Persuasion Through Harley Davidson

Cross Posted: Indisputably

This summer I read the book Elements of Persuasion by Richard Maxwell and Robert Dickson.  I’ll be blogging about other fascinating parts of the book, but today, in honor of Harley Davidson’s 105th anniversary, which was celebrated last weekend (with thousands of Harley riders in town, including up and down the main street in front of the Law School), I want to highlight what the authors called “mirror neuron training.”  This means that people build empathy for each other by mirroring and matching physical actions.  For successful companies, Maxwell & Dickson argue that close physical contact is associated with successful corporate branding because of this mirror neuron training.  So, when we walk into Starbucks, we notice how the physical labor of taking orders, making coffee, and serving it appears to happen seamlessly.  This is, according to the book, because of mirror neurons, which take care of the physical movements, allowing the baristas to focus on small talk and smiling at their customers.

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Ledbetter: Court, Congress, and President

My colleague Paul Secunda recently wrote this pointed essay on the Supreme Court’s Ledbetter decision for the Workplace Fairness Blog.  Ledbetter made it harder for plaintiffs with Title VII pay discrimination claims to prevail by holding that the statute of limitations runs separately on each of a series of discriminatory pay decisions, even though the cumulative effects of the decisions may continue to be felt for many years thereafter.  Paul argues in his essay that Ledbetter is “absurd” inasmuch as it requires some victims of discrimination to file their claims before they have a fair opportunity to discern the discrimination.  He urges Congress to pass a pending legislative fix, the Lilly Ledbetter Pay Equity Act, and notes that the issue is one that divides the current Republican and Democratic presidential nominees.

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Petition to Permit Citation of Unpublished Decisions of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals

This fall the Wisconsin Supreme Court will revisit the issue of whether to permit citation of unpublished Wisconsin Court of Appeals opinions. The issue is scheduled for hearing on October 14, 2008. The current rule forbids citation of unpublished opinions “as precedent or authority, except to support a claim of claim preclusion, issue preclusion, or the law of the case.” Wis. Stat. § 809.23(3). In January, the Wisconsin Judicial Council filed a petition asking the court to amend the rule to permit citation of unpublished opinions “for [their] persuasive value.”

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