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Before signing off for the weekend, this Leo would like to draw
your attention, in case you’ve not already seen it, to this interesting blogpost
titled: The
Top 14 TED Talks for Lawyers and Litigators 2014. [Afro Leo loves eye-catching titles beginning
with ‘The Top 10’, ‘5 Top’ and so on, but he’s unsure if it’ll work for this blog]
The author, Ken Lopez, describes the videos as relevant to lawyers, particularly
those in litigation practice. Mr Lopez writes: “…Even though lawyers engage in
persuasion all the time, and it is at the core of the work we do, persuasion is
something most are street-smart about, not book-smart. In other words, most
people's knowledge of how to persuade tends to come naturally or is attained by
observing how other talented persuaders behave…” [Indeed, lawyers do this
subconsciously. Mediators do it as well - not that they would like to be
forthright about it]
No need to watch all 14; a couple will be enough to drive
home the message. This Leo only watched the first one, embedded below, and immediately
found it relevant, from several angles including IP. [Afro Leo says that government and
policymakers, in particular, will learn a lot from this video] As you'll discover,
Steve
Martin used case studies on crime prevention and the environment to demonstrate
how we can influence behaviour change [Sounds like what advertisers do]. One of these was that a signage at the Petrified
Forest, which warned visitors against stealing from the park, resulted
in an increase in theft incidents in contrast to when it was replaced with a
more positive message urging visitors to recognise the value of the park to others. As Mr
Martin concluded, a well-intentioned crime prevention strategy inadvertently
promoted the crime. Can IP stakeholders, including government and policymakers,
learn from this? [The guess is that some are already using this communication
strategy]
Essentially, Mr Martin’s suggestion is that if we want others (be it a
client, government, or other persons) to do what we want them to do, we should
try and tell them about what others, ‘most similar to them’, are doing or have
done. He tells us that the reason why this can be effective is that "these people" will most likely follow others "most similar to them". So, for this Leo, simple IP-related examples could be: (a) subtly advising an e-commerce
client that its competitor has recently instructed a law firm to look after its
online brand image and corporate reputation - a service you also have on offer;
or (b) lobbying an African government to change its IP legislation or policy, citing that a
neighbouring country (or another in the region) has already done so with positive results. [The latter example is
relevant to this Leo as he often refers to other countries (from
least-developed to developed) in most of his blogposts]
The key lesson for this Leo is this: attempt to use the subject’s nearest
neighbour to persuade the subject. Now that's a difficult one to follow. [Afro Leo also reminds me that “no one size fits
all”]
Have a nice weekend. :-)
Video 1: TEDxWarwick Speech by Steve Martin
Video 2: Secrets From The Science of Persuasion
Update (19/07/2014): This Leo has just spotted video 2, which is even more instructive. Further food for thought!
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International IP Enforcement Summit, discusses the need to
‘change the narrative’ here
The Science and Technology Committee (UK House of Lords)
Report on Behaviour Change is here
