data Archives - CommStorm

In business we look at the information we gather from things like surveys, buying habits, polls and online activity to learn preferences, find trends and spot opportunities. The information we gather acts as building blocks for everything from marketing campaigns to product development, but I sometimes wonder if we are outsmarting ourselves. All of the data in the world isn’t going to deliver results if we aren’t also employing an effective strategy or if you prefer, creative thinking to our actions.

A few years ago Kathleen Wynne, the former premier of Ontario, participated in Reddit’s AMA (Ask Me Anything) forum. No doubt she was attempting to get in touch with a younger demographic and take advantage of a popular social media channel to do it. The data said that the medium would not only put her in touch with the right audience but it’s “hip” factor might also give her a boost in the polls. The audience and the medium were right – the challenge, of course, was the message.

Ms. Wynne’s team understood the popularity of the medium but seemed to miss the mark on the nature of it. Rather than embracing the “ask me anything” forum and the consequent, “answer everything” that it implied, Ms. Wynne delivered prepared answers or no answers at all. Participants were unimpressed. The event consequently had the opposite effect from what was intended. To put it succinctly, the Reddit engagement was a fail. But then anyone who has actually been on Reddit could have told the planners that it was the wrong place to be if you weren’t comfortable in being completely open (and possibly embarrassing yourself). Not exactly the inclination of politicians of any stripe.

Data is a tool; it cannot replace careful strategy, thoughtful engagement or a creative approach to solving communications challenges. You can achieve amazing numbers on your “Twitter feed” and thousands of “likes” on your Facebook account and still see no appreciable difference in sales if you are not also thinking about the wants and needs of your clients. If all you want is “likes” on your Facebook account, run contests with good prizes, buy Google and Facebook ads, engage popular bloggers to review and promote your services or products. Change it up and do it again. But if you want to get people engaged on your issue or invested in your products or services, then you’re going to have to be more strategic.

1. Expose Yourself to New Thinking: Read, listen and engage in conversations that are outside of your field. Ideas that are tried and true in one area are often fodder for new discoveries in another. Multitasking is actually quite useful in this instance. When you are working on different projects your mind is obliged to shift gears frequently, keeping it active, but it also means that the thinking you apply to solve problems in one area may lend you additional strength to solve problems in another.

2. Take The Unexpected Seriously: When strange or unanticipated outcomes occur, investigate them. Find out why they happened. For example, when retailers realized that their shopper profiling data was having an unexpected negative impact, they investigated and found that their coupons and targeted ads were so accurate they actually creeped out shoppers. Rather than making shoppers feel that their needs were being addressed, they made them feel as though their privacy was being violated. To reduce the creep factor retailers began to introduce unrelated content. For example, new moms would get coupons for diapers and other baby paraphernalia, but they would also get lawnmower ads and tire specials. This made the coupons useful, but also feel less personally directed.

3. Learn From Success: Seek out and work with people who are doing good things or have been successful in the past. Study their methods and determine if their approach can be used to achieve successful results for you. The Pancreatic Cancer Action organization recently ran an ad campaign with the tagline, “I wish I had breast cancer.” Understandably the ad generated a fair bit of outrage and shock. It also garnered an unprecedented amount of attention towards pancreatic cancer that resulted in the head of the organization giving numerous interviews in the UK, U.S. and Canada. In those interviews, the issues facing those with the disease were discussed at length. Similar shock approaches were used in the early days of Aids research and consequently generated millions of dollars in research.

4. Take Advantage of Existing Opportunities: When the cashier at Mac Donald’s asks you if you would like fries with your order, that’s a perfect example of taking advantage of an existing opportunity. A similar approach would be looking to existing clients to expand business opportunities.

5. Turn a Negative into a Positive: In December of 2011, Alec Baldwin was removed from an American Airlines flight after he refused to stop playing a game. The flight was delayed and significant coverage followed. Baldwin could have apologized to the airline for causing the flight to be delayed, but he took a different approach. Shortly after the event and amid the media stories he appeared on Saturday Night Live and posed as the pilot of the flight. In that guise, he delivered an apology to himself and a humorous and mocking skit that garnered him praise for being a savvy PR pro. The skit also made American Airlines look petty and foolish.

Keep in mind that being creative or strategic is an act of will. There are no quick and easy answers. Creative people work at it. They think hard and try out ideas, hundreds of them if not more before they hit upon those that work.

Have you ever stumbled upon a great idea in an unexpected place? How do you get yourself into a strategic frame of mind?

Ever wonder how great presenters get to be great? While what they are presenting is important, how they present it and what considerations they give to the environment they are presenting in is equally important.

In a recent post I marvelled at how data could actually get in the way of strategic thinking. It isn’t a question of how accurate the data is, though that of course that matters, but even the best data can be overwhelmed by the state of mind of your audience, your own mindset and how you choose to share data.

It is difficult to be persuasive when your body is closed or unfriendly. I explore those challenges in my post, Body Language – Managing You So You Can Deliver Your Message. Even when we physically present a positive demeanour our tone can change how information is received. A grating tone can have a disruptive effect and a soothing tone can create interest.

A few years ago on a Saturday afternoon I was lazing around the house with the TV on when I found myself following along with avid attention to a documentary. I was more than twenty minutes into the program when I had to ask myself, “Since when did you have any interest in cartography?”

I like a good map as much as anyone, but the history of map making would never have made my top ten TV list, not even my top fifty, yet there I was mesmerized. It was at that point that I realized that the narrator was Patrick Stewart. Being a fan of Star Trek I had always enjoyed his voice and that enjoyment was all that was required to get me to enjoy the making of maps.

Tone is so influential to how information is received that even if you deliver the identical words, if you change where you place emphases, you can change the meaning. One of my favourite exercises to illustrate how the identical words can have multiple meanings is the following sentence.

“I didn’t say she stole my money.”

If you place the emphasis on different words in the sentence you can get at least 7 different meanings.

I didn’t say she stole my money – someone else said it.

I didn’t say she stole my money – I didn’t say it.

I didn’t say she stole my money – I only implied it.

I didn’t say she stole my money – I said someone did, not necessarily her.

I didn’t say she stole my money – I considered it borrowed, even though she didn’t ask.

I didn’t say she stole my money – only that she stole money.

I didn’t say she stole my money – she stole things that cost me money to replace.

If a sentence this supposedly straight forward can change meaning depending on which word we emphasize, is it any wonder that even the most influential data can be misinterpreted based on emphasis?

To further complicate things we have the audience’s emotions to take into consideration. Were they anticipating the information? Are they vested in the outcome? Do they even understand why you are sharing the information? Just because the connection between your data and their interests are obvious to you, doesn’t mean they are obvious to your audience.

The mood of your audience can also have a tremendous impact. If they are tired because it’s mid afternoon on a busy day, you may want to have them do some stretches before beginning. If they are angry it can have a whole host of consequences. Angry people take shortcuts in their thinking and are more likely to blame people rather than a situation for outcomes. Anger will influence how information is perceived and what actions follow as a consequence. In one study conducted at the University of Illinois (Jennifer S. Lerner) and UC Berkeley (Julie H. Goldberg of and Philip E. Tetlock) noted that people who watched an anger-inducing video were more punitive toward defendants in a series of unrelated fictional tort cases involving negligence and injury than were people who had seen a neutral video. The exceptions to the rule were in those cases where they were told that not only would they be held accountable for their decisions but they would be asked to explain their decisions to an expert.

This gives us a good glimpse into best practices when sharing data, which is having the audience have a sense of responsibility about the outcome or a vested interest in the outcome. Letting them know exactly why you feel the information is relevant to them and telling them that you will ask a few questions at the end to get their opinions on the findings is a good way to ensure that they will do more than daydream while you present. If you can associate a sense of accountability with how they manage the decisions as an outcome, you will also produce more thoughtful contemplation of the data.

Finally we come to the data itself. Whether you use PowerPoint, Prezi, video or Skype can influence your audience’s reception of your materials. Some people actually feel nauseous when they watch the movement of a Prezi presentation while others want to curl up and go to sleep at the first signs of a PowerPoint. Whichever vehicle you choose, make sure that that you are not overloading your presentation with data. Next week I will explore common pitfalls in showcasing data including when Prezi can outshine PowerPoint.

What about you? Have you ever had a presentation, pitch or a meeting take a strange turn because of how data was viewed? Have you ever found yourself captivated by the delivery style of a presenter?

First image courtesy of Pakorn/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Tag Archives: data

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