Archiv der Kategorie: Communication

Communication consists of perception, thought models and communication behavior.

The metaphor – The key into the deep

The most important hurdles to exchange information are the attention of the target group and the sustained remembering of contents. Messages always stands in competition with the other flood of information. People memorize particularly well emotional contents, since these connect easily with existing experiences. A key into the deep of the consciousness is the metaphor.

Keyintodeep

The metaphor works like a Trojan horse that gets easily from outside to inside (see also: Meta model of the language). It links basic qualities and insights with the message that is conveyed. Through the surprising link, it activates the attention and keeps it longer in mind.

The following elements facilitate the finding and the formulation of a metaphor.

  • Metaphor group
    Describe your target group and use the found characteristics for the meaningful development of the metaphor, e.g. John Doe and his everyday experience.
  • Metaphor field
    Find a common area of life that is familiar to all and releases emotions, e.g. technology. Then, the metaphor can consist of things, activities or roles, e.g. a closed door with a lock and a key.
  • Metaphor attributes
    The actual characteristics of the metaphor are derived from context-related procedures, relations and logical levels, e.g. closed doors can be opened with a key.

The usage of the various channels of perception strengthens the effect. Your message is better memorized, when you use the language, the jargon, of your target group and show a not necessarily realistic picture of your message.

Bottom line: The metaphor is a key from the surface structure into the deep structure. The narrative elements in word and picture create the desired attention and improve the retentivity.

The Native Language Effect

Imagine that six blind Indians encounter regularly an elephant. By coincidence, they always stand at the same place besides this huge mammal. Because they are lacking the overall view, each of them is developing his personal idea of this giant. If you tell the Indians that it is an elephant, they respectively imagine a fan, a snake, a spear, a trunk of a tree, a wall or a rope. Independently of their future conception of an elephant, they will always remember their first mental picture. That is the aftereffect of the first impression, the native language effect.

BlindMonks

What crosses one’s mind when considering a telephone? A hand crank? A rotary dial? Push buttons? A touch screen? Depending on your first experiences with telephones, you might remember one of the previous alternatives.  According to this, a cordless telephone could be self-evident or not for you.

Remember the clash of cultures between the user groups of Apple and Microsoft. The other system will always appear to be strange, not ergonomic and not intuitive. Despite al this, no matter what system you are using, you have to know the context sensitive commands, in order to be able to operate the system.

It is always the first contact with something that will stick in somebodies mind. The evaluation of new things is affected by it in the long run. For this reason, this aspect should always be part of the implementation of novelties.

Bottom line: It is an advantage to consider the native language effect in the designing of your businesses and deliverables. Thus, it will be easier for the involved people to assume and to use new things.