January 6, 2005

brain stuff

5 Comments

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Inte­res­ting stuff from Kathy at Hea­drush. Her day job inc­lu­des wri­ting books on brain beha­vior:

When you lec­ture or write using con­ver­sa­tio­nal lan­guage, your user’s brain thinks it’s in a REAL con­ver­sa­tion!
In other words, if you use con­ver­sa­tio­nal lan­guage, the listener/reader’s brain still thinks it has to hold up its end, so it pays more atten­tion. It really is that sim­ple, and that power­ful (at least if you really want to help users pay atten­tion and remem­ber your message).

and

If you’re using for­mal lan­guage in a lec­ture, lear­ning book (or mar­ke­ting mes­sage, for that mat­ter), you’re worr­ying about how peo­ple per­ceive YOU. If you’re thin­king only about the USERS, on the other hand, you’re pro­bably using more con­ver­sa­tio­nal language.

Which is why most mar­ke­tings­peak is so utterly dread­ful. Tech­ni­cally, it’s trying to sell you something. Non-technically, it’s telling you to go fuck yourself.

5 Responses to “brain stuff”

  1. Chris Campbell says:
    January 6, 2005 at 3:12 am

    Thanks for poin­ting to this. I don’t think that most peo­ple even hear mar­ke­tings­peak now as it’s clas­si­fied as noise and we seek out the human and per­so­nal and direct. I want to talk with someone and not be tal­ked at. With mar­ke­tings­peak we’ve been bur­ned so many times we’re won­de­ring how they’re trying to rip us off again and not how they’re trying to help us.

  2. dshupp says:
    January 6, 2005 at 5:05 am

    No rea­son to res­trict this to mar­ke­ting. This idea applies to every busi­ness. Even if you’re using tech­ni­cal lan­guage, nothing beats a con­ver­sa­tio­nal style and a bit of empathy for the reader/listener

  3. Johnnie Moore's Weblog says:
    January 7, 2005 at 10:55 am

    Tal­king straight

    Thanks to Hugh for high­ligh­ting this insight from Kathy at Hea­drush: Your user’s brain wants a conversation:When you lec­ture or write using con­ver­sa­tio­nal lan­guage, your user’s brain thinks it’s in a REAL con­ver­sa­tion! In other words, if you use conver…

  4. SEO Book.com says:
    January 7, 2005 at 1:05 pm

    It’s Bru­tal to be…

    Mixed up post… Mar­qui hired an SEO firm that wrote a somewhat subs­tan­dard white paper for them which Robin Good tore apart. At the Con­su­mer Elec­tro­nics Show Bill Gates saw the blue screen of death. Tuc­ker Carl­son (from Cross­fire) was fired by CNN.

  5. Working Pathways, LLC says:
    April 28, 2005 at 8:13 am

    Real Voi­ces Not Mar­ke­ting Voices

    It’s been quiet here. I know. I’ve been wrap­ped up in a num­ber of new pro­jects. One of them being the First Crack pod­cast, others are about where the Work Bet­ter Weblog (and Wor­king Path­ways as an entity) are telling me they want to go. More on that la…