The dissertation has been on hold for a bit this summer while I get some other things going. High on that list is our new company - Appozite - and my work becoming an expert in the social shopping arena.  So, as you might guess, becoming an expert in social shopping involves a lot of shopping. Thinking about shopping, reading about shopping, and my favorite - actually shopping. As part of that work, I recently undertook a very scientific approach to shopping and conducted a shopping experiment.

I am generally very careful to keep things related to Appozite only on Appozitegeist and not here on this blog, but I don’t want to be too science-y on Appozitegeist, and I can be science-y here and there are a few things I would like to explore related to the details of this experiment.

Basically, my goal with this experiment was to apply a carefully planned and executed method to the shopping process. As an academic, I carefully plan and execute most everything, so it makes sense to take a rigorous scientific approach to other aspects of my life, specifically shopping.

The Experiment

So I set out to experiment with shopping. (If you want to read more about the experiment, I proposed the experiment in one post on Appozitegeist and followed up with results in another post.) Normally I take a very willy-nilly approach to shopping. I go shopping (online and offline) whenever the mood strikes me and I get whatever I feel like getting. This, as you can imagine, can lead to large credit card bills and a grumpy husband. So I decided I needed to come up with a better way to shop, since I’m doing more of it now (as research, of course).

It was very interesting to apply what I’ve been trained to do as a social scientist to something that feels as silly as shopping. I’ve done quite a bit of reading and research on shopping, not to mention had a great deal of personal experience in the area (I guess you could call this an autoethnography). Based on that “lit review” I developed a set of criteria to test in the field.  I came up with three such criteria: cost, selection, and entertainment. A good shopping trip should balance those elements.

The Criteria

Cost is easy to define; I simply needed to set and stick to a budget. I was excited about testing this as I’m usually terrible with a budget.  For this experiment, I determined my budget would be $75 - high enough to give me some flexibility in the number and quality of my purchases, but low enough that it wouldn’t impact the household budget in any way.

Selection refers to the type of items I can shop for. A good shopping trip allows for the shopper to browse for and purchase a number of different items. Knowing this, I broke selection into two subcriteria: weight and variety.  Weight is the relative importance or significance of an item, and variety refers to a diverse set of items. The ideal shopping trip would balance those criteria; I would purchase several different items that each contribute to my wardrobe in a significant way.  For example, a good shopping trip would result in two shirts, two pairs of earrings, one dress and one pair of shoes. This trip has high variety; there are several different kinds of items in my shopping bag. It also has a high weight, as I need shirts and dresses to round out my wardrobe, and earrings and shoes are always neccessary additions.

Entertainment is harder to quantify than the first two criteria, but essentially it refers to the quality of the shopping interactions. A successful shopping outing needs to be fun and enjoyable, not stressful or frustrating. This was assessed throughout as well as at the conclusion of the shopping trip.

The Results

You can read the full results on Appozitegeist, but the experiment was successful. I stuck to my budget, purchased an ideal combination of high weight and high variety items, and had fun doing it.

It was so successful, in fact, that I want to try again. I think this experiment needs reproducing. And if that means more shopping, well, so be it. It is for science, after all.

Let’s talk more about Netflix and its Watch Instantly service. If you’re like me and you’ve ordered yourself a Roku box, or if you prefer the old fashioned form of watching on your computer, either plugged into a TV or not, then you’ve probably found yourself spending way too much time perusing the Netflix instant viewing catalog, either to end up with way too many choices to pick just one, or without anything that seems good to watch. If you’re one of those people, I’d like to offer some suggestions for you, to help structure your wanderings.

The Good

First, some areas in which to focus. As Netflix continues to add to their catalog, there are a few areas that are already full of good choices. Let’s talk about those first.

The Classics

I think this is the best genre in their catalog. There are tons of classic films and television shows. Some of the big ones that you may have already seen (college film class anyone?) - Casablanca, A Streetcar Named Desire, Rebel Without a Cause, The Seven Year Itch, Ben-Hur, Giant, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, The Exorcist. If you haven’t seen these, this is a good place to start. Then, there are all the movies you’ve wanted to watch, but that never made it to the top of your list. Or maybe these are movies you’ve never heard of, but should definitely check out. Movies like Bullitt, Shaft, Five Easy Pieces, Cool Hand Luke, Bonnie and Clyde, The Bridge Over the River Kwai, The General, The Wild Bunch, East of Eden, The Searchers, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The World of Henry Orient, Harvey. And the sci-fi selection is great; it includes both the good ones and the ones that are so bad they’re good. There’s Planet of the Apes, Logan’s Run, A Boy and His Dog, Forbidden Plant, The Road Warrior, The Omega Man, Plan 9 From Outer Space, Eraserhead, Soylent Green. Lots of great camp from the 50s and 60s, too. Try 20 Million Miles to Earth, Astro Zombies, or Mars Needs Women. In addition, check out the work of a few Hollywood icons:

• Stanley Kubrick - 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Killing, Barry Lyndon, Eyes Wide Shut
• Alfred Hitchcock - Vertigo, The Birds, Saboteur, The Trouble with Harry, Torn Curtain, Dial M for Murder
• Cary Grant - Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, Charade, I Was a Male War Bride, Holiday
• Clint Eastwood: Dirty Harry, Unforgiven, Every Which Way But Loose, Letters from Iwo Jima, Absolute Power

Then there’s the classic television. Shows like Magnum P.I., The Rockford Files, Leave It to Beaver, Miami Vice, The A-Team, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Saved by the Bell. Lots of stuff to choose from, no matter if your preference trends toward the 1950s, 60s, 70s or 80s. Speaking of television, this is another area Netflix has done well so far.

Television

The television selection has something to please everyone. Of course there’s lots of crap, but there are lots of gems, too. If you’ve managed to never see The Office - both British and American versions - here’s your chance to catch up. There are a number of excellent HBO and Showtime programs, like Dexter, Weeds, Dead Like Me, and The L Word. Other good contemporary shows include 30 Rock, Heroes, Law and Order, Coupling, NewsRadio. There is also lots of sci-fi. Quantum Leap, Dr. Who, Sliders, The Outer Limits, and Battlestar Galactica. There are many seasons of many of these, so there’s plenty to watch instantly. Then there are the A&E and BBC miniseries - Vanity Fair, Pride and Prejudice, North and South, and a number of other Victorian era dramas. There are shows from the National Geographic and History Channels, as well as tons of other science, history and nature shows.

Independent and Smaller Releases

There are lots of choices in the independent category. Independent films can be really quirky and sweet, funny and smart, or they can also be complete crap, so navigate this category carefully. Some to check out on Netflix would be The King of Kong, Orgazmo, Chalk, King of California, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Ten, Living in Oblivion, Sherrybaby, Conversations with Other Women. There are many others though, depending on your tastes, so look around.

Documentaries

I don’t know much about this genre, but there are myriad choices in the documentary section. From some of the bigger box office successes like Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Born into Brothels, Spellbound, Super Size Me, and March of the Penguins to smaller releases like Cocaine Cowboys, Maxed Out, The Business of Being Born, Promises, Fidel, there are documentaries on hundreds of different topics.

The Bad

Now, some areas to avoid. You’ve probably heard this complaint from other people; there are a few areas in which Netflix has not yet compiled a compelling collection for instant watching. Here are some of those.

New Blockbusters

This is the biggest complaint most people have about Netflix’s instant watching service. I’m sure it’s difficult and expensive to acquire the rights to stream most new releases. As such, there aren’t many to see. I watched the Orphanage recently, if that counts. Some other new releases include La Vie en Rose, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Pan’s Labyrinth, Conspiracy, but none of them huge blockbusters. There are more older big movies - think along the lines of Lethal Weapon, The Last of the Mohicans, A Fish Called Wanda, Cocoon, Mannequin, The Fifth Element. Well, besides Lethal Weapon, I’m not sure I’d call most of those “blockbusters,” but they are a bit more mainstream. In general, there’s just not a lot of these kinds of movies available with the instant watching service.

Comedies

Other than the comedy television shows, and the independent and classic films I’ve discussed, many of the movies classified as comedy are pretty terrible. There are a few fun ones, though. Like Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, Team America: World Police, and Beetlejuice. There’s lots of standup, if that interests you. But very little contemporary comedy.

So, overall, there’s lots of good stuff you can watch instantly with Netflix. It’s certainly not perfect, but it is a great addition to the DVD delivery portion of their business. I think it’s especially good for catching up on movies and TV shows you might have missed (or those from before you were born). And if you have any additions to this list, leave them in the comments! I’d very much like for this to be a useful resource.

With the release of Roku’s Netflix Player earlier this week, and all the subsequent blogosphere chatter, I thought it might be interesting for me to explore my own relationship with Netflix’s Instant Watching service. Because I can say, completely without hyperbole, this service has changed my life. Well, the entertainment consumption part of my life, anyway, and that’s a really big part.

First, some background. I started using the Instant Watching service as soon as it became available to me. Hayes and I have been Netflix subscribers for several years now, and we got access to the Instant Watching service in March 2007. And since Netflix keeps track of our viewing activity, I can easily see what I’ve watched since - turns out I’ve watched more than 214 hours of instant content in the past 15 months. This is in addition to the DVDs we get in the mail.

Also, I love movies and television. I’m not a huge fan of sitting down and watching two hours of uninterrupted primetime TV; I’m pretty particular about what I like and quite frankly, most television sucks. But when I find something I like, I will watch it over and over and over again. We own literally hundreds of DVDs, and I’ve watched most of these multiple, sometimes even dozens of, times.

Now before you start wondering where I find the time to watch that much stuff, I want to share something about how I watch this content. I really like to have a movie or TV show on while I’m working (and I work from home), but if I’m watching something new or interesting, it tends to be distracting (duh). So my strategy is to put in something I’ve seen before, so I don’t have to pay much attention to it, but I still have something there. Normally I’ll turn on a season of Arrested Development or Futurama, or maybe a movie like Office Space or the Royal Tenebaums, but Netflix has so many other choices. Of course, if I have to concentrate or do serious writing work, then I’ll turn everything off. Also, I have two big widescreen monitors, so I have enough screen real estate to share some with a video.

When the Netflix Instant Watching service was first released to users with my particular subscription type, I was limited to fifteen hours a month of free viewing. I used that up every month. I was very particular about what I would use my time on; I remember thinking, “I shouldn’t rewatch that episode of 30 Rock, because I’ve already seen it a few times already. I should watch something new.” I watched mostly movies during that time. The selection of classic films is great. They also have a lot of independent and documentary films.

Now that I have unlimited viewing, I use it for two main things. One, I’ve found it’s great for watching television shows. I have watched a few of my favorite shows over and over, namely 30 Rock and the early seasons of The Office (both the British and American versions). I actually own these DVDs, but I still will watch them on Netflix when I’m at my computer. I watched the first two seasons of News Radio, and got a surprising amount of enjoyment from John Ritter’s show Hearts Afire. I caught up on missed seasons of shows I like such as Heroes, Weeds and Dexter, saw the premiere episode of Californication, and tried out shows I’d never seen like The Tick, The Tudors, Facts of Life. If I were so inclined, I could even watch season after season of Dr. Who and Saved by the Bell.

In addition, Hayes and I have caught up on all kinds of really excellent campy sci-fi films from the 1940s-1970s. From the classics like Planet of the Apes and Plan 9 From Outer Space to the lesser known, but still wonderful in their own way, movies like Dinosaurs! and Mars Needs Women, it’s been great to have all of these available to us anytime we want. We watched A Boy and His Dog last week. It was highly entertaining, and has possibly the best and worst last line of a movie ever.

I personally don’t see a problem with the “limited” supply of movies offered by the Instant Watching service. There are new movies every day, and the choices are already pretty staggering. There is so much to pick from that it seems like it would be hard to not find something you’d want to watch. If all you ever watch is brand new blockbusters, you will be disappointed, but if that’s all you like, then I might suggest you expand your movie-watching horizons anyway. There are a number of new movies in other genres. And so much good, older stuff to catch up on! Think of all the movies you’ve missed throughout and before your lifetime. This is great for that.

Up to this point, Hayes and I have been simply plugging one of our laptops into the TV when we want to watch something together. The Roku player is going to make that process so much easier. I think entertainment content should be on-demand and always accessible, so I am very excited. DVDs are so 2000; streaming content is the future. I for one welcome our Netflix Instant Watching overlords.

In a TechCrunch post today, Michael Arrington noted that Twitter may suck in terms of downtime and outages, but we need it too much to switch to a competing service that works better (or more often). His post is great and really sums up what I’ve been feeling, mainly that Twitter is quickly becoming invaluable to me.

I’m still developing my network on Twitter, but already it’s one of the main ways I communicate throughout the day. Forgot updating my IM away messages and Facebook status - I just post a new tweet. It’s a single message that gets propagated throughout my web profiles, so everyone knows what I’m up to. Also, Twitter has given me a space to have quick chats with people I might not normally talk very often. It’s not an IM, it’s not an email, it’s not a blog. It’s all of these and it’s none of them. I’m making new friends in Austin by finding and interacting with them on Twitter. I’m keeping up with old friends in other, distant cities by following them on Twitter. I post mini restaurant and shop reviews on Twitter.

So, I guess it’s official. I’m addicted. This is way better than Facebook.

I know I haven’t posted in a few days, but we’ve had such beautiful weather this week that I’ve been spending lots of time outside.  A few of the places I like to go when it’s nice - ones I’d recommend to readers in the Austin area - are:

St. Edwards Park - Just a few minutes from our house, and not far from most places in west, north or central Austin, this park feels like it’s in the middle of the country.  It’s nestled in the hills, there aren’t a lot of people around, the water in the creek is clear and inviting, and it’s just wonderful.

Old Settlers Park - This park is huge and about half an hour from Austin (in Round Rock), but has a really great disc golf course.  It’s hard (some 1000 feet par 5 holes), but it’s also beautiful and professionally maintained.  It takes a couple hours to finish, but it’s totally worth the drive.

The Draught House Pub - If you’d rather enjoy the outdoors with a tasty adult beverage in your hand, then this is the place.  Hands down my favorite bar in Austin, I love the Draught House because they have an awesome beer selection and I can sit in a camping chair in the parking lot and enjoy that beer.

Anyway, it’s spring and it’s gorgeous, so I’m going to take advantage of the weather and spend more time outside in it.  You should, too.

This isn’t work or research-related in the slightest, but I just found out that I get to help conduct exit polls for the upcoming primary here in Texas!

It’s a very interesting time for national politics in Austin and Texas. Senators Clinton and Obama are debating on campus tonight (not that I - or anyone I know - got tickets to go, but still), local media outlets are just buzzing with the excitement of such a tight Democratic race, Texas actually plays an important role in the outcome of this primary, etc… I find it very exciting.

So I get to be there as all this is happening in two weeks, talking to people and gathering data they’ll report on all the major news networks. Neat!

A reader posted this question on Fast Company’s website, and though there are only four responses so far, everyone has said yes. Huh.

Update: I didn’t have time to elaborate any on this before, but I can now. I am not at all surprised that people check their Blackberries while with their families or friends. But I am a little surprised they admit to it so readily. I would have expected a social desirability bias in people’s responses; isn’t it bad to work when you’re with your kids? That’s what TV says anyway.

Looking at their individual responses is a bit more revealing - the four responses use language like “need to stop that” and “wow I have no life.” So maybe these people are comfortable telling the world they check their Blackberries while with their kids, as long as they admit that it might be a bad thing.

I wonder what kids think of Blackberries and their ilk. When I was little, no one had cell phones, especially not my parents. Do they mind that their parents keep their Blackberries around all the time? Do they think their parents are important or cool? Do kids want their own Blackberries?

Finally! I’ve seen these types of arrangements in other cities, but nothing quite like it here in Austin. Until now, at least. LaunchPad Coworking will open this summer, and provide the sort of community workspace those of us who work from home sometimes want, when we just need to get out of the house and be around other people. It’s more than a coffee shop and less than an full-time office. I love this idea! I think that some days, all I need to get my creative juices flowing is some interaction with like-minded others. Being around people who are excited and working hard inspires me to be and do the same.

From their blog:

LaunchPad Coworking is a place for independent workers, telecommuters, business travelers and office escapees to join together and work smarter. Carefully designed as a collaborative workplace with a café, LaunchPad Coworking provides independent workspaces and meeting rooms for rent by the hour, ergonomic chairs, ample power outlets, and secure, fiber-optic connectivity. LaunchPad Coworking is a cure for home office isolation and cubicle craziness.

Awesome! I’m looking forward to learning more about this space. I think it’s a great idea, especially in a town that seems to have so many people who work for themselves or out of their homes. I would pay a reasonable amount of money to have a something like a timeshare on an office somewhere else, for those days when I need to get out of the house but Austin Java just won’t do. My home office is wonderful - I have a comfortable chair and two huge monitors - but sometimes I enjoy being around other working people, and this seems like a great solution.

Note: I guess I do have a desk on campus, but there’s been a dead cockroach under it for more than six months and it’s dirty and old and not at all the kind of work environment one needs to be creative and productive. In fact, it’s just downright gross.

The SXSW Interactive schedule has been posted. I’ve yet to go through it completely, but I’m so geeked out and excited that almost all the panels look good.

Lots of the Core Conversations look interesting - Examining the Different Ways We Can Work, Coworking and the Evolution of the Independent Worker, Next Generation Education: Bringing the New Web to Campus, Mobile Manners: Mobile Presence and the Undefined Etiquette, Do You Have to Disappear Completely to Get Things Done?, Online Identity: And I *Do* Give a Damn About My Bad Reputation, among others.

More on this over the next few weeks.

Why is it, that even when we know months in advance when a deadline is, we always end up working right up to the last possible minute to finish something? I use the generic “we” to refer to all people, not just me or the people I work with. Though there may be unique individual cases (a.k.a. freaks), procrastination seems pretty universal.

I absolutely despise working under duress, and last-minute work is always stressful. And every time a big conference paper submission deadline approaches, it seems to surprise us. Even though the submission date is the same every year! This is a strange phenomenon that seriously demands scientific study.

So, we’ve reached another annual NCA submission deadline. My last paper was just submitted, only minutes ago (not by me, thank goodness, because 40 minutes before the submission site closes really is pushing it), so now we can all relax. But I really do want to know why we always wait so long to get started. It probably has something to do with behavioral economics; somewhere someone like Steven Levitt is ready to tell me that procrastination is an expressed preference for valuing present time over future time. Or something having to do with rational utility maximization. Probably that one. It sounds so technical; it must explain this.