the bulletin board

» The multitasking myth

Don’t believe all that multitasking hype: studies have shown that the human mind is wired to pay attention to one thing at a time. What we can do well is rapidly shift between things, like clicking a remote control to change channels. If you’re interested in this area, read this article from The Huffington Post: People who are multitasking are often bad at it or this one from National Public Radio: Think you’re multitasking? Think again. This article from The Daily Mail says there are negative consequences and even has tips for multitasking “if you must:” Is multi-tasking bad for your brain? Experts reveal the hidden perils of juggling too many jobs. Of related interest is The benefits of distraction from New York magazine.

» Below the radar: stories about subliminal

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately about how tapping into the unconscious mind is the next big thing in marketing, thus the emerging term ‘neuromarketing.’ This reminded me about subliminal advertising, which going back to the 1950s has been a controversial and disputed means of persuasion (e.g. subliminal images are shown so briefly that the viewer does not consciously ’see’ them). Every now and then, I stumble upon an article about this area and here are two recent ones:

• Subliminal cues do work after all, says study: when subliminal advertising first came to the forefront during the ‘red scare’ 1950s era, people were afraid that the Soviet Union could use such surreptitious techniques to brainwash the public into supporting Communism. Later they were reassured when the results of a much-publicized study turned out to have been falsified. Now, however, with the benefit of MRI ‘brain scan’ technology, there is new evidence that “provided they were reinforced with simultaneous rewards, subliminal advertising could probably influence some of the choices we make.”
• Subliminal messages work best when negative: so finds a study conducted by University College London, whose Professor Lavie says that “We have shown that people can perceive the emotional value of subliminal messages and have demonstrated conclusively that people are much more attuned to negative words.” She added: “More controversially, highlighting a competitor’s negative qualities may work on a subliminal level much more effectively than shouting about your own selling points.”

Hopefully this will not give too much succor to those who advocate negative advertising in politics. ‘Effective’ or not in winning elections, I think ‘going negative’ makes our increasingly fragile democratic institutions a loser by increasing cynicism and discouraging citizen participation.

» Why we learn more from success than failure

According to this article in Science Daily, if you’ve ever felt doomed to repeat your mistakes, researchers at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory may have explained why: brain cells may only learn from experience when we do something right and not when we fail. If so, then no wonder we need to work harder at learning from our mistakes and applying the resulting wisdom to continuous improvement.

» Public speaking techniques

Here’s a BBC News Magazine piece that contains some interesting background on what constitutes public speaking success, together with useful techniques for speech-making, such as:

• using three part lists
• creating contrasts
• drawing ‘word picture’ imagery

If you are into oratory, check out this piece about how Great communicators are great explainers.

» 25 moonshots for management

While it is probably better now than it ever has been during my 20 year career, the quality of management in the public relations industry can still sometimes be depressingly mediocre. I hope that PR executives dedicated to continuous improvement in their leadership offer will read this superb article listing ten compelling ‘management 2.0′ concepts plus this follow-on piece outlining fifteen more.

» How to avoid choking under pressure

Even though I love public speaking and have delivered hundreds of speeches and presentations over the years, I am not immune to ‘podium pressures’ and thus found this Scientific American article on how to avoid choking under pressure a relevant resource in preparing for the most effective platform presence.

» The contradiction of charisma

A new theory of charisma in this Boston Globe article: “[It] is the power of apparently effortless embodiment of contradictory qualities simultaneously: strength and vulnerability, innocence and experience, and singularity and typicality among them.”

» Which is more persuasive: time or money?

This article in the Inside Influence Report produced by Dr. Robert Cialdini’s organization outlines the results of a new persuasion study which should especially interest PR people (as their product is professional time to which the market assigns a monetary value):

• “A survey of the recent issues of four popular, high circulation magazines (New Yorker, Cosmopolitan, Money and Rolling Stone) revealed that out of a total of some 300 advertisements almost half employed a reference to time or money in their message. But does mentioning time or money influence peoples’ evaluation of the product or service concerned? And if they do which is more persuasive – time or money?”
• “These [study] results…suggest that irrespective of the amount of money an individual might spend on a product…making references to time can influence people’s perception of a product’s attributes. Therefore it would seem to sense to initially include references to time rather than money when influencing others to consider your offers and proposals.”

» The surprising ways that metaphors shape your world

This article from the The Boston Globe says that:

• “Drawing on philosophy and linguistics, cognitive scientists have begun to see the basic metaphors that we use all the time not just as turns of phrase, but as keys to the structure of thought.”
• “By taking these everyday metaphors as literally as possible, psychologists are upending traditional ideas of how we learn, reason, and make sense of the world around us. The result has been a torrent of research testing the links between metaphors and their physical roots.”
• “To the extent that metaphors reveal how we think, they also suggest ways that physical manipulation might be used to shape our thought.”
• “While psychologists have thus far been primarily interested in using such manipulations simply to tease out an observable effect, there’s no reason that they couldn’t be put to other uses as well, by marketers, architects, teachers, parents, and litigators, among others.”

Indeed; these days, there’s a lot of thinking being done in the area of ‘conversation communication’ and ‘digital storytelling.’ Where the two meet allows persuasion marketers to tap into PR applications for metaphors, which are said to be the keys to unlocking the power of the unconscious mind, the place where most decision-making takes place.

» Speak first to avoid persistent myths

This Washington Post article contains conclusions that PR professionals, journalists and an informed public need to know about what they consume from the media. For example:

• “The research also highlights the disturbing reality that once an idea has been implanted in people’s minds, it can be difficult to dislodge.”
• “Denials inherently require repeating the bad information, which may be one reason they can paradoxically reinforce it. Indeed, repetition seems to be a key culprit. Things that are repeated often become more accessible in memory, and one of the brain’s subconscious rules of thumb is that easily recalled things are true.”
• “Many easily remembered things, in fact, such as one’s birthday or a pet’s name, are indeed true. But someone trying to manipulate public opinion can take advantage of this aspect of brain functioning. In politics and elsewhere, this means that whoever makes the first assertion about something has a large advantage over everyone who denies it later.”
• “Furthermore, a new experiment by Kimberlee Weaver at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and others shows that hearing the same thing over and over again from one source can have the same effect as hearing that thing from many different people — the brain gets tricked into thinking it has heard a piece of information from multiple, independent sources, even when it has not.”

» Five ethical deficits for executives to address

I liked this article in the November 23rd edition of The Globe and Mail so much, I took out a pair of scissors and did my first manual media clipping in years. It’s about key areas of executive ethics where more development is needed, especially with social behavior changing during these times of rapid technological advance.

» The ‘Art of Now’ in an era of distraction

This article contains some useful tips for living in the present moment to make sense of life at a time when so many stimuli compete for our attention.

» Social networks and happiness

Birds of a feather flock together, says this interesting article which contends that happy and unhappy people tend to be connected with each other online. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

» Authority versus persuasion

Managers often face a choice between authority and persuasion, says this HBS working paper.

» PR secrets for NGOs

Here’s a ‘do it yourself’ guide to communications produced for NGOs – an excellent list of the ingredients to the ‘PR sauce’. It’s the latest release of PR’s ‘code’ to the wider public. As knowledge spreads, can price levels be sustained?

» Cialdini: the modern-day Dale Carnegie

Every PR pro should read Harnessing the science of persuasion with its “six principles of winning friends and influencing people.”

» My first blog: “PRoverbial”

Here’s an audio interview conducted via Skype from Tokyo by the illustrious Jonathan Hoel in Melbourne, who then hosted the PR Junction Podcast: PR Junction Podcast with Jon Hoel. The topics included my old Edelman Japan blog “PRoverbial” plus the PR scene in the world’s second largest economy.

articles of interest