Chip Heath's Blog, page 2

The FDA’s new cigarette warning labels, which will appear on packs produced after September 2012, are admirably shocking – a great improvement over the old labels, which were heavy on factoids. (E.g., “Cigarette smoke contains carbon monoxide.”) I’m surprised these punchy labels survived the government committee process. Here’s hoping they work.

By the way, Canada was way ahead of us on this. Check out some Canadian cigarette-pack greatest hits.

Entrepreneur and venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki recently released Enchantment, his 10th book. Robert Cialdini, the author of the classic book Influence, said of Guy’s new book, “Kawasaki provides insights so valuable we all wish we’d had them first.”

To celebrate the launch of Enchantment, we asked Guy three questions about the book. (You can order the book here or watch Guy speaking about the book’s themes here.)

1. In the course of writing Enchantment, what’s the one thing you learned/discovered that has had the most impact on your life?

I learned about the generosity of my social following. When I needed fresh examples of likability, trustworthiness, launch techniques, ways to break down resistance, and so on, I received dozens of them via Twitter and my blog. I also solicited people’s personal stories of being enchanted and received dozens of those too. Towards the end of writing, I asked for volunteers to critique the book, and approximately 300 people stepped forward. The point is that I learned about the generosity of strangers, and that has made me cognizant that I should be more generous too.

2: Being enchanting is in our self-interest; it lets us attract supporters for our ideas, earn buy-in from colleagues, charm new acquaintances, and so on. Do you think there’s there a fine line or a wide berth between being enchanting and being manipulative?

There is a wide berth. The acid test is whether the outcome of the enchantment benefits the enchantee–really benefits, not, “I did him a favor by convincing him to buy what I was selling.” Don’t get me wrong: it’s okay if there is an alignment of interests where you and the enchantee both benefit, but the enchanter shouldn’t be the primary beneficiary.

The acid test of the acid test is, “Would I still try to catalyze this change if I had absolutely nothing to gain?” For example, if you haven’t worked for Apple for ten years, and you still try to convince people to buy Macintoshes because you know that’s the right computer for them. Or, if you tell people to fly Virgin America to Fort Lauderdale instead of other airlines to Miami, and you don’t work for Virgin America. That’s enchantment.

3: What’s something simple that anyone could try today to become 2% more enchanting?

2% is that a typo? Who cares about 2% improvement? Forget all that Japanese stuff about the relentless pursuit of incremental improvement. Here’s one thing most people can do that will make them stand out from the crowd: Answer email within forty-eight hours. Almost no one does this. I try my hardest and can’t do it either. But it is the simplest—albeit also maybe the hardest—way to become a digital enchanter.

If you've never used GoDaddy for your domain names, let me try to describe the experience. Have you ever been walking down the street in NYC or Las Vegas and someone shoves a flyer in your face? Well, imagine that there were 400 of those flyer-shovers circled around you, flashing their ads in front of you (ADD .CZ DOMAIN FOR ONLY $3.99 FOR 2 YEARS!!) and obstructing your progress.

And now imagine that there is exactly one of those flyers that you really, really need to grab (so you can, like, renew your organization's core domain name).

Not that there's any bitterness here.

But, today, I made my escape! Thanks to a brilliantly simple post by Cord Jefferson at GOOD, I'm free. It took about 30 minutes to move 15 domains to the soothingly spare site . It's easy, even for techno-dummies like yours truly.

Btw, if GoDaddy's link-assault-factor isn't enough to drive you to the exits, then may I suggest two alternate motivations: (1) here's the swashbuckling GoDaddy founder killing elephants (but only to help the local farmers!); or (2) GoDaddy's notorious marketing strategy (i.e., boobs).

If you'd have trouble finding Iran or Afghanistan on a map, check out this sticky 1-minute Middle East geography lesson (courtesy of Kid Ethnic).

In Switch, we discuss some fascinating research in psychology that shows that our self-control is an exhaustible resource — that we can "tire it out," as though it were an overworked muscle. (Check out this essential academic paper by Baumeister et al, or for the Cliff's Notes version, see this video.)

Now comes a piece in Scientific American holding that dogs experience the same "exhaustibility." Dogs who have been asked to "stay" in place for a long time — which burns their self-control, as any dog owner surely knows — are less able/willing to stick with a frustrating task (specifically, trying to get a treat out of a toy that is actually impenetrable).

The researchers close their article with this provocative statement: "It appears that the hallmark sense of human identity—our selfhood—is not a prerequisite for self-discipline. Whatever it is that makes us go to the gym and save for college is fueled by the same brain mechanisms that enable our hounds to sacrifice their own impulses and obey."

This is a funny satire of a buzzword-laden entrepreneurial pitch to venture capitalists. Be forewarned: There's lots of bad language. (h/t Paul Hudnut)

The "interview illusion," according to psychologist Richard Nisbett, is our certainty that we're learning more about someone in an interview than we really are. It's our preposterous confidence that having a brief, formal conversation with someone allows us to take the measure of them. (Chip and I wrote a piece a while back urging companies to abandon the interview.)

Below is an epic example of the interview illusion — it's an excerpt from a conversation with Arkadi Kuhlmann, the president of ING Direct USA. Kuhlmann sizes people up using, among other techniques, a thought experiment involving rabbits and lions. Cue the absurdist dialogue:

Q. So let's say you're interviewing me. How do you find out if I'm an outlier?

A. Well, one clear sign is if you're difficult. Outliers are, by definition, always difficult. They're difficult to manage, difficult to get along with. The other thing is, you've got to start by looking outside the industry. I'm looking for people with new ideas, a new set of eyes who look at things differently.

But in the interview, I have to look and say, "Well, what really makes him tick that would make him different?" So I'd be probing to see if you have a hobby. What do you do in the evenings? I'm trying to find data points, some clues to figure out what you are all about.

Q. Give me an example of how you do that.

A. Here's one. There are five animals — a lion, a cow, a horse, a monkey and a rabbit. If you were asked to leave one behind, which one would you leave behind?

Q. Leave behind? In what sense?

A. Make up your own scenario.

Q. I'd leave the rabbit behind.

A. What was the story you had in mind?

Q. If I'm going on a journey, the rabbit isn't a lot of use to me.

A. "Isn't a lot of use. …" O.K., so a utilitarian approach.

Q. Right.

A. Well, I would leave the cow behind because I thought I could ride the horse; the monkey would be on my back; the little rabbit, I would just stick in my jacket. But the one thing that was going to hold me up is the cow, which is slow. And the lion can forage out there. So now you know what I picked and I know what you picked.

So the lion represents pride, the horse represents work, the cow represents family, the monkey represents friends, and the rabbit represents love. In a stress situation that you and I'd be working in, I know the one thing that you would sacrifice would be love, and your story would be something like this: that you could sacrifice love with people because you could make it up to them later.

So if you have to get something done on the weekend, you'd work all weekend. When push came to shove, you'd sacrifice love. So that teaches me quite a bit about you. If you picked the horse, the conversation would end. I wouldn't hire you because we're never leaving work behind. Those types of examples teach me quite a bit about you.

Q. But this psychology test of the five animals …

A. It's actually a Japanese personality test. I just happened to pick that up.

(Kudos to interviewer Adam Bryant for pushing for examples.)

Why it's not enough to give customers what they need… [read more]

It's "Help Out a Teacher Day" here at the blog. Here's the deal for the first 5 people to respond:

Go to DonorsChoose and pick a teacher's project to support. Donate $100 or more and email me the receipt. To say thanks, I'll send a "Switch kit" with 5 signed copies of Switch. (It may include audio CDs or hardcovers — my choice depending on what I've got on hand.) I can only ship to addresses in the USA.

What you get for your $100: (1) The tax write-off; (2) $130+ worth of Switch goodies; (3) Most importantly, the satisfaction of keeping a poorly-paid teacher from dipping into her own pocket to fund critical classroom supplies!

Please check the blog before you pull the trigger on your donation. I'll update the post immediately when we hit the fifth donation.

Communicating with more impact isn't some kind of mysterious process. It just takes a framework for thinking and a little bit of effort.

I want to share with you some videos that show how quickly the effort can pay off. Backstory: Chip and I partnered with Decker Communications — who've taught 100,000+ people over 30 years to communicate better — to create a one-day course around the principles in Made to Stick. We wanted to give people a chance to practice making ideas stick.

Does it work? Check out these two videos on the Decker site. The first is from the beginning of the day at the Decker workshop. It shows an executive giving a pitch for a new product. The second video shows the same pitch at the end of the day. (BTW, I am grateful to the exec, Tamer, for allowing us to post his videos. I'm hoping that other participants will give us permission as well, so we can keep providing these real-world examples.)

What struck me about these videos is that, in both videos, you see an exec who is clearly smart and personable — someone who has no trouble talking spontaneously. But there is a pretty radical difference in the clarity and memorability of the two talks. It just took a little bit of practice.

(Most of the Decker courses are delivered privately to companies & nonprofits — but they've actually got two courses scheduled soon that are open to the public: Nov 17 in NYC and Dec 10 in San Fran. Register or see more details here.)