I think there are two separate processes going on when you think about systematizing and outreach and one of them is acceptable to systematize and the other is not.
The first process is deciding where to put your energy. This could be deciding whether to set up a booth at a college’s involvement fair, buying ads, door-to-door canvassing, etc. It could also be deciding who to follow up with after these interactions, from the email list collected, to who’s door to go to a second time, to which places to spend money on in your second round of ad buys. These things all lend themselves to systematization. They can be data driven and you can make forecasts on how likely each person was to respond positively and join an event, revisit those forecasts and update them over time.
The second process is the actual interaction/conversation with people. I think this should not be systematized and should be as authentic as possible. Some of this is a focus on treating people as individuals. Even if there are certain techniques/arguments/framings that you find work better than others, I’d expect there to be significant variation among people where some work better than others. A skilled recruiter would be able to figure out what the person they are talking to cares about and focus on that more, but I think this is just good social skills. They shouldn’t be focusing on optimizing for recruitment. They should try to be a likeable person that others will want to be around and that goes a long way to recruitment in and of itself.
Tiger Lava Lamp
Karma: 4
I think about the microhumor section of SSC’s nonfiction writing advice is a good example of this. Scott Alexander is very easy to read for me despite covering pretty complex topics and does a very good job of making it both easy and enjoyable to read. I’ve started peppering things like this into my communications with non-technical people at my job and people really enjoy it.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/20/writing-advice/