With so many forms of pleasure, education and delight available at SXSW, how does anyone cut through the chatter and get people to their booth/movie/product? And how do attendees sprinting for that all-important panel avoid that stressed-out intern desperately trying to stuff a flier in their sweaty paw? As one company proved this morning, the quickest way to get people to read your bumpf is attach it to a free breakfast taco. But there must be a simpler (and cheaper) way, right?
Magician/social theoretician Brian Brushwood of Scam School fulfilled the civic service component of SXSW Interactive with yesterday’s talk Social Engineering: Scam Your Way Into Anything or From Anybody, a user’s guide to avoid simple but effective tricks that induce the Pavlovian “Buy! Buy! Buy!” instinct in us all.
So what’s his opinion of other professionals working in the nether world between hucksterism and psychology?
John Edwards of Crossing Over infamy? South Park nailed him.
Neil Strauss, author of pickup artist manual The Game? Arguably, serving a public service by teaching socially awkward people that certain activities will produce certain inevitable responses.
Derren Brown, master of manipulation and arch-debunker of scamster fake psychics? Pretty much a genius, not least for his ability to use the skills of the advertiser/illusionist AND debunk them AND make them miraculous again at the same time.
And the easiest way to get rid of someone you suspect is trying to manipulate you? Namedrop Influence by Prof. Robert Cialdini, the definitive text on manipulating human behavior. Real pros will know they’ve been rumbled.
Of course, the biggest scam pulled off during his talk (as one eagle-eyed observer noted) was that Brushwood somehow get an extra 2,000 followers on Twitter when no-one was looking.
This article appears in March 13 • 2009.
