and it showed: There’s nothing more infectious than working with someone who absolutely loves what they’re doing. Mr. Hutchins was made for real estate. He cherished every minute of it — from meeting his customers for the first time to finding them their dream home and beyond.

2. He worked as hard for us as he would for a close friend or family member: There’s nothing better than getting VIP treatment. But my husband and I were not VIPs — we were average home buyers buying in an average Atlanta price range. Mr. Hutchins gave us special treatment anyway. He made us feel like important clients.

3. He took ownership of problems: During our purchase, we experienced a few problems that were not caused by, and could not have been prevented by Mr. Hutchins. Often, these problems were caused by other vendors. Mr. Hutchins was willing to address those problems – even though they were not his responsibility. He treated the home buying process holistically, rather than treating himself as one module in a series of modules that may or may not get it together.

4. He maintained professionalism in times of crisis:  Sometimes you can’t see quality customer service until you’re in a crisis. At that point, you’ve usually bought into the product or service to some extent so you’re stuck. Mr. Hutchins remained professional when problems arose. When his limits were tested, he exceeded our expectations.  

5. He frequently gave us feedback: There are a lot of steps to home buying. Mr. Hutchins gave us feedback upon completion of each step. This gave us confidence knowing that we were on track and that the deal was moving forward. 

6. He never told us how hard his job was: Mr. Hutchins didn’t get too personal. Sometimes, people in customer service like to tell you about their problems. They think that it will make you understand where they are coming from or make you more tolerant when things go wrong. But the truth is, it just makes you feel uncomfortable. Mr. Hutchins never put us in this position. 

7. He listened to us: Some real estate agents have a vision of where they think you need to be in the housing market. Not Mr. Hutchins. He listened carefully to find out what we were looking for – a house priced significantly under value in a neighborhood that was rapidly appreciating. He found us just that.  

8. He continues to follow up, to this day: Mr. Hutchins is monitoring our neighborhood closely. He sends us updates on appreciation of land value and nice notes to make sure we are still happy. 

I think we can learn a lot from Mr. Hutchins. We have so many customers. We serve our clients. We serve the vendors that our clients ask us to work with. Internally, we also serve each other. Delivery of superior customer service to all parties is vital to our success. According to Fred Reicheld, there’s only one question to ask when you want to identify superior customer service. That is…

Would you recommend this person to a friend or colleague?

Mr. Hutchins, if you ever read this post, you should know that my answer is absolutely.

One of the first recorded correlations was the relationship between height and salary. Taller people earned higher salaries than shorter people. That wasn’t good news for me =). But there are actually lots of correlations like this. Some work to my advantage, others don’t. Some make perfect sense and others seem impossible to explain.

Consider this. There’s a strong, positive correlation between ice cream purchases and murder rates. When ice cream purchases increase, murder rates increase. When ice cream purchases decrease, murder rates decrease. If your job was to prevent murder, what would you do with this information?

Some people say that they’d increase the presence of law enforcement in ice cream shops.  This is based on the notion that murderers like to buy ice cream – perhaps to make themselves feel better about killing people. If this notion were true, murderers would definitely be a lot easier to catch.  Just sit in an ice cream shop and wait. Eventually, they’ll be there. Others say that they’d prevent known criminals from purchasing ice cream. This is based on the notion that ice cream sets off some kind of murderous trigger in people who have criminal tendencies. By making sure that criminals don’t get access to ice cream, we could make society safer. We could also prevent people from becoming criminals in the first place. Restricted access to ice cream would be just another negative consequence of becoming a criminal. Still others say that they’d put a ban on ice cream sales all together. This is based on the notion that anyone can become a murderer after eating ice cream – that people who eat ice cream are like time bombs waiting to detonate. Kids everywhere would be devastated by the ban but it would be totally worth it in the end. After all, human life is much more important than dessert.

Hmmm. These all seem like decent plans until you do a little research to find out more about the relationship between ice cream and murder rates. Truth is, there’s a third variable that influences both. It’s the weather. When the weather is hot, people are more inclined to buy ice cream. When the weather is hot, people are also more prone to violent acts.

Research agencies like to talk about relationships between variables. Clients get excited by these findings and both like to make plans based on interpretations. But relationships between variables can be misleading.  Variables can be correlated without causing variations in one another. In science, we say…

Correlation does not imply causation.

It’s good to identify that relationships between variables exist. But it’s better to determine why they exist. In this industry, we must be careful when interpreting reports of correlation and making recommendations based on findings like these. If not, we may end up making recommendations that aren’t useful — or that even backfire when we’re trying to reach our goals. If not, we may end up arming cold ice cream shops with law enforcement personnel when they are desperately needed in the hot streets.

Here lately, there’s been a lot of theorizing about what my desktop candy jar is really all about. Because I’m trained to manipulate human behavior, these theories often have a psychological basis. Here are a few.

1. The Positive Reinforcement Theory: This is the belief that I am reinforcing people for coming to my desk. When you come to my desk, you get candy. When you don’t come to my desk, you don’t get candy. So, you come to my desk more often.

2. The Classical Conditioning Theory: This is the belief that I am trying to pair my books with candy. My books are next to my candy jar. You see them when you get the candy. So eventually, you associate my books with good things like candy — and maybe, one day, you’ll even read them.

3. The Controlled Experiment Theory: This is the belief that I am conducting a controlled experiment at my desk in which certain candies elicit certain types of behavior. There’s much speculation on which types of candies produce which types of behaviors. Complex.

I don’t mean to disappoint, but the truth is, there’s no psychological basis for what I’m doing with the candy jar. There is, however, an explanation…Years ago, I decided that I wanted to make a difference in the lives of others. At the time, I thought that meant I would have to work with broken people — in a helping profession like medicine or counseling or social work. That’s one of the reasons why I became a Doctor of Psychology. But as I worked with the type of people that I was hoping to serve, I faced challenges that deeply saddened me. There were so many broken people. Many couldn’t be fixed. When you’re a caring person, it’s actually really hard to work in a caring profession. Someone once told me that the best Psychologist is the one who doesn’t really care about their patients. I think they were right.

When I came to industry, there was a part of me that believed that I would have to leave my aspirations of making a difference behind. In industry, I wouldn’t work with broken people. In industry, it would just be about business. But as the years went by, I started to notice some people in my workplace who needed a little extra push. Sometimes, it was extra encouragement. Other times, it was a helping hand. Still other times, it was just having someone who would listen to them for five minutes. These were not broken people. They’d do just fine without me. But they made me think that maybe I could still do some good in my life — that maybe I could still make a difference, in my own way.

Over the years, I’ve come to believe that you can be in a helping profession in any workplace. It doesn’t take broken people or some tragic social situation. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Little things can make a big difference. And sometimes, they are just as important. Each person has the power to make a difference every day in the lives of others — no matter where they work. You can find that power in a kind smile. In a compliment. In a candy jar.

What’s the Internet? Ask a friend. Most people will have a hard time telling you. They can tell you what the Internet can do – or what they can do with the Internet, but that’s about it.

The Internet is the worldwide, publicly accessible network of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a network of networks that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which together carry various information and services (Wikipedia).

Ok, wait a minute. Back up. The Internet is what?!

The Internet can be difficult to describe – and even more difficult to comprehend. So how did it become so popular? How did it get so many users? Well-experienced designers helped out a lot with that. We knew that people didn’t have to really understand the Internet in order to use it. We knew that all we had to do was take what users already knew about the real world and leverage it – to use life as a metaphor for Internet design. And we did.

The Internet is rarely described as a network of interconnected data transmission networks. It’s more often described as the information superhighway. These words make the Internet sound easy to understand. Most people don’t understand data transmission and networks, but they do understand driving down a really big highway. Internet gaming companies like Second Life are using metaphors too. Second Life is calling their customers Residents. It’s easier for gamers to think of themselves as residents in an online world when compared to paying customers. But it’s not just the Internet that benefits from metaphors, it’s applications too. Consider MS Office. In Office, you have “files” and “folders” that you can put on your “desktop.” You have a “notepad.” You have an “inbox” and an “outbox.” Coincidence? I think not.

Metaphors can benefit design when they make sense. But sometimes they get confusing. Take the Apple trash can. It’s the only way to get your disk out of an Apple computer – short of using a modified paperclip. You have to drag the disk icon with important files that you want to save to the very place that you would never put them in the real world – a trashcan. This goes against the grain. And speaking of paper clips, take Microsoft’s Clippie, MS agent of irritation. Think about the way you feel when he appears, asking you if you need help with what could be the most basic office task – writing a letter. Some of us have used some choice words in situations like these, others have been caught banging on our keyboards - as if Clippie will hear us, as if he will keep himself in check next time. We would fire an office assistant like this in the real world. In a real world office, Clippie wouldn’t last a day.

There are some things that technology can do that I can’t do in life. And it leaves me wishing for things that can never be. Sometimes I make mistakes in the real world…like dropping my lunch on the break room floor…or accidentally saying ‘Hi’ to someone who I don’t know…or deleting a TV show that my husband TiVo’d before he watches it. In times like these, I often catch myself searching for the undo button. But there’s no undo button for life. And that’s a shame. With the Internet, you have the metaphors of Life + so much more. In the real world, you just have Life.

People can’t always accurately report on their behavior — even if they have the best of intentions. Take the guy who tells you he’ll never date a smoker. What does he end up doing? Marrying one. Take the girl who says she’ll leave her guy in a heartbeat if he cheats. He cheats, she stays. If we can’t trust people to accurately report on what they’d do in their significant lifetime partnerships, how can we trust them to accurately report on whether they’d buy a Coke or a Pepsi?

In Marketing, you have a real advantage if you can assess and predict human behavior. But this can be hard. Researchers in user experience sometimes say that direct observation is the only method that really works. But observing users can take so much time and so much money.

I’m of the opinion that survey methods can be used to assess and predict human behavior, at least in some cases. But you have to really work hard to ask the right questions and provide the right response sets. That’s the key.

Say someone is on trial and claims insanity. How do you determine whether they’re truly insane or whether they’re trying to get out of a conviction? What kinds of questions would you ask if you could only administer a survey? This is a difficult question. If you write a question that asks, Are you insane? and the defendant responds Yes, where does that really get you?

Some people believe that survey methods can’t be used to assess things like insanity. I disagree. I believe that if you are thoughtful, you can come up with questions that will work.

Consider this question. True or False: Demons visit me on Tuesday afternoons. Now if you were pretending to be insane, how would you answer this question? Well as a former Professor of Psychology, I’ve asked hundreds of students this question. What answer would they be looking for to determine whether someone was truly insane? Most students say True because they think that indicates you’re insane. But that’s too easy. How do we know they aren’t just saying True because that’s what they think we want to hear? A few students say False because the True response sounds like a trick. But if you answer False, you’re saying you’re not insane and that doesn’t seem to work either. So which response best identifies insanity?

Truth is, neither response identifies insanity. Instead, the response that I’d be looking for goes something like this. The defendant raises their hand and says … I’m confused. Demons do visit me but they typically come on Mondays and Fridays… and in the mornings. I don’t know how to answer this question.

And with that, you have your answer.

This is an extreme example but hopefully you see the point. Using surveys to assess and predict human behavior isn’t always easy. But if we are thoughtful, we can devise question and response sets that work. Over the years, I’ve come to believe that survey writing is not just a science — it’s an art.