Conversational Nuggets Explained

Conversational Nugget Theory ™, was based on a conversation in college with my friend Bill Carrig. The idea was based on the observation I had at fraternity parties. You’d often run into the same people, but often you didn’t have a whole lot to talk about. You’d see some guy or girl and you had one, maybe two topics, you could talk to that person about. Like that fact that you had taken Intro to Sociology with Prof. Moskos together. Or that you lived on the same floor your freshman year. Or that you both got drunk that one time at that guy’s house.

So you’d have a number of conversational nuggets you could talk to someone about. And the strength and depth of a relationship was based on the number of conversational nuggets available. Think about when you have drinks at a work event. With some of your colleagues, you really only have one conversational nugget at your disposal: work. But with your colleagues that you also consider your friends, you probably have a lot to talk about. In fact, just talking about *work* seems to denigrate the relationship a bit when you’re not working. And your best friends, your soulmates, you can talk to them about anything.

And that leads us to the first corollary Conversational Nugget Theory™:

1. Chemistry is then defined by the ease at which you can form conversational nuggets. A good date is often one where the dialogue just flows naturally. You’re not forcing anything, or having those weird awkward pauses. With people that are closest to you, you no longer have a cluster of individual nuggets, you’ve one a big clump o’ conversation. When you’ve got good chemistry with someone, you get to that big giant conversational mountain right away.

So what does this have to do with marketing? We talk so much today about having a conversation with our consumers. Yet most of the time it’s still very one-way. Often this seems more like code to just say you should be listening to them. Or having a blog or twitter feed or whatever.

But I think the bigger issue is that if you want to have a conversation, you need to have something to talk about. That’s why guys like Russell Davies are so keen on brands being interesting. Brands like Apple, Nike, Virgin, The North Face, Phish, In and Out Burger and Google always have lots of stories to share. I think the other piece is that these brands tend to have lots of hooks into people. When you talk about Nike, do you talk about Just Do It, or their athletes, or their cool designs, or about the crazy tech behind Nike Plus, or about puppets. Or do you talk about shows, or covers, or ticket design or over-the-top concerts when you talk about Phish? They strive to reach that big chunk of conversation, reserved for the deepest relationships.

Coming soon: Twitter and the Perpetual Multi-Logue(tm)!