Design Principles

What sets The Dragonfly Effect apart from other books on social media? Design Thinking.

We focus on leveraging the power of design thinking and psychological research with practical tools and strategies to get you — yes, you — off the ground and running with easy steps and key principles.

The key design principles include:

Think Human. Focus on the person you are trying to help. Don’t rush in with a solution to a problem, test alternatives and be prepared to return to square one several times. Also, focus on the person you need help from (AKA your audience). What are their goals and dreams? How can you help them achieve them? Who are you to them? Where are your leverage points in terms of causing them to act? Match your appeal to the medium (e.g. short bursts for Twitter, logical discourse for blogs, emotional envelopment on YouTube)

Dream with Purpose. What matters to you draws others. Emotions are contagious. Meaningful purpose garners extraordinary support. The right idea—seated in emotion—grows exponentially. Take, how Jessica Jackley, while earning her MBA, raised money online to bootstrap entrepreneurs in the developing world. Now Kiva.org has done over $120M in micro-finance loans with the assistance of individuals who have made loans.

Connect with People. Tell stories. Stories are sticky: they bring facts to life and infuse them with passion. (Physiologically, our brains are hardwired for stories to organize and orient and psychologically we need patterns to understand. Stories also increase the chance that your audience with remember (humans remember only 1%-10% of what they hear). Salient, meaningful messages, however brief, mobilize communities.

Turn Ripples into Waves. Learn from trials. Think critically. Iterate. The right tests—and the subsequent tweaks—can amplify growth. Small details (wording, images, placement of links, etc.) can massively impact your campaign. Use social media tools to observe users and refine your approach.

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