I love addiction; perhaps because I have a very addictive personality.  As such, I was drawn to the talk here at South by Southwest by @taraattrulia about engineering addiction.  She’s going pretty fast, so I will.

• Starting out with the definition of addiction.  Addiction does not have to be negative.  You want people to have a positive association with the addictive experience; not something they are ashamed of.
• Recommends the book Lovemarks by Kevin Roberts.
• Need to get into the ‘core mix’ of sites for a customer.  The path: reach–> trial–> stick.  The big goal: get the STICK!

Three strategies to get to stick:

• Don’t just publish information; fuel people’s aspirations.  People crave change; they want to be better than they are today.
• Real-time helps people get more drawn into an experience
• Market your manifesto.  Focus on lifestyles and values; you’ll find people who are already in your orbit.
• You can engage people who are not directly aligned with your business.  They may just believe in the same stuff.
• Lululemon example: their manifesto is about life; not black yoga pants (their core market?)
• Secret (brand of deodorant): manifesto about bullying.
• Double-down on content experiences.  Create unique content experiences that draw people in.
• Lululemon yoga mobs (not sure what the better name is for this.. but they have thousands of people getting together to do yoga in public places.)
• UGC call to action.  Trunk Club and Kiwi Crate –> users are posting their own content to facebook.

My reflections on the talk are as follows:  I think it was heartfelt and interesting, but I failed to see any real connections to addiction.  The talk description mentioned stuff like neuroscience; but I the content was not specific or in-depth enough to make me feel like I really learned something deep.  Cool pillars, though.