Tag: communication

Touch it, feel it

Do No Comments

People like to get their hands on things. It’s why you see so many “do not touch” signs in shops. It’s why my children walked up to an Andy Warhol exhibit in a New York museum, fingers ready to jab (until restrained by dad to the relief of wide-eyed curators).

elephants

We are tactile creatures. It’s a big part of how we understand our surroundings, how we sense the world, how we relate to things and to each other.

These elephants in Trafalgar Square are some of 250 in London at the moment. Each decorated by a different artist or celebrity, the aim is to raise money to safeguard elephant populations worldwide.

Everyone wants to stroke them, to make contact with them. The models bring the cause to life.

Maybe you have a project or an idea that you want people to understand, to connect with or get behind? Why not make a model of it, a sculpture or some sort of object?

Bring your cause to life and see how people react.

Tags: ,

Got the message?

Do No Comments

The election is on and the campaigning has started. All the parties are keen to get their message across in the hope that we’ll vote for them.

Are we listening? Do we really take in what they have to say? Is the steady stream of ‘communication’ having any effect on what we think? Or what we will do on May 6th?

This is the common challenge of persuasion – how do you know that people have heard you, that you’re changing minds, getting them to act on what you tell them?

There are four stages to go through:

– they have to take in the information you’re giving them
– they have to understand what that information means
– they have to work through how it applies to them
– they have to act as a result of that.

How do you test each stage?

– ask them to replay back what you’ve told them in their own words (receiving)
– get them to explain to others what it means (understanding)
– challenge them to say how things will be different (believing)
– hold the mirror up to their language/behaviours/work/voting/etc (acting)

Whatever your own campaign is, you can use these too.

Tags: , , , ,

Showing your emoticons

Reflect No Comments

Emoticons  – love them or loathe them?  🙂

Or 🙁 teenage-esque attempts by older folk to look hip and happening – sad!

Or part of the growing lexicon of 21C communicators – indicating mood and manners in cyberspace.

You choose :O or 😐

Tags: , , ,

Phil's Blog

Sign up for Phil’s regular blog.

Email: phil.hadridge@idenk.com