On Ambient Conversations
I am certain someone smarter and more philosophical than I has an official term for the concept of ambient conversations. I’ve not yet been able to find it and a Google search of the term only turns up coffee house sound generators. There are more lofty versions of this concept, such as Carl Jung’s collective consciousness. I would not be so delusional as to believe that I as an individual could influence basically held beliefs at that kind of scale. For now, I’m sticking with ambient conversations.
What are ambient conversations, exactly? In my world, I define them as the discussions people begin to have when you flood their worlds with interesting concepts that they are eager to apply and share with others. Much ink has been spilled on how to overcome various types of inertia in organizations, including resistance to change and the tendency to remain within a singular comfort zone. Less has been articulated around how exactly to plant the seeds that disrupt that inertia and leverage them to create more fertile ground for change, innovation, experimentation, etc. Perhaps a much more cynical way to frame this concept is by describing it as an intentional creation of frequency bias among a group of people leveraging many vector’s of influence. These conversations exist in the background for all groups of people regardless of whether they are intentionally steered, however. Changing them is frequently a key component of driving progress of all kinds; this change can also be leveraged more maliciously as we’ve seen in more recent years as bots inundate social media channels with the thoughts and fictions of a very vocal minority with specific interest in framing certain conversations.
Because we know that someone will influence background conversations, intentionally or otherwise, it’s in our best interest to understand that they exist, the impact they can have on people around us, and how we can be mindful of using them for progress whenever possible. So, to that end, how does one create and/or influence ambient conversations? The first step is really to ensure that the conversation you want to have is good for and interesting to the people you want to have it. Sometimes even mundane or challenging topics can be framed in such a way to make them interesting. Is there a concept or practice that can be applied in an unconventional way to yield desired results? Is there a well-known problem that someone has identified a solution for? Are there aspects of the space that feel insurmountable or intractable but examples of others conquering them after all? All of these types of framing are ways of engaging an audience with a shared context.
Beyond framing the narrative and questions that surround a topic, the next step is to identify well-known and used channels for communication. This can range from a well-respected leader beginning to sprinkle concepts into conversations to very formal mechanisms such as training and newsletter communications. It’s important to identify a wide range of channels and to repeat frequently in order to maximize reach. No one airs a commercial once and few rely on a single type of media to advertise. Marketing best practices can be invaluable resources when identifying and using channels to maximize communication reach.
In order to ensure a rational progression of the conversation, it’s important to identify the types of information people need for context prior to introducing new concepts. It’s also important to anchor that information to things they already know so there is a logical foundation to build upon. Sometimes we encounter the more difficult challenge of facilitating “unlearning” of concepts before we can even embark on a new train of thought. Identifying all of the potential pre-requisites for a new message will help ensure that the message is fully understood. After identifying those challenges, it’s also important to build a message over time with the right levels of context and anchoring as you go. I have found editorial calendars to be valuable for approaching this. Storyboard the progression from context or unlearning through a rational point of communication (this will not likely be full understanding of a concept because like all things, communication needs and approaches will change over time). Identify the ways of delivering messages through various channels, and schedule them out over a predetermined period of time. If this sounds like a marketing campaign, fundamentally it is. The biggest difference is that instead of attempting to compel people to buy products, the outcome is to motivate people to invest time and energy into better understanding concepts and advocate for them in their regular conversations with people.
At this point, it’s vital to continue facilitating the conversations, creating opportunities and spaces for people to explore and apply them, and ensuring you’re available to answer questions, skeptics, and challenges as they arise. Also, facilitating ambient conversations isn’t a stand alone strategy. It should be part of a more holistic strategy to problem solving that looks across a spectrum of challenges including people, processes, and tools.