Day archives: June 22nd, 2023

The Digital Psychology of Persuasion

Kevin Novack, digital strategist and CEO with extensive experience digitizing disparate collections at the Library of Congress, discusses the increasing importance of acknowledging and incorporating social proof into your marketing strategies to showcase the power of your brands and services. The recent wave of digital tools that are built to influence decisions have come under increasing scrutiny as we have learned, they may not be all that trustworthy. Examples include TikTok and its power to influence and even change the behaviors of impressionable next gens. Or Instagram’s role in enabling body shaming and mocking others. And more recently the overwhelming impact of ChatGPT, and the fascination with and growing use of thousands of apps and services built on OpenAI. Novack asks – but can you trust it? And responds – probably about as much as you can trust all online listings and crowdsourced input, which are the sources of GPT’s recommendations. From the user perspective, discerning fact from fiction, when interacting with your organization, is only becoming more critical.

Subjects: Communication Skills, Ethics, Internet Trends, KM, Social Media

Conspiracy theories aren’t on the rise – we need to stop panicking

Several polls in the past couple of years (including from Ipsos, YouGov and most recently Savanta on behalf of Kings College Policy Institute and the BBC) have been examining the kinds of conspiratorial beliefs people have. The findings have led to a lot of concern and discussion. There are several revealing aspects of these polls. Magda Osman, Principal Research Associate in Basic and Applied Decision Making, Cambridge Judge Business School, is interested in what claims are considered conspiratorial and how these are phrased. But she is also interested in the widespread belief that conspiracy theories are apparently on the rise, thanks to the internet and social media. Is this true and how concerned should we really be about conspiracy theories?

Subjects: Climate Change, Education, Internet Trends, KM, Social Media