1% Rule - Can You Fight It?

I just saw a post - Solving the 1:10:100% problem by Phil Wainewright on the Fast Forward blog. He reminds us of the 1% Rule. In his post he said:

There is no workaround for the 1% rule. Instead, recognize it exists and work with it. With luck, you’ll find it’s more like a 3% or 5% rule among knowledge workers, since middle-class professionals (and their offspring) are more predisposed to posting content online than other demographic groups. But still accept that most of what they contribute will be irrelevant, inaccurate, superseded or redundant, and build the system in a way that allows users to discover and recognize the most useful items.

He also points out how hard it may be to convince management to spend money on something that hits 10% and that only 1% actively contribute to.

Previously I had mentioned that DevLearn: Ze Frank Keynote - Level of Engagement suggested that we have to think about modifying participation so that participation can happen more easily and at more levels. In some ways, that's the beauty of the web and some of the models emerging on the web. For example, consider the levels of effort involved in:

• Visiting a web page
• Voting/rating something
• Transacting - Buying/subscribing
• Commenting
• Composing

A click to visit a web page takes almost no effort. Yet it's an interesting data point to see who what the most viewed pages are. And it continues up the scale. Obviously, the value increases as you move up the scale. See also: Creators, Synthesizers, and Consumers.

I'm still not sure if you can fight the 1% rule all that well. But certainly, you can by making more levels and more seamless with the work itself.