Oct. 3, 2024 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
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| everybody this is a special coffee with Scott Adams feature without the coffee I've got a guest today we were joined with dr. | |
| Carmen Simon who has a new a new community on locals that you could find at memorable.locals.com did I get that right That's correct. | |
| Yes. And you are going to learn three different tricks or tips, you could call them, for being more memorable in your business or personal life or whatever you want to do, but mostly business, I think. | |
| And three tricks to be more memorable, which makes you more persuasive. | |
| I know you all want to be more persuasive. | |
| So welcome, Carmen. | |
| Thank you so much and welcome everyone. | |
| It's good to create memories in people's brains because they will act in your favor based on what they remember, not on what they forget. | |
| So thank you so much for inviting me. | |
| The sun has shifted a little bit, so you disappeared in the glare of sun. | |
| So if you can move a little bit. Oh, there you go. | |
| That's perfect. Now, part of the excitement is I'm using the Rumble Studio, where I'm going to try to go to three different pieces of content and split screens. | |
| So there's a little bit of experimenting going on. | |
| We did a little practice. This should work. | |
| So why don't you cue up the first trick and maybe tie it to something that's happening in the world so people can see how relevant it is. | |
| When I created the Memorable Locals platform, I was looking to find the intersection between what's going on in the world, like you're mentioning, and also brain science that helps us become memorable and persuasive. | |
| One event that caught my attention recently, and I'm sure that everybody here joining us knows about, is the astronauts that were stuck in The International Space Station and now Elon Musk has to go and rescue them somehow. | |
| And I was reading an article about them and they're telling their story about having to see the shuttle move away from them and how hard that was to watch. | |
| Also they were telling us about their work and how they can do some of that work even upside down. | |
| So those are details that are interesting but can you relate to working upside down? | |
| Not as much as A piece that I was able to relate to later on in the article where they were talking about the fact that when you work in space, you have no joint pain. | |
| Working upside down versus reading about joint pain, one is more relatable than the other piece. | |
| So that's going to be tied to a lesson, a mini lesson that you're about to watch. | |
| So Scott is going to share with you and how using something that is relatable and familiar to somebody else's brain, it's going to attract extra attention and create extra memory so we can see it in action. | |
| We're going to try to go to the brief little clip that shows you that. | |
| So if I do everything right, in a moment, you're going to see that play. | |
| They discover themselves. | |
| When people see themselves and their experiences reflected in the content, it activates areas of the brain associated with self-referential processing, which is connected to engagement and memory. | |
| To make this happen, avoid space travel, skydiving, or mountain metaphors. | |
| They are a cliché, and more importantly, they are not relatable. | |
| In this example, the design is decent, but few people can relate to it because only a few people actually get to travel to space, so the metaphor is too abstract. | |
| Instead, choose metaphors or examples of a concrete, relatable experience. | |
| The after version shows a universal experience. | |
| It's a simple move and a metaphor for testing new waters or starting new ventures. | |
| So, consider grounding your metaphors in common scenarios. | |
| This is helpful because the brain processes familiar scenarios quickly and easily, and your audience is likely to associate familiar scenarios with personal memories and emotions. | |
| After all, what do you relate to better? | |
| Thrill-seeking, parachute-jumping, peak-climbing adventures? | |
| Or navigating a backyard pool without incident? | |
| All right, so that reminds me very much of a humor trick, which is if you're doing a story about, if you're telling a joke, let's say you're a stand-up comedian, if you tried to tell a joke about, all right, imagine going up to the space station and you're weightless, and people are going to be like, eh. | |
| But if you said, all right, you know how when you're commuting and there's always that guy who cuts you off, and you're like, oh, yeah, I know that. | |
| So is what I'm saying kind of close to what you're talking about? | |
| It is very close and you can use this technique whether you're developing content for other people or whether you're consuming content yourself and you're wondering why is it that some pieces of information attract my attention more so than other pieces of information? | |
| And I tend to remember them later a little bit better. | |
| The moment that you can see yourself and your reflection in some experiences that people are describing, then the attention is more guaranteed and the memory is more likely. | |
| And those images don't always have to be physical images. | |
| It could be powerful words. | |
| Sometimes even with descriptive words, you can build a mental picture in somebody else's mind. | |
| Unfortunately, what I'm seeing in business is that so many things are so abstract and so generic And even if they're at the metaphorical level, like people using the space shuttle as a metaphor, and you can't really relate to because how many of us get to fly in space and work upside down. | |
| As you're talking, there's something hilarious happening kind of simultaneously, which the audience doesn't know. | |
| We tested this. | |
| We had the lighting and the sound and everything. | |
| But the sun... | |
| It is moving as we're talking and changing in the window. | |
| It's completely washing you out. | |
| And I'm moving around the sun, yes. | |
| But one of the things that you teach in being memorable is that the mistake is the one you remember, right? | |
| Yes. So you're sort of accidentally becoming super memorable by the fact that the sun is chasing you around. | |
| This is a perfect example because anybody who's ever tried to do any kind of a Zoom call, You think you've got everything set up, and then the cat comes in, or the kid comes in, or the sun changes, or somebody starts to jackhammer outside? | |
| Yes. All right. | |
| So let's cue up the second one. | |
| So the first tip we got, what's the second one? | |
| So the first tip we got, which was grounding experiences in people's relatable experiences. | |
| And you don't have to say generic and cliche like the space shuttle metaphor. | |
| The second one dawned on me when recently Apple did a very clever branding. | |
| So when the world knows about AI as in artificial intelligence, there comes Apple and starts talking about Apple intelligence. | |
| So I like the twist on the familiar. | |
| So the next example that you're going to see and practical guideline that you can use has to do with playing off of the familiar and jolting the brain out of its habituation. | |
| All right, let's do that one if my technology works the way I want it to. | |
| Ideas or services really are. | |
| This slide works for several reasons. | |
| Here's one. The image takes advantage of predictive coding. | |
| You see, the brain continuously generates predictions about sensory input and correct errors when reality doesn't match expectations. | |
| This slide disrupts the brain's predictions with an unexpected image. | |
| The prediction error forces the audience to pay closer attention to the message. | |
| Since the detail on the slide invites correcting prediction errors, the brain is extra vigilant for a moment, and you will get extra attention to the next slide, too. | |
| So, can you break a pattern that the brain has learned to predict in your next presentation? | |
| Alright, so summarize that one. | |
| I like that one because it's building off of the apple in terms of the image as well. | |
| But if you were able to notice the bit-up pair instead of the bit-up apple, that's where the slight element of surprise appears. | |
| And surprise, biologically speaking, is always bad for the brain. | |
| And why is that? Because the brain is built to have a predictive function. | |
| We always want to know what happens next. | |
| We may not always be accurate, but the coding is in there. | |
| We want to code the prediction. | |
| And when there is an error, we will remember that moment because what is a surprise but a failure to predict what happens next. | |
| Obviously, through a sequence, if you create some content on your own, you can't afford that many surprises because you don't want the brain to spend extra energy on processing everything as if it's a little bit jolty. | |
| But every so often, if you use these moments, they can be small but very potent in terms of attracting attention and creating a memory trace. | |
| So would you say that simply making somebody stop and think about a thing is what's causing it to be more memorable? | |
| So hypnotists always talk about repetition is what is persuasive. | |
| And if I see something that's spelled wrong or it's just not the ordinary way you say the thing, I'll read the sentence, then I'll read that again, and I'll think, huh, that's not ordinary. | |
| Then I'll read it again, then I'll Think about it and then I'll read it again. | |
| And then I just remember it forever. | |
| So is the essence of the predictive coding one that if somebody's predicting it's going another way and it doesn't, they just have to spend a little more processing on it, right? | |
| Exactly. You're going to go back and review it, like you said. | |
| And you have that brief eureka moment, that small moment of, oh, an aha type of reaction. | |
| And when you have that, it's almost like thinking in slow motion. | |
| So the world just stops for one moment. | |
| Of course, next time, you're not going to be taken by surprise. | |
| This is why, from the brain's perspective, the difference between what you expect would happen and what actually happens is how the brain learns. | |
| That's why even though biologically surprises are bad for us, We do appreciate them because it's a learning moment. | |
| It's a teachable moment. I sometimes say that consciousness is nothing more than the difference between what you predicted would happen next and then what you experienced. | |
| Ooh, I like that definition. | |
| That's a whole different conversation, but I always think that that's the essence of who we are, predicting and then adjusting to the prediction. | |
| I like that definition and also it's important to define terms correctly because sometimes people use surprise and novelty interchangeably, but they are different. | |
| Novelty is something that you haven't seen or experienced before. | |
| Surprise, which is where the predictive error happens, is something that you did experience before but did not expect. | |
| This is why even as you're about to approach some area where you know you might fall, you might slip and actually do fall and slip, Part of that is going to tell your brain, oh, I knew it. | |
| This is why I told you so with your spouses, for instance, or your friends feel so juicy to the brain because your brain could see it coming. | |
| Okay. All right. | |
| Number three, set us up for the third one, visual demand versus a visual offer. | |
| What's that mean? So the third one that we have, I was reminded of it when I was reading some articles and I know that P Diddy has been in your news and in your shows for quite some time. | |
| Because of recent stories and I was reading an article about him and in the article somebody had posted pictures of him looking directly at the viewer. | |
| So his eyes are almost piercing yours. | |
| Whereas other pictures were showing him looking away from the viewer. | |
| In design that's called the visual demand when somebody is looking right at you versus visual offer when they're looking away from you but still offering a perspective that you could process. | |
| Let's see this brief minute lesson and we can talk about it. | |
| This one's a little subtle, so I've got some questions on this one. | |
| In a previous video, we talked about avoiding cliché images of people by not showing their faces. | |
| If you do have to show their faces, here are some things to consider. | |
| Show real people to convey authenticity. | |
| This slide from a tech company shows engineers at work and play. | |
| Another example from a biotech company combines superhero bodies with real faces from an engineering team. | |
| When you don't have photos of real people and need to use stock photos, you have a choice. | |
| You can show people looking directly at the viewer, creating a visual demand. | |
| This type of image asks you to create a relationship with the subject. | |
| In contrast, when you show a person looking away, you create a visual offer. | |
| This image allows the viewer to observe without needing to engage directly. | |
| It can evoke curiosity and offer context without being so aggressive. | |
| Next time you include people in your designs, consider visual demand versus visual offer. | |
| Since a visual demand asks the viewer to connect with the subject, it can fall flat because | |
| the connection isn't authentic. | |
| A visual offer can feel more relaxed and genuine. | |
| All right. | |
| So some of the language is a little scientific-y sounding, but if I could summarize that. | |
| So we just watched the VP debate. | |
| I won't make this political, but it's a perfect example, where they did a split screen of the two debaters. | |
| And the photos that ended up being memes were with one of the debaters Doing a little bit of a side eye like this and one of them looking straight into it and I thought to myself that if that's the meme you know compatible with with what you're saying the Vance was offering a softer you know sort of a side eye you know which was both interesting because of the side eye but also he wasn't right in your face and then the other side was Looking right at you. | |
| And so that would be the demand, right? | |
| Yes. Yes. The demand is, I'm looking right at you. | |
| Be my friend. Vote for me. | |
| Love me. Love me. | |
| Yes. And that's a tougher sell. | |
| It is. Then, you know what? | |
| I'm looking over here. Maybe you should look over there, too. | |
| Exactly. And that's the offer that you're making. | |
| So you're expanding the horizons a little bit and you're coming across as less aggressive. | |
| This is important for us in design and obviously as we construct a lot of business content because of those cliché photos that I mentioned. | |
| And sometimes we just cannot get away from using people photos for those who want to humanize a presentation in some way or some content. | |
| So there are some reasons. | |
| But you just have to be cautious because sometimes things come across so cliché when people cannot possibly relate to somebody who's so happy On a Monday morning, being at work and looking right at you. | |
| Now, for the audience, how many of these little videos where you would learn a new thing in just, what, a minute or two minutes? | |
| How many of those do you have on Locals now at memorable.locals.com? | |
| So far there's a gallery of about 50 of them and I post three a week. | |
| So hopefully as you decide to join us, the gallery keeps growing and you would have access to not only the science principles behind memorable content, but one of the satisfying pieces for me is good design. | |
| I think good design can change the world, don't you? | |
| I hope so. Yeah, I often say design is destiny, if you get design right. | |
| So would you call these micro-lessons? | |
| They will definitely be micro-lessons. | |
| I really take great pride when I construct something and people can use that principle as early as that afternoon, whether they design content themselves or whether you're sometimes questioning why is it that a piece of information attracts my attention or stays on my mind a little bit more or strongly than another piece of information. | |
| And I should note for the audience that all of your stuff is based on actual science. | |
| It's not somebody's opinion. So it's not like a body language expert. | |
| It's more like somebody's actually studied what's the brain doing in these situations. | |
| I do. I look to see what happens underneath the human skull and how people process information and how they eventually remember it. | |
| And also in those neuroscience studies that I conduct, that's why the design has to be impeccable because you'll be ashamed to spend so many resources on conducting a neuroscience study and not show the brain something that already is optimal. | |
| On top of that, you tweak things just slightly. | |
| Right. Speaking of faceless, here's a little anecdote just to round this off. | |
| Years ago, Newsweek, back when Newsweek was more of a real publication, they asked if I'd want to draw Dilbert for the cover. | |
| And they said, but we haven't decided we're going to put Dilbert there. | |
| We're testing a female face. | |
| And I said, really? | |
| You're going to test a comic against a real attractive female face? | |
| And you think that's going to be close? | |
| And they're like, well, you know, could go either way. | |
| You never know. And I'm thinking, this is a total waste of my time. | |
| Because one of the things I had learned long ago, you can't beat a human face, especially if it's female, especially if it's attractive. | |
| There's no such thing as a comic that can beat that, in terms of will you pick it up and will you buy it at the newsstand. | |
| So, so important. | |
| It's a humbling remark that you're making because even in neuroscience we've had an epiphany lately. | |
| We used to believe that the processing of a human face is automatic, so it requires very few cognitive resources. | |
| More recently, we have the ability to take the signal from the EEG signal, for instance, in my case, from the brain areas that are responsible for Processing something that is a little bit heavier, so a heavier cognitive workload, and we're able to superimpose it on an image. | |
| So let's just say those cliché pictures that you showed in the mini lessons with people looking at phones and being very happy. | |
| The moment that you have a face on there, we recognize that there is cognitive processing that is happening right on the face. | |
| Processing faces is not as automatic as we thought they would be. | |
| So now we have choices. If you really want to embed some in your communication, just be very cautious because they will demand some cognitive effort. | |
| I've got a hypothesis on top of all this, which is if you're going to invent an app or some kind of consumer good and it's got lots of faces on it, you're going to do well. | |
| Because if you think about it, Facebook is literally about faces. | |
| Instagram, faces. | |
| TikTok, faces. Dating is faces. | |
| Tinder is faces. | |
| Faces work. If you can find a new reason, just whatever that reason is to have a bunch of faces, you're three quarters of your way to success because people are just drawn to faces. | |
| You can't turn it off if you wanted to. | |
| And that means we now know from neuroscience that there's engagement with the faces and now in light of this mini lesson you might have some choices as to whether you position them in front of the viewer looking right at them or being a bit less intrusive and looking away. | |
| Yeah, you could have a whole science on just best way to show a face. | |
| All right, so we'll keep it to these three great tips, and they can find you in subscription, right? | |
| You have a paywall up? Do you have the paywall up? | |
| Yeah, there is the paywall up, so there is the $7 a month, but hopefully that's a small price for big guidelines that can make a difference. | |
| And if you've got an employer, it would be the cheapest amount of money you could ever spend to turn your employee into a superpower. | |
| There's going to be a lot of tips in there. | |
| All right. Dr. | |
| Carmen Simon, they can find you at memorable.locals.com. | |
| Is there anything else you want to mention? | |
| You've got a new book out. There is a book, which is called Made You Look, and it works in concordance with the mini lessons that are part of the Memorable Locals platform. | |
| And it's also a book that has visceral experiences. | |
| I'm really enjoying things that are tactile, and as you browse through the pages, you'll be reminded not only of some of these guidelines, but also ground your experience in something that is physical, which also helps with attention and memory. | |
| All right. Let me ask the audience, are you more likely to remember this because of the lighting problems that we had and the continual adjustments? | |
| And the answer is, yes, you are. | |
| And there's another thing you just learned. | |
| All right. Thanks for joining. | |
| And we'll have you back. | |
| And appreciate you taking the time. | |
| Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. |
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