While re-reading the Nietzsche canon this summer I missed a big event in the practical persuasion world:  a proposed name change for PSYOPS to MISO.  Even for an ununiformed fool like me the term, PSYOPS, is immediately meaningful and descriptive:  Opérations de Psychologique!  You can’t miss it.

Which means that the name, PSYOPS, is pretty sincere, right?  If everyone gets it at a glance the thing is obvious, plain, direct, authentic, deeply felt, sincere.  And, since All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere, then the name, PSYOPS, is . . .

Of course, I’m effete intellectual poof who uses Google translators to check my high school French while contending with God’s assassin in my beach reading.  What do I know?

Sure, this is all science, no persuasion, right?

TAMANA, Japan — Two pedals, inches apart, one for gas and the other for brakes. For years, a Japanese inventor has argued that this most basic of car designs is dangerously flawed.   The side-by-side pedal arrangement, the inventor says, can cause drivers mistakenly to floor the accelerator instead of the brakes, especially under stress. The solution? A single pedal that accelerates the car when pressed with the side of the foot. More to the point, when the pedal is pushed down, it always activates the brakes.

Hey, this must be true science because the story is the most emailed and viewed at the NYT!

Hey, just install this new pedal and no more human error in driving!  It’s just a falling apple and remember:

You Cannot Persuade a Falling Apple.

Supporters of the persuasion possibilities of Web 2.0 (twitter, Facebook, marketing as relationship, etc.) insist that there is something strong and supernatural to their New New Thing.  Consider this story from Google Fast Flip (more about that later).

Has your company spent seemingly countless hours tweeting on Twitter, networking on Facebook and writing the company blog? Have you found yourself wondering if it’s all a waste of time? Maybe that last Facebook fan page contest saw fewer entries than you’d hoped for, or that last Twitter-only coupon had fewer redemptions than you’d expected, but perhaps that’s not all that matters.

According to the the latest report by analyst firm Forrester, many people are looking at the face-value dollars and cents of social media marketing and, put simply, they’re doing it wrong. Beyond clicks and coupon redemptions there lies a case for social media marketing that shows its value is well beyond what we see on the surface.

Yeah, It Works, But You Can’t Count It (with Money).  And, if you do Count It and It Doesn’t Count, You’re Wrong!

Where to begin.

Persuasion is an obvious and countable thing.  It changes people.  And change can be as simple as “Yes or No.”  Realize the Rules.

If You Can’t Count It, You Can’t Change It.

Any persuasion agent who claims otherwise is deluded, untrustworthy, or perhaps both.  You cannot sell Change to clients if they don’t get any Change from what you sell.  And, if your client’s counting shows no Change, then what you are selling as persuasion did not work.

Think about it.  You cannot sell Change without getting Change.  Yet, some 2.0 folks will assert:

Many marketers can draw a straight line between investments in social media marketing and financial results, but many more cannot.  This doesn’t mean social media marketing is ineffective; it just means that marketers have to recognize benefits beyond dollars and cents.  Facebook fans, retweets, site visits, video views, positive ratings and vibrant communities are not financial assets — they aren’t reflected on the balance sheet and can’t be counted on an income statement — but that doesn’t mean they are valueless.  Instead, these are leading indicators that the brand is doing something to create value that can lead to financial results in the future.

And, then to tell them that they did it Wrong after you promised Change, is at best a short term tactic that holds clients at the front door as you make a hasty exit out the back door.  Claims of client error destroy your credibility.  You showed them how to do Persuasion SureShot Tactic Twenty Two.  They did it.  And It didn’t Count.  Blaming the accounting department or the guys in research is older than Exodus, but not Genesis.

Consider, too, . . .

Great Persuaders Don’t Need Rich Uncles, Kindness from Strangers, or Third Party Vote Splitters.

Hey, if Web 2.0 is the New New Persuasion Thing, then what It is, is what It does without any help.  It will not need a new system of accounting, ROI, or mathematics.  It will not need a Maven 2.0 in a corner office.  It will work.  Yet, articles like this always seem to end with something like, “Yeah, it’s 2.0 plus Fill In The Blank While I Cash Your Check.”

Look, if Web 2.0 is persuasive, it changes people in a direct, reproducible, and countable way.  Otherwise, it is a short term way for a few people to make a little money.

Web 2.0 reminds me of Web 1.0 when Pets.com was going to have a greater market capitalization than Microsoft one day.  Sure, there were a few big winners (Amazon, baby), but most were losers.  The Web changes neither the Laws of Thermodynamics or the Rules of Persuasion.  The web is just a technological device that transmits messages.  Yes, it is groovier than the town crier, but it still just carries messages.

P.S.  Is Google Fast Flip going to make Google relevant again?  Yeah, add a cut and paste of the news page and that groovy rotator interface.  Folks, I’m calling it.  We’re into the middle of the beginning of Web 3.0 – the age of information irrelevance.  Where’s the exchange of meaning?  Of value?  Of substance?  I know there’s a lot of glitter and glitz with persuasion, but Sweet Clara Peller, where’s the beef?

Albert Haynesworth continues to attract sports media comment.  Haynesworth locked himself into a duel with his new head coach, Mike Shanahan, at the Washington Redskins football team.  Haynesworth earns a great deal of money, guaranteed money, but he can’t seem to pass Shanahan’s conditioning tests, so Haynesworth can’t practice with the team.  Some writers wonder if Shanahan is losing the battle with Haynesworth, biting his nose to spite his face.

If you had any interest in not making this a distraction, wouldn’t there be other approaches than public shame? I mean, you could construct Haynesworth’s image out of neon toothpicks in the Redskins Park driveway without creating a bigger distraction than this conditioning test has been.

This perspective assumes that Shanahan is trying to persuade just Mr. Haynesworth with these tests.  Is it possible that Shanahan might be persuading the rest of the team?  Or perhaps the owner of the Redskins who paid wildly for Haynesworth?

Sure, It’s about the Other Guy, but you also have to figure out exactly who that Other Guy is before you start your critical analysis.  Imagine that the head coach can actually persuade more than one person at a time.

Isn’t that more interesting than the obvious?

Mitch Miller has died.

Miller enjoyed a long and successful life as a music producer and impresario of great renown.  Most notably, he understood the Rules of Persuasion.  You might recall an earlier post . . .

“Emotion never makes you a hit,” he said.  “I always tell this to singers:  Emotion is not something you feel.  It’s something you make the listener feel.  And you have to be very cool and know what you’re doing.”

Miller learned early on that, It’s about the Other Guy, Stupid, and rode that rocket to the top of the charts many times with many different artists demonstrating the generality of the Rule and his great skill.

Let’s sing-a-long one more time.

Remember:  All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere!