A couple of weeks ago I read an interview with extreme extrovert Gary Vaynerchuk, two-time New York Times best-selling author, and author of the upcoming book, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy World. He mentioned something in the interview that really piqued my interest, and I was itching to get him to expand on it. I got that chance last Wednesday in an interview while Gary was between speaking engagements.

**The interview below is transcribed from a telephone conversation with Gary with minor editing for flow.

I’m excited to talk to you! I love this project you’re doing, this 365 interviews. Did you get a heads up on what I wanted to talk about?

I did not, I like to do improv.

Awesome. I want to talk to you about your thoughts on EQ, storytelling, and how you think introverts are going to play into these things in the next 5 years based on something you said in an interview with SkilledUp*, “We have been predicated on people being talkers as successful, right? The people that give information: talk, communicate, things of that nature – I think it’s going to be shifting very heavily for the listeners. And that’s why social is so important to me. That’s why Twitter became so important to me. You can listen and engage. I think that’s going to become a much bigger, much more valuable asset.” Can you elaborate on what you said there? How do you see EQ playing out in the workforce, in business, in entrepreneurship? What does that look like to you?

*SkilledUp interview link no longer appears to be working. Will update if this changes.

The funny part is, I actually don’t think this is a new thing, even though the way I answered it in that interview positioned it as a new thing. And here’s why.

I think we’re going through a techncial and data revolution. There’s more data than ever, and people are more efficient with the data they get. There’s a shift, because of the internet. A lot less of the actions we make and do and create are left to guessing, they’re actually quantifiable. Right? So Think about the way a shopper used to go into a store. You couldn’t really track (you know, there’s video cameras, and there’s some technology around this now, but not a perfect science) how you walked around a Wal-Mart. Right? You walked into a WalMart and you saw this or that endcap, and you walked down this aisle, then you did this.

With all this data now being mapped, what I think is going to be quite interesting is I think that there’s going to be a lot of value in people that have intuition. I think of data as something that tells the story after the fact, and can be used in theory to look at what you should be doing in the future, however, if data was completely mapping success, all the companies in the world that have been on data for a long time would have won by now. And to disregard the human element of that would be a huge mistake. and so I think that we’re going to go through something similar to how we’ve evolved to in society. If you think about it, in the 40’s, the 50’s, the 60’s, the man, the husband, the father was the central figure in a family. The Dad or the father or the husband was the “one”, and the mom, the wife, was the “two”. I think we’ve evolved, thank God, into a place where that is no longer the case and I think that’s what we’re going to see from the creatives and the EQ people. I think that they’re going to be elevated into a higher plane, much like the woman was in the 60’s and 70’s. I think we’re going to see the same thing happen towards people with intuition, people skills, motherly vibes, awareness, the structure around emotion. I think those things are going to have enormous value.

So that’s really exciting to me, and I meant to talk about this at the beginning, but the reason I wanted to talk to you is because you’re a self-proclaimed extrovert and love talking to people, and you have great intuition as well, but not all extroverts necessarily do. Introverts are naturally good listeners – and I indentify as an introvert – we do have strengths in intuition. But in terms of the workforce, and those things shifting, how do you list this on a resume, or how do you see this being tangibly sought after in business? What do you think employers are going to be looking for?

Honestly I think that’s education. I think that this interview is part of that process. I don’t think that’s going to happen over night. I don’t think you can write on your resume that you’re an extrovert, or your EQ skill is over index, and think that something’s going to happen, right? Or that you’re an introvert and you have listening skills that can be valuable. I just think the marketplace is not mature enough to consume that. 

But there are leaders within organizations that are. So I think what it takes now is a lot of listening, and a lot of reading and a lot of keeping up on, to see who the leaders are. I mean you can get a job like that at Vayner Media because of that, right? Because I’m the decision-maker and I care about that and I’m talking about it outwardly. I would find the leaders and the companies that are talking about it. Zappos, you know, things like that. Find the companies that talk that way, talk about those things publicly, and try to get jobs there. It’s going to come from those companies.

If you’re going to put that on your resume or you’re going to reach out to someone and say that’s what you do, make sure it’s someone who actually has been talking about those kind of things, because if you do it out of left field for a company that hasn’t, it’s going to just seem too out of control.

Exactly and that’s why I wanted to get you to elaborate on this because I think it’s something that I wouldn’t necessarily advise somebody to put on their resume, but I really do want to stress the importance of companies starting to think about this more. I recently saw Susan Cain speak who wrote, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, which is about the strength of introverts and how companies need to be shifting to recognizing those strengths and bringing both extroverts and introverts together. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the book, and you don’t have to be, but what are your thoughts on this?

I’m not familiar with the book, but obviously when that Ted Talk happened a lot of people reached out to me because I’m the reverse and they were asking me what my thoughts were. I haven’t consumed the video yet, but it’s not super hard to understand the value.

Ironically I think the business world actually rewards and understand introverts in a weird way more than they understand extroverts. Let me explain. Extroverts get the headlines, right? Extroverts get the headlines because they’re the PR person, or the face of the company or the celebrity endorser or they’re the charismatic CEO, but meanwhile every operations person is looking for introverts.  And honestly for an extrovert I’m also a very big operations person. I love building companies, I think about it a lot, I think about the efficiencies, I love structure, it’s how I’ve been able to build companies.

Every operator is looking for introverts, is looking for people that listen and most of all is looking for people that execute. A lot of extroverts are a lot of sizzle and not a lot of steak. And so it’s interesting, I oughta watch it to see where she goes with it, but I actually ironically think that most companies don’t have enough extroverts. I mean most of the people that I work with in corporate America, these fortune 500 compaines, the masses, the people that are executing? 80-90% are introverts or closer to an introvert than an extrovert. I think it just depends on how you look at the world. But I think executors, and people that have built companies, have long understood the value. I mean listen, you can’t have a company of everybody trying to glam for the headlines and sell the sizzle, you need a lot of steak producers and steak producers tend to be introverts.

Right. You know, I think about introverts that are in the headlines like Guy Kawasaki and Pete Cashmore of Mashable, and they’re crushing it in their own way and they are in the spotlight, but in a very different way than an extrovert might be.

So this is where it gets really interesting. You’re exactly right, this is such a good point.

I’m completely fascinated by the people that have become social media celebrities through the first age of Twitter, and how many of them actually don’t love people that much. That don’t love to go to parties and engage with people, that don’t stay for four hours after they give a keynote shaking everybody’s hands. I’ve always thought that that’s been my biggest competitive advantage. I’ve always felt like the reason I’ve been sticky and have clearly a long career ahead of me is because I do like that stuff and I do like people and I think that social is predicated on people.

On the flip side there are plenty of extroverts that just don’t like it, but are around the spotlight because its good for their business. You know, but there are varying degrees – 80%, 20%, 40%. and there are also people that for moments can be extroverts but prefer to be introverts, you know, I’m just extrovert at all times. But even I have my 3 or 4% of the time where I like to just put my headphones on and my hoodie on on a flight and not talk to anybody.  Nobody is 100 and zero except for the most extremes and probably they’re so extreme that very few of us know either one of them. I definitely feel like there are variations. I would say Kevin Rose, who was the original social media super star is pretty introverted in the scheme of things. So yeah, agree?

Yeah. I do agree. Susan Cain actually talks about how social media, or the internet in general, has been a really great tool for introverts because it’s not that introverts don’t like people, they just need to control the flow more. The internet really allows that. You can sorth through things and conversations and you get a little more time to reflect, and you don’t have to be “on” in the same way you do in person necessarily. So I think thats interesting.

I want to shift and talk about storytelling because this is another thing I’m really interested in and I love that you’re talking about it. I saw that you’ve got an upcoming book on this topic. For me storytelling is important in everything. In getting kids to learn something, in marketing, in every every everything. It’s all about understanding behavior, and how the brain works, and storytelling is a compelling way to get to that quickly so I just wanted to hear your thoughts and what’s coming up in this book. What prompted you to be talking about this and writing this book?

I completely agree. That’s so funny. Storytelling is everything. It’s the only thing I care about, it’s what I want my tombstone to say, “he was a storyteller”. This new book talks about storytelling in the new world.  How do you tell stories in an ADD culture where people are spending more of their time on social networks than they are reading a book or a magazine or an article or watching a 30 minute television program or a three hour movie? Or at least recognizing that these platforms are in addition to these things that are taking time away from those things so how do you tell a story in a Facebook status update, a 140 character tweet, a 6 second Vine video? So I go through my thesis of why it’s important, I talk about how to do it per platform and the nuance of the platform and I do a bunch of case studies of status updates that are good, bad, or indifferent around each of the platforms that I think matter: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram. So that’s what the book’s about, it’s called, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. It talks about setting up those moments when you’re trying to story-tell something that you need for your business, by using the other stories that you tell that actually bring value to people and how to build a community and what the value is.

Awesome. I just recently spoke on the psychological context of all the different social media platforms and I think this kind of overlaps with that, at least what I’m hearing from you.

Yeah, it sounds like it.

Right, what is the mindset that people are in, the context that people are in.

That’s all I care about. When you’re in Pinterest, you’re thinking about buying things and you’re being aspirational. When you’re in Instagram you’re being an artist and expressing, so I’m with you. I mean, I think that’s all that matters.

In another interview you said, “being realistic is important, but being ambitious with realism mixed into it: that’s a winning formula”, and for me that sort of feels like a no-brainer, when you’re doing something you love, that those two things, the ambition and the realism will kind of naturally flow together. Do you think that’s true?

I don’t. I actually don’t. I think that’s where people struggle. I think it comes natural to you and I think it comes natural to me and I think that’s been great, but I think that people often fall into one category. I think that people are shockingly black and white, and I think all the magic is in the grey. So I think they’re either dreamers and not practical, or they’re so practical they’re crippled to do anything innovative, and I think the people that have a mix win and I think the grey is actually a minority not the majority. And what advice would you give to people to get into that grey area, if there was a way to sum that up. To find somebody that pushes you in the other direction. I had a very, very, very lucky upbringing. I was a dreamer and all that, but my Dad was so black and white practical the other way and I was influenced by that and so now when I look at the world I always have this notion, I basically don’t look at anything without thinking the way my dad thinks and that practicality layer has given me the balance that I needed to be successful. So go and seek somebody out that is actually quite different from you and pushes you into a different thinking, whether it’s a mentor or whether it’s a parent…always believe in yourself most, believe what naturally comes to you but start trying to create a filter that makes you think this other way because it pushes you and over time you transform into something in the middle.

This has been great, really, I could talk to you for another three hours. This is some interesting stuff, so last question. What are the three most improtant values to you in life, in general, whether it’s about business or whatever, in order of importance?

That’s a great question and the first two came super easy.

#1 Gratitude – I think that people are just not grateful enough and I think that when you really bet on gratitude and you become more grateful you become a much happier person and if you keep it basic, like if you’re grateful that you woke up and you’re alive and truly mean it and truly believe it, a funny thing starts happening. Everything else seems a lot less serious. and then you can level it up, I think that’s a very basic thing, I don’t think very many people can get to just that. For me it’s the health and happiness of everybody around me. The health of the first 15-20 people that matter to me in my life, if they have that on a daily basis, I can usually deal with any headache, any major issue, by just defaulting into reminding myself that that’s what I care about. And it always works. People should really spend a lot more time on this.

#2 is self-awareness. I’m just obsessed with it. I’m very aware of my weaknesses, which is a shocking amount, and I spend a lot of time on my strengths. I know the self-awareness allows me to not be full of shit, self-awareness allows me to care about other people, self-awareness allows me to read the room and be entertaining and value-driven because I’m giving them things they want and not things that I want. So self-awareness is soemthing if you don’t feel you have, I don’t know how to teach it, but I sure recommend trying to figure out a way to teach it.

I would say #3 is the thing I think a lot about is legacy. You know, I’m not capable of thinking about my life in any other way than by how I’ll be remembered once I’m gone. When you start making all your decisions based on trying to make sure that every single person shows up to your funeral a funny thing happens – you start becoming a much better person. By becoming a much better person you start having a lot better things happen to you in business and I highly recommend it. And in life, by the way. I’m coming from a business filter, but also in life. So, yeah, gratitude, self-awareness, and legacy.

This was great, thank you so much! 

My pleasure, take care.

**Stay tuned for my thoughts on this interview, and an upcoming post on How to be an Introvert Ninja!

Podcamp is alive and well in Western Massachusetts! For the 5th year in a row, Valley techies and geeks and business owners gathered for a day of social media unconferencing.

I started the day with Thom Fox, extrovert extraordinaire, who gave a great presentation on taking online relationships offline. You know, take it from a tweet to the street. He’s right, there’s still a lot to be said for face-to-face networking. It’s too easy to get stuck behind the screen, to fool ourselves into thinking that connecting on LinkedIn, or getting a new follower on Twitter is enough. Face-to-face shores up trust, tightens bonds, and ultimately opens more doors of mutual opportunity.

Speaking of Extroverts

There were some surprising “out-of-the-box” sessions this year. The first I attended was by Val Nelson, a business/career coach who specializes in introverts.

Being a proud introvert I had to attend Val’s session on, “Are Introverts Better at Online Networking?”.  Because, duh.

Val got us started by having everyone stand up, and then posed a series of questions to us which we “answered” by moving to one side of the room or the other depending on “where we stood” on the question. Example, “if you think introverts are better at offline networking, stand on that side of the room. If you think extroverts are better at offline networking, go to that side of the room.”

Once we had taken a “stand”, she then engaged us in discussions about why we thought the way we did. The attendees were a pretty even mix of introverts and extroverts. The last question was, “if you think introverts should learn to be more extroverted, go to that side of the room, and if you think introverts are fine the way they are, go to that side of the room”, or something like that.

As soon as I heard the question, I marched with purpose to the “no way I need more extroversion in my life” side of the room. I happen to like being introverted. I also happen to think our culture needs to get on board with understanding and utilizing the unique strengths of introversion. (Watch for an upcoming post on “How to be an Introvert Ninja”.)

Then it was My Turn

I practically stroked out the night before podcamp. I always get anxious before events, but considering I was presenting twice at Podcamp Western Ma, it’s a miracle I got more than two hours of sleep. (Thank you family for not throwing me to the curb that night – I was an awful grump.)

I offered a discussion session on “Stop Wasting Time in Social Media”. It’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine that people feel overwhelmed and pressured by social media marketing. We talked about taking time on the front end of things to save time later. Less on the shortcut tools, and more on laying the groundwork that will keep strategies focused and relevant.

Friendly and interesting input was abundant. It was Podcamp after all.

Then Paul Bogush Blew Our Minds

It was the second to last session of the day, and the session I had tentatively picked was tucked into a corner at the end of a quiet hallway. The session stickie for “Body Talk” had not named the presenter, and only a couple of people were in the room. I was starting to question my choice, but realized I was early.

Paul Bogush walked in a few minutes later and got the session underway. Within 5 minutes I was not only NOT questioning my session choice anymore, I was feeling sorry for the rest of Podcamp for not being there. Paul was blowing our minds with rapid fire analysis of body language and what it means to networking or to the choice of photos we use on our websites. Of course I’m wildly partial to behavior hacks, but the rest of the attendees seemed pretty blown away too.

At the end of the session, I forbade Paul from attending my next session. I didn’t want him in the audience judging my body language, thank you very much. He came anyway.

So There I was…

Last session slot of the day, Paul Bogush right in my line of sight, Seth Kaye snapping photos, everyone starting to lose focus with one mental foot out the door and ready for the after-party socializing. Had I thought about any one of these things I probably would’ve thrown up, or at the very least, gotten a bad case of nervous-dry-mouth.

But I didn’t think about any of those things, and that’s the beauty of talking about something you’re passionate about at Podcamp.

I presented on The Psychological Profiles of Social Media Platforms. In other words, each social media platform has a psychological context, a certain “head space” we’re in when on that particular site. So when the audience asks, “what’s in it for me?”, they are asking from within a sub-context and knowing what that head space is matters a lot to understanding what kind of content will appeal to an audience.

My daughter found this photo hilarious. You know, irony.

And then it was over.

Well mostly, there was the after-party of course, which was great fun and I met at least 3 or 4 more people who I hadn’t met during the day’s sessions.

All in all, Podcamp 5 was an energizing, educational, and fun event. And I’ve watched that energy continue after podcamp with videos, and photos, and blog posts, and follow up phone calls and emails, and lunch dates with new friends, and even a new community on Google+.

See you next year at Podcamp!

**PHOTO CREDITS – the amazing, ever-present, ever-smiling, ever-makes-you-so-comfortable-you-forget-he’s-photographing, Seth Kaye.

Is using genetics for targeted marketing going too far?

Here’s the thing about all studies. They are biased and they are missing something they probably don’t even know they’re missing. Right now neuromarketing studies are hot . Advocates and critics go toe to toe about whether neuromarketing is a legitimate enough science that can tell us anything about buying behavior. And answering that question just brings up more contention because if we really can predict (and therefore influence) buying behavior, we start to get into ethics territory.

So Willem Verbeke’s upcoming talk on how genetics skews the neuromarketing data sufficiently enough to recommend larger samples for fMRI studies AND his suggestion that genetics could be the next factor in segmented target marketing ought to get some jaws flapping.

And you the marketer? What do you need to know about this?

1. The reason there’s no definitive buy button in the brain is precisely because of confounding factors like this.
2. Neuromarketing advice is not perfect so listen up but test things with your own audience.

What do you think of the idea of being able to target market by genetic information? Too far? Or helpful for everybody? Discuss!

Image from IvanWalsh on flickr.

What matters in what comments your audience sees?

One thing businesses obsess about is customer/audience sentiment online. Negative reviews, scathing blog posts, ugly tweets.

The question is, how much do negative vs. positive comments affect your audience? As usual, there are many variables, but a recent study offers a few clues into how variables come together to influence sentiment.

The first clue is that well-known trusted brands are less impacted by negative commentary because the recognized brand name automatically puts the audience in what the researchers call “promotion orientation” (as opposed to “prevention orientation”). The bad news is that if your business is already struggling with a poor reputation, this is likely to automatically put your audience into “prevention orientation” mode, and in turn they will be more influenced by negative commentary.

Another clue is in how much information is presented. Similar to studies that show people can only handle a small cognitive load of choices, so too can they only typically process a few brand comments, and are thus likely to rely only on a few comments and additionally will take more seriously those comments that reflect their orientation to “promotion orientation” or “prevention orientation”:

When provided with a large number of mixed commentaries, promotion- and prevention-oriented individuals were biased in expected ways, positively or negatively. Under high information loads, individuals’ processing capacity was limited so they relied on only a subset of available information to simplify the judgment process. But this changed when only a few commentaries were provided. “When information load is low, individuals have higher cognitive capacity to process inconsistent information,” the authors write.

While this is only one study, what can you take away from this?

If you’re already a strong brand, don’t spend too much time worrying about negative brand comments. Obviously it’s important to listen and respond to customer complaints, but this is probably enough to attenuate negative comments.

If you’re an unknown or struggling brand, negative comments matter more. Monitoring social media is important as well as responding in a timely manner and making responses public, as well as following up with responses by making appropriate changes internally. You can further strengthen these responses by publicly announcing changes to products, customer service, your website etc that are a result of negative feedback.

Additionally, budget priorities should go towards customer relations and gaining positive reviews that are search engine friendly.

Lastly, no matter how strong or weak your brand, remember that your audience will only process small amounts of information at a time. So when using testimonials, highlight the most important through layout and design so that your audience can quickly scan and get the “gist” from just a few testimonials.

*Photo credit: geishaboy500 

Don't they look sharp?

Neil Patel posted today on the importance of dressing for success. This is one of those pieces of advice we hear, but maybe don’t follow. Maybe we don’t follow it because we’re rebellious. Maybe it’s because we operate from that particular morality that tells us it’s not the packaging, it’s what’s inside, dammit! Maybe our clothing budget is slim and we accept that we’ll just have to work harder to wow our audience with our intellect or wit or humor. Maybe we just prefer comfort over being “buttoned up”.

But here’s the science.

Our brain is wired for “first impressions”. Literally wired to pass judgment and assess others based on only a little bit of information, and no matter how conscious we are about trying to look beyond appearances, we can’t stop our brains from engaging in this unconscious, rapid processing by which we sort people. And once it’s done, it’s hard to undo. This “halo effect” carries over into what we think about a person even after we’ve been given more information.

How we dress matters in how the brains of our prospects will categorize us. It will affect how much they’re willing to pay, how they judge the work we deliver later, and how they treat us throughout the entire process. Why settle for anything less than what we deserve by failing to accept the importance of our appearance?

Don’t Fret, You Can Still Wear T-Shirts

The good news is that this halo effect works in your favor once you’ve made a good first impression. If you dress for success in your first dealings with people, AND generally manage to give a good first impression otherwise, this will carry over so that when you later want to dress-down it won’t hurt your reputation. So, no, you won’t be a prisoner of the suit forever. (Read all of Neil Patel’s post to see this in action.)

Think in Terms of Harmony to Quell Your Inner Rebel

Still feel like dressing up is somehow a compromise of your inner rebel? That it’s shallow or fake? That you shouldn’t be judged by your clothing? Many years ago I heard an interview on Fresh Air with a teacher. Somehow it came up in the interview that this guy always dressed so well, and why did he do that? I can’t remember his reply word for word, but essentially he expressed that he believed that dressing well allowed everyone else to feel at ease – it created a certain harmony and reduced friction so that the more important work could be gotten to more quickly.

That stuck with me. What a good way to think about it. So if you want to do good work, dressing for success is just one way to remove obstacles from your path.

What do you think?

Clarity is a beautiful thing.

For those of you that follow this blog and my Twitter stream, I’ve been conspicuously silent for a couple of months now (well, except for that whole IRENE business). At first I thought maybe I was suffering from social media burn-out. I just didn’t feel like playing in that space. But I’ve come to realize it was much more than that.

When I started Verilliance I had been working in web marketing for several years, but missing my true passion of neuroscience and human behavior. Sure, conversion rate optimization, writing copy, and even design all touch on human behavior – how could they not? But I’m a science geek, and that part was lacking for me. So when I stumbled into the nascent field of neuromarketing, it was like hitting the jackpot on a slot machine. A science for marketing with BRAINS! I was excited about writing this blog, thrilled to be reading scientific articles about decision science and neuromarketing studies and then translating them for marketers and business owners.

And people were excited to read about it and discuss it.

So What’s the Problem?

It wasn’t enough. That initial excitement wore off because there were still some important pieces missing. I needed to step back and let the quiet in so I could make sense of what was still missing. Marketing alone wasn’t enough, I knew that. Neuromarketing satisfied my need for science, and yet somehow? Still not enough.

I started thinking about how both leave a bit of a bad taste in some people’s mouths. “Marketing” has become synonymous with sleaze and greed and selling us things we don’t need. And neuromarketing? When people (who are NOT in marketing) hear the word for the first time they go running for their tin-foil hats and eye me suspiciously from the other side of the room.

Until they hear me speak passionately about the potentials here, that is.

And there were my clues. What was I saying when I had the opportunity to expand with someone one-on-one? I was talking about all the potentials. See, what drives my interest in understanding behavior, or even understanding marketing, is that the way I see it, the better we understand those things, the easier it becomes to create win-win-win situations where quality of life can be improved for everyone. Ways of life that generate more health, more energy, more genuine personal contentment and joy.

“Marketing” isn’t a dirty word. We market all the time. Children market propositions to their parents for favors or things. Teachers market subject matter to children to get them interested enough to absorb and recall. We “market” ourselves to potential mates by putting our best foot forward on a first date. Marketing is a form of presentation and communication, and we all have to engage in no small amount of it in our day to day lives. Yet because well-done marketing is so effective, there’s a vulnerability to manipulation inherent. Manipulation is the dirty word here, not marketing, and it all comes down to intent.

When you go on that first date, are you really putting your best foot forward? Or are you, in fact, presenting yourself as someone you’re not? The difference can look subtle, but the reality of that difference is profound. And when I was taking time “in the quiet” to wrap my head around those differences, and what intersections of potential I want to find myself in, what it is I want to do with this blog, with my knowledge, with my time and energy, with my LIFE began to come into sharp focus.

Getting Clear on My Intent

I DO want to help people understand human behavior from the data of the various sciences that give us insight. I DO want to help people take that information and turn it into action to better “market” their goods and services. But WHO I want to help, and WHY and HOW is this.

• Every “good people” business struggling to gain traction against stiff competition with loose morals.
• Social Entrepreneurs and green businesses and Triple-Bottom-Line businesses and non-profits and activists and artists and inventors who aim to bring sane solutions to this mad-mad world.
• ESPECIALLY any of those above who get squeamish about “marketing” – THOSE are the people who most need to get it that understanding how people think and prioritize and make decisions MATTERS to how they construct their message. You can’t make change if you can’t REACH people.

PEOPLE, my point is this. There is massive potential to use these insights for both personal and far-reaching good.

Imagine With Me

Imagine how combining the power of insight from marketing, neuromarketing, behavioral economics, psychology, evolutionary sciences, neuroeconomics, and other such disciplines can be combined to:

• Help those who the world MOST needs to market themselves to do so successfully.
• Create paradigm shifts in who we consider our modern-day heroes.
• Create paradigm shifts in how people prioritize their spending.
• Create and market products that actually DO improve quality of life for people.
• Convince policy makers to pay attention to the things that REALLY MATTER for quality of life.
• Create far more effective campaigns to end human rights violations.
• “Nudge” people towards better behaviors for their own personal health and well-being and beyond.
• Combine technologies to come up with ways to rapidly improve brain function and well-being – like using the rapid technology advances of market-driven neuromarketing to intersect with brain treatments or even improvements.
• Make environmentally responsible products more desirable than toxic ones.
• Make healthy food more desirable than “bad” foods.
• Create a more sustainable economy.
• Enlighten the general public how their brain, wired for a very different lifestyle, can be vulnerable to certain not-so-good habits, and how to overcome that.

The list is nearly endless. The details of how are all right there in the data. Not all that much is going to change in the way I write the blog or what I talk about, but I needed this clarity to focus and drive the content. How about you? Are you clear on what you’re doing and why? Tell me about it in the comments.

Will the lizard live? Depends on how he says it.

How many times a day do you need to sway someone to your point of view, or get them to do something you want them to do? How you say it can make all the difference according to a team of scientists at University of Michigan. Speed, pitch, number of pauses – the team has narrowed down possible optimal levels for each by studying the speech patterns of calls made by 100 male and female interviewers seeking participation in a survey. The team analyzed 1,380 introductory calls and then correlated data with the success rate of each interviewer.

The Findings

Speed – Not too fast, not too slow allows the listener to comprehend what you’re saying without getting bored, and growing suspicious of your intentions because you’re “talking too fast”, a tactic used to confuse the listener. Want to fall in the optimum range? Try 3.5 words per second.

Pitch – The scientists predicted that “animated” speech with lots of variation in pitch would be more successfully persuasive, but it turns out there was no correlation. They suspect that in some cases too much variation might seem fake. Men with higher voices has slightly lower success rates, but there was no measurable difference for women based on how high or low their natural voice was.

Pauses – Interviewers who were “perfectly fluent”, meaning there were no discernable pauses in their speech, had lower success rates than their pausing counterparts. And even though too many pauses in speech is considered “disfluent”, even those disfluent speakers had higher success rates than the “perfectly fluent” interviewers.

Practice “Right” Speech, or Practice “Right Speech”?

Now you have some insights into how to make your talks, your sales calls, and your pitches more persuasive. You can run and grab your digital recorder and practice getting it just right. But the way I see it, what this study really reveals is that effectively persuasive speech is really what we do naturally when we are speaking from the right place — an orientation of being honest, fair, and believing in what we’re saying. So my advice? Believe in what you’re saying.

What do you think? How much time and effort should be spent on practicing the individual elements versus working on confidence that stems from being genuine?

What beer comes to mind?

Imagine yourself sitting in a lounge chair on a white-sand beach. The sound of relaxed laughter and merriment comes from behind you. It’s hot but you’re kept cool by a mellow breeze and the cold, light refreshing beer you’re drinking. What beer comes to mind? Was it Corona?

Brand Focus vs. Broad Brands

According to a recent study, brands like Corona that define their brand with narrow associations do better than brands that try to be too many things to too many people.

Lars Erling Olsen conducted a series of experiments to test narrow vs. broad branding strategies at BI Norwegian Business School. He found that the more narrow the associations around a brand, the greater the recall, and the stronger the intent to purchase became. Additionally, Lars found that narrowly associated brands prompted greater brand loyalty and the more likely it was for the subjects to reject “new” brands introduced. Finally, narrow brands fared better when introducing an expanded product line. What Olsen calls, “success in both defense and growth scenarios”.

Specificity and Consistency Wins the Race

As you build your business, personal, or organization brand, resist the urge to be “more”. The fear to “miss out” on opportunities can drive branding in the wrong direction, leading to a diluted message and a forgettable brand that forges weak loyalty bonds at best. Stay focused, stay consistent, and build your brand  on a strong, but narrow pillar of associations

I’ve mentioned Nudge Theory before, and the book, Nudge by Thaler and Sunstein, is well worth reading. Last year Volkswagon launched TheFunTheory.com, an initiative that builds on the principles of nudge theory to influence behavior towards healthy or positive actions through the use of FUN. Check out the site. There’s a garbage can in a park with sound effects, a video game glass recycling machine, a “speed trap” lottery that awards law-abiding drivers with prizes, and more. My favorite is the piano staircase (shared with me by @ValNelson).

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw

If more businesses and the government were to follow the lead here and make taking care of ourselves, each other, and the planet both fun and cool, imagine the progress we could make.

Have you seen more examples of “nudge”? Let me know in comments.

There must be better ways to design networking.

After getting off the phone with Dr. Stephen Sands of Sands Research (stay tuned for a post on that interview), I hopped on Twitter to announce how much I love what I’m doing right now. I noticed #smchat was in progress and jumped in for the last 15 minutes. The topic was Realtime Trends for Conferences focused on how to make conferences more appealing through social sharing (transcript here).

There was some lamenting over waning interest in live attendance of conferences as content is shared in near real-time through social media channels. Others responded by pointing out the importance of face to face networking, and that got my neurons firing. I asked @thehealthmaven what the tipping point would be for her to attend a conference for the networking opportunities and she said, “business opportunity is the tipping point…hands down..that ROI just has to be there for me”.

What Needs to Change? Conference Networking Design

In an age of free-flowing content, if conferences want to lure business folks away from their desk, give up valuable production hours, and cough up registration, lodging and travel fees, networking opportunities need to be front and center, but they also need to be revamped and intentionally designed with human factors in mind (hat tip to Dr. Sands for the inspiration…it will all be revealed in the interview post).

We hear about the importance of networking, but do conferences take an active role in ensuring that networking opportunities are designed to be easy, pleasurable, and potently effective? No, they rely on old stand-bys of throwing some parties and naming them “networking events” where “enjoyable” and “ease” factors are sometimes left up to alchohol. Here’s the not so startling newsflash. These events work best for extroverts, only a small percentage of any given group. That leaves a lot of poor souls with dry mouths and anxiety, and if they walk away from an event with 10 business cards they then have to follow up. Does that sound like a situation that is promising enough for someone like @thehealthmaven to feel confident she’ll see some real ROI?

Think Outside the Box and Design for Human Factors

It’s time for conference organizers to think outside the box (like Tonia Ries does) on networking, designed with human nature in mind. Events that reduce anxiety, that facilitate putting the right people together, and have opportunities for interaction built in. If the real value of a conference is the networking, than ensure its value.

Think speed-networking events, like speed-dating, only for business relationships, not romantic ones. Divide people into two groups based on “need” and “service”. For example, businesses that are interested in expanding or creating a social media program are matched by a group of strategists and consulting, and the the speed networking begins. But businesses don’t want a bunch of follow-up calls from people they don’t want to “date” so further contact is left on the business side.

Think a large room of round-table discussions with each table having a variation on a topic, and folks play a form of musical chairs. 10 minutes the music starts to play and folks have to find a new table before the music stops. Find a way to make those discussions actionable for folks and allow for people’s best skills to shine.

Think of creating like-mind, like-size, like-skills networking rooms or areas. The “Triple Bottom Line” networking lounge for people interested in people, planet, profit. The networking lounge for introverts. The networking lounge for [fill in the blank]. Create smaller common grounds so people walk in already knowing their among “their” people.

Think about dedicated Twitter “mentioners”. Someone at every networking event and vendor booth tweeting about the people there. Like,

“At networking lounge for introverts and @verilliance is in passionate conversation with so-and-so about marketing and brain science”

OR

“@verilliance is trying out our new user interface and just said “cool beans”, haha! Who says that?”

Tweet the little names, the middle names, not just the big names so that folks know if they talk to someone they’re going to get a shout-out.

So there you are, a few of many possibilities to make that “networking” aspect of conferences a much stronger pull so we can keep the face to face alive and well.

What are your ideas?