DRAFT: Opinion Space Pilot Study

1. DRAFT:Opinion Space Pilot Study Topic: Reputation of the American Automotive Industry Participants: Automotive Industry Online Community Research Period: Fall 2010 – Spring 2011 May 2011 Rick Wagner, Joyce Salisbury, Ken Goldberg, David Wong UC Berkeley Logo

2. Pilot Study Goals • Sample Existing Perceptions of the Image of the American Automotive Industry • Collect Ideas about How to Improve the Image of the American Automotive Industry and Identify the Most Insightful Ideas • Study how Opinion Space compares with Existing Survey Methods in Terms of Participant Engagement • Consider Demographic Variations among Participants • Consider Applications for gm.com

3. Executive Summary • Sample Size (# Participants): 1198 • Avg Number of Minutes Spent on Site: 36 • Avg Number of Peer-to-Peer Evals: 90 • % Who are “Extremely Likely” to Participate Again: 95 • Average Age of Least Active Participants: 44 • Average Age of Most Active Participants: 50 (!) • Key Issues: • 20 Most Insightful Ideas

4. Executive Summary Discussion Question: Improving Industry Image • Integrity: Honesty, Responsiveness to Flaws • Value: Quality, Price, Safety, Warranty • Only 2 of top 20 mention “bailout” • Listen more to consumers • Don’t over-power vehicles • Fewer “Gee-Whiz” features • Become leaders in innovation • Don’t charge too much for GPS • LED Headlights • Develop Autos that run on Natural Gas!

5. Executive Summary • Opinion Space was very effective in engaging AIOC participants • Average total time spent on the system: 36 minutes. • Average number of ratings per user: 90 insight and agreement ratings. • Much excitement expressed to participate again (see figure). • Top Insights • AIOC members suggested many things GM is already working on. • Next steps • Host another Opinion Space on GM.com to engage the public in generating ideas. • Reengage the AIOC to better communicate what GM is working on and solicit ideas on how to improve. Q150. How willing would you be to participate in other versions of this system (on related topics)? Extremely likely Not likely

6. Opinion Space

7. Our Approach 1. Visualization 2. Level Playing Field 3. Wisdom of the Crowds 4. Game Structure

8. "Opinion Space will harness the power of connection technologies to provide a unique forum for international dialogue. This is...an opportunity to extend our engagement beyond the halls of government directly to the people of the world.” - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

9. “The world spends over 110 billion minutes per month on social networks and blog sites.” - NielsenWire, June 2010

10. “We’re moving from an Information Age to an Opinion Age.” - Warren Sack, UCSC

11. 20 sec. per comment X 35,387 comments = 8 days

13. goals hybrid vigor For Organizations • Understand the diversity of their community • Engage their community • Solicit feedback and creative suggestions • Rapidly identify patterns, insightful ideas For Community Members • Understand relationships with other community members • Engage with a diversity of viewpoints and ideas • Express ideas, and be heard

14. opinion.berkeley.edu

15. Step 1: Enter your opinions and response

16. Step 2: Visualize your position

17. Step 3: Read and rate others users

19. System Design (Aug-Dec 2010) • Baseline Questions: • When deciding on which major product to buy, I often consider where it was made in making my decision. • Reducing oil consumption should be a higher priority in the U.S. • I am willing to pay more for a product that comes from a socially responsible corporation. • The U.S. government should not give loans to corporations. • New technologies are causing more problems than they are solving. • Discussion Question: • What is the Most Important Step or Steps that US Automotive Manufacturers could take to Improve Their Image?

20. System Stats Duration 20 Dec 2010 – 21 Jan 2011 Announcement, 2 Reminders 1198 participants (57% response rate) 1,148 Responses 96,000 Insight Ratings 96,000 Agreement Ratings

21. Opinion Space

22. Users and sessions per day Unique visits per day Active users per day

23. Session duration Zoomed out Zoomed in

24. Ratings per day

25. Distribution of ratings • All responses are rated on two scales: • How much do you agree with the response? • How insightful is this response?

26. Ratings and views per comment

27. Insight ratings per user Zoomed out Zoomed in

28. Agreement ratings per user Zoomed out Zoomed in

29. Statement Statistics • When deciding on which major product to buy, I often consider where it was made in making my decision. • Reducing oil consumption should be a higher priority in the U.S. • I am willing to pay more for a product that comes from a socially responsible corporation. • The U.S. government should not give loans to corporations. • New technologies are causing more problems than they are solving.

30. Statement 1: When deciding on which major product to buy, I often consider where it was made in making my decision.

31. Statement 2: Reducing oil consumption should be a higher priority in the U.S.

32. Statement 3: I am willing to pay more for a product that comes from a socially responsible corporation.

33. Statement 4: The U.S. government should not give loans to corporations.

34. Statement 5: New technologies are causing more problems than they are solving.

35. Statements in relation to position in Opinion Space For each statement, a participant’s point will move in the direction and angle indicated by the arrow as they drag the slider.

36. Participant Responses • Participant responses were ranked using the insightfulness ratings from other participants. • Two main algorithms were used to rank responses. • Spatial ranking: ratings of a response are weighted by the spatial distance between the author of the response and the rater. • Confidence interval ranking: responses are ranked by the lower bound of a 95% confidence interval of the mean. • See Appendix for a verbatim list of the top 10 responses

37. Topics and Insights from the Top 18 Participant Responses • Topic: US Automotive Corporations • - Achieve more integrity • Streamline production to reduce costs • Renegotiate union contracts to keep prices low • Find out what the customer really wants • Engage in product development with the goal of long term use • Market value to consumers using measurable and verifiable methods • Pay back government loans • Lessen environmental impact • Topic: Price • Remove extraneous, meaningless features that increase the price and don’t add significant value. • GPS cited as an example* • Keep prices low and competitive with foreign companies • Affordability is the bottom line for most people *participant1329’s response (rank #1): “When offering new technology, they must keep the price unchanged or slightly higher. Newer technology is often exponentially more than its value. For example, remember the GPS? Automakers were charging $1500-2500 for an installed GPS when you could buy one for $300. This makes the automaker look greedy…”

38. Topics and Insights from the Top 18 Participant Responses • Topic: What participants want in quality and value • - Durable, reliable, dependable, well-built, no manufacturing defects, built with stronger and lighter materials • Safety • Fuel-saving, fuel-efficient, and good fuel-economy and mileage • Increased warranties that reflect higher quality cars • Performance • Comfortable for larger families • Topic: Electric cars • Stop building electric cars and focus on increasing gas mileage • Make electric cars with higher performance that can go longer distances • Make cars large enough to fit larger families* *participant2053’s response (rank #5): “…Make vehicles that contain fuel efficient technologies in more then just the small car genre. We are a family of 5 and need to transport a wheelchair for our middle son. Most super economical cars wont carry us as a family. I like the idea of electric vehicles but would need to see them able to go greater distances before needing to be charged…”

39. Top terms from participant responses

40. Top co-occurring terms from participant responses

41. Post Survey Analysis

42. Q105. What was your overall opinion of the Opinion Space site?

43. Q120. How much were the raffle entries (NOT incentive points) a motivating factor for you to participate in the Opinion Space activity?

44. Q130_1. I was motivated to consider responses from people far from my own response on the opinion map

45. Q130_2. The size of each point was a reasonable measure of how insightful the corresponding response was

46. Q135. How do you feel about using two sliders (agreement, insightfulness) to rate responses?

47. Q140_1. I would have liked to comment on other participants' responses

48. Q140_2. I would have liked to have been notified when my response was rated by other participants

49. Q150. How willing would you be to participate in other versions of this system (on related topics)?

50. Q110. What aspects of the Opinion Space interface did you like? • Main Ideas: • Ability to explore others’ ideas and see how similar or different you are from others • Learning a lot from reading the opinions of others; opened up from previous way of thinking • The ability to rate others opinions • Allowed ongoing participation over time so participants could come back • Sense of being heard • Interesting change of pace; fun, fast, different, unique, and easy to use • Enjoyed the combination of statements and free form answer box • Enjoyed the anonymity • The UI is very visually pleasing, uncluttered, and intuitive • The ability to see who has rated you • Topics were of high interest • The star metaphor with larger points meaning more insightful idea • Engaging and made excited to rate the opinions of others “I really enjoyed being able to read and rate other participants' responses. I found that there were many with which I didn't necessarialy agree with but were well thought out and concisely argued. That gave me the chance to rate highly an opinion other than my own and also opened my eyes to other sides of "the argument" so to speak.”