Book Review

Why are we reviewing another "business book" for teachers?

Answer: 1.) Because the authors describe streamlined processes that teachers need to employ in improving instruction. 2.) The authors describe thinking and methods that clarify ideas and issues that teachers face. 3.) The ideas that can help teachers are presented more clearly in this book than anywhere else.

The Books' Topics:

This book contains 29 chapters and a lot of ideas that the authors present with a unique slant. Substitute the word "teaching" for "marketing," and the ideas become important for education. Substitute the word "students" for the word "customers&, well, you get the idea. We've taken the liberty to do this transformation for you. These include:

• The Fiction of the Student Experience


• Why Teaching is Simple but Hard


• Students in Control


• Personalizing Learning


• Accountable Education

Topics that we didn't transform words to describe:

• Maintaining Persuasive Momentum


• The Design of Persuasive Systems


• Disclosing the Necessary


• The Human Operating System


• Wireframing as an Interactivity Map


• Persuasive Architecture: a Six-Step Process

The central themes of this book are:

• The age of control (in education or business) has passed. If we want to reach all our audience, we need to develop different ways of persuading, teaching, communicating


• We must understand that simple and simplistic mental maps (idealized theories, academic constructs) fail to provide guidance in how we relate, communicate and persuade


• We become more successful if we…
• Look at our clients, customers, students as several (distinctive) personality types


• Create "scenarios" that describe the major types of clients, customers, students that we serve


• Perceive motivation as a series of steps, instead of an "all-or-nothing" single step
• Assess, pay attention, ask a lot of questions (and test to find out the answers) and map our strategy in concrete, specific, measurable terms


• Results increase as we personalize our services, target our performance to individual needs and motivations, and adjust our activities to the real-world, not the the world that we wish we worked in

Keywords:

• Personas and Personalization


• Persuasion Architecture


• Topology of Knowledge


• Wireframing and Mapping our Application Path


• Storyboarding and Prototyping Service Delivery Scenarios

Main Idea:

Students, clients, customers fall into two general types…

1. Dogs: trusting, obedient, willing to please


2. Cats: aloof, disdainful, could care less what you think

Of course, there are more types, but this categorization allows you to break the "fantasy-wish-delusion" that people should be different, somehow better, so that you could produce on your job.

Assessment and an open mind, matched to a flexible, willing to change course when observable, measurable data indicates that our results are stagnant, going in the wrong direction will put us on the path to success, but will not guarantee success

Mapping unique and individual strategies for each group of students, clients, customers means really writing these down, drawing these out on paper, and tracing persuasion, learning, and development paths for each pattern

Following these procedures, we become skilled at combining delivery and performance services at places where these paths intersect and coincide, and we become skilled at branching off and serving one-of-a-kind subgroups when we need to.

Quotes:

"One basic difference between cats and dogs is motivation. Centuries of cat and dog humor captures the the stereotypes: A dog wants to please you; a cat could care less. Dogs are devoted and loving and selfless. Cats are aloof, indifferent, and self-indulgent. Dogs are social and act in ways that maintain and support the social order. Cats are solitary and act in ways that benefit themselves." (p. - 10)

"Marketing and advertising folks have used Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs as a formula for motivating their customers to buy: Target the appropriate need, and you can create the compelling associative cues that elicit desire. Target a level too low, and you risk creating messages that customers ignore (their needs are already satisfied). Target too high on the pyramid, and customers may not be ready to hear you (they're still focused on meeting a more basic need." (p. - 15)

"While you are busy 'selling,' customers are engaged in the related, but by no means identical process of 'buying.' Customers need to resolve their own concerns so that they can build confidence to buy from you. Ideally, they'll build that confidence with information that you provide. But if you don't provide it, they'll track it down by going to other sources" (p. - 42)

"The classic business-school model that has influenced countless sales people, advertisers, and marketers is the concept of AIDA, an acronym that stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. In essence it is the formula of how you persuade the customer to buy. " (p. - 52)

"You build and sustain persuasive momentum by intentionally and repeatedly providing answers to these three questions:

1. Who are we trying to persuade to take action?


2. What is the action that we want this person to take?


3. What does that person need in order to feel confident taking that action?

These simple questions are the foundational building blocks of Persuasion Architecture. Only by mastering these three questions can we align our customers' buying process with our sales process." (p. - 54 & 55)

"Marketers have always claimed, and honestly believe, that they listen to their customers. However, most of this 'listening' is carried out in unnatural circumstances--in focus groups or through surveys." (p. - 80)

"The dictionary definitions of persona are revealing. Personas are characters; they have a voice, they are representations or stand-ins for somebody else, and they play a role that, while connected to, is also distinct from their inner selves. They are images, personalities." (p. - 105)

"When you appeal to emotions, you help your customers make their decisions. The easiest path to making and emotional connection is by focusing on benefits--not features--of your product or service. Benefits are based on people; features are based on things." (p. - 115)

"Can you imagine tackling the construction of an office building without a set of blueprints in hand? Can you imagine drawing up those blueprints with only a cursory understanding of all the questions you have to answer before you put a single line on paper? Of course you can't. You intuitively know this would at best limit how your structure worked and at worst doom your project to failure. What you want is a comprehensive picture of every detail that could reinforce or undermine your success before you start dealing with the tangibles.
We operate in a world full of unknowables. So uncovery is the process of understanding what is knowable, and seeking to understand that from every possible known perspective…It's simply waiting for someone to pull back the covers--to uncover it.…People don't get terrible excited when we first bring up uncovery. Perhaps it seems vague or even mystical to them. Perhaps they think that it's a time waster. Perhaps they already know it all. Perhaps they fear what they will learn. Perhaps they prefer to get right to what they think is the heart of the matter…We cannot overemphasize the importance of uncovery. It is the foundation for every step of Persuasion Architecture. Without uncovery, not only do you lack a useful set of blueprints, you operate blind. Uncovery sets the course for everything else that you do. Start by sending your project in the wrong direction, and it will be nearly impossible to steer it back on course again." (p. - 118 & 119)

"Observations about temperament and type preference are now understood as a function of brain lateralization, or how the brain uses it separate but connected right and left hemispheres. Both sides of our brains are different, just as our brain is asymmetrical--our right and left sides are not mirror images of each other. These asymmetrical design limitations of brain and body create the dynamic of the human operating system. Our 'limitations' define what's possible. For all of us, our abilities and preferences line between the extreme of the right and the extreme of the left…Humans are amazingly complex creatures and any classification scheme unavoidably simplifies this complexity. In addition, each person is more than one classic personality type. We are delightful mixtures--one type may predominate, but others come into play, often influenced by environmental factors, social factors, even ephemeral moods." (p. - 144 & 145)

"We've dug deeply into the matter of whom we are trying to persuade. Now we can begin to deal systematically with the actions that we want our personas to take, and what they need so they feel comfortable taking that action. Actions and needs establish the parameters for interaction.
We want to create a map of that interacting, through planned scenarios that acknowledge and meet every opportunity. This is the process of wireframing." (p. - 182)

"W. Edwards Deming, considered by many the Father of the Quality Revolution, believed if individuals can't interact with a system successfully, the problem lies not in the people using the system, but in the system itself. He also said, 'If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you are doing…If you think that you can't achieve a framework for prediction, it means that you probably don't understand the system. " (p. - 207 & 208)

"Because Persuasion Architecture offers a more holistic description for the entire system, it allows us to identify the component parts of the system that need measuring and improving. You can identify and measure specific service and process defects, then ask, "Why are they happening?' The answer to that question may uncover underlying reasons for customer dissatisfaction and defection. We often find there's more than one reason or root cause contributing to a service defect." (p. - )

Issues Addressed by the Book:

The issues of motivating (selling) students to learn and study is key to improving education. Especially in a time when individual paths to unique learning are possible because of Internet access and technology.

Understanding that all students are unique, but building assumptions based upon measurable assessment provides the most economic strategy (in terms of time and talent that we expend) in facilitating learning.

The Book's Shortcomings:

The book presents a complex analysis, probably too complex.

Although the book is worth studying and applying, it probably won't appeal to the "cookie cutter crowd" that wants "no-brainer" answers to all issues.

But, for the person that wants to perfect their Application and Performance (AnP) skills, this book offers a viable starting point.

Comments:

The authors provide a reasoned, analytical and unique approach to understanding the inner workings of people and forming concrete strategies to persuade them. This is exactly what teachers need to do.

No learning theory takes the place of direct observation of students and their internal thinking and learning process. And nothing takes the place of direct communication with students. Multiple choice, multiple guess testing provides little or no evidence to guide instruction, and, compared to the process that these authors describe, is a paltry substitute for acquiring real-world assessment data.

In the realm of high-stakes testing, providing the strategy maps, measurable paths and objective points where motivation, instructional delivery and instructional management must be differentiated should be big plusses.

Summary:

This book is another of those business books that capture the correct meaning of "education should be operated as a business." Most often, those pundits are thinking of the "business of manufacturing" or the "business of banking," and are out of touch with the real world of teaching.

These authors see the delivery of products and services to reluctant, reluctant, recalcitrant customers (our students) as requiring a personalized understanding and a focused effort at persuasion. This is the kind of "business sense" that makes sense in education.

Rating (Four Point scale):