You can use these selectors to see the different possible settings of each. Note that the top selector allows a range of "Money" situations in context for the persona involved. This allows you to identify their relative position in terms of financial clout toward the decision at issue.

Below that is the selection of how to treat the persona, a communications strategy. Again you can select alternatives you think might be available to you.

When you do this, Influence takes into account your own settings in terms of the same characteristics and the location of the persona in the space to generate a 'score' (in this case -12912) indicative of the net effect of the identified strategy applied to the persona by the influencing persona in the context of the favorabilty and import of the persona (e.g., the CEO).

For each persona you select, there will be a different set of values depending on what you sent them to, and the results will be added up in the "History" and "Adoption" areas where the second row of selectors are just labels and the numbers are summary numbers indicating the total favorability (toward moving the actor toward the desired viewpoint) and the intensity of the situation. These are internal parameters that are used for the simulation process.

Influence can perform simulations of the likely effects over time of applying influence strategies to personae based on their personality traits and their views relative to the situation. You can see a series of situations over time based on the settings in the example used here.

The first one is just running the time forward using the parameters as wet for all of the personae. The

The second picture shows the CEO persona moving slowly against the desired outcome while other personae like My Boss and Technical Leadership are moving toward improved support and importance.

The third picture shows a longer time frame. At this point, I adapted the communications strategy to try to move things in a better direction, with the CEO not caring as much and becoming more favorable. The last picture shows the effects of the changed strategy over time.

• Look and Feel: This is the box at the top left of the window that is colored and marked with the current value of the COG. It includes:
  • Show/Hide: Show or hide the other menus.
  • Labels: Set labels to screen area, weight, power, or "*"
  • Titles: Change titles to locations, anonymous, pseudononymous, etc. to reduce cognitive bias.
  • Fading: Fade the less important personae for a different feel.
  • Colors: Set the color scheme. Default is Green to Red with Yellow in the middle - stop light. This example is from Decider™, but the color schemes are the same.
  • Box sizes: Set the box sizes to handle long persona names, fill the screen, etc.
  • Font sizes: Set the font sizes to facilitate reading and editing. Or just to fill the screen.
  • Volume: Influence makes sounds when certain things happen. This controls the volume.
  • Duration: The sounds can last longer or shorter periods of time.
• Item: This includes Save and Load to save/load the current content to/from internal storage under the Item: name (or the save-as name if present.
• Description: (in this cast 'test') is the short description of this item (decision) and may be edited along with the more detailed description at the bottom of the screen.
• Action: You can add a new persona, delete the currently selected persona, clear all personea, or load preset personae for testing or other purposes.
• File: Using the clipboard, browser storage, or file system, you can:
  • Copy / export: from the current item.
  • Paste / import: to the current item.
  • Add: personae from another item to the current item.
  • Infuse: the X or Y settings of the same pesona names from another item into the current item.
  • Backup or Restore: all of the items in the current group to or from storage.
• Sim: The simulator moves personae through the space based on the analysis of effects of the communication and influence strategies between the user and the targets. This is a complex operation based on details of the psychological and cognitive effects of the interactions of personalities and their behaviors regarding each other based on psychological sociological and other literature.
  • Stop: Stops simulating.
  • Step: Does a single step of the simulation.
  • Slow/Med/Fast/Faster/Fastest: Runs the simulation at various speeds.
  • Friction: Induces glue or oil to slick or stick movements.
• Situation: The situation is based on the weightings and stage of the project and environment. Different situations produce different effects of interactions between parties.
  • Project stage: Concept, prototype, deployment, standard, and required reflect the stages in maturity of efforts of various sorts. To get a sense of this, a project that is at the concept stage is unlikely to be viewed favorably by a person whose adoption tends to be a late adopter.
  • Presets: Presets are weightings of the cognitive factors based on the organizations involved. For example, a family operates differently from a company, the military, and so forth. This effects how interactions are evaluated.
  • Weights: These are explicit weights that are set to differ from normal presets for special cases.
• Output: Various outputs are provided to support actions by the user:
  • Short: The short report provides a concise summary of the situation with respect to the currently selected persona and quick advice on how to treat them for positive effect on desired acceptance of the effort at issue. It looks like this example:
    Click to Close

    
    
    

    Relative Power Situation Quick Report for The CEO

    Component	Analysis
    Situation:	Strong support and moderate care
    Timeliness:	on time normal timing
    Support:	fair broker on time favors
    Expectation:	good expect acceptance
    Improvement approach:	befriend
    Influence options:	reason persuasion magnetism
    Threats:	force defunding
    Importance:	213
    Favorability:	-9314
    Intensity:	30

    
    
    Position: Keep informed to keep them friendly, reference support, and befriend.
    
    
    Charisma: Use your charisma to keep support and increase interest.
    
    
    Money: Generate 'leadership' funding and create vested interest.
    
    
    Expertise: Provide referencial support of experts.
    
    
    Force: Increase interest and keep engaged.
  • Long: The Long report provides the information from the quick report above PLUS a Timeliness Review, Timeliness mixed with Position and friendliness review, Historical friendliness review and opportunities, Choices available review, Threats review, Importance review, relative weightings of key areas, and descriptions of how and why the persona should be treated for improvement in their support of the effort.

    Report for The CEO

    Description: Description Details

    Details on The CEO: Relative Power Situation Quick Report: ...

    Timeliness review

    Timeliness deals with the normal adoption time of the individual versus the phase of this project. Unless other indicators are present, on time is just fine.

    Timeliness mixed with Position and friendliness review

    The fair broker is always the best measurement of a project and should be the target of your efforts to measure progress. To the extent that they are also seen by others as a fair broker, this makes them all the more important as a source of good data about the project and as a source of generating support by others.

    In this case, this fair broker is on time for adoption and this is a good sign that the effort is working properly.

    In this case, a fair broker favors the project, and this is, of course a good thing. Keep up the good work.

    Historical friendliness review and opportunities

    A fair broker is accepting of the idea, and that is certainly a good sign. This is an opportunity to befriend this fair broker who will likely be perceived as unbiased by others and followed in this and future efforts.

    Choices available review

    Choices present themselves for the use of power and perception to achieve influence. Reason is always an option in trying to influence others, although reason becomes harder when the opposition is higher, there is longer history, and group dynamics work against you.

    By using credible sources, persuasion may be used to convince in this case. It is key that a credible source be used for this persuasion in order to have sound and lasting effect.

    Some people are just more magnetic than others, and in these cases, the personality of friendliness can be used to shape the relationship and persuade people based on sheer likability. People tend to want to work with people they like on a personal basis and this sort of magnetism may bring about positives when a decision could go either way.

    Threats review

    There is the potential that force could be used against you in this situation, and you should be prepared to determine whether the force is adequate to defeat you and whether it is worth the confrontation. As Sun Tzu stated so well in 'The Art of War' win the fight by not fighting, attack where the enemy is weakest, and so forth...

    There is a threat that the project could be defended in this situation, so caution should be used to not offend this persona unnecessarily. It may be better to try to avoid them than to directly engage them.

    Importance review

    The weights shown here should be applied to rank the advice below so that the highest ranking should be given highest priority in terms of what to consider trying with regard to this persona.

    Position=160 Charisma=48 Money=80 Force=32 Expertise=12 History=24 Adoption=4 Options=24 Threats=24 out of a total weight of 408

    On a percentile basis, the weighting is as follows:

    Area	Percentage	Points
    Position	39%	19607
    Charisma	12%	5882
    Money	20%	9803
    Force	8%	3921
    Expertise	3%	1470
    History	6%	2941
    Adoption	1%	490
    Options	6%	2941
    Threats	0%	29

    This persona has a total weight of 408

    Situation and settings drive approaches

    While the level of interest is moderate, the support is present. If it is possible to do without reducing their support, they should be encouraged to care more about the project by increasing their involvement and the benefits they can get from the effort. But leaving them alone and keeping them reasonably aware without pushing them is also acceptable unless it is necessary to increase their involvement to offset some other issue elsewhere. Just be careful to keep on their good side and try these ideas:

    Based on their high-level position:

    Provide them with information that will tend to increase their support.

    Reference them as supporters to others - with their permission.

    Use the friendliness approaches identified earlier to relate to them.

    Based on the low level of charisma:

    Use your charisma and personality to bring them along.

    Because of the substantial funding potentials:

    Ask them to fund the project as a 'leader'.

    Try to create a vested interest in the project.

    Because of the lack of expertise of this persona:

    Use experts to help convince them that the project is worthwhile.

    Because of the high level of force available:

    Provide them with information that will tend to increase their support.

    Try to increase their engagement by increased communication.

    Detailed review completed

  • Full: A full report provides Long reports for all personae in one separated page.
  • AI: This provides a prompt for the current persona intended to lead to a convincing argument (if communication is desired or required). If combined with psychometric information from our psychometrics package, it can be improved by being customized to the individual, and this can be added to the descriptive comments on the individual for storage and automation once the information is generated.
  • Help: This provides a variety of different details of how the mechanisms work, including the original manuals from the early versions.
  • Legal: This details the patents, copyrights, and other legal issues with use of the technology.
  All reports except the Full report are displayed on the screen and you click on the "Click to Close" to make it go away. The Full report is displayed in a separate browser tab.
• Personae:
  • Business: This provides a list of preconfigured personae for a typical business situation. By selecting them, you can load the preset profiles then adapt them to the particulars of the situation.
  • Politics: Just like business, politics has its quirky settings and personae and they can be customized.
  • ...: We are always adding and adapting more of these for things like the military, non-profit, university, society, committees, and family.
  • Test set: This is a test set designed to fill the space with various personae with varying characteristics for testing purposes.

Another note:

The use of AI methods for producing reports from the prompts we provide calls for user attention in several ways.

One is that these reports can be further flavored by additional information. Our Psychometrics package produces output to support customizing these reports toward the personality of the recipient. This can be used to make a more compelling argument to the individual, or in the case of an organization, to the particulars of the organization. Similarly, you can produce emails, tweets, and postings for other media directed toward different or broader audiences.

Another way that AI requires attention is the hokiness of some AI produced outputs. For example, if you tell the AI to trick the recipient into believing flying saucers were used to make this product, the AI might give the trick away in the text. The AI might also give lots of great reasons to do what you are trying to get done, but many of them might not actually be true in your case. Be careful to review and edit the outputs before use.

Changes: We continue to update Influence to do lots of other interesting things and change the user interface as we learn more. This just details most of what you will find in the version available when this was written...