Not much on the “Communicating” front lately. The most fundamental thing in successful marketing is to have a good product. We’ve seen many “one-hit wonder” acts propelled up the charts by a multi-million dollar marketing campaign, only to disappear into obscurity shortly afterwards.

As one US Army Field Training Manual puts it: “First Be, Then Do, Then Tell”.

If you don’t have it, it doesn’t matter how much you talk it up.

Having said that, once you’ve got the substance, the presentation should also be done artfully.

Here is a 15 page tutorial from the specialist presentation firm Missing Link on creating presentations:

Attention Spam (605K, .pdf)

93% of communication is non-verbal. 58% is body language, 35% is tone and voice, and only 7% is the actual content, at least according to an article pinned up in the lunch room at work.

I think that these numbers probably vary depending on the situation, relationship, and personalities involved. However, these give a rough idea for most situations and the majority of people.

Here on this blog you can’t see my body language, so that removes 58%.

So using those same percentages, 83% of the communication is tone and voice, 17% is content. Because this is a written medium, I would say that content scales up. Even so, tone and voice are still very important.

If I were someone else, out there, reading this blog, a lot of the time I would probably say: “Who does this guy think he is?”

The most important thing is the content. Canakya Pandit advises us to take gold from a filthy place, and wise instruction even from a fool. I once again fall at the feet of my readers and beg you to be paramahamsas - take whatever nectar is to be found here by the mercy of those personalities who have graced me with their association, and neglect whatever else is here, which is arises from my sinful heart. You will have to discriminate what is useful for your conception / implementation and what is not.

That’s “Quote of the Day”

Remember, the reality of anything can only be perceived if you communicate it effectively.

Read on another blog.

atmavan manyate jagat - “One perceives the world as a reflection of their own mind”.

From “It’s all about me: Why e-mails are so easily misunderstood“: Christian Science Monitor.

On the subject of Google Ads, I just started a Google Ads campaign for Atma Yoga. We’ve had a number of people email or phone from our findyoga.com.au listing, where we’re number six down on the right in the list of schools.

While we were debating the new name for the school I mentioned a principle that Guy Kawasaki had talked about around that time in a post entitled “The Name Game“, about choosing a name for a company.

Guy said:

Begin with letters early in the alphabet. Here’s the scenario: you bought a booth at a massive trade show like Comdex. The list of exhibitors in the show guide is alphabetized. Would you rather be listed in the front of the guide or at back of the guide? Another scenario: A reviewer analyzes a dozen or so products. She lists them in alphabetical order in the review. Would you prefer that your product be at the beginning or end of the list?

Ka-ching. The only way to ace the findyoga listing would be to call the place 108 Yoga.

Candidasa hassles me every now and then about our non-appearance in Google searches for yoga in Brisbane, so let’s see what the Google ad campaign does.

Don’t be surprised if you don’t see any sponsored links for Atma Yoga in Google - the campaign is targeted to Queensland, Australia, where we are physically located. No sense in advertising to people in Iceland. I might widen it to Australia. We’ll see what happens.

We also got 10,000 flyers yesterday. Elliott and Maha-mantra reckon that they’ll distribute 500 a day, finishing the lot in 20 days. We’ll see how they get on. Again, carpet bombing is not as effective as targeted assassination, to use a military analogy. Bunker busters haven’t taken care of Mr bin Laden…

The personal referral beats the mass marketing campaign any day, or at least it does today. If you didn’t check it out when I previously mentioned it, and you have some time on your hands and the capacity for it - check out Greg Stielstra’s site Pyromarketing.com. Greg was the marketing manager for Zondervan who oversaw the marketing for The Purpose-driven Life.

So we find that people come if a friend invites them or tells them about it, or if they meet a staff member in the street. We trust what our friends tell us because we have similar tastes - that’s why we’re friends. What a stranger tells us is good is less reliable.

At the same time, a good military strike involves air and artillery support accompanied by a fast moving mechanized infantry wave. Boots on the ground. So Google Ads is part of that metaphorical strike - at least that’s how I think of it.

ISKCON Communications Europe Leadership Team (ICELT) is holding meetings in Radhadesh, Belgium, April 18 - 22.

I saw the program here, and immediately developed a desire to attend.

As you might know, Communications and Leadership are the two majors of my study. The particular sessions that are going to be held are very interesting for me too. They typically examine the tension between two contradictory considerations.

One thing that you realize when you leave the armchair and start to assume the responsibility of the service of leadership is that theory may be very clear, but the actual implementation is not. There are a large number of contradictory, complementary, and confusing factors. Balancing them all is as much art as it is science, and it requires continual adjustment.

The sessions at the ICELT meetings examine contemporary contradictions in preaching.

A pet one of mine is the emphasis that Srila Prabhupada put on the fact that the Krishna Consciousness movement is not “Hindu”, and the 1996 ISKCON Communications Ministry proclamation that we are. That’s going to be examined on day two in a session entitled: “Am I a Hindu? Yes, no, when it suits me. ”

Obviously I can’t go, but the Lord within the heart knows everything, and by His mercy the ICELT meetings are going to be podcasted live.

Word. I may write summaries of the sessions on here if time allows

Here’s an interesting podcast from the Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMMA) Blog. It’s a conversation with Douglas Atkin. “Centered on belief, the need for belonging, the desire to bear witness, Douglas makes the connection between community values and vibrant brand evangelism.”

Atkin did research into the phenomenon of brand evangelism and word of mouth, and in an effort to understand it he went to the roots of brand cults or communities - yes folks, that means Hare Krishna.

Very interesting listening.

One correspondent asked, in response to a comment I left on his blog:

You say, “At the same time, Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life”, selling a million copies a month steadily for two years, shows that “giving it straight” also has its place.”

That’s amazing. What do you think it is about this book that’s making it sell like that?

Well, on one level this book speaks to the deepest felt need of our generation, and any other, because it speaks to the soul about its eternal relationship with God, and it does so using the language of the people that it addresses.

That’s always going to be a winner, as you already know.

Apart from being aligned with universal principles in its content, and culturally relevant in its presentation, the marketing of the book was done in alignment with universal principles. You can listen to the audio of Pyromarketing, a book on marketing written by the man who headed publisher Zondervan’s marketing campaign for The Purpose-driven Life, Greg Stielstra, for free, over at his website www.pyromarketing.com.

I’m sorry to have sat on this information for so long - I found it at the beginning of January, but the time seems right now to release it.

So, you’ve seen the power of Rick’s preaching in “The Purpose-driven Life” through Geoff’s presentation. Now find out how they have gotten a million copies a month of this bad boy in people’s hands for the past two years.

Hmmm.. a while ago I posted a link to an article by Pastor Brian McLaren on the subject of constructing a response to the question of homosexual marriage. A lot of what he said, and especially his sensitive approach, resonated with me.

Shortly afterwards, another pastor whose blog I read, Mark Driscoll of Mars church, posted a response to that, laying down the smack on Brian’s approach. The comments to this posting are very interesting and informative about the different mentalities of the living entities.

Today Mark posted an apology. He hasn’t changed his views, but he’s gotten some nice realizations about how to coexist with other preachers. Brian doesn’t lay down the smack on Mark, and now Mark realizes that he shouldn’t lay down the smack on Brian. Isn’t that nice.

I respect both of these men, for what they do, for what they think, and for the way they handle themselves. This is one good example of all three of these.

The sign, and the title of this post, are a little self-deprecating humour by Mark in his apology. Gotta love that self-deprecating humour.

Triyuga asks: “could you elaborate on your statement: “Atmananda das has made the yoga part of a coherent story that is magical and charming, and wholly consistent with the philosophy of Krishna Consciousness”. I also feel this somehow, and would appreciate if you could explore the how and what of this topic a little further.”

Triyuga, thanks for the link (goldenbridgeyoga.com). If you have a look there you can see that they are telling a story about Sikhism, and an engaging one. Story telling, and story tellers, are the basis and central hub of community and culture. Srimad Bhagavatam is a story. Mahabharata is a story. Our life is a story. What’s the story that we are telling?

Here’s something that I worked up from material from the yogamandir.com site for the “Introduction to Atma Yoga” flyer that I’m currently laying out:

Atma Yoga provides a set of principles and practices for a holistic “total yoga lifestyle” for the modern yogi and urban mystic. Many other yoga systems were designed to be practiced in solitude, in isolation, or as an exclusive engagement in order to obtain the complete benefits. Yoga practices based on these systems may be able to offer partial benefits, such as increased health and physical well being, but in a modern urban context these systems cannot deliver the profound benefits that are the true goal of Yoga practice.

Different yoga practices are prescribed in the Vedic texts for different eras. Over 5000 years ago, in 3102 B.C., Vedic sages predicted the appearance of an industrialized “Age of Iron” (Kali Yuga), and recommended the practice of bhakti yoga for the people who would live in this cultural environment.

Atma Yoga addresses the need to harmonize mystic and bhakti yoga, which have become separated in the modern age. Atma Yoga raises the understanding of Yoga above the valuable but incomplete conception of Hatha Yoga alone. (quote ends)

It’s adapted from Prema Pradipa, a novel by Srila Bhaktivinode Thakura, from a section where a Vaisnava who was previously a hatha yogi discusses the influence of hatha yoga in his spiritual development with another Vaisnava. Srila Bhaktivinode uses the story as his vehicle to communicate the relationship between the two, and we can and should do the same thing.

Consistency and coherency. Our message is communicated, our story is told through everything that we say, that we do, and that we are. We meet people where they are at, and tell a story that includes them, and brings them home.

From the last post:

What brands now have to do is say, ‘I’m recognizing you as the complete and incredible being that you are.

We have to be careful about this. Amongst our early attempts to develop slideshows there were efforts which tried to show the “miseries of material life”. What we realized when we ran them is that a common perception of this message can be summed up in two words: “You Suck”.

When the public sees a slide presentation like this, it comes across like a direct attack on them. Practitioners of Krishna Consciousness may look at each other knowingly and nod their heads, but when you show pictures of Joe or Jane Public and say something like: “Just see how much he is suffering. Just see how meaningless her life is”, the audience hears: “You Suck”. Why? Because that’s them you have up on the screen. Joe and Jane Public.

When you show natural disasters and talk about how unstable the material world is and how at any moment we can be thrown head over heels, or killed, people say (or at least think): “Those poor people. How dare you try to profit from their suffering by using it to try to guilt trip / scare us into buying your religion”.

So we’ve been working on some different angles, which communicate the same essential truth, but in a more palatable way.

Instead of “material life is suffering!”, we say: “Modern life is too complicated” (people all nod their heads - “simplicity, yeah!”)

Instead of “wasting your life”, we say: “losing time”

Instead of “look at these people suffering”, we say “stress related disorders are superseding all other forms of physical ailment”.

Instead of “working like asses”, we say “many people are obligated to spend long hours commuting to and from work” (they recognize: “yeah - that’s me!”)

It’s all about recognizing that people r0ck, and they just have a few details that they need to align to fix those niggling discrepancies. As Prabhupada begins his Bhagavatam commentary: “You r0ck, but… there is a pinprick in your otherwise awesome existence, and the Bhagavatam is here to help you address that”.

We can help with those details. After all, religion means proper adjustment.

Of course, if the only audience we’re after is one that consists of people who are completely materially exhausted, then another presentation will be appropriate, but this way of doing it seems so far to have the widest appeal.

Studies on attention span also shed light on why students have difficulty with the traditional lecture format. Adult learners can keep tuned in to a lecture for no more than 15 to 20 minutes at a time, and this at the beginning of the class. In 1976, A. H. Johnstone and F. Percival observed students in over 90 lectures, with twelve different lecturers, recording breaks in student attention. They identified a general pattern: After three to five minutes of “settling down” at the start of class, one study found that “the next lapse of attention usually occurred some 10 to 18 minutes later, and as the lecture proceeded the attention span became shorter and often fell to three or four minutes towards the end of a standard lecture.” Other studies appear to confirm these findings.

From an article entitled “The Change-Up in Lectures” (no, not that change up).

People’s attention spans are declining, as the scriptures predict that they will throughout the present industrialized age. The implications for communicating Krishna Consciousness are obvious - people’s ability to pay attention to our message is decreasing, and we need to do something to address that.

Some things that can be done: “over prepare” in order to communicate succinctly and engagingly, compress the information, keep it on point and timely, use diverse delivery media to stimulate engagement, and above all - always leave ‘em wanting more, rather than burning them out.

Serving too much to a guest at the Sunday Feast leads to a lot of wastage. Give people what they can digest - nothing more, nothing less. Because the audience is hetrogenous (read: variegated [read: made up of dissimilar people]) one size doesn’t fit all. You have to decide who you are targeting. Other people who fall to either side of your target will get more or less of a fit. Others who are at the extreme ends of the spectrum from your target won’t get the most from it, but that can’t be helped.

One approach that we are trying here is to make the Sunday Feast like a variety show, and to have a number of different events in order to stimulate attention through change (the “new” factor), and provide something for everyone (in our Sunday Feast target demographic). Remember, however, that too much change fatigues the audience also. So mix it up with different pacing and give people a change to relax at times.

A couple of weeks ago we did 40 minutes of bhajans (concept: make the experience like listening to a CD - multiple short tracks one after another), followed by a 20 minute slideshow by Sukanthi Radha dd, followed by a 35 minute lecture by His Holiness Devamrita Swami, followed by a 30 minute whomper kirtan.

I’ll try to get that slideshow by Sukanthi online with the recorded audio. It’s really good. I also have the class by HH Devamrita Swami, which was part of our present series on Guidance.

Is the title of a 1985 essay by Dr Jay H Lehr, a scientist, where he talks about presenting to scientific conferences. Many of the points that he makes are generally applicable to all kinds of presentations, including presenting Krishna Consciousness. Of course we know that purity is the force and that our personal application of Krishna Consciousness is the necessary precondition for successful communication for life transformation. At the same time, there is no harm in making an effort to perform the service the best way possible, nor is there really any excuse for not doing it.

Development of technique is not a substitute for devotion - it is a manifestation of it.

Check out the essay Let there be stoning (pdf file)

Here are some slide presentations. I made and delivered these slide presentations with OpenOffice.org, a free open source office suite for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Download a free copy now and liberate yourself from Microsoft’s tyranny.

The first one is the presentation that I used to pitch the new facility. I made it on Sunday morning, and gave it for the first time Sunday evening. I then gave it to everyone I met for the next few days.

New Facility Presentation
Slides for OpenOffice.org (20 MB)
Slides for Powerpoint (20 MB)

The second one is the blatant recruiting pitch that I delivered thinly disguised as a report on our activities in Brisbane, at the recent retreat in Taupo, New Zealand 253 slides in under 20 minutes. I’d just put the finishing touches on the presentation the night before so I flubbed it a bit at the end (most people probably wouldn’t notice), but otherwise it went quite well.

Sita-pati’s Report on Preaching in Brisbane
Slides for Powerpoint (92 MB)
Slides for OpenOffice.org (92 MB)
Audio Recording in Ogg Vorbis (10 MB)
Audio Recording in mp3 (10 MB)

I was going to make it into a movie that can play automatically, such as a compressed flash movie, but I haven’t got the skillz or the time. If someone else could do that, that would r0ck! The purpose of this presentation was to inform, entertain, and inspire, as well as allowing me to showcase some of the techniques of slide presentation that we have picked up over 2005.

Sukanthi Radha, our resident photographer, gave a slide presentation this morning at Red Hill and it rocked. She is going to work on it a little more, and then deliver it at the Sunday Feast. After that I’ll put it up along with the recorded audio. Seriously - it’s way better than any of mine so far.