Ah, Kathy Sierra... What can I say. Kathy writes one of the most consistently great blogs dealing with business, marketing, and all things related to them. One of her latest entries on Creating Passionate Users deals with capturing and keeping someone's attention. For the purposes of this discussion, that would be... your customers, or potential customers, but the concept can definitely be applied to other parts of your life as well. (Students, cute girls, managers, parents, readers, etc.) In her own words:

"When you want to get--and especially keep--someone's attention, what's your competition? What else could they choose to focus on at any given moment? The belief that we have 100% conscious control over what we pay attention to is a myth. The belief that users can and will choose to pay attention to our message/ad/docs/product/lesson, etc. is a mistake. So what can we do to up the odds of getting and keeping attention?"

In true Kathy form, the answer is never far from the question. Here, she quotes David Lichman:

"The secret is to be more provocative and interesting than anything else in their environment."

Aha. Okay. Nothing new there. We've already heard about Seth Godin's "be remarkable" argument, and the value of being a "purple cow."

But you know what? It's worth revisiting frequently, and Kathy does a great job of reminding us of this essential strategic ingredient.

I'll be lazy here and quote Kathy again (and again and again and again...):

"If we want our users (members, guests, students, potential customers, kids, co-workers, etc.) to pay attention, we have to be provocative. We can moan all we want about how the responsible person should pay attention to what's important rather than what's compelling. But it's not about responsibility or maturity. It's not even about interest. It's about the brain."

Here are some of her suggestions on how to capture the interest of our customers:

1. Be Visual

Pictures are more important to the brain than words, and unless you've already got their attention and are a good enough writer to paint pictures in their head, you'll do better with visuals. The more stimulating the better. Even graphs and charts are a huge help.

2. Be Different--Break Patterns and Expectations

As long as we're doing what everyone else is doing (or what we have always done), the brain can relax and think, "Nothing new here... whew... what a relief, that means I can now go back to scanning for something that is". Ways to be different include doing the opposite of what you normally do, or doing something expected in a different domain, but which is wildly unique in yours.

3. Be Daring

You know the story on this one--being safe is often incompatible with being provocative.

4. Change Things Regularly

This is about continually breaking your own patterns. Consistently shaking things up whether it's look and feel of your website to the product itself. (Obviously the definition of "regularly" and "things" varies dramatically depending on the type of product or service. MySpace can change daily to the delight of its core audience, while a financial app better keep its UI stable for a much longer time and find something else to change regularly (like the website, tutorial style, or online forums).

5. Inspire Curiosity

Humans often find puzzles and even questions irresistible. Just try to walk by a TV playing a quiz show and not think about the answer to the question you heard walking by. How many times have you watched to the end of a movie you didn't particularly like, just because you had to find out how the story ends? Our legacy brains love curiosity because it usually means more learning.

6. Pose a Challenge

The level and nature of the challenge work only if they're within boundaries that work for your audience, of course.

7. Be Controversial and Committed

Take a stand. Mediocrity is not a formula for holding attention.

8. Be Fun

Remember, brains love fun because fun=play, and play=practicing-to-survive. (And as we've said many times here, fun does not have to mean funny.

9. Be Stimulating. Be Exciting. Be Seductive

Keep in mind that seduction does not have to mean sexual. A good storyteller can seduce me into sticking with the story. A good teacher can seduce me into learning. A good software app can seduce me into getting better and better.

10. Help them have Hi-Res Experiences

This gets back to the notion of being-better-is-better. The more your users know and can do, the higher resolution experience they have. Whatever you can do to give them more expertise will help keep them interested in wanting to know and do more. But they need to be up the skill curve a ways before this really kicks in, so we must do whatever we can to help get new users past the rough spots (i.e. the "suck threshold").

See? I told you she was good!

The theory of "attention share" ("wallet share's" right-brain twin) has been earning serious points with me for the better part of a year now. By the way, for a great little article on the shift from "mind share" to -and relationship with - "wallet share," click here. It's pretty basic, but that's okay.)

Kathy's post also echoes John Moore's post this week about the Ann Taylor brand, which introduces us to Ann Taylor's Kay Krill, and her five tips on reviving a fashion brand:

1: Know your client—not only what she wears, but how she lives. 2: Have an action plan, and have total agreement from the senior leaders who need to execute the plan. 3: Evolve. Retail is not a static business; there’s great danger in staying still. 4: Constantly communicate with employees at all levels. 5: Stay positive and optimistic.

Compared to Kathy's fresh and energy-infused list, Kay's fabulous five list may seem a little... sober, but it is equally important. Kathy's tips deal with being remarkable. Kay's tips deal with not only staying relevant, but also making your organization get from the strategy phase to the execution phase. The two go hand in hand. Being remarkable without being relevant basically equates to just grabbing people's attention. Likewise, being relevant without being remarkable is just boring. I may be stating the obvious here, but... hey, that's not always a bad thing: When looking for potent ingredients to add to your brand's magic recipe, equal doses of remarkable and relevant work best when used together... and preferably in large quantities.

Have a great Friday, everyone. :)

Welcome to Day 4 of our Back-to-school week special. Today, we continue our countdown of Tom Asacker's Ten Truths with #4 and #3:

Truth Four - From Interesting to Interested

"It doesn’t matter what people think about you or your company. What matters is how you make people feel about themselves and their decisions in your presence."

"Take a look at 99.999% of all marketing communications, from Web sites and direct mail, to sales sheets and advertising. They're all SHOUTING . . . "Look at me!" "Am I great, or what?" "Buy me!" and other irritating noise that no one gives a damn about. This loud voice of business is completely out of touch with the subtle, more compelling voice in the heads of today's audience. Why? Because people aren't interested in you. They want you to be interested in them, and to show them how their association with you will help them feel better about themselves.

"I don't know why so many people and organizations get this wrong, but I have a guess. I think it's because being genuinely interested in others, and working to understand their feelings and motivations, is tough: it's imprecise, messy, and time consuming. It's much easier and faster to talk about something that we know a lot about . . . us and our stuff! We simply memorize all of the pertinent facts and then when it's time, flip the brain/mouth switch and out it pours.

"It's also easier to simply bury our heads and focus on getting things done, isn't it? "Five sales calls to make . . . better get hustling!" "Two ads to create, as well as a capability brochure and a direct mail piece. No time to think." "The company is measuring me on number of transactions. Slow down and listen? Yeah . . . right." But guess what? That's great news for you! Because by being other-focused and truly interested in your audience, you'll stand out. Simply because no one else is doing it.

"(...)If you want people to pay attention to your communication, you must tune into their frequency. Their current situation. Their anxieties, desires and fears. Establish an emotional bond based on your audience's feeling of finally having been understood by someone. Because if people feel that you are genuinely interested in them, they’ll be much more likely to open up and interact with you, and give you the information that you need. So stop, sit down and scrutinize every single piece of company communication, from sales presentations to annual reports. Do they speak to your audience in terms of what's most important to them? Do they speak with passion and caring and energy? Will they make their eyes grow wide and pulse quicken?"

Truth Three - From Capture to Attract

"Metaphors matter! They condition our sensibilities and behavior. Stop trying to force fit today's complex market environment into the outdated models of yesterdays' much simpler time."

"Peruse any business publication or be the proverbial fly on any organizational wall and you'll be repeatedly exposed to war and sports metaphors. You know: capture market share, armed with information, attack the competition, hit a homerun, go the distance, raise the bar, and so forth. It's difficult to change your thinking when you're surrounded by such inapt language. How can anyone treat customers like friends when they're consistently referred to as targets to be captured or territories to be conquered? How can you expect initiative taking, when managers are busy ordering the troops around and the troops are sitting around waiting for new marching orders? And how can you hope to build long-term, mutually beneficial relationships when you're busy hooking them and reeling them in."

"I've got news for you: Business is not war and it is not a sport. That's yesterday's worn-out thinking again. And by continuing to speak yesterday's language, you are unwittingly sustaining yesterday's ineffective actions."

"(...) Metaphors do a lot more than simply enrich your speech. They structure your thinking. They condition your sympathies. They direct your attention and influence your decisions and actions. James Autry, retired CEO of Meredith Corporation wrote: Becoming a manager has much to do with learning the metaphors; becoming a good manager has much to do with using the metaphors; and becoming a leader has much to do with changing the metaphors."

"The marketplace is not an objective process, like a physical science where you try to influence the behavior of chemicals in a beaker or balls on a pool table. Appealing to customers is a subjective blend of art and science, where you're subtly attempting to influence feelings (and thus, behavior). You're dealing with the perceptions and actions of intelligent, curious, socially influenced human beings. People whose preferences change constantly, especially in the United States of Extravagance. So stop looking at business as chemistry, physics or mathematics, and begin seeing it for what it really is: a study in social psychology."

"When asked what single event was most helpful to him in developing his theory of relativity, Einstein answered: "Figuring out how to think about the problem." With his enlightening answer in mind, here's a mental model to help you think about your problems and stay aware of and adapt to the increasing number of sudden and unexpected shifts in the marketplace:

"Think of yourself as a magnet, and your audience as iron filings. You could either say that you - the magnet - cause the iron filings to move towards you. Or you could say that the iron filings value movement towards you. Scientifically speaking, both statements are exactly the same. But metaphorically speaking, they are very different. To believe that you cause your audience to move towards you implies certainty. To believe that your audience values movement towards you implies preference.

"By adopting the cause-and-effect metaphor, you’ll have a tendency to follow formulaic thinking, even in the face of changing customer preferences and declining business. In 1999, The Gap reported profits of over $1 billion. Two years later, they lost close to $8 million. How? What happened to all of their loyal customers? What was going on in their world and why? The Gap should have been obsessed with finding out, and I'm not even sure that they were curious. Instead, they focused on their own world. They continued to pour money into television advertising, assuming it to be a formula for causing sales. It's a common mistake.

"Our assumptions - our mental models - determine what we see. We think we know what's going on and what the solutions are, and so we filter out everything that doesn't fit our way of thinking.

"Stop filtering and start rethinking your business problems. You can begin by dropping the words "loyalty" and "retention" from your lexicon. Why? Because repeat patronage was never anything more than a series of mutual concessions. (...) It has absolutely nothing to do with loyalty. It has to do with staying tuned in to your audience’s changing preferences."

See you guys tomorrow, when we will finish the week with the remainder of Tom's truths.

Have a great Thursday, everyone.