Healthy Influence Blog

The New New Thing asserts:

You think your car radio is broken because it doesn’t display the name of the song and the artist. You tap a word on a paperback and wonder why the definition doesn’t automatically pop up. You swipe a digit across the screen of your cell phone and all you get are fingerprint smudges . . . Our touchscreen existence has literally rewired our brains . . .

Yes!

What shall we name this New New Thing that literally reWires our brains?

iPavlov.

Hey, kids, it’s not the technology that makes you; it’s the thoughtfulness.

reWired is only Low WATT zombies ambling along the Peripheral Route, Cue-ing along, Ding-Donging a song.

Again, Whitehead says it nicely.

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.

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!

Noted:

In its May issue, Playboy magazine named Texas the No. 1 party school in the nation, followed by West Virginia and Wisconsin-Madison.

Of course, that’s just Playboy.  What about the Princeton Review for 2010?

1. University of Georgia
2. Ohio University, Athens
3. Pennsylvania State University
4. West Virginia University

Doesn’t this help destroy all those hillbilly stereotypes?  Of course, at the risk of producing other stereotypes, but . . .

And folks wonder why I made Coach Don Nehlen nervous back in the day.  I had most of the starting lineup in my grade book, baby.  Fortunately I am nothing but Sincere.  They all actually passed!

Let’s Go!  Mountaineers!

P.S. That late 1980s group was nothing but crazy good fun.  AB.  Major.  Reggie Rembert.  Eugie.  An O-line of seniors.  A nicely mean-spirited D with Renaldo and Steve Grant.  Glad to be a part of it all.  Sports Beat, baby.

Even if you are the least interested fan about the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament, you know that there were serious problems with the referees.  They made a lot of whopping bad calls that even the most casual of observers could spot.  What to do?

Nudge, baby.

1.  Add Referees.

2.  Add Technology.

3.  Increase Scoring.

4.  Redefine “Offside.”

5.  Rethink Penalties.

6.  Reduce Faking.

Really.

This is Nudging.  Those little things that make big differences.  Little things like adding more key personnel, changing primary rules, spending more money.  Subtle.  Nuanced.  Bright in a deep way.  Deep in a bright way.  Nudge.

And, not that there’s any bias in Nudge:

Consider the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau now being established. Above all, I’d urge the head of this agency to devise rules under the assumption that, someday, he or she will be succeeded by a nitwit.

Gee, the Obama appointee to this new Bureau (yet to be named and confirmed) won’t be a nitwit?

Nudge as Oracle!

I’ll probably lose my setting at the Cool Table for this, but I have access to the Nudge for Democrats in the November elections.  If you are a Republican or some other nitwit who isn’t voting for Democrats, stop reading this, otherwise Nudge Along!

1.  Add Democratic Voters.

2.  Delete Republican Voters.

3.  Hire Nudge Consultants.

All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere.

Persuaders Can Either Be Famous or Effective, But Not Both.

There’s a Difference between Persuasion, and Smoke and Mirrors; With Persuasion the Illusion Lingers.