The MessageDeck
It’s sort of like tarot, but for your technical messaging.
🤖 Help your technical team be a little more … human
🚀 Accelerate how your agency supports clients
🤓 Just be a nerd that talks good
About the MessageDeck
Used as part of a strategy session or in a facilitated workshop, the MessageDeck cards make developing marketing and communications messaging easy and fun for teams and individuals.
- Open participants to sharing their human stories,
- Develops alignment and consensus among your team.
- Avoids the “loudest voice wins” problem of most discovery sessions
How the heck does the deck work?
All workshop participants are dealt a series of cards and asked to provide an authentic response on the reverse side.
Each card contains helpful prompts and guidance for developing messaging that aligns with the MessageSpecs Clarity Framework model.
Go ahead, check some of the cards out below.
(hover to flip a card. click to keep ’em flipped)
… and much more!
To keep people focused, the deck also includes Focus Cards that force participants to refine or reconsider their answers.
It’s like having a gentle nudge from a consultant.
When everything is out of your head and on the table, cards can be culled and clustered by theme and core messaging, resulting in a truly authentic and group-created messaging framework — without the hazards of groupthink.
Vision Test Simulator
DYING to check your message vision? Check out this fully-immersive MessageDeck Workshop simulation experience that steps you through a sample of the same messaging prompts that I use in my client workshops.
In about five minutes, you’ll be able to reflect on some sample prompts that can help you discover unique approaches to messaging you’ve probably never considered.
Nerds everywhere love it!
“First of all, I love that you have a Mantra card as opposed to a mission card, because … missions are bullshit. Missions are too long. A Mantra is one word, two words, three words.”
As I told Joel when I was on-site at the Cybermarketing Conference, his talk was the first one I watched – I flew a day earlier to make sure I could catch it! – and if I had left the conference then and there, it would have already been worth it! (Of course, the rest of the conference was great! 🙂 )
I particularly appreciated how well he articulated issues of Emotion, Logic, and Trust across the different stages of the customer’s journey and prompted us with questions that align to those topics. Across all this, he did it in a very energetic, humorous, and enjoyable way.
Major kudos to him for the session, and the body of work behind it.
“Ya’ll, go grab Joel’s MessageDeck. He’s a freaking wizard who can help turn your messaging from a hot mess sh*t show into brilliant copy that converts.”
“So cool! Pure gold. I’ve used it myself already. It really helped me think about Category design.”
“EVERYONE should take advantage of this. Your stuff is killer, dude.”
“Some ‘messaging’ exercises can feel routine, and uninspired – the MessageDeck sparked more creative conversations. Even after the MessageDeck crash course, I left feeling empowered to tweak some of my messaging.”
How about a workshop?
Bring your entire team together for an engaging half-day workshop, on-site or virtual, that will strengthen your messaging. Reserve your workshop below and schedule a discovery and planning session.
Want to know the secret?
When you’re in a typical strategy session, the person with the biggest mouth (and strongest opinions) is often the one whose perspective is heard.
Plus, our brains can only hold six or seven thoughts at the same time (and with social media and a “quick-hit, dopamine, instant gratification” world, sometimes fewer).
MessageDeck lets your full team’s perspective be captured and laid out on the table, so the brilliance can be discovered.
About the designer
Who the heck is this guy?
That’s a good question! Hi, I’m Joel, and I’ve been working with technical communicators, startup founders, and leading companies to discover and refine their messaging for over 25 years. I’ve used my background in theater, education, and video games throughout my career to tease out the stories that stick in the minds of audiences and compel them to action.
For more about me, click here.