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Year 2000 International Security Dimension Project Report

Understanding Where Opinion Leaders Can Influence Social Response

The strategic vision of Y2K we have encountered again and again, both in our Internet-based research and in our many discussions with experts and ordinary citizens from around the world, is that the event will unfold, peak, and then disappear--all with great speed--in a tight timeline surrounding the Millennial Date Change Event.  In effect, what the majority expects is a very tall Bell Curve surrounding 010100, which we depict below in Slide 15.
 
 

In other words, the conventional expectation is that Y2K failures will:

• Ramp up dramatically along an asymptotic curve in the last couple of months in 1999
• Experience a rapid topping off in the first few days of 2000
• Decrease in a similarly steeped downward curve until basically disappearing as a phenomenon of note somewhere in the middle of the First Quarter of 2000.

The problem with this view is three-fold:

• It tends to draw off strategic resources from both mid-1999 and the rest of year 2000 (and beyond) and concentrates crisis management approaches on the 010100 threshold.
• It inaccurately reflects the likely spread of Y2K-related network failures, as predicted by the Gartner Group.
• It fools decision makers into thinking that not only will their influence be best used in a concentrated fashion around the 010100 threshold, but that it will likewise be effective during that specific period.

We believe one or more of these three mistaken assumptions are incorporated--to some degree--in much if not all of the strategic planning for crisis management of the Y2K Event around the world.

Instead of focusing on a Bell Curve perspective regarding Y2K's onset and unfolding, we argue that Opinion Leaders, whom we'll define as anyone with the power to influence the actions of others, should instead approach the Y2K timeline with the following three assumptions in tow:

• Your best time to influence social response is during the months leading up to Y2K's onset, with an emphasis on reasonable mass preparations, the establishment of crisis management arrangements, and the shaping of popular perceptions as to what will likely lie ahead.
• Your influence will disappear in the last few weeks and days leading up to the 010100 threshold, as the public will have largely made up its mind regarding individual preparations and strategies for experiencing--not to mention celebrating--the Millennial Date Change Event and the associated onset of Y2K; moreover, your influence will never be lower than on 010100, when your ability to control mass events will essentially approach zero.
• Your influence will reemerge once the Millennial Date Change Event expires and the true nature of Y2K's unfolding--however bad or minor that may be--makes itself apparent to you and society, for at that point you will have problems to solve, targets for resource allocation, etc.--in short, the battle will be joined.

Thus our "M Curve of Influence" (Slide 16 above) describes both the utility of Opinion Leaders' efforts before (Schedule/Shape the Build-Up) and after (Define/Execute Exit Strategies) Y2K's onset, while emphasizing the loss of influence over societal actions and response during the actual onset (Slow Down the Abnormal Time).  In short, our strategic advice mantra would be:

Organize . . . Relax . . . Attack

Explaining the First, or Pre-010100 "Hump" of the M Curve

We ascribe the first hump of the M Curve, or the bulge of influence we think Opinion Leaders enjoy over the summer and fall of 1999, to what we describe as the popular competition between awareness and fear regarding Y2K and the associated Millennial Date Change Event. Slide 17 below explains this competition.
 
 

The first thing to note on the slide is our humility.  The vertical axis is labeled "Order of Magnitude," which is just a fancy way of saying we're theorizing about a very complex phenomenon and thus can only describe it in rather vague terms.  The timeline, on the other hand, is fairly straightforward--namely, we're talking about 1999.

It's our general hypothesis that no matter what country you're talking about, awareness of Y2K will precede--and in some ways, trigger--fear about Y2K.  In a generic situation, then, we're describing the rise of "Awareness and the Public Transcript" as occurring more in the first half of 1999 than in the second half, meaning most people heard and came to understand Y2K in the initial sense in early 1999.  This happened primarily as a result of their being flooded with all sorts of Public Transcripts about the state of remediation efforts and the (typically) non-likelihood of Y2K-related failures come 010100.  Public Transcripts can be described as authoritative statements by authoritative people.  They typically highlight a rosier-than-average perspective on Y2K, quite often out of official fear of "alarming the public unnecessarily."  Of course, much of the awareness-raising effort encapsulated in such Public Transcripts requires "scaring" the public enough to take action, and therein lies the rub.

As we enter into the summer and fall of 1999, the Awareness and Public Transcript wave begins to give way (i.e., awareness has peaked) to the Fear and Private Transcript wave, which is likely to peak in the last few weeks and days of the year.  The fear part of the equation is nothing more than anxiety over the uncertainty caused by the looming event, whereas the Private Transcript describes the "off-line," unofficial, or individual preparations and/or decision making regarding how a person, economic firm, national government, etc., plans on either enacting or following a particular rule set for what it perceives will be the crisis period surrounding Y2K.  So, for example, the differences between a Public and Private Transcript could be as follows:

• An individual's Public Transcript could be that he or she is administrator of a small town and thus plays a prominent role in community preparations and perception management while simultaneously engaging in the Private Transcript of stockpiling food, water, and weapons at home.
• A firm's Public Transcript could be publicizing the success of its remediation effort while its Private Transcript could be its quiet stockpiling of key industrial material inputs, the cutting of ties with suppliers and vendors it does not deem sufficiently compliant, or the preparation and public announcement of new rule sets.
• A government's Public Transcript could be publicizing how all essential services will survive the Y2K Event intact and without any disruptions while quietly establishing all sorts of emergency procedures to deal with just such failures.

We describe the point in the year when the Awareness and Public Transcript wave is surpassed by the Fear and Private Transcript wave as constituting a Trigger Zone of sorts.  This is where we believe the manic, or Mania Phase of Y2K begins.  In short, this is when you will see individuals, firms, and perhaps even governments start to exhibit extraordinary behavior in response to whatever they believe "others" in society may do--i.e., the fear of fear itself.
 
 

Having said all that, we want to be careful not to leave readers with the impression that we're predicting a serious "freak out" factor for the United States come Labor Day, for it is by no means a given that the Fear and Private Transcript must overwhelm the Awareness and Public Transcript wave.  In effect, if Opinion Leaders do their job correctly in terms of the Awareness and Public Transcript effort, the Fear and Private Transcript wave can be greatly reduced (see Slide 18 above).  By way of analogy, think of how Wall Street spent much of the 1990s educating Baby Boomers about the dangers of yanking their money out of mutual funds at the first sign of trouble.  Then think about how well that effort paid off during the Global Financial Crisis of 1997-98.  In short, the better Opinion Leaders shape popular expectations, the less likely it is that Fear and the Private Transcript will balloon to dangerous proportions--not every knee has to jerk.

And indeed, it is our impression that as far as the United States is concerned, it is quite possible that the Fear and Private Transcript wave will remain marginal, meaning perhaps 15 to 20 percent of the population will engage in fear-based behavior that could be described as "excessive," understanding what a loaded term that is for many in the Y2K debate.
 
 

When looking abroad, however, we are far less sanguine outside of Canada, Australia, the U.K., and a few other, mostly northern European states.  In many countries overseas, we perceive the Awareness and Public Transcript effort to be woefully inadequate, thus inviting an explosion of the Fear and Private Transcript wave once the public comes to grasp what may be--by then--a significant and largely unavoidable period of profound network failures (see Slide 19 above).  In this dynamic situation, Opinion Leaders in these countries will see their influence plummet and possibly be curtailed for a far greater time post-010100 than would have otherwise occurred, meaning a popular backlash.
 

Explaining the Second, or Post-010100 "Hump" of the M Curve

We ascribe the second hump of the M Curve to nothing more than the prediction by the Gartner Group that as much as 70 percent of Y2K failures will occur after 1 January 2000.  As depicted below in Slide 20, the Gartner Group estimates that only about one-third of all Y2K-related failures will have occurred by the end of 1999, leaving upwards of two-thirds or more still to unfold once the clock strikes midnight on 31 December 1999.
 
 

True to the Bell Curve image, Gartner is predicting that the highest frequency rate will occur in the ten days surrounding the 010100 threshold, where 10 percent of all Y2K failures will be concentrated.  However, their prediction that close to two-thirds, or 60 percent of Y2K-related failures will follow this peak frequency period stands in dramatic contradiction of the Bell Curve assumption.  Why we push the notion of the second, or post-010100 "hump" in the M Curve of Influence is our concern that too many decision makers in positions of authority will, in their concern for maintaining control over what we perceive will be a largely uncontrollable situation surrounding the Millennial Date Change Event, squander precious resources that should be held in reserve for the failures yet to come.
 
 

Another way to express our general concern is to raise the following issue, portrayed above in Slide 21.  If the halfway point in Y2K-related failures doesn't occur until some point after both the Millennial Date Change Event and the peak frequency period of 10 days surrounding the 010100 threshold, then what is the danger that private and public organizations will have misallocated their resources based on a predicted disruption period lasting through only the first few days of January 2000?  Note, we're not saying to abandon such predictions or weather analogies (such as the Three-Day Snowstorm analogy), because most are based on the predicted loss of utilities--primarily electricity.  For that particular core set of issues, the days-long predictions as an expectation management tool may well be appropriate.  However, for other aspects of the economy, the days-long paradigm may end up misleading and thus misdirecting the strategic use of resources, not because individual disruptions last longer than a few days, but because the cumulative period wherein many simultaneous days-long disruptions occur may drag on for weeks or even months in certain countries.
 

Summing Up Our Strategic Advice From The M Curve

Slide 22 below juxtaposes the M Curve of Influence against the Gartner Group's curve of Y2K-related failure rates.  By presenting both projections together, we seek to highlight what may--at first glance--seem like the counterintuitive nature of our strategic advice.
 
 

To sum up: we believe Opinion Leaders should concentrate their strategic resources and efforts at two distinct points in the Y2K Event timeline--namely, during the pre-010100 and post-010100 phases.  Correspondingly, we think it best not to try to exert too much social control or direction during the Millennial Date Change Event or Y2K's immediate onset surrounding the 010100 threshold.  Much like in preparing for the land fall of a hurricane, we think authorities should concentrate their activities in the following three-pronged manner:

• Prior to 010100, do as much as you can to prepare the population for inevitable disruptions, with a strong emphasis on shaping expectations and delineating personal crisis management strategies.
• When the 010100 threshold looms and then passes, do not try to control events that cannot be controlled, but seek to "ride out the wave."
• Post the initial wave of high-frequency failures, engage in aggressive triage to drive down the impact of the remaining failures as they continue to unfold.

Our underlying philosophy in all of this advice is that people in general respond quite well DURING disasters or crises, but that the panic potential beforehand and the "battle fatigue" danger afterwards are far more important management points than the actual threshold event.