The Science of Communicating & Marketing Your Business

I have to admit I'm having fun with the titles on this one.

The title of the presentation was "Whispering to Be Heard: The Art and Science of Buzz Marketing" and dealt with

• TS Eliot,
• Ezekiel discovering that the limit of his knowledge isn't the limit of what is knowable,
• How to have fun with beehives and the people inside them
• and Mighty Mouse

Like the pilgrim who discovers there's more information beyond what he knew existed, we begin to wonder (at least you begin to wonder these things if you work at NextStage) "What are we searching for?"

It turns out there's a limit, a ceiling if you will, to the amount of information people are able to respond to at any given point in time. This is based on the brain's design more than anything else.

You don't throw out 10 million years of evolutionary adaptation because your species has been sitting in front of computers for the past ten years.

The answer to this has to do with an understanding of how language influences belief. Some call this the "Information" Age. Is that because there's more information in our environment than there ever was before or because the method of information interaction has changed from sought to delivered?

We use to seek information because it meant our survival. We needed to know if there were predators out there, be they dangerous animals or thieves and the brain-mind still has that wiring. It isn't about to give it up, it simply puts it to different use.

And like our ancestors who learned to pay attention to only certain movements in the grass and certain shadows in the darkness we're learning to pay attention to only certain sources of information.

So what are the three primary things we are searching for in our information sources?

What Are We Searching For?

• Truth – I don’t have to agree, I have to believe
• Meaning – Explain it so I can understand it
• Wisdom – I won’t have to work as hard to survive

There's so much information out there we want to know that someone can be trusted, to be our friend and guide even when we don't like what they share.

In short, we're looking for our shamans, our priest-kings, our heroes and guides. Those of you who are familiar with my background, training and education may appreciate how amusing this was when we discovered it.

Then what?

Once someone has gotten me to the edge of information I need to have it explained to me. Like The Moody Blues' "In the Beginning", "I'm more than that, I know that I am", and as Frankl and Maslow wrote and as every cognitive scientist and psycholinguist is discovering, humans will search for meaning until they find it. They will apply meaning from their own experience if no other meaning is supplied to them.

And what do we realize about lifting the veil from our own eyes?

That all our information and all our knowledge may not be meet for the challenges ahead. We seek the wisdom to apply the information, the wisdom to understand the meaning.

And this brings us right back to TS Eliot; Where is the Wisdom we have lost in Knowledge? Where is the Knowledge we have lost in Information?

Next up, Beehive the icebox, there's a sheet of glass.

Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.

Links for this post:

• Society for New Communications Research
• NewComm Forum 2008

• Know How Someone Is Thinking in 10 Seconds or Less Half-day training at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, 13 June 08

• International Communication Association's Communicating for Social Impact, the 58th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association at Le Centre Sheraton Hotel, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, May 22-26, 2008
• SUNY Marketing Professionals Conference at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, 11-13 June 08

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