Last month, Duncan Watts, a professor of sociology at Columbia University, wrote a New York Times article about some work he and two colleagues did on the predictability of hit songs.  The work had much broader applicability than just music, of course, and offers an explanation of why predicting hits (in music, movies, fashion, etc.) is so difficult.

 After noting that “Conventional marketing wisdom holds that predicting success in cultural markets is mostly a matter of anticipating the preferences of the millions of individual people who participate in them,” he goes on to say that

The common-sense view, however, makes a big assumption: that when people make decisions about what they like, they do so independently of one another. But people almost never make decisions independently — in part because the world abounds with so many choices that we have little hope of ever finding what we want on our own; in part because we are never really sure what we want anyway; and in part because what we often want is not so much to experience the “best” of everything as it is to experience the same things as other people and thereby also experience the benefits of sharing.

This idea that what is slightly more popular can become even more popular as a result of that initial popularity, is called “cumulative advantage.”  In the experiment Watts and his colleagues conducted, subjects chose favorite songs in situations in which they knew what songs others had chosen, and in which they did not ( the actual experiment was a bit more complicated, of course). 

In all the social-influence worlds, the most popular songs were much more popular (and the least popular songs were less popular) than in the independent condition. At the same time, however, the particular songs that became hits were different in different worlds, just as cumulative-advantage theory would predict. Introducing social influence into human decision making, in other words, didn’t just make the hits bigger; it also made them more unpredictable.

The results suggested that predicting the future is not just difficult, but impossible, no matter how much knowledge we have or analysis we do.  Because we can always create a story after the fact about why something was successful, or a hit, we rarely lose our belief in the predictability of the world.  As Watts says, we can’t stop trying to predict the future, but we do need to be more skeptical about both predictions and explanations.  That skepticism holds for predictions of failure too.  Perhaps the best way to look for hits is to launch as many new products as possible in ways that allow you to hold back substantial investment until it’s likelihood of success becomes clearer.  A little early humility may go a long way.

We’ve heard a lot about the creative generation lately, much of it revolving around the online work this group does for free. As this trend begins to mature, we’ve seen that creatives are realizing the value of what they do, whether it’s video, blog posts, or graphic design, and are looking for ways to be compensated. Offline, artists and crafters who begin making objects for friends and family, and are encouraged to sell their work, usually end up at craft fairs, hoping some of those in attendance will see value in what they’ve created. An uncertain process to say the least, but one that’s been established for many years.

I recently came across a new site called Mintd, that bills itself as a “a global collaborative space for artists, designers and musicians to sell their work and connect to new markets.” The twist at Mintd is something called a “Lookbook.”

People buy products. They take photos of themselves or their friends with these products, and upload them to the site. Other users can browse these lookbooks, and link to the products the stylist has used. If they subsequently buy the products, the user who submitted the lookbook gets a commission from the price.

The idea seems to be that there is no better way to sell a product than through an endorsement by a happy buyer. So much the better when that endorsement includes pictures of the product in use.

For a consumer, it sounds like an interesting site that could yield some real gems. When I look at it, however, I see it as a real resource for retail buyers. A whole Web site of interesting and unique objects aggregated in what amounts to an online showroom. But what if that buyer is from Target? How could an individual artisan ever hope to supply the large volume required? The Target buyer makes a simple introduction to her preferred China vendor, and everyone is off to the races. If it’s a resource for buyers, it’s competition for vendors. Another sign of how the mom-and-pop shop can compete on a global basis for business once available only to anointed suppliers with large logistical infrastructures.