The Digital Tool Factory Blog

photo © 2007 Kevin Dooley | more info (via: Wylio)People have not written much about offline social influence.  Here is my first attempt on how to do that.   My intent of this is not to create an exact, objective measurement.  My intent is  to create a useful measurement that can be recorded and used later after the memories of an initial encounter with someone have faded.

Key Assumptions – Influence does not span topics equally.  People can have both general influence, and topical influence.

Here are our factors, as I see them.   some are subjective, some are not.  Please note, life is not fair, and things like physical appearance and height do matter.  Remember, this is an attempt to measure someone’s influence in society so it can be used after the specific memories fade.  It is not an a measurement of true worth or intelligence.

The format below is Name – (Abbreviation).  All of the factors are measured on a scale of 1-5.

General Factors

1. Physical appearance  (PA)
2. Verbal articulation  (VA)
3. Height (by quintile, i.e. someone in the 80th percentile of height would be a 4) (H)
4. Age (just rank it by cultural stereotype) (A)
5. Conformity to cultural steorotype  (CSS)
6. Overall social status  (OSS)
7. Overall education level  (OEL)
8. Personal charisma  (PC)

Specific Factors

1. Confidence with subject matter (CSM)
2. Amount of education on topic  (AET)
3. Familiarity with specific instance of topic  (FSI)
4. Passion for this topic (PT)

Two formulas arise from this, general influence, and topical influence

My initial wild stab at the general formula:

PA + (VA *2) + H+ A + CSS + (OSS  * .8) + (OEL  * .8) + (PC * 2)  = General Influence

My initial wild stab at the topical formula:

PA + (VA *2) + H+ A + CSS + (OSS  * .8) + (OEL  * .8) + (PC * 2) + (CSM * 1.1) + (AET * 2) + (FSI * 3) + (PT * 3) = Topical Influence

So, (using myself as an example), I am an average looking,  articulate 37 year old male with a bachelor’s degree in economics, normal in dress and visible habits.  Someone using this system could rank me as the following:

3 + (4 * 2) + 3 + 3 + 4 + (4 * .8) + (4 * .8) + (3 *2)  =  33.4

Here is my topical influence score on a loose vs tight monetary policy (I feel strongly about the topic and it was the focus of my economics education)

3 + (8) + 3+ 3 + 4 + (3.2) + (3.2) + (6) + (5 * 1.1) + (4 * 2) + (4 * 3) + (5 + 3) =  73.9

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog