writing good and/or deceptive conference spam, and communication/manipulation diffs

[Gadi Evron <ge () linuxbox org>]

I just came across the following blog post, where the author discusses an 
email he received, advertising a conference in a deceptively persuasive 
fashion. I started this post as a short, informative email to a community 
of SMOFS and ended up adjusting it to the subject matter I ended up with, 
writing a blog post of my own.

While I use the "scarcity" "trick" myself, I make sure and use it only 
when seats really are running out, and once at the beginning--Alerting 
people to how many seats we have as they all already know we will run out 
very quickly.

That of course refers to another "trick" the author mentions--social 
proof. Looking back at my "spam" emails I don't abuse it beyond the 
mentioning the seats available, in any advertisement. But I do make use of 
it, I know people who go to the con enjoy themselves, and discuss it 
amongst themselves and with their peers. I enjoy the back-lash email 
bombardment of "I really wanted to make it" as it helps me help others 
make it next time.

There is a downside to understanding persuasion. Our knowledge of it.

After being exposed to quite a bit of manipulation, especially in 
corporate environments and around Washington DC, I became _aware_ 
(apologies for use of new age terminology) that it "exists". Later on I 
was disturbed by finding out the same tools in my repertoire (or weapons 
in my arsenal if you like) I've used in good communication are used in 
manipulation as well. This made me think quite a bit if others, and 
myself, are acting in a manipulative fashion.

The difference between communication and manipulation is tricky at best. 
It is in Intent (of attacker) and Perspective (of victim), and we can add 
a third category of examination, the X, or Asimov "Mule", factor--Specific 
incident--which might change our normal understanding in specific odd-ball 
cases. Both in the decent meaning of influence, in good communication, and 
in the "evil" one, manipulation, noticing that I, or others, say or do 
something which answers to one of these possible "tricks" of influence 
immediately puts it under scrutiny of self-awareness (apologies for 
new-agey term) if it makes use of any of these "tricks".

Robert Cialdini in his book "Influence: Psychology of Persuasion" takes a 
part a sub-set of the world of influence and helpfully puts it into 
clearly defined and named categories by the use of terminology. That, not 
the text, is the greatest asset of the book.

He often mentions how all these tools of persuasion are really normal 
tools humans use to avoid over-loading with needless, indeed countless, 
decisions that spam our daily lives, and to make better decisions to boot 
(everybody buys an iphone, it *must* be better! </cynicism> it sure is 
cool, though). Knowing about how these work though, means the con artists, 
sales people, etc. will use them against us.

But as people who run conventions and conferences, how do we both use, and 
abuse, these "tricks" of influence? How can we make better use of them, 
and avoid being deceptive?

Notice yourself using it in your advertisement? Feeling left out as you 
are not a convention/conference manager? Have any anecdote from your 
position.. or daily life?

You can view the discussed blog which inspired this post, here:
http://www.changingminds.org/blog/0902blog/090227blog.htm

This post can also be found on my blog for future reference and comments:
http://gadievron.blogspot.com/2009/03/deceptive-use-of-language-in-conference.html

Gadi Evron.
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