From sbelknap@UIC.EDU Wed Dec 04 21:44:40 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_3_0); 5 Dec 2002 05:44:40 -0000 Received: (qmail 21049 invoked from network); 5 Dec 2002 05:44:40 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m13.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 5 Dec 2002 05:44:40 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO digitalkingdom.org) (204.152.186.175) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 5 Dec 2002 05:44:40 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.05) id 18JooR-0000hb-00 for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Wed, 04 Dec 2002 21:44:39 -0800 Received: from digitalkingdom.org ([204.152.186.175] helo=chain) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.05) id 18JooP-0000hK-00; Wed, 04 Dec 2002 21:44:37 -0800 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Wed, 04 Dec 2002 21:44:36 -0800 (PST) Received: from larch.cc.uic.edu ([128.248.155.164]) by digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.05) id 18JooL-0000hB-00 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Wed, 04 Dec 2002 21:44:33 -0800 Received: (qmail 6556 invoked from network); 5 Dec 2002 05:44:28 -0000 Received: from webmail.cc.uic.edu (HELO webmail.uic.edu) (128.248.121.50) by larch.cc.uic.edu with SMTP; 5 Dec 2002 05:44:28 -0000 X-WebMail-UserID: sbelknap@uic.edu Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 23:44:02 -0600 To: phma@webjockey.net Cc: lojban-list@lojban.org X-EXP32-SerialNo: 50000146 Subject: [lojban] Re: Official Statement- LLG Board approves new baseline policy Message-ID: <3DF4F67E@webmail.uic.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" X-Mailer: InterChange (Hydra) SMTP v3.62 X-archive-position: 3054 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: sbelknap@uic.edu Precedence: bulk X-list: lojban-list From: sbelknap Reply-To: sbelknap@uic.edu X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=810567 X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 17539 On Wednesday, December 4, 2002, at 09:23 PM, John Cowan wrote: sbelknap scripsit: :My sentiments exactly. I believe lojbanistan has much to gain from :cooperating with Bob McIvor and the other remaining active Loglanders. The :remaining animosity of some lojbanistani has much of the flavor of the battle :of New Orleans. There weren't near as many as there were a while ago, eh? John- Are you familiar with the Ryan & Gross study of the spread of innovation? (See Ryan, R., & Gross, N. (1943). The diffusion of hybrid seed corn in two Iowa communities. Rural Sociology, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 15-24. and also http://www.ifz.tu-graz.ac.at/sumacad/01/sa01_boudourides.pdf) This classic study of the diffusion of innovation studied the adoption of hybrid seed corn by farmers in Green County, Iowa between 1928 and 1941. The new hybrid seed corn was demonstrably superior in nearly all ways to locally grown seed corn. Of 259 farmers in the study, only a few had adopted the new seed corn by 1933. Here is how it went after that: 1934: 16 newbies 1935: 21 newbies 1936: 36 newbies 1937: 61 newbies 1938: 46 newbies 1939: 36 newbies 1940: 14 newbies 1941: 3 newbies (all but two of the original 259 were using the new hybrid seed corn) Ryan and Gross divided the farmers into 5 groups: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. the early adopters were the opinion leaders who watched what the wild innovators were doing and adopted the successful practices. The early adopters then were the ones who influences the rest of the group to try the new method. The early majority watched the early adopters, the late majority watched the late adopters, and the lagggards brought up the tail end. Only the innovators relied on radio advertising, farm journals, or seed salesmen in making their decisions. Everbody else followed the example of a trusted group of peers. JCB was an inventor, so he is not in one of Ryan and Gross's groups. Those who bought his books were innovators, but I believe nearly all of them abandoned Loglan as a failed experiment because no language community developed. We now have a language community, (though far too much of the conversation still occurs in English, mea maxima culpa). Thus, I believe that many of these Loglan innovators would rekindle their interest in Loglan/lojban if we were able to reach them. I'm not so interested in reaching what little remains of the TLI political structure, what I seek is to track down and recruit all those Loglan book buyers. I believe that if these persons became aware that there was a stable language community, we would be well on the way to developing a community of lojban speakers that speak about something other than lojban. I have not changed my estimation of the number of these convertible sleeping Loglanders. I think it is about 500. Occasionally, I meet one on an airplane, at a conference, or in some online forum unrelated to lojban. I last met a sleeping Loglander 3 years ago at a lecture on the electronic medical record. He thought that Loglan was dead and had given up on it. Innovators are the seeds that will eventually form lojban clubs, give lojban courses, talk about lojban at the local Rotary Club, etc. It is foolish to ignore this possibility. Even if I am completely wrong, what harm can it do to expend a trivial amount of effort with a mailing to these book buyers? -Steven