Savvy companies recognize the benefit of incorporating empathy into their business practices. A step beyond Six Sigma Voice of the Customer (VoC), and Agile user stories, empathy builds a different level of user awareness. For authors, writing with empathy means extending storytelling practices, fueling creativity, and ultimately improving user engagement. Learn why empathy matters and how to make empathy part of your content creation process. This presentation was given at Information Development World on May 16, 2017 Don’t miss our upcoming event, Information Development World: Creating Machine-Ready Content to be held on November 28-30, 2017. http://www.informationdevelopmentworld.com

1. Ready for your
exam?
or here?
Here?

3. Empathy:
The Special Ingredient for
Compelling Content

4. Sympathy vs. Empathy
Sympathy - sorrow for someone’s misfortune.
Empathy - putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.

5. Emotional Intelligence
“90% of top performers in the workplace have
high emotional intelligence.”
-The Conover Company (training development consultants)
Emotional intelligence describes how well
individuals can manage their own emotions and
react to the emotions of others.

6. Plutchik's Wheel
of Emotions

7. Know Thyself!
The more people understand their own thoughts,
feelings, and emotions, the more they can
understand someone else’s.

8. Empathy and Content Development
People often make decisions with their emotions
and then use logic and reason to justify those
decisions.

9. Making
empathy
a priority

10. Where to Begin?

12. Disaster Assistance that Assists!

13. Benefits Beyond the Reader

14. Incorporating More Empathetic
Practices
1. Be present.
2. Be open.
3. Be attentive.
4. Be quiet.
5. Be patient.
6. Seek to understand.
1. Search for different perspectives.
2. Make distinctive arguments.
3. Test your assumptions.
4. Write to a person, not a
revenue stream.
5. Consider the change you want
to inspire.

15. Closing Thoughts
Writing with empathy means extending
storytelling practices, fueling creativity, and
ultimately improving reader engagement.