Esteemed colleagues and friends… A brief note about how to communicate with Americans.
Pursuant to our recent all-hands internal strategy meeting (thanks for organizing, Kelly!), we follow up with a brief memo positing a potential policy related to how best to communicate with our American community.
Strategy 1: In communications, always express personal goodwill. Americans are individualists, and require a direct, personal connection.
+ Example: Hi, you! How are you? How’s the family? You have such a nice family.
Strategy 2: Include a joke or a humorous anecdote to create an immediate connection. Americans love levity and laughter.
+ Example: I’ve got a good one. What time does Sean Connery get to Wimbledon? Ten-ish. Get it? Tennis?
Strategy 3: Your asks should always be in informal language, and always emphasizing your target American’s individual power.
+ Example: Hey, guess what? We’re at 96% of our fundraising drive. The coolest thing is that you might be the one to push us over the edge. You have the power to change everything!
Strategy 4: Multiple asks? No problem: Americans are surrounded by advertising, and are used to being compelled to do things that benefit faceless organizations. But: Be quick! Americans really hate having their time wasted.
+ Example: 2nd favor! Vote 4 SxSW panel with VR lady Jacki Morie and biochemist Luca Turin and the IAO. It’ll only take 5 secs. Thx so mch.
Strategy 5: Americans are pragmatic optimists: Pessimistic language and any emphasis of their limitations will only unsettle them. To really get to the heart of your new American friend, emphasize the positive, using keywords like ‘opportunity’, ’empowerment’ and ‘growth’. Americans like facts, so don’t forget to use as much empirical data as possible.
+ Example BAD: Jesus f*cking christ what is happening to us? We’re either gonna get torched by the KKK or poisoned by corporations dumping their de-regulated crap into our waterways or nuked by North Korea. That’s if the effects of global warming don’t burn us all to a crisp, first. And don’t get us started on the suffering wildlife! Aaaaahhhhh!
+ Example GOOD: Now that we’ve learned that the liberal elite is out of touch, that he-who-cannot-be-named cribs his statements from blockbuster action movies and first person shooter video games, and that the only true patriots are the ones that carry tiki torches, we have a wonderful opportunity to grow some beautiful silvery hairs while we make plans to move to Nova Scotia, or the Yucatán Peninsula, or anywhere, really, but Guam, Alaska, Hawaii or the West Coast of America. I feel so empowered.
Strategy 6: At all costs, avoid enforcing your political views on an American. Nothing closes a conversation – or loses followers – faster.
+ Example: Oops.
– Your friends at the IAO, messing up American Small Talk since 2012 **
(**maybe ’cause we forgot to buy a tiki torch)
p.s. Your distracting internet wormhole of the day: Internet how-tos about communicating with Americans.
