Uses of Analysis

Risk assessment value

As we shall see below, communications analysis helps evaluate perception impact in many private and public sectors. It also serves a strategic purpose when used as a risk assessment tool. Management often turns to risk assessment in a geo-political context, vis-a-vis labor or safety. Communications and Perception Analysis can also serve risk assessment needs. First, there is a need to analyze the risk of standalone communications strategies. Secondly, all corporate and institutional actions have a communications and perception component; Excess Noise can help to ascertain which, if any, pose a risk.


Perception and impact analysis value

Communications and Perception Analysis is useful to many sectors. The following sectors were chosen as examples of Communications and Perception Analysis practical applications. New opportunities for analysis, in other sectors, come into view regularly, providing analysts with an ongoing challenge.

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Sales and Marketing of Goods and Services

Traditional advertising, online advertising, direct marketing, packaging, point-of-purchase displays, print and virtual catalogues and billboards are largely responsible for the daily, inescapable barrage of communications enticing consumers to ‘buy me’. If you are trying to sell something to someone, Communications and Perception Analysis is for you.

Price marketing alone cannot be the basis for a campaign. Nor can the promise of quality be the only theme, surrounded as we are with more quality products than we can handle. Marketing which appeals to deeper human needs is more effective and harder to resist.

Ideally, of course, products and services themselves should be as human friendly as possible. This ‘human needs as reference’ aspect makes communications and perception analysis a valuable component of the marketing mechanism. Communications and Perception Analysis provides decision makers and communicators with benchmarks to measure the impact of a message and its components.

Commercial messages are responsible for the greater part of communications noise, so marketers stand to gain by using techniques which help them stand above this noise. But standing out does not mean being louder and more frequent: it implies communicating with deeper, more human appeal. Do you buy a Mercedes Benz or Cadillac because you need transportation, because its luxury and comfort are appealing or because it imparts status? All three answers are correct. We buy a vehicle because we need transportation, but we choose a model based on its practical aspects, certainly, but also because for its emotive value. And this is where our filter model becomes so valuable. In marketing items, we need to ensure that at least one filter has an overwhelming weighting. Obviously, in the case of a car, hardwiring will play a minor role in the decision. If anything, it will play a negative one. Humans are not hardwired to lock themselves in a multiple ton, steel object and hurl themselves forward at a hundred miles per hour. Imprinting however is crucial to most consumer goods. We buy largely based on accepted standards and tastes; on imprinting we have acquired as we grew up. We will naturally tend towards known references and brands. Nonetheless, as the model proves, this is not always enough. We are always tempted by new, unheard of, consumer goods. They appeal to us for a variety of reasons and a wise communicator has access to a surplus of stimuli. Courtesy of modern media and merchandising, we are able to create instant appeal. The effect filter can also be used in such a manner as to achieve a desired result. A great example of using the effect filter as a marketing leverage tool happened in the nineteen eighties when young executives, buoyed by easy bank credit, bought trendy goods not as a means of showing their current reality but as a means of preempting their professed future. If I have this car (in 1980‘s New York, 5-Series BMW’s were the benchmark), then my superiors will promote me ‘into’ their group.

Was this motorcycle purchased out of need? Was it chosen for its ability to transport someone from A to B? Was it even chosen for its gas mileage or comfort? Whoever purchased and customized this motorcycle did so to fulfill a passion. The key is to decipher that passion before he or she enters the dealership. Do that and you can sell them the item that satisfies them and adds to your bottom line; it's a win-win.

Was this motorcycle purchased out of need? Was it chosen for its ability to transport someone from A to B? Was it even chosen for its gas mileage or comfort? Whoever purchased and customized this motorcycle did so to fulfill a passion. The key is to decipher that passion before he or she enters the dealership. Do that and you can sell them the item that satisfies them and adds to your bottom line; it’s a win-win.

Communications and Perception Analysis is used by players at every level of the sales and marketing process: retailers, distributors, service providers such as banks, insurance companies, franchisers, manufacturers and the marketers themselves. Analysis allows the provider of a product or service to fully understand how the offering, or its marketing campaign, is perceived. Don’t marketers use all these strategies already? With all the sophistication in advertising, do they not already have all the knowledge they could use? Our view is that most marketers do not. Most marketers use a variety of tools ranging from personal taste to highly developed survey methods. But most, we believe, do not delve deeply enough into basic human filters and more importantly, when they do, they lack the tools to precisely evaluate the degree to which a given message will appeal to a specific filter; hence the need for the methodology of Communications and Perception Analysis.

Communications and Perception Analysis results in commercial messages that more suitably reflect human needs and desires avoiding ‘noisy’ gimmicks that may miss the mark at great financial expense.

Use Communications and Perception Analysis to:

  • create new products, services or activities or reposition existing ones
  • evaluate or verify promotion, marketing, advertising and public relations strategies
  • evaluate logos and brand symbolism
  • evaluate and redesign sales & marketing tools
  • refine salesmanship
  • create or modify corporate image

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 Business to Business Communications

Producing messages destined for a fellow businessperson is laborious. Fellow business people are well informed and expedient in their search for services and products. They know what they want and they will not waste time or money obtaining it. They are less influenced by window dressing. They want high quality, for a good price, delivered on time and with great service before, during and after the purchase and they want to pay 90 days after they receive the product or service.

But remember, business people are still human.

Too often, businesses approach business to business communications unemotionally, forgetting that their real targets are not entities but other human beings who make up the corporation or organization. Kellogg’s, Apple and Shell are corporations, but all their decisions are made by people. The same goes for the corner dry cleaner or drugstore, they too are owned and run by real people. All of them expect tangible results but how you present your added value will always make a difference. No matter how fast your photocopier copies, no matter how pure your copper is, no matter that your shipping service is always on time — you still have to entice them — the people — to use your service.

Endless glass buildings, for many, are the home of corporations, organizations and governments. For a Communications and Perception Analyst it is the working place of millions of individuals, each with their own personal emotional and intellectual baggage.

Endless glass buildings, for many, are the home of corporations, organizations and governments. For a Communications and Perception Analyst it is the working place of millions of individuals, each with their own personal emotional and intellectual baggage.

To ensure successful communications, business to business efforts need to follow human appeal guidelines. Even selflessly, human decision makers have ambitions and aspirations. Just as they might want their own success, they want their company or organization to succeed, capture new markets, receive industry recognition. A good business to business message must therefore take into account the client’s goals. The closer a message comes to satisfying their goals, the more likely it is to be accepted. Your message will be successful if you can make your client grasp that your commitment to on-time delivery is real and that it will therefore translate into one less worry for him. That does not simply mean saying: “we deliver on time.” Your message has to carry credibility.

Traditionally, companies have reverted to testimonials to validate their claims. They may cite statistics. All these are fine, but there are dozens of more subtle ways to entice. That is precisely what Communications and Perception Analysis brings to the process, an understanding of how to turn what may appear to be boring corporate claims into enticing messages. Many business to business communicators entice, appeal and seduce, without knowingly doing so; they are lucky. Others do the opposite. They repel, disinterest and irritate. A great exercise is to imagine, as a businessperson selling to another businessperson, how you would sell them something they already have. How do you sell a better alarm system to someone who has a system that already works? A new photocopier? New furniture? The main stipulation, remember, is that their current system already works. Most sales representatives simply praise the superiority of their own product. Using the Communications and Perception Analysis filter model, one could develop stronger arguments. Let us assume that the newer model is actually a better-known model. The message of prestige would be reinforced appealing to imprinted references. A prospecting letter would therefore begin with a sentence: “You have known our brand for years, you know its value, you know its reliability… Our upgrade offer will enable you to…” The first sentence establishes the benefit. The promotional offer is only the catalyst to satisfy the first sentence.

Instead, most marketers imagine that the offer itself is the main reason for people’s decision. Software upgrades are a great example of the correct approach. People who upgrade regularly do not do so because the price is right. Most do not even do it to improve their productivity or features. Most upgrade to feel up to date. To feel a sense of higher performance. Even though few others will ever know they upgraded. How many people go around boasting they have the latest version of a software?

Communications and Perception Analysis helps business to business communicators avoid the pitfalls of cold, descriptive information tools. It ensures that technical data is not the only component of the message, that it is accompanied by the human reasons for making the purchase.

Use Communications and Perception Analysis to:

  • design sales & marketing tools that talk to other executives, not just to their ‘corporation’
  • devise concise meeting and presentation tools that cost-effectively and expeditiously make the point
  • impart colleagues with techniques needed to radiate confidence in your corporation

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 Industrial Communications

Business to business communications is broad, encompassing everything from photocopy paper to arsenic used in industrial coating processes. Industrial communications is a subset of business to business but it has unique characteristics.

Typical business to business communications, for instance selling photocopy paper, use more consumer-oriented tactics such as last minute price deals, inventory clearance, two-for-one deals. Instead, industrial clients are more pragmatic and less swayed by publicity stunts. They think in cargo ship volumes, not FedEx delivery ones. So how can communications strategies influence them? How can a message appeal beyond customary technical specifications?

How do you sell millions of tons using perception triggers vs. cold, hard facts.? You do. You mix them in.

How do you sell millions of tons using perception triggers vs. cold, hard facts.? You do. You mix them in.

ISO standards help to reassure a client that an industry is quality-bound. Using high-end quality control and computer assisted manufacturing software, and making sure your clients know it, helps too. Longevity counts; knowing that a company has outlasted others. Size can have an effect on choice as well; is the supplier near enough? All these elements go far beyond technical specifications. So, to successfully communicate an industry’s added value, one needs to marry both technical data and benefits. The key is to make the benefit as clear and concise as possible while still making it attractive and filter-relevant.

As an example, we can use the sale of stainless steel. A hardwiring aspect of stainless steel is safety. It is a strong and long lasting metal. Culturally, stainless steel has become accepted as a worry free metal. Our Imprinting sees it as chic with stainless steel coffee cups and telephones garnering a higher price. Interference, as we know, is usually out of the decision maker’s control but the Effect filter is obvious: ‘buy stainless steel with confidence.’ You know that as a steel seller, your client will not go wrong with stainless steel. In conclusion, you could choose to sell stainless steel on price points or on specifications alone. Instead, remember to inject filter-relevancy.

Use Communications and Perception Analysis to:

  • design sales & marketing tools that talk to other executives, not just to their ‘corporation’
  • devise concise meeting and presentation tools that cost-effectively and expeditiously make the point
  • impart colleagues with the necessary techniques needed to radiate confidence in your corporation
  • add emotional appeal to otherwise dry, technical data

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 Travel and Tourism

Tourism, to a very high degree, depends on the traveler’s perception before, during and after a visit. A traveler, whether traveling for business or pleasure, is a very demanding consumer. Long before the journey begins, the traveler is exposed to multiple travel messages.

Messages concerning travel usually begin in infancy when parents, teachers and the media pass judgment on modes of transportation, destinations and local populations. As we grow, news programs, news sites or tweets provide us with negative images of a conflict that can tarnish a destination’s image for a lifetime. Later in life, corporate employees may be opposed to traveling to remote, developing or conflict prone nations weary of stereotyped bug-infested accommodations, disease-ridden food or safety concerns. All these imprinted messages must be taken into consideration when creating a marketing message or campaign for the travel industry.

During the trip itself, the tourist or business traveler will notice a destination’s accessibility, arrival and lodging facilities, public transport, safety, hygiene, cleanliness, entertainment value, noise level or local politics. They will seek out and compare local online resources. There will be an inevitable comparison of the experience with the promise made by the marketing effort or online feedback. No detail is too small for an inquisitive visitor. Remember this very important point if you would like a tourist to revisit. If you make a promise that does not hold, the tourist will be even more let down. Many a beach resort has been ruined by promising white luscious sandy beaches. True, the sand was white and the beaches were sandy but they were also overrun by garbage.

When the traveler gets home, the perception continues to evolve as they narrate the trip to friends, look at photographs or videos or come across new marketing tools.

When choosing a destination for business or pleasure, tourists rely on websites, brochures, videos, TV documentaries and other background information including economic and demographic statistics, services offered, infrastructures, third-party reports. Once on location, they mentally compile an aggregate perception of the hotel, resort, city or region. The job of a Communications and Perception Analyst is to ascertain which elements of a destination positively or negatively affect a visitor’s perception before, during and after a visit.

A destination is much more than a pool and an award winning restaurant, it's about the emotions that these impart.

A destination is much more than a pool and an award winning restaurant, it’s about the emotions that these impart.

Some tourism promotions are more focused than others. A beach may look for summer vacationers exclusively, unless it has a convention center in which case business and incentive travelers are also sought. A ski hill may target skiers or simultaneously seek tenants for a new shopping mall. How these various targets perceive a travel destination will make or break it. Unfortunately, deciphering what elements are important to dissimilar groups can sometimes be tricky. So what exactly do tourists (traveling for pleasure, business or investment) perceive and what is important to them when choosing a destination?

The best way to begin a tourism Communications and Perception Analysis (and other specific communications analyses) is with a goals analysis. Whom do you want to attract? When do you wish to attract them? For how long do you want them to stay? Do you want them to come back and do you want them to recommend you to their friends or associates? Some destinations prefer day visitors and others seasonal ones. Different goals may require distinct communications efforts. Communications and Perception Analysis seeks to help the tourism and travel industry and authorities by identifying which elements of a destination, event, carrier or service provider should be emphasized and, simultaneously, which elements are superfluous or negative and need to be altered, downplayed or eliminated.

Use Communications and Perception Analysis to:

  • evaluate promotion tools and strategies
  • evaluate people’s perception before the trip, during the trip, after the trip
  • design facilities that appeal to human needs and desires
  • promote a destination suffering from mistaken image
  • inspire staff and local residents to understand their impact on tourism
  • refine services to include human-pleasing features

Important addendum: Excess Noise Principal, Master Analyst Cemil Alyanak, headed the team that produced Travel Emotions, a study funded by the World Wide Fund for Nature to decipher traveler emotions before, during and after a trip. The study was groundbreaking and covered all continents and tens of thousands of travelers.

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 Governing Communications

Enlightened legislators and policy makers understand that citizens are real people, with real emotions, struggling with their own realities. They are not simply commodities to be manipulated or worse, disdained after the ballot has been cast.

To serve them well, knowing citizens’ opinions on policy is no longer enough. Effective legislators now go deeper into citizens’ needs, aspirations, frustrations, beliefs and personal circumstances. Of course, not all legislators are so illuminated, which is why contemporary governing communications are unappealing and usually unbelievable. Immediately after the historic 2002 French presidential elections, a well-known French actor, Michel Lebb, had this to say: “Politicians have not learnt to speak to the masses in the language of the masses.” When politicians are interviewed on television or when they otherwise debate in public, their discourse is a continuation of their parliamentary deliberation. Their language remains within the scope of their party-to-party disputes. As such, they do not appeal to citizens’ most relevant imprinting.

Our daily lives are less concerned with political imperatives than with our economic, health or security well being.

Communications and Perception Analysis can help government legislators to translate their otherwise haughty discourse into an appealing public address. Citizen communications is not the only use of Communications and Perception Analysis for those governing. Analysis techniques are key to developing policy and legislation. It can elevate proposed policy and legislation to the level of real human needs based on people’s hardwiring, imprinting, interference and effect. Too often, governments assume that their decisions, because they are for the good of the people, will be adopted as such. Nothing could be further from reality.

Citizens are, by their nature, opposed to control. They want freedom. And so, when you pass what is an act of control, you must ensure that it be in tune with the expectations of the governed. When properly proposed, policies prove more successful. Think of Communications and Perception Analysis as a tool that keeps a pulse on your citizens’ and electors’ ambitions, desires or expectations. Ultimately, the referendum or the vote validates or discredits a government’s overall policy, but Communications and Perception Analysis offers a valid means with which to establish a pre-electoral road map.

Citizens do not want to be controlled, they want to be served. How a government formulates policy can make the difference between one and the other in the eyes of the people

Citizens do not want to be controlled, they want to be served. How a government formulates policy can make the difference between one and the other in the eyes of the people

Governments, furthermore, enjoy a bonus that the private sector doesn’t: they have relatively free access to media. Companies like Coca-Cola or British Airways spend millions to buy ad space or air time either in public or trade media whether broadcast, print or online. On the other hand, governments enact, legislators decree or politicians declare, then the news media gladly cover. It may not be quite so simple, but expert government communicators know, or should know, that today’s problem is not insufficient coverage so much as it is curbing or influencing it. Communications and Perception Analysis is by far the most accurate means of evaluating a government message before, during and after it is sent out to citizens.

Use Communications and Perception Analysis to:

  • elaborate policy
  • effectively disseminate policy and legislation
  • monitor shifting cultural sensitivities
  • quickly grasp current, interfering, socio-economic parameters
  • judge possible public reaction to government actions

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 Election Campaigns

In election campaigning, only hindsight is accurate. In election campaigning, policies remain the foundation.

Nonetheless, Communications and Perception Analysis can help read the electorate’s perception and adapt the policy position and tailor the message.

The problem with election strategy formulation is that you must cater to expectations while acknowledging limitations. On the one hand, a candidate would like to promise anything the electorate needs or wants but on the other hand if they promise more than they can deliver it may catch up to them. The electorate knows this and has become weary. Every time they hear: “Once elected we will…” their first thought is “No you won’t” or the calamitous “You didn’t last time.” When it comes to substance, what Communications and Perception Analysis can do is evaluate the voters’ perception of proposed policies that were formulated based on credible parameters.

Communications and Perception Analysis provides an effective means of deciphering voter traits by going beyond surveys. Polls are necessary but analysis provides an effective, complementary means of deciphering voter character and expectations beyond what surveys will reveal. To determine these expectations, communications analysts correlate trends and current circumstances with a campaign while maintaining the focus on cultural characteristics and deeper human needs and desires. Knowing what voters are feeling, their real fears, their sincere aspirations, their attitude towards power, their outlook on life and their conformity with contemporary social attitudes improves the chances of getting elected with programs that truly meet the electorate’s needs.

People vote for policies, yes, but also based on personal vision; this cannot be neglected.

People vote for policies, yes, but also based on personal vision; this cannot be neglected.

Beyond substance, Communications and Perception Analysis is obviously very useful for a politician’s image development. All the imagery that the media ultimately delivers is easily analyzed using various tools at the analyst’s disposal. All this applies to those seeking election for sincere, honest ends. Fortunately, greater media involvement has made dishonest lawmakers easier to ferret out.

Use Communications and Perception Analysis to:

  • weigh potential benefit and damage from promises
  • identify desirable campaign focus points
  • design effective election tools
  • refine an image

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 Public Interest

Organizations working in development, humanitarian issues, the environment, public health, veteran affairs and countless others depend on communications to accomplish their mission. These non-governmental organizations, volunteer groups, foundations, institutes, guilds, unions, charities engage in advocacy, policy promotion, behavior change campaigning, public awareness and fundraising. How they are perceived is key to their work and success. In a world of limited financial, human and material resources, they cannot neglect how their mandate, the organization itself and its actions will be perceived by their stakeholders: members, associates, sponsors, governing bodies, the general public, competitors or the media. It is this perception that dictates how stakeholders allocate necessary resources. Associations and non-profit organizations usually have limited budgets. Communications and Perception Analysis can help contain or even reduce budgets by ensuring more cost-effective communications, as its purpose is to ensure messages that enjoy more effective and efficient impact. All too often, smaller entities become unnecessarily frustrated, faced with the inability to communicate on the scale of their bigger brethren but limited budgets have been known to carry substantial weight when properly formulated and targeted. Information and communications can even be used to make money. Using Communications and Perception Analysis recommendations, organizations have launched such initiatives. Whether rich or poor, high profile groups such as the UN, ICRC, WWF, face another communications-related problem: they must contend with interviews, articles and reports. Communications and Perception Analysis techniques can help by anticipating how journalists, editors and producers may interpret statements, policies or actions of said organizations. Organizations, which must maintain standards of accountability and transparency, can also use communications and perception analysis tools, such as goals analysis, to determine whether their image and communications are in line with their goals. Use communications and perception analysis to:

  • devise communications strategies that are sensitive to both stakeholder and public needs
  • develop realistic media strategies
  • create cost-effective public image tools
  • develop revenue-generating information strategies
  • set attainable communications goals

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 Architecture and Urbanism

Drive down any street, pass any building or walk into any room and — intentionally or inadvertently — you form opinions and adopt attitudes. Superior architecture and urbanism does much more than provide shelter or a work environment. A great building, a magnificent avenue or a pleasant park arouse strong emotions, hopefully positive ones that are conducive to harmony, quality of life and productivity. Communications and Perception Analysis affords developers, urban planners and architects a better understanding of how people respond emotionally as they enter, work in, inhabit or travel through their creations, ensuring roadways, buildings and spaces meet predetermined emotional and functional goals. Communications and Perception Analysis can be used to incite motivation in a workspace. It can be used to encourage silence in a cinema. Some have used it to build homes that appear less ostentatious on the outside while remaining vast and luxurious inside. Most architects use Communications and Perception Analysis instinctively. They have the ability to create a space according to the desires of the decision maker. What architects usually lack are the formal tools offered by Communications and Perception Analysis. Armed with these tools, and their other architectural know how, they can deliver buildings and spaces that are simultaneously aesthetic, useful and efficient. Use Communications and Perception Analysis to:

  • ensure exterior and interior designs match the image you wish to project
  • ensure transit spaces are effective and conducive to the desired flow
  • ensure sound, lighting, surfaces and scents are pleasing
  • improve civic spaces and arteries aesthetic or efficiency parameters

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 Retail Space

Combine sales and marketing with architecture and you get retail space. Communications and Perception Analysis is at its best in the creation or modification of retail environments by giving them appeal that is more human. Enjoyable but efficient environments ignite pertinent emotions encouraging desired actions. Restaurants must make you hungry, as must supermarkets. Travel agencies must evoke adventure, relaxation or discovery. Clothing stores must make you dream of how appealing you will look with their clothes on. Retail spaces go beyond stores, they include all places where transactions occur. Banks, post offices, airports, sports arenas or even a subway station have a transactional component. In all these instances, Communications and Perception Analysis will determine ways of achieving a desired active or reactive purchasing goal. The first step in any space is to match traffic constraints, promotional priorities and available space and resources with the desired type of purchasing impulse. The second phase is the appeal stage. Make sure that people feel what they are supposed to. On the logistics side, Communications and Perception Analysis can enhance rapid consumer flow or slow it down encouraging consumers to browse. It can create impulse buying scenarios, establish U-turn patterns or linear runs using light, sound, floor patterns and textures, icons and symbols, ventilation, visual obstacles and other inducements designed to increase sales while providing a pleasant human environment. On the emotional side, it can evoke a variety of positive hardwired and imprinted references. Interference and effect also play a major role in a retail environment. A pertinent example is a real estate agency. Most are cold, office-like environments while trying to incite you to buy a warm and welcoming residence. If you want people to buy, give them the emotion that matches the outcome of their purchase. Use Communications and Perception Analysis to:

  • design environments that are conducive to the purchasing act
  • create effective impulse buying zones
  • create traffic patterns that satisfy sales goals
  • attract consumers’ attention

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 Motivation and Productivity

Job insecurity, peer rivalry, increasing responsibilities, wage disparities and the constant pounding of depressing economic news have a negative influence on staff morale. Ineffectual industrial-era management styles, rising social instability and lack of advancement opportunities do not help. Re-engineering puts everyone en garde. Takeover talk has people guessing on who will stay and who will go. Human resources departments go to great lengths to counteract these negative factors. To enlightened leaders, staff motivation is a prime concern. Communications and Perception Analysis assists leaders who wish to implement, analyze or improve internal communications policies by scrutinizing factors that most affect staff morale and efficiency. Communications and Perception Analysis helps leaders understand how their subordinates perceive directives that appear correct in management’s mind but may be dissuasive if not depressing from an employee’s standpoint. Internal communications should be based on impact and result rather than expediency and cost. What will work in one organizational setting may not work in another. Communications and Perception Analysis avoids costly mistakes incurred by incorrect motivational choices. What makes Communications and Perception Analysis effective is its very human approach beyond cold, organizational planning procedures. Human resources development cannot be based on evaluations and directives alone. Real incentives, which appeal to real human needs and aspirations, are the key. Use Communications and perception analysis to:

  • create or modify ambiance in the professional environment for greater motivation
  • create or modify office environments to increase productivity
  • implement incentive schemes to increase motivation and productivity
  • eliminate internal communications that demotivate
  • create events or activities that stimulate creativity
  • break down unnecessary territorial barriers

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Leadership and Management

How many managers have you had? None had the same management style. Obviously, there are recurrent styles including combat leadership, educational, free reign, full delegation, critical path and so on. Management at its simplest is the transformation of one’s vision into another’s action. One or several conceive, the other or others execute. The problem arises from the very complex human interaction maps. Two people do not interact in a straightforward fashion. Parents do not do so with their children, managers with their employees, teachers with their students or commanders with their soldiers. Convolution triumphs over minimalism. In a sense, one could say that human beings have a knack for making things more complicated than they really are. Communications and Perception Analysis strategies are designed to help leaders understand how their subordinates or peers (because modern leadership is often horizontal) perceive their directives. It is then able to help these same leaders develop practices that take into account normal human reaction to leadership. One need look back into our genetic past to understand that humans have had a very well defined leadership arrangement for hundreds of thousands of years. It is not, by any means, a gentle practice. Humans have led by strength and force, as do many other primates. The problem is that today’s reality calls for a more sociable form of leadership. In essence, humans are genetically hardwired for forceful leadership but imprinting has changed the formula. As a result, we need to strengthen our imprinting filter and lead with reference to positives in our cultural symbolism. One of the means used is leadership by heroics. Heroism, in all its intensities, is a strong leadership value. “I have accomplished, therefore you owe me your respect.” Or, in language that is more modern: “I have accomplished, therefore you have everything to gain by following me.” Unfortunately, some can use Communications and Perception Analysis precepts to lead deceptively. Message interference is such that one can easily distort the impetus for a decision, making it justified in the eyes of the follower. The clearest modern example are cult-derived or cause-derived actions. Terrorists portray their cause as just but do not give followers an honest rendering of the consequences of their actions by their leaders. Use Communications and Perception Analysis to:

  • tailor your leadership style to readily receptive references
  • lead in ways that can both satisfy goals and human desires

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 Arts and Entertainment

Entertainment is art. Art is personal. What is personal is biased. What is biased complicates analysis. So how can art or entertainment be analyzed? The answer lies in social trends and the effective use of a given medium. Trends analysis’ reliance on the rich inventory of current trends combined with Communications and Perception Analysis’ thorough grasp of what is perennial, provides communicators and producers of all art forms the tools with which to assess potential appeal. Art for art’s sake is an intimate and ultimately biased creation but when its goal is to please, it falls within the scope of communications and perception analysis. Design analysis evaluates how well a message uses a medium. It can therefore be used to evaluate how effectively entertainment or art uses its medium, respects its limitations and exploits its techniques. Use Communications and Perception Analysis to:

  • determine which part of a production will appeal to or be rejected by target audience sensitivities.
  • micro-market productions in specific socio-economic, cultural and political contexts.
  • set benchmarks for designated communicators.

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Education and Training

In coming years, education and training methods must change. Subjects and course structures will have to adjust to new needs dictated by critical economic realities, mass migration and the imposing spread of advancing technologies. Current employment realities must be allowed to influence curricula. Technology’s foray into education must not be stunted, but steered. Media and entertainment’s effect on children’s attention spans and interests must be taken into account. Curricula must emulate the realities of evolving human culture and its increasing intermix. Enduring human hardwiring must be respected. Teaching methods must constantly satisfy basic human needs. An educational concept based on Communications and Perception Analysis principles is under development. It will provide options for educational systems wishing to evolve with society and its challenging new cultural and economic realities.

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