Category Archives: Human Behavior

Human Behavior

CRM Watchlist 2020: And the winners are… – ZDNet

With every edition of the Watchlist winners, I explain my choices, identify the patterns that emerged from the entries, and to identify some of the changes that I made this year and am possibly making for next year. So, here's how it's going to go down:

So, let's get this show on the road. Though I suspect you've already demonstrated you couldn't contain your excitement and have checked the "And the winners" part. [Sigh.] You kids.

I've said this every year about the CRM Watchlist and it always bears repeating.

It is an impact award. To win the award you have to show that in the year immediately prior to submission (same year) you had a significant impact on the market and that you have the corporate infrastructure, strategy and resources to sustain that impact over the next three years.

What do I mean when I say "impact?" That means significant influence in the market that you participate in. It doesn't have to be global. It can be specific e.g. a vertical market, or a sized (small, midsized, enterprise) or a geographical market. It can be a market specific to your offering. For example. The Big 4.8 (Salesforce, SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, and Adobe) are in global markets. Xactly is focused on Sales Performance Management our newest official (no longer other) category though they were judged for their impact in the "value add" part of the sales technology ecosystem not just SPM. A few years ago, when consulting companies were still part of the competition Solvis Consulting won because of their impact in Latin America. Veeva won for their incredible dominance in the Life Sciences market. It can be specific.

However, at the same time, there is no winner by category. If I group together a set of reviews it's because it is convenient for me. You cannot be #1 winner in CX. There is no such thing. You win. Period. And if there is more than one in a grouped review (which by definition, there is), the listing is alphabetical, not in order of importance. There is also no ranking revealed beyond the #1 scorer in the entire competition regardless of market.

Additionally, though it's been called the CRM Watchlist for the last 10 years of its 15- year existence, it is open to all that provide customer-facing technologies. There are 53 categories to choose from on the registration and the questionnaire and something called "Other" in case you are doing something that doesn't fall under the 53 other choices.

Several of the winners used the following paragraph last year in their press release on the victory (I'm telling you that in advance because I don't give out individual quotes) to show what it takes to win so I'm literally putting it in here and if you want to issue a press release on this and want to use the following paragraph to show why you won, then go ahead.

For that impact to be sustainable, the company must be a complete company that has been doing this long enough to have established a rhythm. The company has to be well-rounded: it has financial stability, solid management, excellent products and services, superb culture, and a strong partner ecosystem to help sustain its efforts. It has to have a clear vision and mission and also clear-cut strategies for outreach to get external forces - customers, analysts, journalists, prospects, influencers, etc. - engaged. That takes a complete (and complex) set of tools and activities, which could include marketing, analyst relations and public relations programs, the subject matter expertise via the content produced and distributed for consumption, and the "theatrical" activities that establish the corporate identity necessary to stay top of mind, as well as capture share of wallet.

Ultimately a company has to prove that it had impact in the year that they submitted for (2020 = calendar year 2019) and that they have the infrastructure and resources going forward to sustain that impact three years further. If you can't prove them BOTH, you lose. So, this is not only looking at achievements, but more importantly how you are building your company for the longevity it needs to succeed in the market. This is about sustainable impact. That eliminates a one-hit wonder that lucked into a big year.

Another thing: While I do independent research on each qualifying candidate and also take note of how much I have run across them during the year, ultimately it's the quality of the submission that counts. If I have to give it relative weight it works something like this: 30% for my independent research and anecdotal and quantitative information I've gathered over a year in the course of my work as an analyst. The other 70% is the submission itself. The submitting company has to make the case for their impact. You may have had it and if my 30% doesn't put it over the top because you have made such a poor case for it (and that does happen) then you lose. A couple of years ago, two companies that should have made it given my research and what I already knew of them in the market would have made it but the submissions were so poor that they didn't make it.

Conversely, the case is the case, regardless of the quality of the writing. I place a real value on the presentation the quality of the writing and the look and feel. You can gain a marginal part of a point if it is really good but not lose if it really isn't. Though I will notice it and I'll let you know. But you can write poorly and sloppily and still even if it seems accidental make the case. This year one of the winners submitted a lazy submission (and I'm being kind about it) and yetthey still won because their case was irrefutable. As the sole judge, I have to separate that from the "facts of the matter." So, I do. But that doesn't excuse something written badly. Companies that submit are companies proving they have an impact. If they do, the face they present to the public should be something that engenders trust because the company clearly put an effort into it.

Think of it this way: When I write on customer engagement, I define customer value as "feeling valued." In other words when the customer feels valued, they are more than likely to continue to be your customer. To do that you have to show the customer that you care enough to about who they are to make them feel as if you value them. The same goes for a Watchlist submittal or anything a company does in analyst or public relations. Make the recipient feel as if you value them. Learn the lesson, please. It's important. That means not just tell the truth, but make sure that you tell it well. The failure of many companies is their inability to present and stay true to a corporate narrative. They lose the trust or don't gain the trust of those they need to trust them meaning not just their customers but their potential customers. In the case of this submission, the facts were indisputable, but the submission seemed to be an afterthought.

A factor that weighs heavily (and not positively) even though it might have been a good thing that happened to create it is uncertainty. For example, if you were acquired and/or had significant management turnover or if you were addressing a new market that you didn't have much history in I penalized you as harsh as that sounds. Sometimes, all other things being equal, the company would have won the Watchlist, but the uncertainty was the tipping point in their loss. Sadly, I have no way to see impact two or three years out when I don't even know how your new management team or new CEO is going to perform in their new environment, or you gave me no discernible proof of the results of your bold move into a new market. I have no way of knowing if you were going to be successful there over time even if you were successful in this year. Again, this is an impact award, not a "smart strategy" award. I might think that you made the right move, but you rarely are going to have impact in the new market in the first few quarters you are in it. Also, it's impossible to say that the new person or people are the right choice until they are. Even if I think that.

This year there were two companies that unfortunately suffered due to transitional uncertainty. They would have won if it wasn't for significant management turnover that led to the uncertainty. Both companies had,for the most part, important and positive changes but for the purposes of the Watchlist it damaged their ability to prove that they were going to be able to sustain the impact that they had this year.

The score is also driven by a raw score and then a weighted score and the weights vary year to year depending on macroeconomic conditions, industry movement, and trends that are discernibly more than self-serving justifications for hiring a "thought leader" or buying a vendor product. Based on that the weights vary every year though the raw score perfect total and the weight's perfect total never does. There are some 40-50 "intangibles" that I am looking for that are not indicated in the questions asked mostly negative but some positive. There is one larger question (I'm not telling you which), two if you stretch my definition, where you can gain some positive intangible points. Keep in mind, the intangible deductions or additions come off or are added to the final weighted score. Because they are so important to the outcome most of the time they are incrementally small though on occasion can be substantial (e.g. transitional uncertainty)

This year as the questionnaire makes clear, privacy and corporate social responsibility -- aka philanthropy or community participation -- makes a lot more of a difference than it ever had. They weren't questions or parts of questions last year. This year they are. Also, customer success and the organized programs around it (and their KPIs big and important part) are additions to the effort.

These changes are all playing a much bigger part in gaining and retaining customer trust, which is why they are now standing out in the crowd rather than either a part of the crowd or not even in the crowd as they were in the past.

The only other real changes are along the lines of changes made each year. I changed he weights for each category and the absolute positive or negative increment for some of the intangibles based, as I said, on current macroeconomic, market and sociological conditions. I also added one other factor to the scoring that made it once again MUCH harder to earn winner with distinction and almost impossible to win Elite. What won even last year would no longer be sufficient to win this year by a significant amount. However, to alleviate the almost suffocating difficulty in winning this, I now vow there will be no change in the scoring ranges for the remaining two years of the Watchlist. (You heard me!)

Overall Best Submission THREE WAY TIE: SAP, Verint, Pegasystems No one was perfect (Oracle was in 2019) but these won because of a combination of most well-articulated narrative and the fewest "not answered" questions. In other words, their submissions made the best case and paid attention to what I asked them to, please.

Most Creative Submission Oracle (including an overview video and a submission that was substantially visual as well as informative)

Highest Score in a category

There were several noticeable gaps and weaknesses in general in the submissions that stood out. They weren't universal meaning in most cases, except the privacy one, there were some standout but all in all it was too frequently an issue to not make mention of it.

Privacy Almost all the submissions were missing any mention of a Chief Privacy Officer anywhere. In fact, the ONLY submission that mentioned a Data Privacy officer of any kind was Thunderhead. Given that I know that several companies who submitted have them in accordance with GDPR requirements it was head scratching that they didn't say so and makes me wonder how they think about it.

Marketing Strategy, Outreach, Thought Leadership A Trio Marketing strategy, outreach and thought leadership were a trio that a significant majority were poorly prepared for. The vast majority of the time but not always all three were weaknesses simultaneously. The strategies lacked focus, direction and at times were disorganized to the point of random. The outreach was noticeably short-sighted and misaligned with current market realities. For example, while many of the companies had a Gartner, Forrester relationship, their lack of relationships with boutique firms, independent analysts and outright influencers tells me that they don't seem to have a clear picture of how this all works these days. The claim of thought leadership was there but the assets and the game plan weren't when it was discussed. Again, this was a significant enough plurality or majority to be weak or misaligned in all three to show me that the concept of being a trusted adviser, while given lip service when it is raised, is still foreign to a lot of companies

Social Good/Corporate Social Responsibility As you will see in the "trends" part social good or CSR or philanthropy is on the agenda of almost every company that submitted but on the downside of that is a severe reluctance to include it as part of their public discussion. I suspect that's due to a fear that it would appear "markety." Let me put it this way. A company spends $130 million (let's say) on grants, free software and professional services, community effort time etc. Then they say nothing about it because they fear it will be seen as marketing if they do talk about it then I'd worry more about their perception of what marketing is. Who spends $130 million on a marketing campaign and then doesn't say anything? You could not say anything a lot cheaper. Like for free. But the value of actually showing that you are a company who cares about people and the world and solving inequities and doing good says volumes to the world about what kind of company you are. People aka customers are looking for companies that support philanthropic good and they won't know that you do unless you tell them. If you want companies that communicate it in a way that doesn't feel like marketing to them and thus, their customers, or observers then look at what Sandvik AB (here is one of many examples) is doing. Or closer to home, what Salesforce and Zoho do and say.

Customer Journeys Customer journeys are very much in the conversation (see below), but not so much in the offerings. At best there are a few companies offering what I would call journey builders, not journey tracking. Some are confusing personalization at multiple touchpoints with journey tracking and orchestration. And those are the good ones. Most give it lip service and then just talk about personalization and hyper-personalization. The offerings need to be there for aligning with customer engagement and CX. They aren't there .

Market Impact Question 2 says the following "In 2019, in your own view, what impact did you have on what market and what form did it take? Multiple ways you impacted the market are perfectly alright to describe. This means that you might have developed a staggering product that changed the way that people thought of things, you might have done something for the social good, you might have become a company that changed the way that something was done. You might have achieved a dominant market position; other companies were so impressed by what you had done, they imitated you. Whatever you think regarding your own view of your own impact, works for me." This was a bit of a trick question. The result was pretty much astounding and a bit scary One short of 100% outlined only their technology and nothing else. That is NOT what I hoped for, because it indicates that the company is seeing itself through the eyes of its products not as an entity that is multi-faceted. Instead of taking the big picture view of the company as a whole and its impact in the world via specific areas, they outlined how important their technology was and their road maps which is actually question 6. A few of the companies ALMOST broke out but all but one only mentioned the technology ultimately.

The purpose of the above is to provide guidelines about where companies can look for holes in their evolution as organizations that will impact markets that lead to more revenue and a better world and the company viewed as a trusted adviser. There is nothing to be judgmental about the gaps are the gaps and they should be considered as means to identify areas of improvement.

But now, on a more positive note, patterns emerged that would be called trends under other conditions.

If I had to make a 30,000-foot observation of the submissions and the market, I would say that, first, they are well aligned with each other. Second, and most important, the 30K view of that movement is a move to the right-brained. Not the right. The right-brained. The market and the companies that inhabit and compete in it, thanks to the ongoing digital communications revolution, are now finally getting it human behavior and the likes, dislikes and efforts made by individual human beings to be happy are what drives customer behavior today. They now also recognize that they have to anticipate and then accommodate that behavior to stay competitive in the market. The Watchlist 2020 trends absolutely support this supposition.,

CX and customer engagement are now standard to the thinking of companies Eighty percent of all submissions -- and ALL the winning ones -- focused their efforts on proving customer experience and customer engagement, not CRM. It permeated everything they wrote and all that they offered. From the marketing, service and sales the pre-eminent theme was the improvement of the customer's experience. From the actual technology portfolio, the platforms were being rejiggered or evolved or developed around engagement, with the exceptions of Adobe and Oracle CX which are building out the technologies that foster consumable experiences (e.g. Disney-like). Not the overarching experience, which can't be enabled by technology. But it was enlightening to see the transition in thinking over the past five years of Watchlist entries to see that it has shifted from more operational solutions and thinking to ecosystems, and platforms designed to improve customer engagement and thus the overall customer experience due to the improved engagement. This was MANIFEST throughout nearly all the submission.

Personalization and Humanization Personalization -- which tends to be defined by the vendor submitters as "data driven individual insights used for optimizing offers" -- is now part of pretty much every single technology portfolio and also all discussions around marketing. There is a market awareness that the individual customer's interests and concerns have to be addressed, not just some broader demographic. In the technologies there are dozens of analytics applications, personalization engines, and engagement options that are offered to provide individual attention to the customers as per extant thinking in the marketplace. In marketing, a lot of the 1:1 thinking is reflected by the adoption of Account Based Marketing (ABM) by most of the best in class and even beyond that to the mid-level performers. Humanization is beginning to show up more frequently but is nowhere near as ubiquitous as personalization nor is it the same thing. Here is a piece I wrote on it if you'd like to dig a big deeper. Several companies are beginning to make that distinction notably, Salesforce, Oracle and about 10 others. While personalization is ubiquitous and embedded in the offerings of almost everyone humanization of culture and the externalization of that is just beginning to arrive on the scene.

User experience as a matter of culture Throughout the submissions, noticeable attention was paid to the look and feel of the user interfaces and the user experience. That has been apparent for the last two or three years. There is an evolutionary trend that is peaking out (meaning in enough of the submissions to be something to pay attention to) which is the interface between design and the culture of the companies. Which of course goes back to humanization. While I first noticed the intersection of design and organizational culture as far back as 2013 with Infor and their creation of internal design agency Hook and Loop, it is only now we are seeing mostly the largest companies beginning to incorporate design thinking into their actual cultural imperative so that it permeates not only the look and feel of their technology but also the design of their offices, the principles of their employee interactions etc. Notably Hillel Cooperman and Oracle and their Redwood initiative is a prime example of this. But far from the only one.

Microservices Architectures The most far-sighted companies are developing their own variations of a microservices architecture and platform. While sparse and almost non-existent in the CRM Watchlist 2019 (meaning 2018), this year, there were a noticeable spike in the number of companies who either were well along developing it or had it on a roadmap that started in the near future. The best example of microservices done well is the WeChat "apps" market which has what appear to be apps but are actually microservices offerings for the consumer numbering in the millions. This article doesn't really explain the concept well but tells some stories that do.

Ecosystems & Platforms For years, Esteban Kolsky (so VP of Strategy at SAP CX) and I among others have been pushing the importance of ecosystems and platforms. Esteban wrote this in 2018andI wrote this in 2016. We are redeemed. LOL! The vast majority of the vendors who submitted made at least a platform claim for their technology and most of them met the standard some not quite but they all understand that providing a platform at this juncture is pretty much the way that they will succeed with their offering. Ecosystems are a tad (scientific term for a little less) ubiquitous but they are both explicit and implied (via GTM partnerships to fill holes in their end to end customer requirements or something like that) enough to see that the age of ecosystems and platforms has arrived meaning that no one has to be convinced or almost no one any longer and now its who does it better.

Hopefully, these are helpful. They are a clear indicator that we are in the age of the customer, the age of CX or the era of engagement or whatever you want to call it but the stars and the markets are aligned to it so tightly that it is a prerequisite for success and at least, the companies that submitted know that, if not the broader market yet.

For those that didn't win: a free 30-minute consultation on why you didn't win. Hopefully, it will be of some value in pointing out areas that will be better when strengthened and also explain at times why you not winning was a closer decision that you might think.

For those who did win: A free one-hour consultation on any topic you want to cover. (That is an $1,875 value.) Plus, you will be getting a write up either individually (Winners with Distinction) or grouped with one or two other winners in the first half of the year.

There is a caveat to this though. Whether or not you won or not, you have until March 31, 2020 at 6pm ET to schedule the hour or half hour. After that, tough luck. You're outta luck.

If you are truly anxious to get the discussion scheduled, here's what I'm willing to do. If you can email me at paul-greenberg3@the56group.com by February 15, 2019 at 6pm to ask me for an appointment, I'll set it up with you previous to the launch. I'm gamifying!! It'll prove to me you read this post and didn't just look at whether or not you won and that you are interested enough to query me and get it set up. Plus the window is short. So let's see how you do. The only way to set it up is via email. Not Facebook, not LinkedIn, not Twitter, not ZDNet. The email here. Go!

None

Two companies would have won if it weren't for deductions for transitional uncertainty. Given that there will be a year of the story under their belts by next year, they are most likely to win, barring significant unforeseen things (which happen) or a bad submission (which happens too) and while they don't win, they should be at least called out. The two companies most likely to make it next year are:

ServiceNow - The only reason they didn't win is the transitional uncertainty generated by the departure of their CEO and the installation of the new, very different CEO. Here is where the analyst side of me and the Watchlist side of me diverge and it's a good example of how the Watchlist works. As I've repeatedly said, to win the Watchlist you have to be absolutely able to prove that you have had the impact in the year you submitted and going forward for a three year period, the infrastructure and the plan to sustain that impact. A new CEO (even if as an analyst I think it's a great choice) is unproven in the role until he/she is proven in the role and needs a good yearat least to establish himself or herself. Thus, there is a significant deduction for the uncertainty that is there since there is no history at the company to prove the case one way or the other. In the case of ServiceNow, their hiring of Bill McDermott to replace John Donahue which as an analyst I applaud, still provides that transitional uncertainty and if it wasn't for the deduction for that, ServiceNow, would have won in their first year. In fact, they would have leapt ahead of some of the lower scoring winners.

SugarCRM This was a different case that actually went deeper. They were acquired in 2018 by Accel KKR who has a vastly different model than SugarCRM or other PE firms have. Episerver, one of this year's two new winners, was sold in 2018 successfully by AKKR with this strategy. It is a strategy that as an analyst, I like a great deal. But that sale led to a significant number of senior level management changes in 2019 and that creates that transitional uncertainty that is unavoidable. But for the changes, SugarCRM would have won.

So, as a human being, I apologize. I know how hard that these companies worked on their submission and each made a good case. They didn't win but they are being recognized. As a Watchlist judge orthe ONLY Watchlist judge, it's a reality that has to be considered when it comes to identifying one of the many factors that go into sustainable impact in a marketplace. Though I'm still sorry.

If these two companies enter next year, their chances are good if they had good years and the uncertainty has vanished in the wake of a good or great effort by the CEO or those other newly minted execs who were fresh during the company's Watchlist submission year.

There were, if you do the math, 55 companies that didn't win. Two of them you already heard, would have won if it wasn't for transitional uncertainty. They deserved to be noticed even if they weren't winners. There were a couple of companies that didn't win that had genuinely interesting technology even though they didn't have the maturity necessarily to either have had an impact in the market in 2019 nor could they sustain it three years out. But their technology is worth calling out because of its combination of intelligence and use value.

That would be:

Techsee

In their own words from the submission:

"TechSee's cognitive visual engagement platform is built on multi-patented Computer Vision AI. The system recognizes devices, their parts and issues, with accuracy levels of over 95%, and delivers Augmented Reality guidance on customers' smartphone screens to resolve a huge range of issues.

TechSee Live for Contact Centers enables agents to remotely guide their customers in interactive video sessions, while the system automatically diagnoses issues and suggests steps toward prompt resolution. This "Smart Assist" feature works by cross-referencing each issue with a vast image knowledge base.

TechSee Live for Field Services provides field technicians with guidance from remote supervisors or other field agents via smartphone or smart glasses, enhanced by Computer Vision capabilities that can shorten costly training time and reduce time to resolution.

EVE, the world's first visual self-service assistant, enables consumers to receive visual guidance through their smartphone screens while interacting with a conversational visual tech assistant that can correct them if needed."

I will literally say no more because they didn't win, but they are worth paying attention to.

As always with the announcement of the CRM Watchlist 2020 winners, the registration for the CRM Watchlist 2021 is now open. Nothing really has changed from last year though the questionnaire will be tweaked (e.g. Sales Performance Management will be added as a category on the registration form and the questionnaire) The format for submission remains the same. Request the registration form, once received, you have 14 days (not business days, total days including weekends) to return it or you will not be able to participate in the CRM Watchlist 2021. Once you return the registration form you will be getting the questionnaire that is due on December 31, 2020 by 6pm PT or you will not qualify.

However, before I get to the calendar I'm going to make a point that I want any potential registrant to pay CLOSE ATTENTION TO. Part of the process is that if you haven't withdrawn by a designated date (see the calendar below for the date) you will be penalized. The reason is that the day after the final withdrawal date, I start doing corollary research for all the expected submitters. That takes me weeks. I mean, weeks of work that take me away from any leisure time, family etc. My expectation is that you will submit if you haven't withdrawn by that date. I send notices out to companies who have registered as we get close to the withdrawal date telling them it's coming up and please withdraw by then. Every year a few withdraw by the date and I'm sorry to see them go. But every year there are several who don't withdraw and at the last minute tell me after I've done HOURS of research on them that they aren't submitting, which I find incredibly disrespectful given I've made it very public and sent reminders more than once and yet they choose to ignore them and let me go on with the research. I realize that things happen and I'm pretty reasonable as those who know me. But now that I'm 70 I get to be crotchety -- so I have penalties that I exact.

First penalty: The company can't submit for the next year's competition. That's not a big deal really is it? Also, as an analyst, I will not cover you at all and I don't care if you are my client, my best friend or my parents I ain't showing up at the house for a full year. And worse, while I won't proactively do anything if anyone asks me about the company, I'll tell them why I'm not covering them that year. All of that, of course, given that it can be a multi-billion dollar company that does it (happened this year though they apologized to their credit it was a company that I had a good relationship to and a former client) it is relatively a yawn-inducing penalty. But the optics for you aren't real good.

The reason I'm spending so much time talking about this is that if you have any reason that you think you might not submit that is palpable then don't register please. I spend hundreds of hours ultimately on the Watchlist including once you register I begin tracking you throughout the year. So please note this is a competition for serious companies.

That said, I truly am honored that companies have been submitting for the last 14 years. This is year 15 but competition #14 because I skipped one year to revamp the Watchlist to reflect what the world now looks like and change the questionnaire significantly and tighten up and make the scoring much tougher. So thank you for all of the companies that have been submitting for all of these years. I know I can be hard on you but I truly appreciate the effort that you put into this its not just my effort its yours too. I also appreciate and am honored that you even care enough to submit. Again, my thanks and I bow my head to all of you who have been supportive along the way.

SO

Here is the calendar for the CRM Watchlist 2021 (the time is always 6pm PT)

If you're interested in the submission criteria for 2021, here is a brief version. If you want a fuller detailed version before you request the registration form, please email me at paul-greenberg3@the56group.com and I'll be happy to email you with them.

The 30,000 foot view: Be a company that produces a customer-facing technology and have $3 million or more revenue (USD or the equivalent) in the prior fiscal year. Note the big change is that the revenue requirement is up from $2 million to $3 million this year.

Here is a simplified set of details:

All in all, this is a tough thing to win, and if you do, I think at least you deserve to be honored for it. If you win in any way, you will get a review on ZDNet about why you won and things that you could do to be even better, if I have anything to say about it. I say that every year and typically only get about half of them done because they are extensive reviews and I have to earn my living too but this year I'm going to do the Winners with Distinction first and then work to put out the repeat winners who haven't gotten reviews due to my failures to produce them. My way of apologizing.

This is hard to win but I hope that you feel it is well worth it. It's kind of a tough love thing. Even with all the harsh behavior I'm really very touchy-feely.

The rules in this section are unbreakable. What that means, to be clear, is that if you break them in any way at all, there will be some form of penalty assessed, ranging from your final score being affected to disqualification and being taken off my radar.. In advance, I apologize for being so draconian, but at this stage, there are still too many registrants and submissions that are ignoring what I ask. If you'd like the full version of these rules again, email me at paul-greenberg3@the56group.com and ask specifically for the qualification rules for the Watchlist, NOT the registration form.

USUAL RELATIVELY CHEEKY DISCLAIMER: Several of the winners are clients of mine; several of the non-winners are clients of mine; several of those companies who didn't submit at all are clients of mine. Several of the winners are NOT clients of mine; several of the non-winners are NOT clients of mine - and thousands of NOT clients of mine didn't submit at all.

My newest book, the Commonwealth of Self Interest was published in April 2019. Sales are going very well, thank you. You can get it here if you really want it. If you are interested in bulk copies, contact me at (once again) paul-greenberg3@the56group.com and we'll make sure you get a significant discount.

I promised a website that I was launching last year (and the year before) but, alas, I didn't. It will be coming this year or else I'm going to can it. It's a great website but it's a lot of work and money to get it running the way I need it to run. So stay tuned. The site is The 56 Group, of course. If you look now, you'll just see my apology for not having it up last year. Pretty much what you read here .

Once again, thank you to all the Watchlist submitting companies for their effort. Even if you didn't win, I trust the exercise was worth the effort. The idea is that you get to step back and look at your company as a whole rather than just the technology that you offer and see where your strengths and weaknesses are. If you of course want me to help you with that request the free half hour if you didn't win and the hour if you did and I'll be happy to tell you and hopefully help you by a pair of third-party eyes or -- given my glasses four third-party eyes.

But I truly appreciate the honor of having the opportunity to learn more about you win or lose. See you this year!!

Read more here:
CRM Watchlist 2020: And the winners are... - ZDNet

Human Behavior

Smarsh Teams with Brainspace to Provide Customers Advanced Analytics and Visualization Tools for Electronic Communications – AiThority

Smarsh Enterprise Archive customers can leverage Brainspace machine learning to find new patterns in complex data, reduce time and cost for e-discovery

Smarsh, helping customers get ahead and stay ahead of the risk within their electronic communications, announced an integration with Brainspace, the worlds leading data analytics platform for investigations, e-discovery, and compliance, at Legalweek 2020.

The combined power of Smarsh and Brainspace allows users to take full control of their data to greatly accelerate the eDiscovery process, enabling teams to work both smarter and faster

Smarsh Enterprise Archive customers can now leverage Brainspaces advanced data analytics and machine-learning engine across their archived electronic communications. This enables users to drill down into complex sets of messages and draw actionable insights for e-discovery, litigation and investigations.

Smarsh customers can harness Brainspaces machine learning and natural-language processing to visualize their communications data, revealing hidden themes and relationships between various messages, terms and participants, said Adam Miller-Howard, Vice President of Business Development for Smarsh. In this way, in-house discovery teams can quickly uncover hidden patterns in their data to reduce the need for expensive e-discovery software and outside counsel.

AiThority.com News: David Kovar Brings Industry Expertise, Leadership to Comptia Drone Advisory Council

The Smarsh Connected Suite enables the capture, archiving, supervision and discovery of more than 80 communication channels behind a single pane of glass. Content is captured in its native format with full fidelity metadata, enabling users to review content in its full conversational context. Customers can both leverage the productivity benefits of the latest social, mobile and collaboration tools, and strengthen their compliance and e-discovery efforts.

Brainspace applies machine learning capabilities to automatically organize archived data into interactive visual displays. The solution applies augmented intelligence to rapidly surface data insights while reducing false positives. Users can identify hidden patterns in their data, saving time and reducing their reliance on third-party case assessments.

AiThority.com News: GoodData Delivers Out-Of-The-Box Compliance With California Consumer Privacy Act

The combined power of Smarsh and Brainspace allows users to take full control of their data to greatly accelerate the eDiscovery process, enabling teams to work both smarter and faster, said Miller-Howard.

In addition, Brainspaces supervised machine learning enables users to train the machine to identify specific human behavior or intentions. Customers will be able to transmit data from Brainspace back to the Smarsh Enterprise Archive for retention, or to third-party review and production tools.

Brainspace is excited to work with Smarsh to provide a next-generation solution for e-discovery analytics and archiving, across electronic communications, said Barry Fields, Chief Revenue Officer for Brainspace. Now users can really dig into their archived communications data to visualize unforeseen connections, improving their outcomes for litigation and investigations.

AiThority.com News: Wirecard Becomes Official Development Partner Of SAP To Drive Innovative Customer Experiences

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Smarsh Teams with Brainspace to Provide Customers Advanced Analytics and Visualization Tools for Electronic Communications - AiThority

Human Behavior

How to Protect People against Phishing and Other Scams – Scientific American

About 15 years ago, phishing went from a virtually unknown phenomenon to an everyday media topic. With new users pouring onto the internet, and the commercialization of the internet starting in earnest, opportunities abounded for phishers, who use identity deception to defraud e-mail users. As a result of this, and the absence of technical countermeasures, phishing e-mails were suddenly in everybodys mailboxes. Practically speaking, the only defense was the advice offered by security experts: Watch out for poorly spelled e-mails; and do not click on links.

Over the years, the sophistication of the attacks has risen constantly, and the number of varieties of deceptive e-mails has mushroomed, with attack strategies like the impersonation of colleagues (so called business e-mail compromise or CEO fraud) dramatically on the rise. The increased sophistication resulted in improved yields, tempting more and more would-be criminals to try their luck at deception.

Corporations and other organizations continue to believe they can train their users to evade cyberattacks. Gartner estimates the market for security awareness computer-based training will grow at a 42 percent compound annual growth rate through at least 2023, from $451 million in 2018.

But at this point, the traditional emphasis on user education is an expenditure of resources and end-user burden that can no longer be justified by the results. As online deception techniques proliferate and become more sophisticated, it becomes more and more difficult for individual users to detect fraud. The return on investment on any security awareness effort has dramatically fallen, and the user burden to make security decisions has gone up.

User awareness should no longer be the primary defense against social engineering. In fact, cybercrime technology has evolved to the point that it can only be reliably defeated with opposing technology. Unaided humans are no longer able to adequately defend themselves against cybercrime, any more than fighters with bows and arrows can defeat enemies armed with attack helicopters.

Most defenses are better suited for algorithms than for end users. Instead, security and risk management professionals should educate end users only on the threats they can reasonably be expected to spot, while depending primarily on technical defenses for the overwhelming majority of attacks.

Early on, traditional phishing attacks were reported to have yields on the order of 3 percent, meaning that the vast majority of the intended victims did not fall for the attacks. On the other hand, sophisticated attacks such as spear phishing are known to see yields exceeding 70 percent.

Carefully crafted phishing e-mails (as well as other types of deceptive e-mails) are very hard for typical users to spot.

Some types of attacks are close to impossible to identify, even for highly technical users. Consider, for example, an attack in which the attacker compromises a legitimate e-mail account (e.g., by phishing the owner) and then using the compromised account to attack contacts of the phished user.

Other attacks, such as those using deceptive display names to impersonate a colleague of an intended victim are easier for a user to spot, at least in theory. By always inspecting the e-mail address of the sender, and making sure that this is a known user, one can avoid falling for such attacks. However, the increased scrutiny comes with a high price: For every extra step added to mundane tasks, our productivity naturally falls.

Moreover, these attacks are hard to detect in practice, given human error: many people, at least occasionally, accidentally sends e-mails from personal accounts instead of work accounts, and vice versa, creating an ambiguity about what is trustworthy and what is not. As a result, one in 10 users click through e-mails with deceptive display names, the security company Barracuda reports.

Given finite budgets, both in terms of financial cost and attention, companies and individuals must decide which awareness battles to pick, based on what people struggle with versus what types of automated countermeasures work well. Take, for example, the advice if it looks too good to be true, it probably isas well as the variant if it looks too bad to be true, it probably is. People have emotions and judgment to warn them when something falls in this category, but so far, computers do not. Accordingly, this is something worthy of an awareness campaign.

On the other hand, deceptive display names are relatively hard for people to spot, but quite easy for computers to detect. This is a problem where automated defenses are more suitable than awareness efforts.

For both digital health and human health, the relative influence of behavior versus technology is the same. From the time they are small children, humans are taught to avoid risks to their safety: don't eat dirt, don't cross the road without looking both ways, don't smoke. But the big gains in life expectancy achieved over the past century or so have come primarily from advances in medical technology for fighting disease.

The prescription is also the same: for human health, take care of yourself and avoid common risks, but by all means get a good doctor and take your medicine. For electronic health, teach your users basic digital hygiene, but commit your budget and time to staying a step ahead of the enemy in the technical arms race that is impossible to avoid.

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How to Protect People against Phishing and Other Scams - Scientific American

Human Behavior

Human Behavior, My Brain Made Me do It? – Dealing with …

Allan Schwartz, LCSW, Ph.D. was in private practice for more than thirty years. He is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in the states...Read More

Science has made huge strides in understanding the human brain and how it functions. For example, we know that the frontal lobes are the center of rational thinking and of self control. It is also understood that neurotransmitters, or brain chemicals, are responsible for our moods and of the general state that we are in. It is also known that severe mental illnesses, such as Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder, are diseases of the brain. Lesions or damage to the frontal lobes and to other parts of the brain can and affect impulses and impulsive behaviors. All of this knowledge raises disturbing questions. Does any of this mean that we are not responsible for our behavior? Does it mean that we have no free will because my brain made me do it? It its true that my brain made me do it then, as a result, anything I do is a result of the way my brain works. In other words, I didnt choose to steal that item, my brain did?

In criminal trials something called the insanity defense is used when the defendant claims they are not responsible for their actions because of mental health problems. Another defense is called diminished capacity. The diminished capacity plea differs in important ways from not guilty by reason of insanity. In a successful plea of insanity the result is a verdict of not guilty. In this case the judge sends the defendant to a mental institution until it is determined that they are sane. At such time they are discharged from the hospital. Remember, they have been found not guilty. On the other hand, a successful plea of diminished capacity results in the defendant being convicted of a lesser offense and a lesser prison sentence than if they were guilty with full capacity.

So, does this mean that people who commit crimes do so because of the way their brain works? In fact, cant it be said that, even with full capacity, a person should not be held responsible for their crimes because their brain made them do it?

Of course, there is the argument that behavior results from environmental influences. In this case, if some was physically, emotionally and verbally abused during childhood, it explains and forgives their decisions as adults. From time to time I have heard this said about some of the rudest people I have met. For example, rudeness is excused because someone had a tough childhood. In another example, a surly and nasty department store clerk is forgiven because they have a boring job. In these cases it is not their brain that made them do it. Instead, their environment made them do it>

In reality, human behavior and psychology are complicated. It is most likely that our behaviors result from a complex interplay between each of our genetic make-up, brain chemistry and functioning and the economic, social and psychological environments in which we grew up and live.

The basic question remains: Are we responsible for our decisions and behaviors?

I will provide my opinion but I would like to hear from my readers about this issue.

In my opinion, we are responsible for our behaviors. If may boss yelled at me, my wife did not make dinner for me for when I got home from work and I kicked the cat and yelled at the kids, I am responsible for my bad behavior. Simply stated, there is no excuse for kicking the cat and yelling at the kids. In a similar way, this latest mass murderer in Colorado is responsible for his decisions and actions.

What is your opinion?

Allan N. Schwartz, PhD.

Keep Reading By Author Allan Schwartz, LCSW, Ph.D.

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Human Behavior

20 Interesting Facts You Didnt Know about Human Behavior …

1. People with high levels of testosterone get pleasure from the anger of others.2. People with low self-esteem tend to humiliate others. Subjects who were told that the results of their IQ test were poor expressed more national and religious prejudices, than those who reported higher results.3. People sincerely believe that their negative opinions about others are truthful and have no connection with them and their self-confidence. In fact, the humiliation of others helps them restore their own self-esteem.

4. The behavior of people is affected by bodily sensations. For example, there is a strong association between heaviness and such features as importance and seriousness. A person is assessed as more serious and sustained, if his CV was applied in a heavy folder, and vice versa.

5. Similarly, the feeling of rigidity and hardness makes people inflexible. People sitting on hard chairs were more uncompromising in the negotiations. Feeling a rough surface causes in people a sense of the complexity of human relations, and cold is tightly connected with the feeling of loneliness.

6. People tend to commit immoral acts or do not fulfill someones request for help, if no effort is needed and they do not have to refuse a person directly.

7. However, more people behave as expected if they have to take a moral decision in front of someone.

8. Lying requires a lot of mental effort. A person who is lying has to keep in mind at the same time the lie that it to say, and the truth in order to hide it. As a result, he uses simple sentences and finds it more difficult to cope with mental tasks.

9. When people are being watched, they behave better. And the illusion of being watched works, too. It was enough to hang a picture of human eyes in a self-service cafeteria, so that more people began to collect their dishes.

10. Behavior affects morality. People who lied, betrayed someone or committed other immoral act begin to perceive what is good or bad in another way.

11. Attractive and honest appearance can easily be misleading. People tend to trust appearance more than sincerity.

12. Appearance plays an important role even when voting during elections. Maturity and physical attractiveness of politicians were mostly important for voters choice (unconsciously, of course).

13. More successful and rich people are considered to be more intelligent and wise, and vice versa. Often, people tend to think that those who are successful or those who suffer deserve it.

14. Happier is not the one who has a lot of money, but the one who has more than his neighbor does. People constantly compare themselves with others and feel satisfied if they are superior in some respect.

15. Anger increases the desire of possession in people. People make more efforts to obtain the object that is associated with angry faces.

16. The more complex the decision to be taken is, the more people tend to leave things as they are. If the store has too much choice and people cannot immediately find out which of the products is better, most probably they will leave without buying.

17. When people feel they have no control over what is happening, they tend to see non-existent patterns in unrelated pictures and believe in conspiracy theories.

18. People regret quick decisions, even if the results are satisfying. Not the actual time allotted for the decision matters, but the feeling that the time was enough.

19. Not all risks are the same. The same person can fearlessly jump with a parachute, but be afraid of his boss. Or to train tigers, but feel embarrassed when talking to a pretty woman.

20. Boredom has a bright side. Bored people are often looking for ways to do good things as the entertainment bores them and does not bring meaning to their lives.

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20 Interesting Facts You Didnt Know about Human Behavior ...

Human Behavior

What Jobs Can I Get With a PhD in Human Behavior? | Career …

Doctorates in human behavior are usually granted by university psychology and education departments to students working in a specialty known as applied behavior analysis. This specialty looks at how negative behaviors can be weakened and replaced with positive behaviors. Charts are created to monitor behaviors to determine which interventions are working. Behavior analysis doctoral programs frequently offer two possible tracks: One track prepares students to become college professors and the other trains students who want to become licensed behavior analysts.

Applied behavior analysis began as a specialization within psychology called "behavior modification," by B. F. Skinner, a research psychologist, in 1938. Skinner's first experiments trained rats to press levers for food pellets and to switch off unpleasant electric currents. Skinner's research on positive and negative reinforcements was later applied to human behaviors and is now known as applied behavior analysis. As of 2013, the two wings of the profession -- the psychologists devoted to research and the licensed behavior analysts -- have split into two separate professional groups, the Association for Behavior Analysis International for researchers and the Association of Professional Behavior Analysts for therapists.

Doctoral students entering the teaching and research track take classes in applied behavior analysis and research study design. Students are expected to carry out their own behavior analysis research projects and write a dissertation. While the academic job market is crowded, a 2011 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report forecast that jobs for psychology professors are expected to grow by 10 to 19 percent between 2010 and 2020, an average rate of job growth. Applied behavior faculty positions also exist in university schools of education. Master's degree and doctoral-level psychology professors earned an average annual salary of $68,020 in 2011, according to the BLS.

Doctoral programs currently offer future behavior analysts training leading to independent practices or work with clients in organizations. A newly graduated Ph.D. takes a national examination to become a board certified behavior analyst. As of 2011, more than 9,000 behavior analysts holding bachelor's, master's or doctoral degrees passed behavior analyst certification exams. In 2013 an estimated 35 states required future behavior analysts to comply with licensing or certification requirements.

Licensed behavior analysts work in a variety of settings. Behavior analysts treating autistic children teach them communication and socializing skills. A behavior analyst who specializes in school psychology may design and oversee behavior support treatment plans for children coping with emotional problems. Some behavior analysts form their own businesses and consult on behavior changes for families, schools and clinics. A 2009 survey by the Association of Professional Behavior Analysts showed that the majority of behavior analysts with master's and doctoral degrees earned between $40,000 and $80,000 per year. The survey indicated that most behavior analysts were treating children with autism or other developmental disabilities. Continuing growth in autism diagnoses will likely fuel ongoing increases in employment for licensed behavior analysts.

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What Jobs Can I Get With a PhD in Human Behavior? | Career ...

Human Behavior

Sexual Development and Human Behavior – Explorable.com

Sexual Development

The activity of the sex-determining gene situated at the Y chromosomes short arm influences the sexual development of a zygote (fertilized egg), into becoming a male or a female. Embryonic sexual development begins at 6 weeks, when primordial reproductive structures are formed. Two different systems are involved in the early development of sexual reproductive structures. Male reproductive structures are formed through the Wollfian system, whereas female reproductive structures originate from the Mullerian system. The sex-determining gene in males produces the testis-determining factor (TDF). As TDF is absent in female embryos, their gonads become ovaries, followed by the maturation of the Mullerian system. In males, the undifferentiated gonads develop into testes, which release testosterone that leads to the development of male external organs and also produce a substance that inhibits the Mullerian system.

Males and females have several differences when it comes to sexual response. In males, arousal comes during the excitement phase. In the plateau phase, sexual arousal becomes intensified. Afterwards, male orgasm follows, which includes two phases (1) contraction of the vas deferens, seminal vesicles and prostate gland, and (2) rhythmical contraction of the urethra and penis). Then, the resolution phase occurs, when the male goes back to his non-aroused state with period/s of non-response. Females also experience excitement and plateau phase. During orgasm, there is rhythmic contraction of female genital organs. While most males experience a maximum of four orgasms per sexual activity, females may have multiple orgasms. When a female experiences the resolution phase, she does not experience any refractory period. Succeeding orgasms in females tend to be stronger than the initial orgasm, and thus the sexual activity becomes more pleasurable for them even after the male becomes non-responsive due to his refractory period.

Human sexual behaviors across the lifespan are comprehensively explained by the famous theorist Sigmund Freud in his Psychosexual Development Theory.

In males, sexual behavior starts with the state of arousal, which is produced by increased levels of the hormone testosterone. When a male is castrated, testosterone is lost, leaving him with an inability to have sexual arousal. In females, sexual arousal and behavior are significantly influenced by estrogen levels. Studies show that the increase in female sexual activity occurs between the end of a menstrual cycle and period of ovulation, as well as before menstruation begins.

The hypothalamus indirectly stimulates the production and secretion of the male hormone testosterone. In addition, medial preoptic area elicits male sexual behavior. Directly connected to this area is the medial amydaloid nucleus, which receives information from the olfactory bulbs tasked to detect the pheromones secreted by a receptive female. In response, the cerebral cortex sends signals to initiate motor responses during sexual activity.

In females, the ventromedial part of the hypothalamus stimulates the release of estrogen. Female-typical sexual behavior is associated to the medial preoptic area similar to but smaller than that of the males.

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Sexual Development and Human Behavior - Explorable.com

Human Behavior

Learn How to Become a Therapist – The Good Men Project

If youre interested in the world of mental health, you may be intrigued about becoming a therapist. When you want to help people, being a mental health professional a great profession. Theres a difference between a therapist, psychologist, and psychiatrist, all of which are essential players in the world of mental health care. A therapist is someone who works with people or groups and helps them maintain stable mental health. Its not as easy as being a good listener or having an empathetic nature; becoming a therapist is hard work. There are steps involved in being a therapist that allows them to help others as a mental health professional.

You might be wondering how to become a therapist? First, you need to get training in the mental health field. Therapists attend college and study psychology and human behavior. Its not just about reading books; its about the want to learn about how human beings tick. You can have all the education you want, but you have to be passionate about helping others. Before going into university, youll have to complete high school or receive a GED and look into undergraduate psychology programs at universities that youd like to attend. After completing your undergraduate education, youll probably go into graduate school. When youre in undergraduate courses, you must choose which specialty youd like to go into so that you can prepare yourself for your graduate program and supervised training.

Maybe, you want to work with children, or perhaps youre interested in adult psychiatry. Some would like to become marriage and family counselors. When youre studying for your undergraduate degree, its good to think about the population youd like to help. You might take a variety of psychology courses to see what resonates the most with you to help you figure out who you want to work with in the future and what kind of psychology interests you the most. You might not know precisely what kind of therapist you want to be or what type of therapy you want to practice, but undergraduate is a great time to explore and start thinking about what you want to do.

After youve graduated from undergraduate and graduate school, you need to apply for licensing in the state youd like to practice in. You need to complete a number of supervised hours under the eye of someone who is seasoned in the field and has extensive clinical experience. Depending on the state that youre pursuing a license to practice in, the number of hours of supervised training that you have to complete will differ. Its essential to have a supervisor watching you and to take advantage of the time you take to pursue your license because they can provide insight into ways that you can improve your skills.

Do not underestimate the process of networking when you become a therapist. You want to talk to other professionals, make connections within the field, and get the invaluable insight that other mental health professionals have to offer. You can learn all you want by reading books about psychology, but talking to people who have been in the thick of it is extremely important.

Its crucial to practice self-care when youre a therapist. You need to take care of yourself first, like the old saying, put on your oxygen mask before you take care of others. When youre not treating others, its vital to take time to do things that you enjoy. Spend time with friends, go to the movies, go outside, or anything else that brings you joy and clears your mind. You dont have to be a therapist for everyone that comes into your life. Theyre not paying you, and you dont have to maintain the mental health of anyone but yourself and your clients. Your clients are your clients, and your friends are your friends. Part of becoming a therapist is learning firm boundaries, and knowing that you cant be your loved ones therapist, you can be there to support them. If they need mental health treatment, they must seek it from another mental health professional who is an unbiased party.

Therapists deserve to maintain mental stability, like anyone else. Part of being a good therapist is being able to receive therapy yourself when you need it. You need someone to express your thoughts and feelings, and one way to do that is to enter online therapy. Online therapy is an excellent place to express your thoughts and feelings and gain the support that you need.

Excerpt from:
Learn How to Become a Therapist - The Good Men Project

Human Behavior

The BernieBro myth persists because pundits don’t understand how the internet works – Salon

The nature of punditry makes it hard to tell which myths media personalities earnestly believe in, and which they perpetuate in bad faith. Consider the "welfare queen," a villainous trope popularized by Ronald Reagan in stump speeches in the 1970s, and which never actually existed. Despite being a clear fiction, the idea wastantalizingboth to politicians and pundits, and hence the welfare queen became embedded in culture. Pundits and politicians today still invoke the racist caricature, often through dog-whistles.

Why do some myths persist, or remain uncorrected by the media, while others dissipate? The short answer seems to be that when they serve a media narrative, or play on existing stereotypes, they grow to possessa power that goes beyond fact or truth.To this list of indefatigable myths, one mightadd the pernicious "BernieBro" so ubiquitousa conceptthat it has its own Wikipedia article. The self-explanatory neologism was coined by Robinson Meyer in an Atlantic article in 2015 before being distorted by the Twittersphere and the punditry something that Meyer later came to regret, as he felt the term he reified suffered from "semantic drift."

But that was fiveyears ago, before we had as much data on Sanders' support base which, as it turns out, should be sufficient to debunk the stereotypethat Sanders' support base consists entirely ofa mythic tribe of entitled, pushy young millennial men.To wit:young women make up more of Sanders' base than men. He polls especially high with Hispanic voters, far more so than with white voters;Hispanic voters also donated more money to him than any other Democratic candidate. Polls consistently show that nonwhite voters prefer him over the other candidates. Notably, the demographic group that likes Sanders the least is white men.

Moreover, of all the candidates, Sanders has taken in the most money from women. Many of Sanders' female supporters bemoan how they are ignored by the mainstream press."The 'Bernie Bro' narrative is endlessly galling because it erases the women who make up his base," writer Caitlin PenzeyMoog opined on Twitter. "To paint this picture of sexism is to paint over the millions of women who support Sanders. Do you see how f**ked up that is?"

And yet. Even with all this demographic data on Bernie Sanders' support base, manyintelligent pundits and politicians persist with the myth. How do they justify it? They just know, apparently. But specifically, they feel it on Twitter.

Just one week ago, New York Times op-ed columnist Bret Stephens published a column with the headline "Bernie's Angry Bros." The column did not contain a shred of the aforementioned demographic data about Sanders' support base, but rather was driven by a series of anecdotes supposedly proving his point about the irascible fans of the Vermont senator. Stephens' main evidence, aside fromsocial media anecdotes, was a story aboutSanders supporters getting angry during or after the 2016 Nevada caucuses, believing they hadbeenrigged against their candidate. (The idea that people might grow angry at being disenfranchised is horrifying to Stephens, probably because he is a well-insulatedupper-middle class pundit for whom political decisions have no real material impact on his life unlike the people in Nevada he disparages.)

The Daily Dot has a long featurelistingpundits whohave helped perpetuate the BernieBro narrative long after demographics showed his support base to be a multiracial, working-class coalition. Hillary Clinton apparentlystill believes that Sanders is tailed by a horde of "online Bernie Bros" who issue "relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women," as she said in a Hollywood Reporter interviewjust last month.

What could compel otherwiseintelligent people to perpetuate a false and harmful narrative that essentializes Sanders supporters and erases their real and diverse identities?

Again, the answer to that is Twitter. Specifically, how Twitter is understood by journalists and pundits, and how it is wielded by angry people online.

The skewed demographics of Twitter

Twitter, unfortunately, informs the worldview of many of the country's most elite pundits, and some of its politicians too. Opinion columnists like David Brooks and Bret Stephens (both of the New York Times) are excellent examples of pundits who, at various times, seem to see the world as refracted through the bluebird's drinking glass.

The problem is, Twitter is very much not a representative sample of the world. It is not a zeitgeist; it is not a cross-section of the population.

It is hard to understand this, even for very smart people, because the corporation that runs Twitter tries very hard to make it seem like Twitter is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of every cultural and political conversation.

But it is not true. However, the eponymous corporation behind Twitter profits from this perception of its platform as a zeitgeist. After all, the president is on it! Still, Twitter (the company) promotes this narrative of itself as where the conversation lives. They make money off of the lie that it is a representative cross-section of the world's opinions and thoughts.

But a study of Twitter demographics say otherwise.

Pew Research polls from 2019 found that about 22% of the US population is on Twitter, and 44% of users are in the 18-24 age range. Linger on that for a second: a substantial proportion of the people getting in Bret Stephens' mentions and making him upset may be scarcely older than children. Interestingly, Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine apundit with whom I rarely agree is on the mark here.

"It is hard to exaggerate the degree to which the platform shapes the minds of professional political observers," he wrote in a recent column."Part of Twitter's allure to insiders is that it creates a simulacrum of the real world, complete with candidates, activists, and pundits all responding to events in real time. Because Twitter superficially resembles the outside world's political debate it does, after all, contain the full left-to-right spectrum it is easy to mistake it for the real thing."

Here's another stat from Pew that helps explain why Twitter is non-representative, a fount of professional-managerial class opinions: Thirty-one percentof Twitter users in the U.S. make more than $75,000, though only 23% of the country makes that much money. Likewise, 20% of U.S. Twitter users make less than $30,000, though about 28% of the country makes that much. The social media site is skewed towards wealthier Americans.

It's too badthere aren't as many statistics aboutwho is active on the site. I've often suspected that people with white-collar office jobs and higher incomes (and thus more leisure time or computer time) are more steady tweeters, while those with manual labor jobs are not constantly perusing feeds and inserting themselves into the commentariat.

Angry people and angry brands

But the demographicsof Twitter'suser base only say so much about the site'sdistorted commentariat. There's also the question of how people behave online, and why they behave so differently than they do in real life. There is a psychological reason why even very nice people are more likely to behave like assholes online. It is called the online disinhibition effect, and it is a big source of misery from pundits who do not understand it. The combination of three factors the anonymity and pseudonymity of being online, the lack of accountability, and the indirect nature of online communications make it so that online communication is dehumanizing, and often cruel.

Demographics and "real" users aside, Twitter like most social media sites has a huge number of accounts that aren't even individuals. A great deal of Twitter users are instead are brands, spam accounts or botswho behave likeactual people.

Because of this, getting in arguments with "people" on Twitter or even just seeing Twitter as the so-called public sphere is akin to arguing politics with a clown in a funhouse mirror. It is so heavily distorted by corporate PR and marketing, by the way that people behave differently online, and even by powerful bad actors (whether state or individual) who can wield Twitter armies quickly and easily as to be effectively useless as any sort of gauge of public opinion. It is a terrible place to gauge human behavior, or make broad pronouncements of what humans are like. And it's an even worse place to get a sense of a politician's support base.

I have a modest proposal for my peers in the journalism world: I would like to propose that anyone writing about a Twitter "mob" of any political ilk be required to include the previous paragraph in an asterisk at the bottom of their story. We should all be forced to include a disclaimer to clarify that it is impossible to make any kind of quantitative assessment of human behavior on Twitter because of how deeply skewed it all is by hackers, PR professionals, paid influencers, intentional government or corporate misinformation campaigns, and the way the online disinhibition effect makes people act.

The reactionary mind at work

After reading all this, someonewith a personal story of a (purported) Sanders supporter being cruel to them online might still object. The Bernie Bro is real! This anecdote proves it.

But to say "a single candidate'sfollower was mean, therefore I don't support this candidate's policies regardless of their actual political implications," is a rhetorical fallacy. There are definitely individual assholes out there. Likewise, assholes can believe in good causes, andnice people can support terrible causes. It is a reactionary mistake to oppose a candidate who represents a set of specific political positions poised to help or harm different social classes on the basis of another's individual behavior.

That means that the normalization of the BernieBro also diminishes the experience of those who are bullied by other candidates' supporters. A video went around of an ElizabethWarren supporter accosting two Sanders fans at the Iowa caucus; yet it didn't get a lot of play because it didn't reinforce existing stereotypes that we have about Warren's supporters. Plentyof stories aboutonline bullying by other candidates'supporters are ignoredbecause we lack a comparable stereotype to bundle them.

It would be one thing if Bernie Sanders or any popular politician told their supporters to be angry and menacing and threatening online, and then that behavior was reified on Twitter and in real life. But that has not happened withSanders, nor with anyone else amongthe current crop of Democrats. You cannot draw a line from Sanders' rhetoric to any of the stereotypes of BernieBros, because his rhetoric and voting records speaks to him being an egalitarian, a civil rights advocateand a compassionate progressive voice.

Link:
The BernieBro myth persists because pundits don't understand how the internet works - Salon