Persuasive: 40 Lessons in Communicating for the Common Good

A novel model for planning effective communications campaigns

Communications is a fast-growing profession. The need to create, edit, translate, and disseminate information through a variety of different platforms is creating an increased demand for people with these skills.

Persuasive introduces the Persuasion Matrix, a model for planning communication campaigns based in persuasion research. Marrianne McMullen draws on her wide-ranging and high-profile career to share her hard-earned wisdom gleaned from her work as a journalist, with labor unions, with DC public schools, and on President Barack Obama’s campaigns; she also served as an appointee in both his terms. McMullen tracks decades of research, providing a series of intricate and diverse case studies about workplace and relevant social issues. Persuasion theory and research is woven throughout the professional narratives and each career story closes with key lessons in communications. Persuasive guides researchers and practitioners to a point of reflection on the true value of engaged scholarship and communication activism.

Highly engaging and concise, Persuasive is a professional memoir that provides 40 lessons in communications for managers, communicators in public or nonprofit sectors, and students of communications.

Marrianne McMullen is a communications professional in public affairs who has worked in all sectors of the economy, including academia, where she is currently director of communication at the Chapin Hall research center at the University of Chicago. She has a BS in journalism from West Virginia University and an MA in communications from the University of Dayton.