X-Message-Number: 4421
From:  (David Stodolsky)
Subject: re: recruitment
Date: Fri, 19 May 95 20:48:56 +0200 (CET DST)

>what's to lose? But it's not the logical that rules--it's the psychological,
>and psychology is not an exact science (or even a  "fuzzy" science).

Beg to differ. At least some parts of psychology are exact science.
Marketing, which can be considered an applied psychological science, 
has been used for years to sell every product imaginable. I have
no doubt, that an appropriate research design could tell us exactly
what makes people sign up for cryonics, subject to the limitation
of the current small numbers (however, even this potential limitation
could be overcome by an intensive and highly instrumented marketing
campaign).

The major problem in cryonics, with respect to this, is that people,
instead of using well accepted and proven methods, have
tried to reinvent psychology and marketing. I am thinking here of
the "meme" idea and other ad hoc theorizing, such as that demonstrated
in the above article. 

The most basic questions are yet to be even asked. Is the current
growth in sign ups sufficient, that is, would a greater rate of growth
overload the capabilities of current organizations to respond, causing
an organizational breakdown? What is being sold? (if intangible, then
"social marketing" is required, so that a tangible element can be introduced
to the potential customer.) Will people "buy" the product, or must
it be "sold", like life insurance? Is this problem even amenable to
marketing, or is (religious) conversion really what is required? What
organizations are competing for "market share"? Without some evaluation
of these questions, any attempts at determining what will be a successful
strategy, in promoting cryonics, will yield no useful data.

dss


David S. Stodolsky, PhD,  Euromath Center,  University of Copenhagen
Universitetsparken 5, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark. 
 Tel.: +45 38 33 03 30. Fax: +45 38 33 88 80. (C)


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