The following are the notes from my presentation as part of a panel on “Communicating in the New Normal” at the College Board 2012 Colloquium held in Newport Beach, CA January 7-9.  I was part of very august company: moderator Phillip Ballinger, Assistant Vice President for Enrollment and Director of Undergraduate Admissions at University of Washington at University of Washington, Marie Groark, Executive Director of the Get Schooled Foundation, and Millree Williams, Executive Director for Public Affairs Strategy at the University of Maryland.

The New Normal: The Changing Communications Landscape

The need to explore new models was the emerging theme of the Colloquium.   I’d like to take us up to 20,000 feet for a minute and talk about the new model of communications and the media landscape that is the new normal.

How many of you use Facebook personally?

Compare this 30% to this number: 96% of your target audience, people aged 18 to 35, is on social networks.  The important thing, however, isn’t whether they are using Facebook or MySpace.  It is that these 96% are actively engaging in the online creation, distribution, and sharing of information and media.

The ability to do these things through technology is an enormous change; the biggest shift since the industrial revolution.  It has significantly changed our every aspect of our daily lives at home, work, school, and play and has subtle but profound psychological implications at all levels of society.

Lectures and Cocktail Parties

Consider the difference between a lecture and a cocktail party.  The old communications model —the mass communication, broadcast model — was like the lecture.

• A lecture is unidirectional and linear.
• Only one person gets to talk at a time
• You are supposed to stay in your chair and be quiet
• The lights are on the stage
• There is one message for everyone
• They aren’t very social, but you might get to meet the guy in the chair next to you
• Someone besides you decides when it’s over
• At the end, you’re supposed to feel grateful and applaud.

Now, we live in a globally networked world.   We are connected many-to-many.  We have left the lecture hall and gone to a cocktail party.

• A cocktail party is full of conversations.
• They are noisy and full of energy.
• Everyone talks at once
• They are dynamic and social.  You move around the room, talk to new people and meet ones you haven’t met before
• The lights shine on everyone equally
• You get to choose when and what to eat or drink and who to talk with
• You can decide when it’s over for you and
• When you leave, the host thanks you for coming.

Most of the people who are thinking about college today have grown up in the cocktail party model.

This doesn’t mean they are foolish and frivolous or drink too much.  It doesn’t mean they have short attention spans or are ‘addicted’ to social media.  It means they have grown up with the assumption of their ability to have 24/7 connectivity and on-demand access to information and people.

Individual Expectations and Beliefs

We all have basic beliefs about how the world works and our place in it that are formed from our day-to-day experiences.   Since the introduction of public access to the Internet in the mid 1990s, technology has significantly changed those day-to-day experiences compared to 15 years ago.   This is the biggest shift since the industrial revolution.  Technology has literally rewired the world and the way we think.

How many of you wondered what would happen when you flip on a light switch?  Are you surprised or do you marvel at the light coming on?  Let’s face it.  You would only be surprised, and possibly frustrated, if the lights didn’t come on.

Young people today take connectivity, interaction, and participation for granted in the same way most people view electricity.  Whether young people actually use the specific tools or not, they have expectations about where information exists.  For example, they expect breaking news to be found on Twitter.  They expect gossipy news and photos to be on Facebook.  They expect instant response to text messages.  They expect to phones to take pictures.

Gone are the days of ‘a single function device.’  All of us, but young people in particular, expect life to be media rich, full of images and sounds, not just text.  This makes sense cognitively because multimedia delivery is the most effective way to share information, increase attention, and retention.

Young people also expect information to flow from one media to another.  The distinction between online and offline is no longer relevant.  They are just different forms of connecting along the continuum of life experience.

Social technologies — and there are many kinds beyond social networks, such as blogs, microblogs, wikis, file sharing like YouTube and Flickstr, tagging, forums — have fundamental characteristics that change people’s expectations about how the world works.   Earlier sessions talked about meeting the expectations of foreign students in terms of academic, social and career support.  But it’s not just foreign students you have to satisfy.  Students everywhere have a whole new set of expectations, thanks to a networked and mobile communications landscape.

Today’s Prospective Student

Think about your prospective student—let’s call her Mary.  It does matter if she’s 18 or 28.  She can access all kinds of information without going to the library or opening a file folder, she can connect to others in her social circle without moving her feet, she can seek out professional colleagues or job opportunities without changing out of flip-flops.  If Mary’s lost, she can figure out where she is, without having to ask for directions.  She can take a break and play games with her brother two time zones away. She can take pictures and videos and share the latest music with friends in any number of ways.  Mary can keep conversations going with Mom and Dad, her best friends, monitor global news, post a blog, comment on a Tweet, check in at a local vendor, pay bills, buy shoes, donate money to the Japan Relief Fund, and set up a date for the weekend.

Mary can have relevant information from every domain in her life delivered to her on demand instantaneously any time of the day; she can stay connected to the people and things that matter to her, and effectively interact with her world.

In other words: technology gives Mary a Results-Only Living Environment in her backpack.  Every contact, every social connection, every bit of interaction provides reinforcement for her assumptions that when she acts, the world responds.

If you go back to the lecture and the cocktail party analogy, the balance of power is shifting from the sender to the receiver.  There is unprecedented access, choice and reach.  Social technologies fundamentally shift individual beliefs about what a person can or can’t do.  This doesn’t mean that technology has erased all socioeconomic differences or equalized all access, but it has taken the entire data set and moved it to a difference place on the curve of individual agency.  THIS is the new normal.  From Egypt to Occupy Wall Street, people have a new sense of agency and a belief in their right to speak up.  Social technologies are teaching people how to be self-motivated learners, increasing empathy, social capital, and self-efficacy.

You’re Communicators.  So What Are Rules for the New Normal?

The new normal is about network systems.  Networks are about relationships.  Nothing is just one way.  Networks are continually changing, reciprocal environments.  Don’t be fooled by that fact that technology is involved.  It is a vehicle not the goal.

• Relationships are about authenticity and real human contact.  78% of people trust peer recommendations; but only 14% trust advertisements directly from an organization
• In a networked world, access is easy.  It’s hard to hide things.  The new normal is an expectation of honesty and transparency because it’s easy to find out who’s not telling the truth
• You don’t control your message; if you’re lucky you can contribute to it by active participation
• In a world where anyone can talk to anyone, the new normal is much less tolerant of hierarchies that block access and information, or operate based on condescension or exclusion.
• In a world where the cost of publishing your opinion is zero, the new normal is participation.  People expect to be able to have an opinion; they expect to contribute; they expect to be heard; AND they expect acknowledgement.
• In a digital world, the new normal redefines time and space.  Responses need to be immediate, whether it’s email, callbacks, text message or shipping.
• Technology and on-demand capabilities means we pull information to ourselves based on need, we do not wait for it to be given out.  The new normal is an expectation being able to access and interact with our information and the environment.
• It’s not about the tools — it’s about goals.  Media choice is based on the best tool we can get for the job.

Against this broader backdrop, there are some very real differences in access and use.  According to researchers, the digital divide is lessening not because of more broadband access or home computers, but because of increased adoption of mobile technologies.  For example, teens from lower income families are twice as likely to use a cell phone to access the Internet.   The divide will be more about technological literacy than access.

Social technologies have given people unprecedented control over their lives.  We act and, because we are linked in real time, we see the actions others take and we can interact with them.  Individual actions inspire group actions; groups inspire individuals.

The most exciting thing is that we are training new generations to believe they can act; to believe that an individual can make a difference.  It changes everyone’s expectations about their ability— and their responsibility—to contribute.

What Does This Mean For Colleges And Universities?

Colleges and universities have to communicate value in the context of the larger world — one of global competition, rising education costs, and a challenging job market.

How we communicate has changed, both in form and function.  Social technologies have not only created a new host of tools, but a new set of expectations on the part of the potential students.

The biggest challenge is getting over the old model; the image of your organization as the ‘lecturer.’  I’ve got a news for you — you can go on talking in a lecture hall but your market has figured out they don’t have to sit and listen.

• The good news is that social technologies mean you can get a lot of bang for your buck.
• The bad news is that your strategy and goals are more important than ever because

10 Guidelines for the Social Media Environment

1. You have to find out where the students ARE, to be able to reach them
2. Communication has to be fluid and consistent across multiple devices and platforms, from text messaging and YouTube to legacy media and face to face.  Think transmedia
3. You have to plan for collaboration and participation
4. You have to prepare contingency plans for problems
5. Go where the prospective students are and LISTEN FIRST to find out what they think need, not what you think they need
6. Information has to be human, honest, and transparent
7. Interactions and responses must be timely
8. Attention is a scarce resource and information is plentiful.  Deliver value is by synthesizing information and facilitating decisions
9. The process of recruiting and admissions must allow personalization and participation (beyond sending in the application or emailing an admission’s officer questions)
10. Ask your audience for solutions to your problems

Implications for Higher Education

First, as buckets of data will attest, the fundamentals that are drive opportunity, from higher compensation and employment to recognition, are always about who add value to society.  When jobs are scarce, we lose track of the fact that they are scarcer the less skills and education you have.

More than any time in history, we live in a knowledge society.  Technology is ubiquitous, from simple iPhone apps to complex biomedical and engineering tools.  Success in the 21st century requires a new literacy.   It requires the ability to apply judgment and critical thinking to see what technology allows us to do.   It’s not about finding.  It’s about thinking, synthesizing and innovating and converting that to action.

Colleges and universities aren’t immune to the changing environment outside the Ivy Covered Halls.  Think about the difference between lecture halls and conversations, not just for how you communicate what your institution can offer or what college can offer, but in HOW you educate.

Effective education needs to be follow the same rules:  collaborative, participatory, challenging, responsive, inclusive, respectful, be interesting and have value for the 21st Century.

The education offered must be relevant to the goals of the prospective student.  The ability to control the environment, to participate means that the prospective student isn’t going to take your word for it that what you offer is valuable.  You have to make it valuable and prove it.

The social media environment has the potential to create self-motivated learners in a responsive environment that believe they can change the world.

The film, A Dangerous Method, is an ambitious effort to portray the complex and tumultuous evolution of the relationships and theories among the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, his protégé Carl Jung, and the patient-turned-psychoanalyst, Sabina Spielrein.  The movie is beautiful and engaging but not very satisfying.  But then, it is based on the untidiness of real life, and titans of western thought though they were, Freud and Jung were still human beings.  The film is well worth seeing, but be prepared to come out thinking ‘huh, interesting’ rather than ‘wow!’  Dangerous Method succeeds as a largely nonjudgmental chronicle of impassioned people and big ideas that unfold over time.  In taking this long and very human view, however, it sacrifices emotional force, and leaves mostly ambivalence.  It’s greatest moment is the glimpse of Carl Jung through the eyes of Spielrein as someone wanting to look beyond the dark side of the psyche into human potential.

Few figures in history have had such a broad impact on western culture.  Psychoanalysis has not only revolutionized how we think about the mind, behavior, and personality, it added a slew of words to daily discourse, from ego and complex to introvert.   The trailer, as expected, doesn’t do the depth of the film or history justice, because it focuses on the personal desires and professional fallout surrounding the sexual dynamics of the Jung and Spielrein.   It leaves an image of Spielrein as an unhinged patient and gives no indication of her theoretical contributions to the thinking of not just Freud and Jung, but the field of psychoanalysis.  (If you’re interested in Spielrein herself, see Director Elisabeth Marton’s documentary ‘Ich Hiess Sabina Spielrein,’ based on correspondence Spielrein left behind when she returned to Russia in 1923.  The papers were discovered in a basement in Geneva in 1977.)

A Dangerous Method, directed by David Cronenberg, stars Michael Fassbender as Jung, Keira Knightley as Spielrein, and Viggo Mortensen as Freud.  It begins with the admittance of the intelligent and well-educated 19-year-old Spielrein to the Burghölzli psychiatric hospital in Zurich, where she is assigned to the young doctor Carl Jung.  Jung diagnoses Spielrein’s uncontrollable and defiant behaviors as hysteria and begins ‘talk therapy,’ a new form of treatment advocated by the well-known Austrian neurologist, Sigmund Freud. 

When we first meet Spielrein, it’s pretty clear that Jung has his work cut out for him.  Knightley’s portrayal makes Spielrein seem seriously ill, transforming palpable psychic pain into almost physical deformity with her chin jutting, twitching and writhing.  Psychoanalysis is serious science so it makes sense when Jung describes the treatment to Spielrein, emphasizing the importance of the therapist remaining out of the line of sight.   But then there begins some disconnects.  That’s the last we see of an actual therapy session (unless you count the scenes where Jung is talking to Otto Gross, but it’s not clear who’s shrinking whom).  In fact, Spielrein’s cure is so rapid, and Knightley’s depiction is sufficiently intense and idiosyncratic throughout the film, that where she is therapeutically is hard to follow.  Is that a therapy session in the garden?  Should the patient Spielrein be assisting Jung in word-association research with a human subject, let alone Jung’s wife?   If Spielrein is in treatment for hysteria, how did she get enrolled in medical school?   There is historical evidence that her cure was rapid, particularly by psychoanalytic standards, but until the point where Spielrein remarks that Jung has cured her, it’s not clear where they are in the therapeutic process.  Without that context, we may be willing to suspend disbelief, but in what?

The relationship between Freud and Jung is also confusing.  Unless you’re a Freudian or Jungian scholar, you’re left mapping bits and pieces of what’s offered in the movie to whatever you already knew about Freud and Jung, trying to make sense of it.  Mortensen plays Freud with restraint, but does infuse a sense of dry humor that gives him some humanity in spite of his obvious hubris.  (Mortensen is also too vital to look old enough to step aside for ‘young men’ like Jung, but I was willing to go with that one.)

Freud is inflexible yet vulnerable in his need to maintain his theoretical dominance.   Jung comes off less well on the ‘likeability’ scale.  He seems surprisingly callous to social dynamics and a bit self-absorbed for someone interested in psychiatry; he takes too much food at Freud’s dinner table and is unbothered by the discomfort caused by the disparity of income between himself (thanks to his wealthy wife) and Freud, not to mention the breach of professional ethics in his relationship with Spielrein or his conduct towards his wife.   The personal angst and turmoil he experiences during and after his relationship with Spielrein may represent the exploration of the drives that psychoanalysis embodies, but they don’t engender much sympathy when we find out, almost in passing (spoiler alert), that now that Spielrein has left, Jung has another mistress.

The broader historical context for psychoanalysis, however, is missing.   Freud worries about people attacking psychoanalysis and Jung suggests that people would be more accepting if the theories weren’t all focused on sex, but the audience has no way of knowing the amount of professional, scientific, or public acceptance for psychoanalysis except as implied by the fact that Jung and Freud aren’t skulking about in secret.

The theoretical exchanges show fissure but don’t do either Freud of Jung any justice.  Jung’s interest in spirituality and the broader cosmos doesn’t begin to do his work justice.  Predicting a cracking sound in the bookcase is a far cry from developing theories of the collective unconscious and archetypes.  Dangerous Methods does, however, underscore Spielrein’s role as a catalyst both emotionally and intellectually, heightened by the competition between Jung and Freud.  In fact, Spielrein’s discussions of theory with Freud and Jung are the most interesting of the film, both in content and in the men’s subtle dismissal of her insights. If you’re interested in psychoanalytic theory, you will want more depth and clarity; if not, you will have had more than enough.

The highpoint of the movie for me is when Spielrein defends Jung to Freud by arguing that Jung want to show people what they have the potential to become, not just reveal their illnesses and neuroses.  Freud summarily rejects this as appropriate.  It shows, better than any other place in the film, the schism in their perspectives toward the role of psychology as an agent of change and is also a continued theme today in the field of psychology.   In spite of that, it’s hard to believe that the lackluster Jung we see by the end of the film made such pivotal contributions to western thought and psychology, not to mention spawning personality theories that have become a bedrock in management development, leadership training, and career counseling.

All that being said, it’s a movie worth seeing.  It reminds us even icons of history are human beings and that life is messy.

–

Photos: Universal Studios/A Dangerous Method; movies.ign.com publicity stills

Cross-posted on Psychology Today “Positively Media.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that reverse mentoring has finally cracked the workplace so that senior executives can learn more about technology, social media and the latest workplace trends.  Great idea, but reverse mentoring won’t work.  It violates the very premise of a social media environment that it purports to address.  Mentoring must be about a two-way flow of information and respect.  What organizations need is collaborative mentoring.

Reverse mentoring is exactly the wrong way to think about knowledge exchange in an organization.  We live in a time of social networks and peer-to-peer connectivity.  Calling it reverse mentoring implicitly supports the linear and uni-directional exchange of information and existing organizational hierarchies.  Reverse mentoring won’t work because it challenges not only the existing hierarchy but essentially tells someone who spent years developing skills that it’s not good enough.  Whether that’s true or not, it’s not how you encourage growth except maybe in the armed forces.  The mentoring needs to be a relationship and a bi-directional exchange — it needs to be collaborative mentoring.

I understand need to tap into the knowledge of tech-savvy employees (presumed to be younger) to bring those less technically-inclined (presumed to be older) up to speed with a ubiquitous technology world.  In the process of embracing this new culture of social technologies and social connectedness, it’s important to remember two things:

• It is not about the tools; it’s a cultural shift
• People’s identities are at stake

As the Wall Street Journal points out, some executives “bristle” at the thought of being mentored by someone younger, creating the Rodney Dangerfield response.  Is there no respect?  The question is really: is there no respect for me?  Because massive change, like we’ve had with social media, is a threat to our identity — it challenges our core assumptions about how the world works and our place in it.  It’s not surprising that there is a bit of discomfort and fear when it comes to new technology, particularly in the hierarchies of organizations.

Reverse mentoring won't work. Mentoring must be collaborative; an exchange of information and respect

This question of respect impacts pretty much everyone born before about 1985, who used to show up at the office feeling fairly competent and accomplished.  We worked hard and we knew stuff from all the years of slogging along.  We had what Rex Stout’s detective Nero Wolfe calls “wisdom guided by experience.”  Now it feels like somebody is changing the rules as the world goes digital, mobile and interconnected.  It’s like showing up to play golf with a baseball bat.

The tools are just the symptoms of a larger shift in people’s expectations about connection, access, and the time-space continuum.  We are talking about colliding cultures.  Like any good organizational psychologist will tell you, the cultures have to gain an appreciation for each other and what they bring to the party.  Reverse mentoring won’t work if you view it as having the young dogs teach the old dogs new tricks.  The key to all transactions is, as Aretha would say, R-E-S-P-E-C-T, and it needs to flow both ways.  Teaching executives to use technology isn’t the same thing as integrating invaluable and hard-won wisdom and experience into social technologies and the new psychological environment they have spawned.  That will take collaborative mentoring, not reverse mentoring.

Transmedia storytelling is rapidly becoming the new ‘must have’ in marketing and entertainment.  Its adoption is slowed, however, by the confusion over what exactly it is.  Like most things, there are lots of definitions, but with transmedia storytelling, it’s easy to be distracted by the promise of the wide array of tools and get caught up in the romance of ‘building out a storyworld,’ — and end up overlooking the substance.  Good transmedia storytelling starts with the story. The story doesn’t live in the storyworld.  The story starts with and lives in the brain.  The brain is the vehicle for engagement.  Successful transmedia storytelling provides the brain with multiple vehicles for participation.  Participation creates immersion because we ‘buy in.’ It is a renewable energy source because it creates the motivation for continued engagement.

All the world is a story

If you mention ‘Transmedia Storytelling’ to aspiring artists, their eyes light up and their minds fill with remarkable pictures of dazzling storyworlds with lushly illustrated environments and deeply developed characters.  Like their lives flashing before their eyes, they see their work sparkling across films, video games, Twitter, comics, t-shirts, anime, Facebook, ARGs, websites, webisodes, skywriting, and…

There’s good reason for big dreams and expansive visions.  There have been some extraordinary campaigns and product introductions, continually pushing boundaries and blending media and real world experience, like Conspiracy for Good or the Why So Serious? campaign for Warner Brothers’ The Dark Knight launch .

The allure of forming a Transmedia storyworld is so powerful and compelling, it is creating a story arc of its own. This storyworld is filled with aspiring storytellers, producers and artists who imagine developing a transmedia project.  They have become the protagonist in their own heroic journey with untold obstacles that must be overcome to achieve their goal of producing an engaging storyworld delivered seamlessly across multiple media channels.  But as appealing as having a complex storyworld is, the Golden Fleece of this hero’s journey is not the beauty of the visuals, the number of media assets and events, or the number of pages in the story bible.  It is the ability of the story to tap into core emotions and universal meanings.  If it does that, the brain will chip in big time.

Shakespeare is often quoted as saying ‘all the world is a stage.’  More useful, however, is all the world is a story.  Without the story, not much happens on the stage.  Everything is a story because stories live, first and foremost, in the brain and that’s where all information and thought starts.

Stories live in the brain

The human brain processes all incoming information into stories.  It can’t help it.  It’s just what it does.  We get information through all five senses, so everything gets is translated into a narrative with full sensory context.  Imbued meanings let us connect what’s new to the existing information we have tucked away in our cranial recesses.  The brain uses stories to give information meaning because that’s the only way we can effectively warehouse the new stuff for later retrieval.  Without meaning, we don’t know where to file things away, so we don’t.  We don’t pay attention. We don’t remember. We don’t care.   Without story, nothing sticks.

Without stories, we have no storage.

Even a simple object has to have a story to make it into core storage.  Sticking with the Shakespeare theme, think of a rose.  It’s not possible to recall a ‘rose’ without experiencing what you have tucked away, linked to ‘rose.’  It might be the color of the rose, maybe the scent, maybe the soft velvety feel of the petals.  You may see the stem, whether the rose is fully-open or merely a bud, and you may feel the emotions surrounding the occasion on which you gave or received it.  Or maybe your stored ‘rose’ encounter was from a children’s book when you were young.  Your ‘rose’ memory may come complete with the page it was printed one, the smell of the book, how Ms. Smith held the book on her lap during reading time while you sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor next to your best friend in kindergarten…counting the minutes to milk and cookies.  Remembering even a single object is like playing a film clip.  Stories transport us with multi-sensory accompaniment, however momentarily, because the brain doesn’t discriminate between real and virtual experience in the neurons it fires.

Powerful stories provide triggers for our memories, emotions, and experience and, in doing so, envelope us.  Our participation creates the immersion.  We bring our own unique experiences and meanings and fill in the gaps.   The storyteller provides the yellow brick road; we bring what hides in the forest along the way.  The most well developed and elaborate storyworld won’t succeed if there is no room for us to connect to universal emotions and themes and become part of the journey.  Good stories not only transport us, they transform us, because they allow us to experience something in a new way.

Good transmedia storytelling takes a good story and makes it additive with multiple vehicles for transportation and participation.  All stories are collaborative in the sense that we transform the story with out own meanings.  But in transmedia storytelling, we knit together different threads across different media experiences to form a new understanding of the narrative.  The more we are able to participate – - whether it’s physical or imagined participation or shared or created content – - the greater the psychological impact.   More participation creates more meaning, more immersion, more engagement, and more motivation to sustain continued participation.

What’s created in the brain is much more important than what’s created with the tools.  That’s not saying that the extraordinary art and orchestration of a well designed Transmedia story campaign doesn’t matter, but the power rests with the story.  When you get them both right, it’s magic.

Cross posted on Psychology Today “Positively Media”
—-

Special thanks to great conversations with Scott Walker and Gareth Skarka from StoryWorld whose jovial company, along with a little wine, got me to “without story there is no storage.”