• Author's Forward

  Howdy.
  My name is Joseph, I'm the author, and this is my foreword. Let me tell you some things about myself that might help you decide if this book is for you.
  First, I'm not your standard business executive and this is not your standard business executive's book. I couldn't write a popular business book if I tried. It's not in my nature. I spent an afternoon at a Barnes&Noble™ looking at popular business books before I started writing this one. Between 250 to 350 pages to talk about a single idea nebulously? With no action items? Definitely not my style. This book is going to cover a very rich topic -- how people interact with information (software interfaces, websites, emails, brochures, flyers, etc.) -- and it's going to cover that topic in detail. And I hated textbooks which had "...is left to the reader" or "...the derivation is left an exercise for the student" or some such hobnobble. To me, these were examples of "poof, and then a miracle happened" and "...it's intuitively obvious to the casual observer", neither of which were true. I have a habit of going over things in excruciating detail, explaining something then explaining the explanation. My feeling is if the reader can't follow something from the roots to the treetop then the author is leaving something out. Throughout the book there will be specific suggestions and instructions on how changing a little thing here or a little thing there will increase rewards greatly. If you're going to read this book, be prepared to take part in the discussion. Let me give you an example...
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• Chapter 2 - What This Book is About

  Behaviors. Specifically, online behaviors.
  Two people start "reading" each other and, by doing so, start communicating. Anthropologists, sociologists and people in similar fields call this mindreading. If business is to be successful, the sign "You're successful. You know what you're doing. This isn't a fluke, you're in charge and in control." must be communicated to all those hundreds of thousands if not millions of people coming to our websites, using our software, reading our emails, our brochures, watching our TV spots, and so on.
  Each and every one of those people is doing business, exchanging information, and each and every one of them relying on the interface to give them the proper sign that right now, right at this moment in time, they're successful, they're doing it right.
  The key, then, to being successful in an information economy is being able to read customer and client minds through computer interfaces or, in short, businesses need to start reading virtual minds if they hope to create the community consumers seek.
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• Chapter 4 - Anecdotes of Learning

  These anecdotes -- all documented and used with permission where individuals are named (see Appendix A, Anecdotal Correpondence for the permissions) -- are shared chronologically as they happened and give an example of an interface learning both the rules of society and that society's lexicon as it goes. Technically, such an interface would be called a Symbiotic CyberSemiotic System, and who in their right mind wants to read that more than once in a book? Let's compromise and call the interface ET. In many ways, the interface is an alien, silicon-based lifeform visiting planet Earth and attempting to learn how we carbon-based lifeforms get along.
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• Chapter 6 - Expectation versus Satisfaction

  When was the last time somebody opened up a business-based email or browsed an B2x website and said, "My God, this is beautiful! I'm so glad I opened/read/saw this! I'll just have to tell my friends!"
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• Chapter 8 - Fair-Exchange, or "You Have to Give as Good as You Get"

  The concept of fair-exchange engages whenever there is a "give-and-take" occurring and is so closely tied to experience and expectations that to ignore its existence is to lose opportunities. To deny its importance is to offer what's not wanted and to expect what you'll never get. This chapter, for example, deals with specific aspects of exchange and how these specific aspects play into the minds of people interacting with information on websites, brochures, kiosks, etc., and how these aspects affect their expectations and experience. When the negotiator is a human agent, both parties need to trust that that human agent has their best interests at heart. That same trust, in the virtual world, gets transferred to the interface and often with uncomfortable and unfortunate consequences.
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Joseph Carrabis has authored 22 books and 225 articles in five areas of expertise. His books have covered cultural anthropology, database technology and methods, information mechanics, language acquisition, learning and education theory, mathematics, network topologies, and psycholinguistic modeling. His articles have covered computer technology, cultural-knowledge modeling, equine management, knowledge studies and applications, library science, martial arts, myth and folklore, neurolinguistic, psychodynamic and psychosocial modeling, studies of group and tribal behavior, studies of social interactions in NYC and more. His knowledge and data designs have been used by Caltech, Citibank, DOD, IBM, NASA, Owens-Corning and Smith-Barney among others. He's been everything from butcher to truckdriver to Senior Knowledge Architect to Chief Research Scientist. Currently Carrabis is Chairman and Chief Research Officer (CRO) of NextStage Evolution, LLC, co-founder and CRO of NextStage Global LTD, and founder of KnowledgeNH and NH Business Development Network. He's inventor and developer of Evolution Technology.