Xyleme Learning Blog

It’s the era of the microtrend market and it seems that all anyone can talk about in marketing is how to go viral:

Rand Fishkin is a popular speaker at search engine optimization conferences – not so much for his trademark yellow sneakers – but for his direct and uncompromising advocacy of social media marketing … and he insists the quickest way to kill a viral campaign is by giving it to your public relations department.

… “If you’re an art lover I’m sure you would say Picasso was doing viral marketing in the Paris Salons by having one piece shown which would make an impact, thereby leading people to want more. In essence you are doing the same thing - viral content - or in this case a painting, is being put out there where your peers are, where everyone is collecting, and you know people are going to be paying attention to what’s produced.

“The principle is old but the medium is what makes it possible for companies large and small to engage in it.” Within just a few minutes of talking to Fishkin it’s easy to see why he is so successful. … He’s also a regular on the SEO conference circuit where he dons his trademark bright yellow sneakers. He says this is because ‘techies’ never remember faces, so when he’s in town, you only have to remember his shoes. …

Viral content has also been described as ’sticky’ and, to extend the metaphor, ‘catching’. Which are jingly ways of saying that it’s memorable, first and foremost, and spontaneously encourage people to repeat the initial communication on their own. You’ve probably heard all that before. I bring this up mostly in hopes of separating something useful out of it now that the term has been used to near meaninglessness. The thing is that most of the time, anyone who needs to get their message out is lucky if they can get to memorable.

Marketers, instructors, everybody, all have to compete with an avalanche of other information. That’s been the case for a long time, but now, that other information isn’t only available in a superabundance. It’s also being generated and spontaneously promoted by people like me, and like you, and like every member of your audience.

In general though, talking about these trends usually sparks conversation about younger people, whoever they are It’s useful, but partly a diversion.

It’s true that younger members of the workforce have a more direct line to more of their peers at any one point than most of those who didn’t start out as digital natives. They have more peer expertise and opinion available to them with far less effort. Sure, Gen Y is more interested in what their peers think than what ads say, but that’s been true of human beings for a long time.

People want to be talked to in the voice of people like themselves and people they relate to, depending on which aspect of their existence they’re thinking of. We might want to relate to the world, at any given time, as a member of an age group, part of a professional class, someone with family responsibilities, or even someone who has a certain taste in restaurants. When we trust that the people who are talking to us understand where we’re coming from, we trust them more to understand what we need.

The only difference now, because any sensible biologist will tell you that people are the same as they have been for a very long time, is that our expectations are higher. And the younger people are, the more true that becomes, just that it’s a difference of degree and not kind. Learners of any age are more likely to appreciate this approach towards relating to them…

… Perhaps you can sneak Iron Man into your training. It seems it may be a big hit across generations…

I’m thinking of suggesting to Tom Werner that this year’s Brandon Hall 2008 Excellence in Learning Award winners should make their acceptance speech to Iron Man. (last year it was haiku and limericks…way cool!)

… over this one:

… Although Penn does concentrate most of the book on fluffy lifestyle tales of internet dating, video game playing grown-ups, and stay at home workers, there are moments in this book which may just spark a business idea. …

Most people don’t think of their lives and perspectives as merely fluffy and there’s a successful business or industry behind each of the stories in that last, quoted paragraph. People’s context and experience matters to them, just as it matters to good instructors.

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