Educate and let attendees reach their own conclusions.
principle — attributed to J.B. Miller
Miller's approach to behavior-change events is structural and ethical. The best approach is often to educate and to allow attendees to reach their own conclusions, rather than dictating outcomes. Event narratives help audiences understand things on their own terms, conclude that the outcomes are important to them, and choose action in their own way. Some people are activists, some are doers, some are followers. The design creates space where different people can be motivated to act in different ways. Miller is honest that this is experiential propaganda, and the discipline is to take on only projects whose end goals he believes in. The best projects manipulate people into doing things they would have done anyway, just more efficiently.
For brand experience leads, advocacy organization event teams, and corporate communicators thinking about the ethics and effectiveness of behavior-change events. The principle is most useful as a frame against heavy-handed events that prescribe rather than invite.
self-conclusion, agency, manipulation-ethics, advocacy