Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 13:44:44 -0400
Reply-To: Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Subject: Re: How To Choose YOUR Engine Conversion
In-Reply-To: <022501cd96ce$0fe2bec0$2fa83c40$@gmail.com>
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I'm currently writing up new content for the new Bostig site, and this
topic is part of it. I agree with Neil about the " read, learn, read
some more, then decide" the reality is that even this approach will
still leave you underinformed for one basic reason: we are humans.
That means a couple things. Most importantly it means we're subject
to cognitive bias of various flavors. People notice that the
conversion stuff can be religious in pattern, that is because the same
patterns of cognitive biases are at work in both cases.
If you already like or dislike a brand of automobile consciously or
subconsciously, you're going to read, learn, read some more, then
likely decide you've been able to confirm your preconceptions. You
may not realize you've done it. Not only is it irrational to form a
like or dislike about specific components based on automotive brand in
2012, but confirmation bias is going to help ensure you reinforce what
you already believe on the subject, even if it's invalid or incorrect.
That's one reason why the scientific method works to prove things you
suppose to be false, not the other way around.
If you hear someone offer an opinion about how reliable X brand is,
and therefore an engine swap using that brand's engine will be great,
you're likely witnessing a strong confirmation bias. Logically there
is no connection between the outcome of an engine swap and an opinion
about the reliability of an automaker's brand. There is a
relationship, but it is neither simple nor direct. But this is small
potatoes compared to the larger problem. The bigger problem is one
that directly affects availability of the thing you need most,
accurate information.
Egocentric bias, Survivorship bias, and the Positivity effect of your
sources (when they are human) will all help ensure that while you may
think you're doing a good job at research, you aren't actually going
to get the info you really need. It can be simplified to the reality
that people don't like to brag about failure or mistakes in public. As
a result, few people post about failures and mistakes that they accept
responsibility for, and if they do, they often distort their own
accounts (which you can witness through the magic of searching
archives). For conversions that are complete or done by somebody
else, the owners typically accept little responsibility for the nitty
gritty since while they made the decision as to what to do, the
specifics are the responsibility of the conversion installer.
Typically those interactions and problems will go straight back to the
installers, as they should. But it means they often don't get
published online either.
DIYers on the other hand, especially when there isn't a complete
solution and you have to buy components and make decisions about
configuration, accept lot's of responsibility. While there are quite a
few folks who have shared, especially out of need if they are trying
to recover a problem that's beating them, there are plenty more that
don't post and have their projects fail outright or make incorrect
decisions that cost them dearly. You won't have access to much of that
info, and worse may never know it exists at all.
This is why in market segments where the product is less consistent
or complete, and consumers accept more responsibility, the market will
be imperfect. This lowers the value to customers in that market
segment, as the imperfection will be an advantage to the vendors in
that segment not the consumers. If you run a company that sells a
puzzle, if someone puts the puzzle together and is unhappy with the
result in fit/finish they will likely blame you, and they may be vocal
about it. If you run a company and you primarily sell only certain
pieces of a puzzle, the same will not be true. If someone is unhappy
with the results of the puzzle they put together from pieces from a
bunch of different vendors, there is nobody to get upset at but
oneself... and that is where the bias comes in. Not only will they be
less likely to be vocal about a problem in public, they may not even
admit there is a problem, or that it really bothers them... and they
may do so without even knowing it. And once again, you won't have the
information you really need.
I have been in a different position from being a consumer for the last
10 years, and have gotten to see and hear lot's of information that is
not available anywhere online about customer experiences and failures.
I've also learned lots from friends that are also into cars or
friends that have shops. Through personally supporting 330+
conversion customers I've learned even more about possible modes of
failure, stuff I couldn't dream up if I tried. Contrary to how
scientific I try to be, I've learned that Car-ma (car project
associated Karma/Luck cycles) does exist. It just rains sh*t on some
people in this regard, and no amount of decent explanation exists in
many cases. Another thing folks may never have thought of is the
process of working on a car until it's totalled. Not only does it
happen, but happens to way more people than I'd ever conceived of. You
of course don't typically read those kinds of stories online, as at
the end of lot's of money and time into something, having *absolutely
nothing* of value in the end isn't exactly an outcome people are proud
of. Feature creep is the leading cause of this type of failure BTW so
watch out (manifest itself in the form, "hey I'm already in there
doing this... I should do this while I'm at it.." and repeat).
Experience with as many forms of failure in car projects as possible
and good project management skills are the things that are most
preventative to large failures. Few vendors build these things into
their products, or offer assistance with them which is a shame because
it's entirely possible to do so and saves huge amounts of wasted
resources. Again though, if it's out of scope and the vendor can get
away not doing it, the value to the vendor is that much higher so they
will tend not to do so. Conversely the value to the customer is lower.
Unfortunately if the customer hasn't thought of it in advance, it will
only be revealed once something has started going wrong.
When puzzles go together right and you get the experience/picture you
wanted, it doesn't matter how it came together, who it came from, etc.
It's more when things go wrong that it really matters. Then who it
came from (which affects everything), and who accepts responsibility
has a strong effect on if someone will share their information, and it
also has a strong effect on how the issue will be resolved and the
sharing of that subsequent information.
The short version of all this is to really try to understand the
differing nature of information gaps based on market segment and the
business models of those in them, and in effect have an idea of how
much you won't be able to know based on the biases of the information
sources in those segments. It is this area that the most
differentiation exists between options, but most people don't even
consider it at all.
Jim Akiba
PS. Stuart, I prefer the term bootstrap to shoestring, shoestring
implies we don't have resources which isn't true, we just put them all
back into dev. And in fairness if we're shoestring then everybody
else is flip flops :)
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