So far as I know I’ve been the one doing most of the asking, and I don’t have a large enough sample size to declare anything, just seven people. The results have been mostly neutral, with one enthusiastically positive and two slightly negative. If I were to extrapolate from this, I’d say that enough people are at least neutral to the word that it won’t harm us to use it.
If our goal was to find an optimum marketing word, I’d wait until we’d done much more substantial testing. But I think there’s benefit to changing the Spock Perception, so as long as people are mostly neutral towards the word, it’s worth using. (I’d still want more than seven responses before committing to it)
The specific question I’ve been asking people is:
“I’m just curious, if someone were to describe themselves as a Rationalist to you, what stereotypes would come to your mind about that person?”
(The first time I started by saying “what thoughts and feelings come to your mind if say “Rationality?” That prompted some questions and confusion that I don’t have time for in the typical elevator ride, which is where I do the asking. By the third query I had narrowed it down to the phrasing above, because it seemed to cut to the heart of the matter. People might be okay with “rationality” but are they okay with people who strongly “identify” with rationality?)
When I hit some arbitrary milestone that triggers warm fuzzies, I’ll post the results so far and invite analysis. (I’m thinking 20′s a decent number to start with)
NYLW has done some preliminary testing, asking people what they think of when they hear the word “rational”. So far the results have been positive.
So far as I know I’ve been the one doing most of the asking, and I don’t have a large enough sample size to declare anything, just seven people. The results have been mostly neutral, with one enthusiastically positive and two slightly negative. If I were to extrapolate from this, I’d say that enough people are at least neutral to the word that it won’t harm us to use it.
If our goal was to find an optimum marketing word, I’d wait until we’d done much more substantial testing. But I think there’s benefit to changing the Spock Perception, so as long as people are mostly neutral towards the word, it’s worth using. (I’d still want more than seven responses before committing to it)
The specific question I’ve been asking people is:
“I’m just curious, if someone were to describe themselves as a Rationalist to you, what stereotypes would come to your mind about that person?”
(The first time I started by saying “what thoughts and feelings come to your mind if say “Rationality?” That prompted some questions and confusion that I don’t have time for in the typical elevator ride, which is where I do the asking. By the third query I had narrowed it down to the phrasing above, because it seemed to cut to the heart of the matter. People might be okay with “rationality” but are they okay with people who strongly “identify” with rationality?)
When I hit some arbitrary milestone that triggers warm fuzzies, I’ll post the results so far and invite analysis. (I’m thinking 20′s a decent number to start with)