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The margin of error is the way that statisticians provide detailed information about the uncertainty associated with a particular estimate from a sample to a population. A key point that is misinterpreted all over the place is the fact that the margin of error reported in the media is generally the amount that should be added or subtracted from BOTH candidates estimated percentages in order to report the uncertainty!

A nice explanation is in this pamphlet on polling from the American Statistical Society: http://www.amstat.org/sections/srms/pamphlet.pdf

“A misleading feature of most current media stories on political polls is that they report the margin of error associated with the proportion favoring one candidate, not the margin of error of the lead of one candidate over another. To illustrate the problem, suppose one poll finds that Mr. Jones has 45 percent support, Ms. Smith has 41 percent support, 14 percent are undecided, and there is a 3 percent margin of error for each category.
If we note that Mr. Jones might have anywhere from 42 percent to 48 percent support in the voting population and Ms. Smith might have anywhere from 38 percent to 44 percent support, then it would not be terribly surprising for another poll to report anything from a 10-point lead for Mr. Jones (such as 48 percent to 38 percent) to a 2-point lead for Ms. Smith (such as 44 percent to 42 percent).”

Discovery. Its the one of Nick’s subcomponents that keeps popping up all over the place in my life. Maybe all of the online culture is one of Discovery (hey it would explain the value of Google). There is a constant quest to discover and try the enormous variety of new things accessible online. To be sure, this is a social computing thing. Its about discovering new territory and inviting your cool friends in for a visit.

Discovery experiences appear to be more important than ever today. For example, Alternate Reality Games, like Jane McGonigal’s The Lost Ring are attracting larger and larger audiences/players. The players become involved in a story because they are curious; curious to learn more, curious to see what this is about, curious to see if anybody else has found more.

But how do Businesses embrace Discovery?

• Viral Marketing campaigns that leverage consumer’s desire to Discover are really engaging. I showed my class the multifaceted Mini Men of Metal to give them a feel for this genre.
• Making us all beta testers allows us all to try businesses for free. I remember the pages of legal stuff I had to sign to be a beta tester back in the day (not to mention the stacks of 3.5 inch disks to install) ugh.

• Can we build new business models on discovery? Does giving users the ability to experience something free take away any chance that you would want to own it? A question you might ask the music industry. Last.fm, Pandora, Finetune allow users to explore music based on your own and others listening habits. Imeem and Muxtape allow you to create playlists of your own music that others can listen to and then buy.

One recent study suggests that Discovery business models may be increasing sales of music at Last.fm. I hope so. Given our unprecedented ability to search through the incredible variety of creative work, sharing the few things we like seems like what we are all doing online. Indeed, Discovery and associated sharing may be what drives the social networking phenomenon we are enjoying right now.

Well, the RIT Entrepreneurship Conference was a big success. Really big, I would say, for our region and our school. Among the many things I heard during the day was about physical things interacting with the Internet. There is a long history of this kind of thinking and ideas. Some highlights:

1999 Kevin Kelly’s New Rules for the New Economy advises “Embrace the Swarm” so that we might all consider how networking EVERYTHING creates a new paradigm

2005 Tim O’Reilly coins the term Web 2.0 to include several ideas. One that gets little mention is Software Above the Level of a Single Device. I usually refer to this when talking about hybrid Mobile/Desktop access, but really it includes ideas of how physical devices get linked into the web. Example is iPod.

2005 (November) Guitar Hero is released for playstation with guitar as interface

2006 (December) Nintendo Wii is released with innovative physical interface

2007 Nintendo Wii is labeled as the market leader of console games by the Financial Times

late 2007/early 2008 WiiFit is released to bring together fitness and gaming

2008 (March I hope) Shenoy and Perotti present at the Internet of Things conference in Zurich

Hope the summer finds you warm and tan. The class-less Dr. Perotti has had more time to read, think, and plan. As my class and I learned about Digital Entrepreneurship last Spring, we found more and more that advertising is a key part of almost every digital business model. Understanding the nuances of online advertising is something that my colleague Neil Hair and the rest of the Digital Business group here continue to work on.

Some of what I have seen recently:

Business 2.0 had a good overview of in-game ads, which have become a really attractive spot for all kinds of businesses.

As that article mentions, gaming today, as well as most other online activities have become social. Understanding your firm’s web traffic is the key to winning more money for every online advertisement that you show.

Even large Enterprise software projects, like E.R.P. may be moving in the social direction.

Note: This fall, I will help to launch the Digital Business group at RIT’s Saunders College of Business. This will be an open environment to collectively learn more about the interesting web/business trends. The group will work actively with the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship to embrace new research and applied projects in our focus areas. Anyone want to join?

in

gaming biotech and security

…more to come. watch this blog.

More intriguing, perhaps, is xfire, which helps players figure out what their friends are playing and then to jump in.

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