CHAPTER 6

Move from Information to Influence

What would happen if you wanted to persuade a bunch of people to come along with you on a journey? What are the two things you need to do? Well, you’ve got to start where they are and you’ve got to give them a reason to come with you.

—CHRIS ANDERSON

Old habits die hard. Not just the ones we’ve been talking about concerning behavior, but also habits surrounding how we prepare our content.

In May 2013, we sat down to prepare for our annual Decker board meeting in June. What was the first thing we did to prepare? Whip out the previous year’s PowerPoint deck, of course. We sat there for a good couple of hours, updating the 2012 charts and figures. Time went by, and our frustration grew—the story just ...

Get Communicate to Influence: How to Inspire Your Audience to Action now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.