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How to Heartwire
Envision the change you want to see. Partner with us to make that change possible.
Our teams at Goodwin Simon Strategic Research and Wonder: Strategies for Good, believe that curiosity and smart research create amazing, breakthrough moments to make the world a better place. We lead social-change research to explore the mindsets of your target audiences and how best to persuade them. We develop Heartwired Messaging and Storytelling strategies that motivate your audiences to think and behave differently. We also lead Heartwired workshops — training sessions that can be an important first step toward heartwiring your communications.
Heartwired Research + Insights
Smart research uncovers crucial insights about how to persuade your audiences, leading to breakthrough moments on your issue.
- Cutting-edge Audience Surveys
- Mindset + Persuasion Focus Groups
- In-Depth Interviews + Small-Group Research
- Media Audits + Social Listening Research
Heartwired Strategies
We have developed Heartwired Strategies to make progress on some of the most pressing issues of the day.
- Heartwired Strategies
- Organizational + Campaign Messages
- Heartwired Content Development
- Heartwired Storytelling Strategies
Heartwired Training + Presentations
Are your communications heartwired? We lead workshops across the globe to help change makers think differently about persuading audiences.
- Half-day, full-day, multi-day or six-month workshops
- Keynote presentations
- Heartwired Homework for continued learning
- Snap Analyses of your current messaging
Heartwired Toolbox
A companion to the Heartwired strategy guide, in this toolbox, we describe the Heartwired Research cycle — an iterative process that can be applied to any research-informed communication effort, no matter how broad or narrow in scope. We describe how insights from each phase lead to revisions in your hypothesis that you test in the next, and offer a wide variety of research tools to use in each phase.
Thomas Coombes, the global head of brand for Amnesty International who attended a Heartwired workshop, wrote:
Wonder and Goodwin Simon trainers have led Heartwired workshops with over 300 Amnesty International staff across the globe, including Amsterdam, Bangalore, Colombo, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, London, Manila, Nairobi and Vienna.
My own approach to communications has completely changed. I have realised that human rights communication needs to be about hope and opportunity, not fear and threat.
Genius communicators Robert Perez and Amy Simon have written in detail about applying neuroscience to cause campaigns. They talk about getting people away from the ‘downstairs brain’ — the primordial ‘fight or flight’ instincts — and into the ‘upstairs brain’ where they can feel empathy for others.
Our duty in the human rights movement is not just to expose abuse, but also to offer people hope. We need to show that we can make things better together.
Geek Reads
Over more than a decade of collaboration, Amy Simon and Robert Pérez have been partners in their passionate pursuit of new ideas. Advances in the neurological and social sciences have catalyzed a paradigm shift in our understanding of how identity, values, lived experiences, beliefs and emotions combine and collide to influence decision-making.
Here are just some of the books that have shaped our approach and inspired new thinking about attitude and behavior change.