Exploring the power of Grūps
Monday, July 3rd, 2006 by Steven S. -- Product Design“Since people can see other answers while they vote, doesn’t that taint the results? Doesn’t that make the process very different from a real polling system?”
My co-founder posed these questions at our weekly meeting at Mackenzie River Pizza last week, between bites of his veggie pepperoni pizza. He wondered how Grūps (a new feature that will allow private Grupthink topics) could be used in a valuable way for organizations or businesses, given that Grupthink doesn’t work like a traditional survey system. People are affected by the voting results they see while they vote at Grupthink, so the answer to both of John’s questions is “yes”.
Grupthink.com already works great as a fun “social app”, but can it serve a business purpose too? Off the top of my head, I can think of many valuable ways to use Grūps for practical or business-oriented topics:
- A business asks its customers “What do you like most about our company”
- A software developer asks “How can we improve SoftwareProduct” (example)
- City organization asks its citizens “What would most improve the downtown experience for you?”
Of course, Grups will also facilitate smaller or more informal groups of people who have questions like
- What movie should we see tonight?
- Where should we go for spring break?
- When should we meet for lunch next week?
On one hand, Grupthink’s social and interactive nature makes it very different from traditional surveys, and on the other hand, we know that Grupthink can still be valuable to businesses who want to learn more about their customers. Perhaps this apparent dilemma is rooted in our unintentional assumption that Grupthink is (or should be) analogous to a survey or polling service. But, if Grupthink isn’t an e-polling service, what is it? Furthermore, if veggie pepperoni isn’t pepperoni, what is it?
Grupthink: A Town Hall?
Have you ever participated in a town hall meeting or “moderated discussion group”? The idea is to allow everyone in a town or organization the chance to give their input on a wide range of topics. If moderated properly, people pose questions and offer answers in a conversational way, comparing different viewpoints. The whole point is to get everyone involved so that the decisions are informed. A good discussion group will end with people feeling like they learned more about the topic and the opposing viewpoints. Many official town hall meetings in New England end with a vote or decision on the topics presented.
Town hall meetings are very different from polls or surveys, which are one-way, closed conversations with voters. When you conduct a town hall meeting, you want the voters to be affected by one another as they form their decisions, because you believe that more informed voters will make better decisions.
Grupthink is unique because topics, answers, and votes are produced in an interactive, social way, much like a town hall meeting. People can pose questions and let the visitors produce — and vote on — the answers. Since the “moderation” of the discussion is handled by software, it’s actually superior in a few ways, to “real” town hall meetings:
- Convenience
Each participant can vote or contribute at their leisure, from any location. Real meetings have necessarily tight time constraints. - Equality
Each participant has an equal voice (real discussion groups can easily be dominated by “loud-talkers”) - Instant Run-off Voting (ranked votes)
Each participant can vote for, and rank, multiple answers. (One major criticism of U.S. presidential elections is that voters can only select one candidate when there are three or more running for office. This problem was particularily evident when Ross Perot ran for office in 1992, and when Ralph Nader ran in 2004. If voters could have selected a first and second choice, the final results would have been more reflective of the public opinion. )
Are the results of Grupthink topics tainted by the fact that voting results are viewable by everyone during the voting process? Well, yes, if by “tainted” you mean they are more informed and more socially produced. With the new Grūps feature (including private topics), Grupthink can be an important consensus-building solution for communities or organizations.
Stay tuned for Grupthink 1.2!
