Entries Tagged 'People' ↓

Each week, I get to read the Monday Morning Memo from Roy H. Williams and think a bit outside of my box. Often the memo is interesting, and sometimes it is so relevant that I feel beat about the head neck and chest area with the insights.

Today’s memo was full of insight, but the extra nugget in the rabbit hole held something even more powerful. The new idea is that if you trigger adrenaline you impact the brain and enable learning to happen faster. Roy writes:

“The adrenaline of emotion is the key to teaching, training, and branding. Long-term, automatic recall can’t be created without it.

Give people joy when you can. Make them curious if possible. But the only thing worse than ads which anger the public are ads that bore them blind.”

The same can be said for analysis, stories, actionable recommendations, or messages that you want people to remember - trigger emotions to aid in procedural memory.

You have spent hours on data collection, building reports, and analyzing data, but if you don’t answer the question “So What?” for your audience then you have wasted everyone’s time – including your own.

I had a great conversation with Bob Page during lunch the last day of Emetrics. We were talking about the presentations and what we could take back and put into action.

Bob challenged me with the “So What?” test.

Most analysts are challenged with the “So What?” test either by providing actionable recommendations, or delivering web insights. The “So What?” test is a great litmus test for your analysis. “So What?” puts the perspective of your analysis in the right place – in the minds of the people who are hearing your recommendations.

Why should your audience read the email, PowerPoint, or attend the meeting? Why should they prioritize your recommendations over all the other tasks they have to do? What is in it for them?

Future Now created the We We Calculator to analyze the perception that your website is creating for your visitors – as analysts we don’t have such a tool (yet).

But here are three tips to help your insights and recommendations pass the “So What?” test:

1. Motivate: Take a few minutes and think about what motivates your audience. Do they have specific goals they need to achieve? If so, how does your data, analysis, and insight relate to those goals? Lead with that and they might follow.

2. Activate: What action do you want to generate from the analysis? Does your data support the action that you are recommending? What are the three data points that suggest that this is the right action? Help your audience understand the action and why they should prioritize it over other tasks.

3. Complete: Your recommendation is only a suggested starting point. If you help your audience complete the recommendation in their mind, then they can understand the impact relative to their other priorities. Help your audience visualize what success will look like. Help them “see” the benefits of your recommendations.

For me, the Emetrics passed the “So What?” test with flying colors – I have more ideas for web tests, and more contact with sources of interesting thinking that helps push ideas around in my head.

Jim Sterne and Matt Finley did it again.  The Palace hotel in San Francisco was the site of the West Coast US Emetrics event.  Over 500 people were in attendance, including practitioners, vendors, consultants and even a cultural anthropologist named Joseph Carrabis.

Joseph is Jim Sterne’s web analyst.  He took a look at Jim’s site, made changes to it and came prepared to talk about the results.

Joseph’s presentation was one of the most interesting.  In other presentations, I look for the one thing that I can take back and apply right away.  Joseph shared insights about how people’s brains are wired – nothing about web analytics just optimization for brains.  His main point was that 85% of communication is non-verbal and we perceive things subconsciously that affect our consciousness.

Two of my favorite points:

1. Left Face Front – You are more likely to like/trust someone when they present the left side of their face.  This works both in-person and in a picture on a website.

2. Left vs. Right Navigation – Navigation on the left hand side forces the visitor to pick the least painful path.  Navigation on the right hand side enables the visitor to pick the most enjoyable path.  (If you test this, please comment on your results.)

Joseph ran out of time around slide 10. When he asked the audience what he should focus on, everyone yelled that we wanted it all….go over the time and continue.  Joseph went an additional 30 Minutes over for an enjoyable hour and a half. 

I felt like I had just seen Bryan Eisenberg for the very first time. 

Everyone had similar reactions about the content.  It was mind opening, new to me, crazy in a good way, and well received. If you get a chance to see Joseph speak, head for the room and pick a seat up front. 

He also has another (#23) book coming out that looks interesting – Reading Virtual Minds.  There are excerpts available here.