A corner has been turned, because when I last tried to sign in to the game perfectcompetition.net, at about 7:20 PM ETS a.k.a. 11:20PM UTC today 3-27-2007, I read this message:
Account deleted.
I went to the list of players that had recently signed in, and lo and behold, where my name should have been, there was nothing. I navigated to a post I had made previously, and to my disappointment I found that instead of my player’s name, ProfitMonster, the quote was instead attributed to Anon.
And I was doing so well in the game. Number 8 in wealth. Over $400,000. And my company was number 6 in wealth. I had just made a killing on a purchase of shares on behalf of my company (mine was a stock holding company which I had most recently named Monkeys That Throw Darts). All for naught.
I think it was the mission statement that I made for my company within the game that set them off. In it I listed the url to this blog, and my email. Perhaps the autocratic administrators did not approve of this ‘misplaced’ communication to other players. I received no warning emails or correspondence of any kind. So I really can only guess as to the motives behind their decision to delete my account, effectively barring me from further play. Of course, no matter what the particular details, the underlying cause of my account being deleted is that it is so easy for an administrator to sit and click a button deleting an account, the costs of deleting innocent accounts is so low, while the costs of not deleting a potentially threatening account are so high. In the extreme, the administrator could lose his job, by firing or by senescence of his company, then firing. The reason he does not take the time to differentiate between the innocent and the guilty user is that he has a transaction cost for obtaining that information. Thus the administrator is better off with the philosophy of "kill them all...".
In the game, there are two main types of risks to perfectcompetition.net that come from players: 1)There is a real risk of someone setting up multiple accounts. Because each player account grants them with an initial endowment of in-game play money, setting up multiple accounts is unfair. Let me make clear in all seriousness that I have never broken these rules, or any other guidelines of the game. 2)And then there is the second kind of player risk, the risk that a player could develop their own competing software game product and then take customers away from perfectcompetition.net. It is this second scenario type of threat which I believe they believed me to represent. This was not accurate either, because my tools which I have developed and which I said I was going to develop, and which I have yet to make up my mind on whether or not I will continue to develop, were never intended to compete with perfectcompetition.net. They were meant to be little excel tools, i.e. documents, to make the existing game play within the context of perfectcompetition.net more fun, informative, and powerful. They were never intended to be standalone documents.
That being said, the sunk costs I have made in product development, combined with the inability to continue to play the game pushes me towards making one of two choices, either: 1)abandon all my work or 2)continue development in a more independent, standalone-type style. The third choice which I am pushed away from by being unable to play is that I continue to develop what I have made as I had originally intended: as sidekick software. But that would mean I could not test my product or even get much fun out of it.. That would just be an exercise in finishing what I had started.
The funny thing is, the only people who probably ever thought anything of this blog were the very people who felt most threatened by it. So here is a proposal (if you are reading…) how about a job?
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CASE: SHELL ATTEMPTS TO RETURN TO PREMIERE STATUS
The Shell Oil Company, which began about 1912, had been for decades a household name as a quality oil company in the United States. However, by the late 1970s much of its prestige as a premiere company had disappeared. How could Shell regain its high status?
In the 1990s, Shell undertook an extensive research effort to find out what it needed to do to improve its image. As a first step, Shell hired Responsive Research and the Opinion Research Corporation to conduct a series of focus groups and personal interviews among various segments of the population. Included in these were youths, legislators, academics, and present and past employees of Shell. The researchers learned that people believe that top companies are integral parts of the communities in which the companies are located rather than separate entities. These studies and others led to the development of materials that Shell used to explain their core values to the general public.
Next, PERT Survey Research ran a large quantitative study to determnine which values were best received by the target audience. Social issues emerged as the theme with the most support. During the next few months, the advertising agency of Ogilvy & Mather, hired by Shell, developed several campaigns with social themes. Two market research companies were hired to evaluate the receptiveness of the various campaigns. The result was the “Count on Shell” campaign, which featured safety messages with useful information about what to do in various dangerous situations.
A public “Count on Shell” campaign was launched in February 1998 and met with considerable success: the ability to recall Shell advertising jumped from 20% to 32% among opinion influencers; more than 1million copies of Shell’s free safety brochures were distributed and activity on Shell’s Internet “Count on Shell” site remains extremely strong. By promoting itself as a reliable company that cares, Shell seems to be regaining its premiere status.
Today, Shell continues its efforts to be “community friendly.” United Way of America announced Shell Oil Company as one of its three Spirit of America Summit Award winners for 2002 and commended the company for its outstanding volunteer and corporate contributions programs. Several Shell employees were recognized by the Houston Minority Business Council for their continued efforts to provide windows of opportunity for minority business owners and strengthen Shell’s commitment to supplier diversity. Shell employees and retires give back to their communities through such Shell-sponsored activities as America’s WETLAND campaign, Shell’s Workforce Development Initiative, and other community/quality of life and environmental projects. Shell is also a strong supporter of the Points of Light Foundation, which strives to engage people more effectively in volunteer community service.
Discussion:
Suppose you were asked to develop a sampling plan to determine what a “premiere company” is to the general public. What sampling plan would you use? What is the target population? What would you use for a frame? Which of the four types of random sampling discussed in this chapter would you use? Could you use a combination of two or more of the types (two-stage-sampling)? If so, how?
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