Archiv der Kategorie: Meaning design

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The overall context determines the understanding

The language does not offer an adequate base, in order to interpret a phrase.  Let’s pull one of world literature out of its context “The husband asked, would she allow him to smoke, obviously not with a view to smoking, but to getting into conversation with her.” You can better understand what is happening, if you know that this is a sentence out of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoj. The internal images adapt immediately. If you realize that you are in a train compartment you get even close to the circumstances. The following illustration creates on the left a frame condition and offers on the right goods for smokers. Which one fits best? That depends on the mental framework in your mind, because the overall context determines the understanding.

contextsmoking

If you prepare a lecture, you have to take care of the circumstances. There are three aspects that affect this total context.

  • The presentation
    Since you can only understand the things that you can express with words and pictures, the designing of the presentation is a pre-requisite for the transmission of meaning. Most of the times people limit themselves to the determination by facts that are worth it to convey. Unfortunately, many stop there. The information should always be translated attentively into the appropriate words, metaphors, and visualizations that can be understood by the target audience. The dissemination of the own ideas is the real purpose. Eventually the worm has to taste good to the fish, not to the fisherman.
  • The event
    The interpretation framework that is created by the event, determines the exegesis of the messages. The title of the event, the various subject areas and the participating presenters with their program items give the attention of the audience a certain direction. Presentations that do not fit within the framework will have difficulties to attract sufficient attention. For this reason you should always consider, how you can shape your contributions to the event. At least titles, examples and presentation style should fit into the program. Eventually the messages need the loosened soil in the consciousness of the audience, in order to strike roots.
  • The target group
    The total context is determined by the background and the technical field of the listeners. The cultural background can be derived from the place of the meeting. If the addressees come from the western hemisphere, they are for example coined by values, as good and bad, right and wrong. The eastern heritage is based on the balance of Yin and Yang. Accordingly, the desire for acknowledgment is more pronounced in the west and less in the east. The attitudes of the expected participants can also be derived from the event. It is mainly a matter of distinction, whether it concerns technique, sales or leadership oriented listeners. In any case the presentation should be adapted to the respective cause. Eventually there is no general sequence of the lecture that fits for all imaginable opportunities.

Each spectator and all speakers bring in their total context. The effect of the exchange of information is a result of the overlap that you achieve between the total contexts. How far you create this, can be recognized by the reaction of the public.

Bottom line: The overall context determines the probability that a message reaches the target audiences. Here it is not a matter of your own preferences, but above all the adapted presentation, the general framework of the event and the respective target audience. Since the context always changes from one to the other event, the appropriate conceptions should always be adapted to the respective case, because the total context determines the understanding.

Meme-It – Make ideas adherent

In the 70s of the last century, we had reached the time for the next level of ‘bits of paper everywhere’. Out of the practical need not to lose bookmarks of his hymnal, Art Fry putted an adhesive on it that could be detached again. This was the birth of a pervasive tool of the information society, the Post-It. Wouldn’t it be great, if there would be similar mechanisms, in order to better anchor ideas in the mind of target groups – a Meme-it that makes ideas adherent.

Meme

In the last century people thought about, how to promote the spreading of ideas. In the Twenties scientists such as Harold D. Lasswell worked on how one could affect human acts through the manipulation of spoken or written language, pictures and music. After all branches exploited the possibilities of PR and marketing as well as new channels are established for conveying contents due to the global networking, viral marketing, sometimes also called guerilla marketing, promises a new, economical approach for the spreading of ideas and concepts. The object that is thereby quasi-automatically spreading across the World Wide Web and the minds of people is called Meme or recently Memeome. Memes are contents that people causally create and think – or how it expresses M. Csikszentmihalyi “any permanent pattern of matter or information produced by an act of human intentionality”. In order to anchor ideas in the consciousness of many people, it is helpful to be aware, how this Meme is composed.

Let’s imagine Meme like a virus that nests in a host cell, multiplies continuously and is transferred to other hosts. The infection is enabled by the structure of the Meme.

Meme consists of three layers, which have on each level a certain function – the contents, the actual idea in the core, the aura that integrates the content into the mental model of each individual and the sphere, which establishes the contact with the environment.

  • Content
    The meme content is the actual meaning that is reduced to minimum. Here the actual statement, i.e. an idea, a topic, a draft, a plan or an established practice, are represented in a compact way. If we describe the core of a knife, then it is a tool for cutting, a sharp thing that splits all possible fabrics or materials.
  • Aura
    The Meme aura extends the content with linked ideas, like e.g. relations to contents, irresistible attractions and other commonalities, which make it easier to dock on existing mental models. Thus, the medical setting offers an associative, emotional and positive framework to look at a knife, or in this context, at a scalpel. That way the Unique Selling Proposition (USP), the special sharpness and the function to save life’s, becomes an interesting thing for many people.
  • Sphere
    The Meme sphere is the meaning context, in which the Meme have an effect and makes contact with the environment. The spreading is favored by this shell, since it is the interface to the environment and to other ideas. Most know a scalpel through personal experience or indirectly by hearsay. The fear of sickness and hope for being healed by surgery creates attention. The example of the scalpel can be traced back up to the times of ancient cultures, which already operated with a sharp artefact.

According to the example of a knife there is in information that we would like to disseminate, content as well as the layers of the aura and the sphere. The conscious arrangement of these layers creates messages that are finding their way, since after a successful infection by the Meme hosts they are spread through word of mouth, publications and repeating implementation.

Bottom line: With Meme-it, you design virulent ideas, topics, scheme, plans and practices in a simple manner. That way your messages are provided with an “adhesive” that on the one hand settles in the mind of the target groups and on the other hand is transmitted. The sales-oriented expenditure for bringing the Meme across the Tipping Point, is substantially smaller, than the classical marketing activity. In this sense, make you your ideas adherent! Meme it!

==> Memefication

==> Meaning design