Search This Blog

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

The female ideal and footwear

Feminine feet: a study in contrasts

Two current exhibits at the New York Historical Society offer a study in contrasts in representing the feminine ideal as represented by their feet. In one feet are said to become worthy of their own cameras on the red carpet when they are encased in shoes like the diamond encrusted sandals pictured below:

$1,090,000 dollar sandals  decorated with 464  Kwiat diamonds.  In 2002, these diamond shoes were worn by Oscar nominee Laura Harring. Supposedly, that's what started the trend of a cameras placed to capture footwear at the Oscars. A replica of these shoes are  the first object in the current exhibit, Walk This Way: Footwear from the Stuart Weitzman Collection of Historic Shoes.


Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Blocking ad blocking with Google

n the conflict between publishers that want to deliver ads to more eyeballs, and the possessors of those eyeballs who try to block them from appearing, Google is presenting itself as the gatekeeper of choice. It offers to serve as guard to a site's content, and only let in those who either allow the ads to run or who pay for their ad-free experience.
About a quarter of the US online population used ad blockers last year; and even higher percentages did so in other countries. That all adds up to an estimated loss of $42 billion globally, according to a report by OnAudience.com. With so much money at stake, it's no wonder that more and more sites now withhold their content from visitors using ad blockers, or at least make note of the use of ad blocking in the escalation of the ad blocker arms race.
For those companies that want to call in the really heavy guns, there's the possibility of getting Google on guard. In a blog post entitled “Helping publishers recover lost revenue from ad blocking,” Google announced it was expanding its Funding Choices solution, launched in beta last year.

Monday, May 21, 2018

Everybody lies with visualizations

Photo by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash



As I wrote here, before it became trendy to point out the problem of fake news, I explored how data visualizations can mislead people. I’ve noticed that in the last couple of years, data visualization has become a major focal point.  The old maxim of “Seeing is believing” is the real driving force behind visualizations of data.  While not all of us relate to spreadsheets, we tend to respond well to graphs, charts, and other visually appealing renderings of those numbers.
  

While we can all fall for it, we can immunize ourselves to some extent with vitamin C. 

Back in 2016, I identified three key C's in a Baseline article, Data Visualization: You Must 'C' It to Believe It: Context, Correlatin, and Causation. 
Context: This includes contextual information for the graphs, which sometimes indicates that the results visualized represent outliers rather than typical results. Getting the context also requires getting the baseline for the survey, including timelines, locations, and the population size and type used to get the numbers.
As data visualization tools include ways to slice and dice your data, it is not all that difficult to zero in on just the segment that yields the results you want. So you need to know the larger context, as well as any added-in points that are outside that particular context.
Correlation: This is the supposed strongpoint of visualizations: showing up correlations. But they are easily manipulated and misleading, as there are many correlations of time that are not necessarily causally connected—though visualizations can make them appear that they are.
Causation: This is what real insight is all about: finding out what causes what. There is no substitute for thinking this through, no matter how seductive it may be to simply go with the correlations presented by the visualization.
In revisiting an argument offering data visualization as proof, I've come to add some additional C tests:
  • Correspondence to reality. Just because someone claims expertise doesn't mean they are completely correct about their assertions. For example, when I was in labor with my first baby, the doctors and nurses at the hospital just dismissed my pains, claiming the contractions were "mild" and that the birth was far from imminent. I was not the expert; they were, but I knew that I felt the baby coming. As it turned out, the resident barely got to me in time. I learned from that experience that you should not be gaslighted by expert views that directly contradict not what you just think you know but what you do know and directly experience. 
  • Convenience: This pertains to both means and ends. Convenience of means refers to using the data that is on hand or easily measured even if it's not necessarily the data that is the most relevant. It's rather like measuring how much snow fell on your windowsill because it's easy to reach rather than going out to get the measure on the street and in drifts to get a more accurate measurement. Convenience for ends is about selecting data that you can easily fit into the conclusion you wish to draw AKA cherry picking. 
  • Confirmation Bias:In general, when you look for data on something, you have to bear in mind that absolute objectivity is rare. Many of us have deeply-seated values and beliefs that will not allow us to entertain the possibility that we are on the wrong track,which would skew our results because of what we allow and disallow in the data set. It is the equivalent to painting a bull's eye around where your arrow went. So ask yourself, does the person have some personal agenda that could be coloring the outcome? If so you should treat them with the same healthy skepticism you would treat cigarette tobacco studies sponsored by tobacco companies. 
  • Certainty Camouflaging Contingencies: Few things are absolutes, so if someone states something without qualifiers, likely something is being hidden or glossed over -- like the fact that the data is out of date or taking searches of racist terms and jokes as proxies for the person being a racist and then shifting labels from what actually is measured to what the person says is signified by the measurement. This leads to a triple F: Fudging Figures and Facts.

    All of these were inspired by an argument made in Seth Stephens-Davidowitz's book Everybody Lies. Read more about it in Sex, Lies, and Data Profiles

    Friday, May 11, 2018

    Marketing for Mom's Day

    Vintage mom image from
    /thegraphicsfairy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/
    Vintage-Apron-Mom-GraphicsFairy-463x1024.jpg
    A mother's love may be priceless, but there is definitely a price tag on Mother's Day. 
    While Mother's Day does not have the status of a federal holiday like Easter, in fact, it occasions significantly more spending. The National Retail Foundation (NRF) forecasts that this year's Mother's Day spending will reach $23.1 billion.  For comparison, this year’s Easter spending was estimated to be $18.2 billion.  
    Obviously, marketers have to seize the day for their brands, particularly if their brands feature jewelry. That's the top choice of gift for the day. According to the NRF's survey, 34% of shoppers intend to buy something in that category, bringing that total spend to an impressive $4.6 billion.
    While many jewelry brands are, no doubt, sticking to the standard sentimental messages, some are breaking out of the box in their depictions of different types of mothers with strengths that go beyond the stereotyped image of a woman in an apron. Crimson Hexagon's data on what people are talking about the most and what garnered the most positive conversations. It uncovered some fresh takes in mother images in some jewelry campaigns, as well as some surprises.
    Read more in Mother's Day Marketing

    See some of the ads featured below:

    Alex and Ani's “Symbolize Your Love” campaign includes the outtakes of commercials filmed with real people (which fits very well with increasing demands for authenticity in marketing)

    Wednesday, May 2, 2018

    Getting Women to Stay On in Tech

    As more and more business and manufacturing processes revolve around technology, the demand for people with the necessary skills is growing. To assure the supply of qualified people filling those positions, we have to stop thinking in terms in terms of stereotypes and clear the way for women to get on board.
    Image courtesy: Pixabay
    Image courtesy: Pixabay
    The problem is not that women aren’t trained in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. “Women have earned 57% of all bachelor's degrees and about half of all science and engineering (S&E) bachelor's degrees since the late 1990s,” according to the latest figures from the National Science Foundation. The problem is that those percentages don’t translate into the same level of representation at work.
    In fact, women are still far outnumbered at engineering positions at tech companies. You can see the numbers of engineers in actual companies updated regularly on a spreadsheet in Tracy Chou's Women in Tech list.  Though the numbers vary, the average representation for women engineers at the companies listed appears to be near 20% to 25%.
    The gap between the sexes grows higher up the hierarchy. The Gender Divide in Tech-Intensive Industries put out in 2014 demonstrated that women with MBAs with tech qualifications were still far less likely to work in the industry than their male counterparts. Perhaps part of the reason is that women ae far more likely to be placed in entry level jobs, at the rate of 55% in contrast to the 39% for men.  Women MBAs also were more likely to leave the tech industry than their male counterparts at the rate of 53% to 31%.

    Read more in 

    Retaining Women in Tech Takes More Than Training

    Gold Standard Tracking with Blockchain

    Conflict minerals making their way into the electronic supply chain presents a challenge to companies
    that want to act both legally and ethically. Tracing such minerals to their source is not straightforward or simple. Blockchain technology can solve that problem.
    The Responsible Gold supply chain  is designed to track “responsibly sourced gold from mine, to refinery, to vault.” It’s put out by Emergent Technology, and has first been applied to gold mined by Yamana.

    Read more in 

    Blockchain & the Gold Standard for a Conflict-Free Supply Chain

    AI Applied to Healthcare Marketing

    DeepIntent's CEO and co-founder Chris Paquette came in with a background in healthcare, having worked as a data scientist for Memorial Sloan Kettering, using AI to find patterns predictive of patient outcomes. Prior to that he worked at a search company. DeepIntent's approach, is built on a combination of the two fields, as he explained in an interview.
    Read more in 
    Finding the Audiences for Healthcare Marketing

    Wednesday, April 18, 2018

    Time's Up for Mad Men

    Mad Men portrayed the male-dominated world of advertising in the 1960s.  Although we're nearly twenty years into the next century now, some of the industry's sexist norms persist. It's time to do something about it.  
    In the wake of the #MeToo Movement's call to give voice to the victims of sexual harassment, industries have been forced to face up the problem and work on solutions. Among the organizations devoted to progress in this area is TIME'S UP,™ which was formed by women in the entertainment industry this past January. In March, the organization partnered with women in the advertising industry to launch the industry-specific TIME'S UP™/ADVERTISING.

    Tuesday, April 10, 2018

    To certify or not to the certify: the building blocks of a blockchain career

    It’s clear that tech pros in a variety of industries are examining the implications of blockchain. After all, the technology can be leveraged not only for cryptocurrency (i.e., Bitcoin), but everything from “smart” contracts to secure, distributed ledgers. Can developers prove that they have the skills to work with this technology?
    Read more in Can You Obtain Certifications for a Blockchain Career?

    Tech Takes Your Through Child's War Experience

    Even before the invention of photography, artists sought to recreate the horrors of war in pictures. Now technology makes it possible to take that rendering a step further, immersing the viewer directly in the experience with the use of AR

    Friday, March 23, 2018

    Diversity in the Pipeline and Blockchain

    Blockchain is expected to add over $3.1 billion in business value, according to research firm Gartner. But the value proposition could involve more than money: blockchain might lead to a more diverse pipeline of qualified employees.
    That’s the mission of STEAMRole, which uses blockchain and its own cryptocurrency (called RoleCoin) for two purposes: providing STEAM-expert role models and a Diverse Talent Pipeline Platform (DTPP) for companies to use in tracking and hiring diverse talent.
    Based in Palo Alto, California, STEAMRole connects role models with aspirants (called Steamers) particularly from groups that are underrepresented in STEM and the Arts (the “A” in the acronym). Both Steamers and role models are awarded RoleCoins for their activities, which not only incentivizes participation and achievement, but also records it on the system’s blockchain, a feature that could be applied to tracking the effectiveness of STEAM program funding.

    Read more in 

    Can Blockchain Improve Tech’s Workplace Diversity?

    Thursday, March 15, 2018

    Blocking the Blocker for Ads

    Please disable your ad blocker.” 
    If you try to keep some of your internet experience free of ads, you likely see this appear on a number of sites. Those site often prevent you from seeing their content until you comply with their request. But other sites don't bother with requests; they just circumvent your ad blocker. An academic study, "Measuring and Disrupting Anti-Ad Blockers Using Differential Execution Analysis," found that in fact, anti-ad blockers are used 52 times more than previously indicated. I contacted one of the leaders of the study, Zhiyun Quian, Assistant Professor at University of California, Riverside, to learn about the persistence of hidden anti-ad blockers.
    I first asked what drew his attention to this area of research. He said that as an ad blocker user himself, he noticed the increasing disruption of ads on sites he visited. “To save my personal experience, and everyone else who uses ad blockers, I decided to look into this as a research project.”

    Monday, March 5, 2018

    AI-Powered Shop Windows


    The Shop Window Opens a Portal of PossibilitiesThe Shop Window Opens a Portal of Possibilities
    Many of us are window shoppers but online purchasers. That may be one of the factors in the widely reported decline of retail stores. To flip the situation around, it may be time to transform the shop window from static tableaux into AI-powered interactive displays that extract value from data.
    This is the proposition offered by Outernets, a New York-based platform which enables window displays to transforms storefronts into responsive, personalized ad experiences.  I spoke with CEO and founder Omer Golan about what store windows have been, and what they could be in the future.

    Big Data, Analytics, AI, etc.

    As All Analytics was removed from the internet, UBM moved most of the articles I had written for it in the past few years to IW at hhttps://www.informationweek.com/author-bio.asp?author_id=4902 But I also have PDFs of it posted on my Contently portfolio at https://ariellabrown.contently.com/

    Friday, February 2, 2018

    Those of a certain age need not apply

    We have laws that are meant to prevent discrimination in hiring. But in practice, employers can find ways to avoid hiring people above a set age threshold with the help of social media and demographic data.
    story that ProPublica copublished with the New York Times declared the dark side of social media targeting for job applicants -- age discrimination. Facebook is designed to give direct access to a precisely targeted population, including those within a specified age bracket. That means ads for employment may be directed only to potential candidates below a "certain age," and that could be both ethically and legally problematic.
    (Image: Pixabay)
    (Image: Pixabay)
    Facebook has been used as a successful recruiting tool for companies who seek to reach recent grads. The same type of "microtargeting," as ProPublica refers to it, can be used to reach whatever parameter the advertiser specifies, and that often translates into job ads, particularly those in tech, being directed to eyeballs under 40.
    Declaring that the age targeting has had a discriminatory effect on workers over age 40, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and three workers filed a class action lawsuit against T-Mobile, Amazon, and other companies that they say used the social media platform in that way.
    That's not to say that Facebook has a monopoly on such practices. ProPublica tested out Google and LinkedIn and found that job ads designed to not be extended to people above 40 were allowed. It then contacted the companies and was told by Google that it had no problem with complying with the specified age range. LinkedIn told ProPublica that would make the necessary modification, as did a number of companies whose advertising strategy looked like an attempt to exclude older applicants.
    Facebook defends itself against ProPublica's critique. Facebook's VP of Ads, Rob Goldman declared, "We have carefully reviewed their concerns -- and this time we disagree." Though he does not deny that job ads were intended for specified age groups, he argues that does not necessarily constitute age discrimination any more than advertising "in magazines and on TV shows targeted at younger or older people."
    ProPublica doesn't buy that argument, though. It points out that the analogy fails because other forms of media may be aimed at particular age groups, but they do not restrict access to them. If a teen wants to look at AARP or if a middle-aged person picks up Seventeen, they will see the ads, too. "Online, however, people outside the targeted age groups can be excluded in ways they will never learn about," it points out.
    Read more in 

    Targeted Advertising Triggers Age Discrimination Law Suit