The Babes of Blogging

Michael Pollock of the Small Business Branding Blog is shameless.
He actually started a Top Ten Smartest Blogging Babes feature on his blog. As a woman, I was appalled and insulted...

...until he included me : )

No, I was pretty damn delighted to join a list of some seriously kick-ass women including:

* Jory Des Jardins

* Jackie Huba

* Jennifer Rice

I realize that some find "babe" a derogatory term and feel it's inappropriate or even degrading to reference a woman's physical features. But come on. I've read too much about the brain to feel anything but flattered. (And I really don't care to make a social statement on this. I respect anyone's right to be offended, as long as they respect my right to NOT be.)

The brain is tuned to be attracted to, well, attractiveness, and apparently this is even stronger for men than women. You probably all saw the media frenzy a few years ago over the Massachusets General Hospital study on beauty and the brain. And here's a BBC report that's kind of fun and talks about the role of eye contact in all this.

And it's not just women that brains are attracted to. Virgina Postrel has a lot to say about "the rise of aesthetics" in The Substance of Style, and Don Norman talks about attractiveness and product design in his latest book, Emotional Design. (Beth blogged on some of this earlier in "why cool is good for your brain.")

Sexiness sells. It sells because the brain can't help itself.

Sexual attractiveness isn't the only thing the brain finds compelling, of course, and when I see an advertiser or filmmaker relying solely on sex, I often assume the producer lacks imagination. But my brain will suffer if political correctness, professionalism, and the need for "appropriateness" strips out any hint of one of the best parts of being human.

Clearly there are places where using sex is not a healthy strategy (like teaching kids), but I was deadly serious in my earlier post when I said that using an example from Office Max won't be as effective as using one from Victoria's Secret. Emotion and memory are intimately tied, and let's face it--a lace bra causes more of a chemical reaction than a file folder. And it's that chemical reaction that helps you break through the brain's crap filter and ultimately write something to long-term storage. We'll do whatever it takes to make your learning experience faster, easier, and more enjoyable : )