Raise awareness (Push back)

Raise awareness

Raising awareness is a crucial action. It consists in bringing a new perspective to someone. The information was always here. It’s just that you, as someone who brings awareness, play the role of a facilitator. You facilitate access to information.

If we use an image, it’s a bit like if you could not see this building in front of you and i approach you with this pair of glasses. Now, you can see the building. Raising awareness is just helping someone see what was always in front of them but could not be seen, no matter why.

As People who raise awareness, we are like pairs of glasses that help others see.

On this page, we are going to talk about impact. I have observed several hundred folks trying to raise awareness, and i have identified what’s working and what’s not. My consultant skills have also helped me write this page, as part of my job is communicating inside organizations to drive change.

Here are the key points we will cover:

Simplicity
Resonance
Empathy
Solution
Call to action
Understandable

Buckle up. Adjust your seat. We are ready to go.

Simplicity

Your message has to be simple, like dead simple. This is fundamental. If there is one thing you must remember about this page, it is this. Your message has to be simple. What does that mean? It means that you need to use simple words.

Have you ever tried to use a complex word during a group discussion? Usually, several folks in the group don’t get the meaning of that word, and of course, they will usually not dare to ask you what the word means for fear of looking like an idiot in front of others. Try the same thing, but replace the complex word with a simple one that means the same thing. What happens? Almost everyone in the group gets it. It means it is easier for the People you talk to to understand simple words. Words they are usually familiar with and can relate to.

Let me share another example. My Spanish is very basic, but when i talk to someone who only speaks Spanish, they usually get me. Why? Because i am using the most basic and simple words most People can understand. It’s an extreme example because my sentences may not even be grammatically correct, but that example may help you to understand. In a nutshell, i talk to them in a caveman-style Spanish language, and they get me! They know my message. Bingo.

Your goal is to be understood, so why would you sabotage yourself by using complex words that are unlikely to be understood by most People? Again, your goal is to be understood. You have a message, and you want your audience to understand it. So you will use tools that make it easy for People to understand your messages, such as simple words, sentences, and images.

To assess the simplicity of your message, i invite you to test your message. Wouldn’t it be better to test your message on a dozen People before sending it to thousands of People? You can test your message on People around you: friends, colleagues, your wife, husband, kids, and the dog (joking). Tell them your message and then ask them to please tell me what you understand from this message. Do not interrupt them. Let them talk and listen very carefully. They are telling you what their brain understands based on what you told them. This hyper-valuable feedback will help you to adjust your message. Several People will usually come back with the same feedback. For instance, we don’t understand this word, or the link between this and that is not clear to us; how do these two things relate? Alright, let me adjust my message so that i better explain how these two things relate.

Do not be surprised to try many times. We call this iterating (trying many times) until you get a message that triggers a “yeah, i get it” in your audience’s head. Get feedback as early as possible. Seek simple words and simple sentences. Think more in caveman-style talking! You are not here to write a literary essay; you are here to pass a message and ensure your audience understands your message. That brings us nicely to our second point.

Resonance

I call it resonance. We could also call it understanding. How often do we see folks delivering a message and not checking that their audience understood what they said? As a consultant inside organizations, it is a widespread problem i come across. A manager comes to talk to a team and delivers a message. The team returned to work, and a few days later, we realized that the teammates were not doing what the manager had said. Did we check that the team understood what the manager said? No. We assumed the team understood the message, but we never checked that the team understood it.

Why? Why did we not check? Because we knew the message. The message appears to us as super clear, and you would need to be an idiot for not understanding this message. Too bad. We assumed. We made an assumption. Widespread mistake, and we see the same thing in the Awake movement. People, often experts, come in front of audiences but do not check that People understand their message.

Do not assume the folks you passed the message to have understood your message. You have to check that otherwise, the fact that you think they have understood is simply an ASSUMPTION. And an assumption can be right or wrong. It’s often wrong.

The job of communicating has two parts:

Delivering the message
Checking understanding of the message

Unfortunately, most People are not taught part 2 (mainly because we are in a top-down governance model), which is the most critical part. There is no point in wasting your time delivering messages to large audiences if you do not know if there is resonance with your audience, meaning that the folks listening to your message got this “Oh yeah, I get it” moment. Maybe you have experienced this situation already. The person you talk to will sometimes rephrase what you are telling her but in her own words, using images and words he relates to. I always do this. If, after talking to a few persons, these persons come up with words that resonate more with them than the words i am using, then i am dropping my words and start using theirs. Your audience is telling you how you should be talking to it. It would be best if you listened to it. This leads us to the next point: empathy.

Empathy

Who are you talking to? Do you know?

Many folks don’t know. How often do you see experts doing online interviews without knowing who the audience is? It matters to know your audience because you have to adapt your message to your audience to increase the chance that your audience will understand what you say. In a nutshell, you have to use empathy. To care for your audience.

Have you ever seen a scientist talking to the masses and using complex terms? “Yes, we are using lipid nanoparticles that we encapsulate inside …”. I beg your pardon. What is this guy talking about? Instead of simply using words or images that most People can understand, very complex words or concepts are used. The audience does not understand what the expert is saying, but this guy uses complicated terms, so he must know what he is talking about. The critical point is the audience has no understanding of what is being said.

Find out who you are talking to. If i am asked to speak to an audience, i will usually research who the audience is. Do i talk to People in their twenties, or do i talk to folks in their fifties? Do i talk to African folks or European folks? Do i talk to men or women or both? Do i talk to People who are concerned about their health or money?

Something you can try: close your eyes and imagine you are your audience. Ok, i’m going to listen to this guy. What would i want to know? How do i like to receive this message? Putting yourself in your audience's shoes is not easy, but it gives you insight into how to deliver your message. You use empathy, which will set you in an intimate relationship with your audience.

Understanding who you talk to is essential, and you should not be shy to ask yourself who you want to talk to or request the person who asks you to speak to an audience (radio, TV, online, etc.) who you are going to talk to.

Solution

Remember these messages that only talk about the problem and don’t mention anything about the solution? Well, that’s what we want to be careful about. In a context of multiple issues (war, pla#ndemic, shortages, inflation, violence, etc.), it’s easy to talk only about the problem. The problem about only talking about the problem is that this doesn’t lead to change. People endlessly complain about the current situation, develop a negative mindset, and often encounter health issues. This situation is even exploited by the controlled opposition, who is expert at delivering messages focusing on the problem. Politicians are experts at this. “Here are the problems. The solution is to elect me.”

Most of our messages here on Peoplelyzer are 50% about the problem and 50% about the solution. I invite you to do the same. Describe clearly what the problem is if you can do so. You can use the tips under “simplicity” and “understandable” on this page. Then, move towards the solution. What solution do you suggest to this problem? You may even want to involve the audience if you can. This can be done during live events, offline or online.

The link between the problem and the solution has to be understandable. There is a bit of an education job to be done. You want to explain clearly to the People why this or that is a solution to the problem. As your audience understands the link between the two, it can explain it to other People. It means that your message can more easily spread.

Call to action

Alright. You deliver your message. So what? What do you expect the folks to do?

Sounds trivial, right? How many messages have no call to action? You listen to a talk for an hour and … so what? What am i supposed to do? Is he asking me to go to my kitchen and cook two eggs, or is he asking me to talk to my local representative about the potential lack of food resilience in my town?

Suppose you deliver a message you need to ask yourself what you expect from the folks in the audience. Do you expect them to remember a specific part of your message? Do you expect them to take action? Do you expect them to protect their children? Do you expect them to relay your message to other folks? You have to define what you expect from your audience.

Your audience does not know what you expect from it. Again, don’t fall into the trap of assuming. Please don’t assume your audience knows what you expect from it! I know it’s likely challenging for you to understand this paragraph, but again, your audience CANNOT GUESS WHAT YOU EXPECT. I cannot guess what you expect me to start doing after i listen to your message if you do not say it very clearly to me! Sorry, i cannot say it more clearly. Feel free to re-read this paragraph multiple times. It is vital to tell your audience what you expect from them. Your impact will tremendously increase if you seek your audience to do something.

It could also be that you do not know what your audience should do. In this case, say it. “This talk is for information purposes, and you may or may not take action based on what i am telling you”. If you are unsure what the audience should do, then you could run a questions-and-answer session just after your talk. During this session, People can express and share what matters to them. Questions may be in relation or not to your topic. The critical point is that People share what matters to them, and you need to listen attentively.

Understandable

For folks to understand your message, you need to use simplicity, and we talked about this a bit earlier on this page. Hereunder are additional tips to facilitate the understanding of your message. I didn’t mention these tips earlier in the page because they are details, and 90% of the work is above: simplicity, resonance, audience, and call to action.

Tell your audience what the scope of your talk is. What are you talking about? Are you talking about why People should not adopt CBDCs in Germany, or are you talking about digital ID adoption and how this will facilitate the introduction of CBDCs? Tell your audience the context of your talk.
Do not hesitate to structure your talk with points. “I’m going to explain to you why CBDCs are an existential threat. Across my research, i identified three key reasons,” and then you go through these three key reasons. The more you practice this, the more you can naturally structure your message. Not just points but also paragraphs and sentences.
Leverage People’s imagination. Use extremely simple stories People relate to. It helps to make your message memorable. I constantly try to do this because People remember stories. Example: your government uses fear to get you to comply. Precisely as a parent will tell the infant that there is a monster under his bed. If you don’t eat your soup, the monster under the bed will visit you at night.
Once folks imagine the situation you describe or, even better, if they can relate to it as an experience, they will more easily remember your message.
Repeat. You may need to repeat a part of your message multiple times. For those of you who know Dr. David Martin, this guy always repeats one sentence in most of his speeches: “Until an infectious disease crisis is very real, present, and at an emergency threshold, it is often largely ignored. To sustain the funding base beyond the crisis, he said, we need to increase public understanding of the need for MCMs such as a pan-influenza or pan-coronavirus vaccine. A key driver is the media, and the economics follow the hype. We need to use that hype to our advantage to get to the real issues. Investors will respond if they see profit at the end of the process”. You don’t have to pick a sentence this long. Repetition helps with memorization. The repetition can be a sentence or even an attribute of yourself. David always wears a bow tie, and folks remember his characteristics.
Explain concepts or words that People may not understand well or be familiar with. How many times i have come across folks who try to explain what is going on with The Voice in Australia without explaining what The Voice is? Do not assume People know.
Short sentences. Do not go for long, complex sentences. You will give folks a headache, and you will lose them.
Use words that help you structure your talk, such as “as a result”; “the effect of this is that …”; “the consequence is that…”; “this is the reason why…”; “there is a link between this and that.”
Be specific when you talk about probability. Is something unlikely, likely, or sure? Don’t turn something uncertain into something sure.

Start practicing

Please don’t try to do all of the above simultaneously, especially if most of these practices are new to you. I would advise you to do the following. Pick one topic you are comfortable with and try to deliver a message (in any format) on this specific topic. Pick anything you are comfortable with. Now, try to pick one advice from the above and include it in your message. For example, let’s add a call to action. You will deliver your message and include a call to action—just that. Only one thing, but it will be done well. Then, you pick another piece of advice and go for it—for instance, the simplicity topic. Bit by bit, you will build a rock-solid message that you understand and can quickly adapt because you know the structure of your message. You understand how your message is built, like if you made a cake. You know the ingredients so that you can adapt them.

Something that can help you is to observe these practices when folks around you deliver messages. Start noticing which practices are being used and how they are used. Observing and analyzing others is an excellent way to understand and replicate what’s working.

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