Kent Hendricks
kenthendricks.bsky.social
Kent Hendricks
@kenthendricks.bsky.social
Sharing what I’m learning.

Mostly: social science, consumer behavior, marketing, theology/philosophy

Share ≠ endorse

Day job: Senior Marketing Director at Zondervan Academic / HarperCollins Christian Publishing

Newsletter: kenthendricks.substack.com
"Elite groups need time to be the sole adopters of an innovation for it to gain cachet... Fashion relied on social friction to slow down the diffusion process... This entire system is upended by light-speed information flows on the internet."
https://amzn.to/3Cabeyd
February 20, 2025 at 4:00 PM
"The internet has debased two critical signaling costs: (1) barriers to information and (2) barriers to acquisition... Information can't be a strong signaling costs when 'information wants to be free.'"
https://amzn.to/3Cabeyd
February 19, 2025 at 10:26 PM
"Fifteen years ago, the internet was an escape from the real world. Now, the real world is an escape from the internet."
https://amzn.to/3Cabeyd
February 19, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Fashion trends over time:

(source: https://amzn.to/3Cabeyd)
February 18, 2025 at 10:26 PM
"Today each Scottish clan has a tartan, a practice that originated in the 18th century when weavers named their different patterns after a Highland clan; descendants of those clans use them as markers of ancestry despite no historical relationship."
https://amzn.to/3Cabeyd
February 18, 2025 at 4:01 PM
"Taking an economics class decreased the willingness of students to contribute to public radio and to donate blood."
https://amzn.to/4hy71Ud
February 16, 2025 at 10:26 PM
"From ages 0 to 10, for every 100 girls who die, 150 boys die. At puberty and shortly thereafter, the ratio is 300 men for every 100 women. Why? The proximate explanation involves testosterone and its effects on tissues, immunity, and risk taking..."
https://amzn.to/4hy71Ud
February 16, 2025 at 1:00 PM
"Women are twice as likely as men to have an anxiety disorder."

The reason:

"Women on average have about the right amount of anxiety for their own welfare; men have the right amount to maximize transmission of their genes, at a huge risk to their health."
https://amzn.to/4hy71Ud
February 15, 2025 at 10:26 PM
"Fear of heights was seven times *less* common in eighteen-year-olds who had experienced a fall in childhood."
https://amzn.to/4hy71Ud
February 15, 2025 at 8:24 PM
"In general medicine, symptoms such as pain or cough are recognized as useful responses that indicate the presence of a problem. In psychiatry, symptoms such as anxiety and low mood are often presumed to be the problems themselves."
https://amzn.to/4hy71Ud
February 15, 2025 at 4:00 PM
"Today more than 1 percent of the world’s industrial energy is devoted to making ammonia fertilizer. 'That 1 percent,' the futurist Ramez Naam says, 'roughly doubles the amount of food the world can grow.'"
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/how-agriculture-system-works
February 15, 2025 at 2:00 AM
"Historical value is a hedge against social risk...Rational humans, especially conservative ones toward the middle of the status hierarchy, will choose older forms over newer ones when signaling, and this keeps older conventions in circulation."
https://amzn.to/3Cabeyd
February 14, 2025 at 10:26 PM
How innovation spreads:
1. High-status adoption—for distinction
2. Early adopters' embrace—emulate superiors
3. Early majority reinvention—follow emerging norm
4. Late majority imitation—avoid losing normal status
5. Laggards' adoption—no intention."
https://amzn.to/3Cabeyd
February 14, 2025 at 7:28 PM
"You don't create a phenomenon like E.T. by appealing to people who love movies. You create a phenomenon like E.T. by appealing to people who see one movie a year."
https://amzn.to/3Cabeyd
February 14, 2025 at 4:01 PM
"Commercialization is a process of lowering signaling costs, not just of money and availability, but also of difficult taste."
https://amzn.to/3Cabeyd
February 13, 2025 at 4:05 PM
"We always know more than we can say, and we will always say more than we can write down."

Dave Snowden's 7 principles for rendering knowledge: https://thecynefin.co/rendering-knowledge/
February 13, 2025 at 10:37 AM
Reposted by Kent Hendricks
Nice concise review of my @ivpress.bsky.social book Ownership by Mary Li Ma in the CRC magazine The Banner

www.thebanner.org/mixed-media/...
Ownership: The Evangelical Legacy of Slavery in Edwards, Wesley, and Whitefield
The Official Magazine of the Christian Reformed Church
www.thebanner.org
February 12, 2025 at 9:43 PM
"Until recently in human history, all information was trapped—in someone's head or on a piece of paper. This led to a scarcity mindset. We hoard it to elevate status, create job security, and protect ourselves. This perpetuates the power structure..."
https://amzn.to/40NfxI6
February 11, 2025 at 10:26 PM
"One-on-ones are often used as a salve for hidden dysfunction. When members lack the authority to make decisions, these meetings become the only mechanism for moving things forward."
https://amzn.to/40NfxI6
February 11, 2025 at 4:00 PM
"Like it or not, great meetings offer higher bandwidth—more information per second—than any other form of communication."
But: bad meetings run the greatest risk of waste.
There are no meetings with average-productivity. They're either great or terrible.
https://amzn.to/40NfxI6
February 10, 2025 at 10:26 PM
"Amazon now averages more than one software deployment every second."
https://amzn.to/40NfxI6
February 10, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Stages of the fashion cycle / how culture spreads:

1. elites' need for distinctive practices,
2. mass media broadcasting,
3. early adopters' emulation,
4. mass producers' simplification, and
5. the eventual achievement of critical mass.

https://amzn.to/3Cabeyd
February 10, 2025 at 1:39 AM
"Innovations pose a challenge to established conventions... Thus individuals may worry that switching will lead to social disapproval... Widespread change takes place only once conservative majorities feel secure that switching won't damage their status."
https://amzn.to/3Cabeyd
February 9, 2025 at 10:26 PM
"Not all human behavior changes for status reasons, and not every instance of cultural change begins *as* fashion, but most behaviors we perceive as 'culture' arrive through a fashion cycle where individuals adopt new conventions in a pursuit of status value."
https://amzn.to/3Cabeyd
February 9, 2025 at 4:00 PM
""Avant-garde ideas can break escape velocity from the avant-garde community only if broader audiences no longer believe their appreciation will lead to negative social consequences."
https://amzn.to/3Cabeyd
February 8, 2025 at 10:26 PM