What Do We Know About Who Doesn't Show Up?

I've been thinking a lot lately about more effective ways to use data to inform the planning and day-to-day work of my team and colleagues. My office offered around 80 workshops and programs over the past 9 months, not counting recruiter and graduate school visits.

We have tried and true ways to track program attendance (who, how many), and some robust methods to gather information about the value of those programs for attendees (what was most helpful, what actions likely to be taken as a result). This is easy enough: no rocket science or hard-core statistical analysis required. This data is invaluable for helping us focus on what's working.

It seems critical to remember that this data is coming from a select audience: a group of individuals who have already opted in by making the effort to attend at least one of our events. The fact that someone shows up to a program or event suggests that they've already been "sold" to some extent by our offering. (Whether we deliver what was expected is a worthy subject for a separate post.)

How then to find out more about who is not engaging in a department's services, and why not? How do we as a programming office determine if we're A) even on the radar of potential audience, or if B) we're known, but nothing that the potential audience has seen has been engaging enough to prompt action (attendance).

It only makes sense to extrapolate data from a small population to a larger group if the smaller population is a reasonably representative sample. Knowing about who shows up doesn't necessarily help us understand who doesn't show up.

 

Make them squirm

Early in my career, whenever I needed to give a presentation to a group, I was extremely concerned with wanting my audiences to like me. Of course I wanted to provide quality information that could be of use, but I was also careful to be "safe" -- to try to appeal to every person in the room in some way, or at least to avoid disapproval.

As I've gained experience and confidence talking to large and small groups, and I've become much more comfortable in my own skin. Perhaps I'm finally starting to reconcile my strong introvert self with my presenter self. In that evolution, I've also become less dependent upon "playing it safe".

It turns out that challenging an audience's expectations -- offering something that makes them squirm a little bit, even at the risk of not being liked -- can be an extremely effective engagement method if leveraged appropriately.

When that squirm is induced in an audience member, his or her attention shifts from the speaker to the audience member: they're no longer thinking, "What's this person going to say next?" instead, their attention has pivoted inward.

The opportunity (responsibility) for the speaker is then to offer ways to resolve that discomfort. If the speaker can accomplish this, s/he has created trust and value.

Sure, people like being entertained. But people value, remember, and take action when a speaker illustrates a problem and provokes urgency to address that problem.

Margin

It's been an especially busy time for me lately, both at work and at home. In these stretched periods, I've become more aware that my "margin" -- that extra time that isn't-explicitly-productive -- is what gets lost along the way.

Perhaps I'm more sensitive to that time being pruned back because I've become more aware of how important that so-called down time really is for quality reflection, analysis, and idea generation. When there's more noise going on in the day-to-day, we habituate to that noise being the norm, and it's much harder to focus on listening for a signal that isn't directly related to the next item on our to-do lists.

Are you following the script?

Many of us have a built-in assumption of the appropriate plan for our professional lives: after A, we go to B, and then C, and forth. It's predictable, at least in the sense that we know what (if not when) to expect the next step. It's a fantastic model, but it also narrows our focus.

What of the opportunities that might reveal themselves if we give ourselves the opportunity to go "off script" for awhile? What if Plan A and Plan B were taken off the table -- then what?

Going "off script" requires us to improvise.
To make quick decisions, often without the benefit of extensive information.
To experience a sink-or-swim context.
To listen to our instincts and our gut.
To be authentic and in the moment.
To find out who we are and what we're capable of.

Risky? Sure. But but going "off script" could also be a huge opportunity for each of us.

Book review: The Impact Equation by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

As digital marketer and active blogger Mitch Joel has noted in his weekly podcast, a large number of online followers doesn't automatically equate to a large influence. In Chris Brogan and Julien Smith's new book The Impact Equation (available Oct 25, 2012) the authors unpack this discrepancy and offer a framework for generating engagement that encourages action by a particular audience.

The book is a quick read for 250+ pages, and is written in a conversational, non-technical tone that should appeal to a broad audience. As noted in the introduction, the book is not meant to be about social media (the tools), but instead ways to generate substantive benefit from the tools being used. The Impact Equation is filled with anecdotes of individuals who have achieved varying degrees of impact with their engagement strategies; each case study is then discussed and key takeaways are suggested.

The "equation" itself has already been shared publicly, so I'm not spilling the beans by offering a summary here:

Impact = Contrast  x  (Reach + Exposure + Articulation + Trust + Echo)

Or 

Impact = C x (R + E + A + T +E)

Conceptually, I found the book's discussion to be thoughtful and well-presented, though I didn't experience an "a ha, that's something new" moment. The general themes of the CREATE equation -- the value of differentiation, broad audience, clarity, and credibility -- didn't feel groundbreaking, though I appreciated the authors' attempt to simplify and unify via the equation's acronym. (Caveat: I recently read Michael Hyatt's Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World, which uses a slightly different lens but covers similar territory...) Strangely enough, the contrast part of this book seemed to be the weakest component.

For me, the most valuable part of this book is the authors' discussion of how to make a robust analysis of one's own execution on each component of the equation. For example, the section on evaluating Contrast offers several specific, actionable exercises to determine the differentiation of a particular idea from others that already exist in the same space.

Overall, a practical and effectively-executed book that may have the most benefit to readers seeking a good, easy-to-digest introduction and framework for how to effectively engage (and generate genuine interactivity, rather than simply outbound broadcasts with no echo, per the CREATE equation) with prospective audiences/clients/customers.

Find the book's authors online:
Julien Smith at In Over Your Head
Chris Brogan at ChrisBrogan.com

Note: Thanks to the authors for kindly offering advance proof copies to those interested in getting an early look at the text. I hadn't run across such an invitation before, and I appreciated the opportunity to get an early look and share my reactions.

"I am the perfect fit for this position."

Let's agree, once and for all, that variations of the phrase, "I believe I am a perfect / ideal fit for this position" should never again be used in a cover letter.

It's a lovely sentiment, and it may be entirely sincere on the part of the applicant (although I suspect many cover letter writers include it simply because that's what we're supposed to write in a cover letter, isn't it?).

The problem:

The people reading your cover letter do not care that you think you're the perfect fit. At this stage in the process, your perception and evaluation of your own fit for the job simply doesn't matter. And besides, it's presumptuous to assume that you know exactly what characterizes a "perfect" fit for a particular position. Most times, even the people responsible for creating a job (and crafting the job description) don't know exactly who would constitute a "perfect" fit. Many applicants might be great fits in differing ways, but a perfect fit?

Your readers will care about:

• your skills, experiences, and accomplishments
• your enthusiasm for and interest in the role, and
• how well you communicate those elements in your cover letter.

Focus on what you've done and the positive impact you can have in the role to which you're applying.

Don't proclaim that you're a perfect fit. It might feel assertive and confident, but it's just filler text. By making your case persuasively and substantively, you enable your readers to come to the "perfect fit" decision on their own.

The Power in Perspective

How many of today's challenges may be attributed to some extent to people's inability (or unwillingness) to examine situations from others' perspectives?

• The job seeker who fails to thoughtfully anticipate an employer's values and needs when hiring, then wonders why s/he never receives an invitation to interview.
• The marketer who creates a highly-anticipated ad campaign that fails to impact and connect with the intended audience.
• The politicians who "preach to the choir" and neglect to engage with opponents in meaningful, well-intentioned debate because they refuse to examine the potential other viewpoints.

This doesn't mean abandoning our own values and knowledge, but it might mean stepping back from those for a bit to ask, What am I missing that is part of the equation for the "other" in this conversation?

We love to talk about the importance of "thinking outside of the box". What if we worked to balance that with a new emphasis on "thinking outside of our own box"?