CHAPTER SIX

“Can you spell Wonderopolis?”

That's the question Josh Hallett, a dear friend of Brains on Fire, asked his 8-year-old son Trevor.

“W-O-N-D-E-R-O-P-O-L-I-S,” Trevor says slowly and proudly, looking up at his Dad with a smile.

“Nice job, Trevor!” Josh says. He then turns and tells us, “By the way, you guys should talk to my mom about this assignment. She's about to retire after 30 years of running a literacy program with Johns Hopkins in Atlanta.”

It was early summer 2010 and Brains on Fire, along with the team from the National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL), were knee-deep in the immersion and naming stage for a branding and word of mouth project for one of NCFL's latest educational programs.

NCFL is a major force in education and family learning based in Louisville, Kentucky. Since 1989, they've helped more than one million families make educational and economic progress by pioneering and continuously improving family literacy programs. Just spend a little bit of time with even one or two of those one million families, and you can feel the true impact of family learning. Parents who felt alone and scared—who felt that they lacked the basic skills to communicate and navigate the world—are now saying things like, “Anything is possible. Nothing is impossible. When you say you can do it, you can do it.” Imagine the transformation they made, going from not even being able to fill out a simple school form for their children to believing anything is possible. Literacy matters, and NCFL is raising hopes and igniting dreams for families through the power of family learning.

When we first met NCFL, they, along with one of their long-term funders, had some new dreams and goals. They wanted to create an engaging interactive web-based educational tool to inspire families to learn together in a new and compelling way. They needed a name and an idea that inspired learning.

As NCFL Vice President Emily Kirkpatrick shares, “NCFL had both an incredible opportunity and a need to do something different and fresh for literacy. A very wise funder gave us permission to do something bold and … different. They didn't mince words. They let us know that this needed to be bigger and grander than anything out there in literacy today. With that came a tremendous amount of freedom, as well as responsibility.”

NCFL operates according to a longstanding belief that family and community play an important role in learning. Study after study show that family, home, and community are the true drivers of a child's education. So the team at NCFL was intrigued with the idea of building a community support system. As Emily remembers, “We already understood that we should start by building an identity that could grow into a community of parents, children, and teachers who are using and enjoying our ideas.”

After an in-depth knowledge-sharing meeting with Emily and her entire team in Louisville, we took off with NCFL to travel the country talking to parents about their kids. From New York to Ohio, we learned a lot about modern families. We discovered that many were really challenged economically and hard-pressed to find time to spend together. We learned there's no such thing as a typical family anymore; kids nowadays are being raised by single parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, all struggling to find time. We also learned about resources for family learning, and learned that most are not free. We discovered that English is a second language for many families. The families we talked to all across America were stretched and stressed. They were trying to help with their children's homework, but most were left pulling out their hair after working all day in their own jobs.

“The idea of adding to a family's to-do list really won't get your very far. You've got to figure out how to add value to their lives and become a part of their routine if you really want to make a difference,” Emily explains.

THE POWER OF SHOW-AND-TELL

We knew we were gathering valuable information; however, we still weren't sure how it could help NCFL define what they really needed to do in order to pioneer a new program that would make a huge impact. Where was the idea that would jumpstart this project? None of us were ready to cut off the insight spigot so we headed back up to Louisville. NCFL pulled together a series of working sessions with mom and dads. We asked parents to bring one learning tool they love to use with their children. It could be a book. It could be a toy. It could be a photo. They just had to bring something.

We conducted these working sessions with families of different ethnicities and economic situations to uncover common threads of family learning. These incredibly insightful show-and-tell sessions launched much deeper conversations. The visual cue that the physical items provided gave parents something personal to talk about. They weren't just answering questions; the objects they brought with them enabled them to tell a story. As Geno explains, “You have a greater chance of getting a talk-able nugget and a story when you ask people to bring a personal, visual reminder with them. It's going to be a very sanitized discussion when people are just answering questions. Focus groups seldom get at the real story.”

IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT KIDS

The English-speaking adults told us during the insight sessions that they often feel lost when trying to figure out how to help their children with schoolwork. Kids in school today are learning things in a totally different way than their parents did. And because these teaching and learning methods are so changed, many parents felt out of the loop. Some turned to so-called “educational” websites to help their kids, but many worried these sites, full of games and questionable content, might not be educational at all. Plus, the education websites were just plain boring—at least for parents.

One mom said something that got stuck in our all of our hearts, “You've got to inspire me as well as my child.” That was a big learning moment. A big a-ha! In order to inspire the children to learn, we have to inspire the adults.

On the flip side, we learned with Spanish-speaking groups that family was a major component in learning. They learn together as families far more than English-speaking families do, partly because they are often learning English together. They'll read storybooks together, face-to-face and even over the phone. A child might even call to read to a grandmother in Venezuela or Colombia.

We also heard loud and clear that the word literacy was lost in translation. When we said literacy most people assumed we were referring to the lowest common denominator, simply the ability to read and write. To complicate things further, some people completely misunderstood, thinking the word meant illiteracy. Redefining that term presented a big opportunity. NCFL had challenged themselves and us from day one to make the term much broader and more encompassing. Their hope was that literacy would come to mean learning in the everyday. It's about what we see around us. It's how we interact. It's how we comprehend. It's about how we interpret the world.

Geno recalls thinking, “The family that can't afford to go to Disney each year or visit museums all the time can still find wonder, amazement, and learning in their everyday lives. We could help them remember that.”

Those insights were starting to shape some of our collective thinking.

We also began thinking about names for this new, inspired learning tool during this time. We had a list of interesting but still somewhat generic names. We were getting caught up in edu-speak, the jargon of the industry, so we knew we had to keep challenging ourselves to think outside traditional educational terms. The underlying question was: What is the real need for parents, and possibly teachers and children? And most importantly of all, how do we deliver the solution to them? From a strategic perspective, how do we get people to come back? How do we provide something to help mom and dad, grandpa and grandma, son and daughter, and teacher every single day? What do we do?

CREATING A THREE-LEGGED STOOL

Our insight told us that parents across all walks of life believe they are their child's best teacher, while teachers longed for even more parent/child learning to take place outside the classroom. But even though everyone agreed on that, there was a bit of a disconnect. “One thing that came through loud and clear to me during our insight was the passion and determination of parents to play a meaningful role in their children's education,” Emily recalls. “But the parents and teachers were using very different language. They needed a way to relate to each other.” NCFL had a big opportunity to build a wonderful three-legged stool between the child, parent, and teacher. That realization shifted our way of thinking from naming a program to naming a state of mind, a state of imagination, a place. It made us all wonder, “How can we inspire parents, children, and teachers every single day?” We began to make the leap from creating an identity for a program to creating an identity and a place that delivered wonder and curiosity in an awe-inspiring and talk-able way.

The conversations continued between NCFL and Brains on Fire. We even took Josh's advice and called his mom, who was set to retire after 30 years in education. She told us this story in her last week of work in the literacy program at Johns Hopkins. She was working with a lady who looked at her and said, “I just wish someone had told me to read to my child,” Josh's mom recalled. “My heart just dropped. I had been doing this for 30 years, and I felt like I was back to day one. We all have to remember that this is a cycle. The scary truth—as it is with a lot of challenges we face, from obesity to addiction to literacy—is that people will always be coming into the circle of needing help.” After talking to Josh's mom, we knew we had to build a place where it would always be easy to step into this circle.

Geno laughs and shares, “You know, you need to dig really deep to get to something remarkable. We wanted a name that would set up an expectation for both a child and an adult. We finally boiled it down to two names we had grown to love: One Million Eggs and Wonderopolis. NCFL loved them both because they seemed to set an expectation of unlimited possibility.”

We all wanted something that could grow forever, largely based on the efforts of the people it was serving. The name Wonderopolis just kept rising to the top because it implied a location, an imaginary place to wonder. It also sounded new but familiar in an odd sort of way. It's a word that just sort of dances in your head.

GOING BEYOND A NAME

The next step, of course, was to figure out how to develop content for children and adults—and how to make it interesting. We started thinking, “Well, what if we strip it down to its essence?” We have a tendency today to make content so smart and thoughtful that it can tend to get, well … boring. An idea began to emerge. What if NCFL began to think of creating content at its most primitive and pure state? What if they did one thing, every day, and did it really, really well?

That's where the idea of the “Wonder of the Day^®” began. And once we had that thought, the naming decision was easy. NCFL took the brave leap to bring this place called Wonderopolis to life.

ON OCTOBER 4, 2010, WONDEROPOLIS WAS BORN

The very first Wonder both asked and answered the question, “Why are flamingos pink?” The goal from the start was to make the wonders magical and enjoyable for kids and adults. We used words, visuals, and videos to create magic. NCFL was able to curate most of the content from the Internet. And, of course, that content had to fit the literacy needs and criteria that you would expect from a platform that NCFL created and led.

READY TO WONDER

In order to develop the Wonders, we sat down with NCFL and simply started wondering out loud about the things around us. We started looking at the ordinary visual things that had become so familiar to us as adults that we had forgotten to question them. If you begin to think about it, you realize that visual cues (and wonders) are all around us. A school bus drives by: Why are school buses yellow? It was nearing Christmas: Why do candy canes have stripes? Someone had a pencil in their hands: What are erasers made of? These everyday questions became Wonders of the Day^®.

The look of the site is simple, with the background image changing each week. Altering the site's appearance on a regular basis creates even more reason to come back each day, as the backgrounds create a visual environment for wonder. It's as simple and refreshing as changing the placemat at the dinner table; it keeps things interesting and fresh.

JUMPSTARTING EARLY INTEREST

In addition to traditional public relations, NCFL created something we called a Wonder Jar^®. Colorful Wonder Jars^® were sent to parent bloggers and key educators in hopes of sparking a conversation between parents and their children. Wonder Jars were filled with a variety of different items: magnifying glasses, stuffed pink flamingos, compasses, and magic wands. Each one was different, but they all had one thing in common: They connected back to a specific Wonder of the Day^®. We asked them to take some time to wonder with their kids. And of course, they were encouraged to visit Wonderopolis to check out the wonders. To our delight, hundreds of editorial and blog postings came out of that early initiative. With an amazing number of unique visits to the site during the first month, Wonderopolis was on its way.

TRUSTING THE JOURNEY

NCFL made some decisions early on to build really strong relationships with people. We actually went searching for people to follow on Facebook and Twitter channels, people we believed would find Wonderopolis valuable and useful in their lives. As people started following us, we followed them back and thanked them, not robot-style, form-letter thank-you's either. We thanked each one of them personally.

Teachers began to find Wonderopolis as they looked for something to help kick off their children's day. The Wonderopolis site was gaining their attention. This early group of teachers who were determined to give their kids the best resources they could find was an amazing gift, because they sparked the initial word of mouth within their school networks. Wonderopolis turned out to be a dream come true for teachers. It served as the perfect vehicle for them to jumpstart learning and student engagement in a fun way each day, and they started sharing it with other teachers. As Emily from NCFL says, “We have seen teachers connect through Wonderopolis. Some have come to see us as their professional learning circle, sharing lesson plans and new ideas with each other.”

Teachers began visiting Wonderopolis from their classrooms daily. Kids got so excited about what they had learned, they would bring the wonder home—and it spread even more from there. Parents began learning from their kids, and then they'd go to the site to check it out. It created this wonderful triangle, that three-legged stool we all dreamed of in the early immersion stage, from teacher to child to parent. Parents have written thank-you notes to teachers for bringing Wonderopolis into their homes. Families are talking at dinner tables and in their cars about the Wonder of the Day^®.

COMMENTS ARE A GIFT

NCFL decided from the beginning to see each Twitter follower, Facebook fan, and blog post comment as a gift, and they showed their appreciation by responding to every single comment and tweet. We also broke that unspoken Twitter rule that you don't follow more people than follow you, because that felt like nonsense to us. This is relationship building, for goodness sake; there's no need to keep score.

Shannon Kohn has been a part of the Wonderopolis team since day one. She clearly remembers the excitement seeing a community begin to bubble when the site first launched: “The comments from the kids are amazing. You can feel their excitement as soon as you start reading them, as well as [comments from] their teachers and parents. Community is always on. You never know when something is going to happen, when something is going to hit, when an opportunity to help spread the word will pop up, or when somebody might need you that day. It's like taking care of a baby or a plant. Building a super-engaged community is hard work. I think some people have this misconception that it just happens easily and organically.”

GROWING THE COMMUNITY

After a year of wondering, teachers raised their hands more and more and talked about how they were using Wonderopolis in their schools. They started making and sharing their own videos, and writing blog posts on their personal sites. NCFL really came to know the teachers who shared Wonderopolis, which was growing their national network. One teacher even asked NCFL not to use YouTube videos to help illustrate the Wonders of the Day^® because school systems were starting to block YouTube—so Wonderopolis switched to Vimeo. NCFL was having a conversation and engaging in dialogue. Most importantly, their users have given them a new way to listen. “We have to keep our ears open every single day for opportunities to learn from the people we serve,” says Emily.

EVOLVING AND GROWING IN YEAR TWO

On Wonderopolis's first birthday, a first grade teacher sent NCFL a video of all of her students singing at the top of their lungs, “Happy Birthday, Wonderopolis!” Shortly after that inspiring video, NCFL decided it was time for phase two of Wonderopolis. They began a nationwide search for six teachers and their families who wanted to become designated Wonderopolis Lead Families and go on a yearlong adventure with us.

We interviewed the entire family during this search phase. We finally chose six very diverse families with children ranging in age from 2 to 20.

All of these new Lead Families were invited to come to Louisville, which is a fun town and, more importantly, NCFL's home. We held the gathering there because we knew it was important that the leads felt a real closeness to NCFL and the organization's dedicated work.

While in Louisville everyone learned to blow glass, went to the zoo, and rode horses. We also learned about the history of baseball. Just like Wonderopolis, we tried to find everyday wonders that would be fun for adults and kids. It was basically Wonderopolis Live.

We also sent each family team on different challenges to learn from each event. “It was almost like [the TV show] Amazing Race,” Geno remembers. “Each team got a little package each morning to open up. There were questions and you had to find the answers. Then, we would exchange what we had learned when we got together at night. We wanted to show them how to wonder as a family and share that with others. It was a fun way of creating experiences to talk about and share so they could continue doing that with other families.” Geno laughs. “We ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner as teams. You have to really love people if you are going to lead a community. You have to be willing to participate. I stayed with the Nichol family. We called ourselves the Wooden Nichols. Our task at the Louisville Slugger Museum was to find out about a certain bat. We actually got to hold Babe Ruth's bat, which gave us a lot to talk about at dinner. We talked about that experience and shared our lives. We taught the families to blog and shared the functional part of becoming a lead in the community; but more importantly we showed them the value of sharing their learning experiences with others.”

“Over those three days, we witnessed these families take a deep breath, ask questions, and see the world in a completely different way,” recalls Emily.

PEOPLE ARE THE MESSENGERS

In addition to being a visionary literacy initiative, Wonderopolis is a word of mouth movement at its purest. Teachers, kids, and parents have carried the message and excitement of Wonderopolis forward. Although word of mouth has become a marketing term these days, the truth is that you can't force it. People will only talk about you if they are inspired by their own passion. NCFL has received significant media attention thanks to Wonderopolis, like being named one of Time magazine's top 50 websites in 2011, but the word has been spread mostly by people. People, not marketing channels, are the messengers. Teachers tell other teachers, kids tell their parents, parents tell other parents.

Wonderopolis quickly became a very valuable and functional educational tool in the classroom. It became something teachers found so helpful they were excited and proud to tell other teachers about it. But most importantly, it made kids excited. Children got emotional about the site and were eager to share the Wonders of the Day^® with others, including their parents.

Katie Scully is part of the Wonderopolis team. One of her favorite stories is about a teacher who was out of the classroom one day because her son was ill. She and her students commented regularly on the Wonderopolis site, and even though their teacher was out that day, the students told the substitute teacher when and how they use Wonderopolis in the classroom. The students posted get-well comments to the teacher and her son, which sparked other students in other classrooms to do the same. It was cool to see comments come in from across the country, wishing this teacher's son a speedy recovery. As Katie says, “Wonderopolis feels like a magic tree house for learning. And it has room for everyone. It has no parameters.”

RESPONDING IS PART OF THE MAGIC

We talk a lot about the decision that NCFL made to personally answer all of the comments on Wonderopolis. This is an important decision to highlight because, as the community continues to grow, this becomes a bigger and bigger commitment for NCFL. But there is no denying the fact that it's part of the magic. It's magical to the students when they see the replies they get back from Wonderopolis, since they're learning as much from the comments as they are from the Wonder of the Day^®. They are learning to have a conversation and building their own digital literacy. NCFL is the wizard behind the curtain, leading kids, parents, and teachers down the road of learning. The organization enjoys encouraging its community along the way, and being there for them when they reach out.

There are many lessons within Wonderopolis's story—not just for not-for-profits, but also for for-profit brands. NCFL is truly creating dialogue with teachers, parents, and children by responding to them through the site. It sounds so simple, but so many organizations forget why this matters.

As Steve Knox mentioned in Chapter 1, brands often have a hard time understanding the importance of responding to the people who want to have a conversation with them.

Steve is a leader in the word of mouth industry and he has a great way of expressing why we must all work hard at creating a dialogue with our customers. Steve also has a way of connecting with people that makes you feel as if you are the only person in the room. Really. It's a talent we study and admire, and it's one that marketers need to study and emulate. We asked Steve: “What is the one thing that really bothers you about CMOs and organizations these days? What are they missing? What are they glossing over?”

He quickly replied, “One word: relationship.”

Steve continued, “Historically, two conversations have taken place: a business-to-consumer conversation, which we call advertising, and a business-to-business conversation. But the new world has unveiled two others: consumer-to-business, where the consumer is talking back to us, and consumer-to-consumer, which is what we call social.” Steve also points out the unfortunate but crucial fact that “the consumer-to-business conversation is the one we are ill-prepared for….”

He pointed out that many marketers of large corporations use the fact that they have 10 million customers as an excuse. They say it's not possible to have a relationship with 10 million people. But Steve strongly feels that you have to start somewhere, particularly, with customers you want to have a conversation with, and who want to talk with you. Then, you just have to be open to what evolves from there.

MOST MARKETERS ARE STILL LOOKING FOR VOLUME

It's hard to articulate the value of meaningful relationships to marketers who still measure success based strictly on numbers. While keeping track of metrics and growing the numbers of people you connect with is a piece of the puzzle, it's certainly not the entire picture. You have to go back to what a natural-born people person like Steve gets intuitively. You have to make each person you engage with—both online and offline—feel as if they are the most important person in the room. Make no mistake: The kids and teachers and parents who take the time to comment on the Wonderopolis site are the most important people in the room. They grow NCFL's reach and impact every single day. They are helping NCFL change lives. NCFL shows us that by listening to them, valuing those relationships, and, most of all, responding, you can create a meaningful dialogue with the people you serve.

VALUING RELATIONSHIPS LEADS TO NUMBERS AND MORE

As of this writing, the Wonderopolis numbers are in fact pretty remarkable. Here's something we love: A majority of the traffic to Wonderopolis is from returning visitors. According to a survey that online small business resource website COSE Mindspring conducted, an average of 28 percent of traffic to websites is from returning visitors, while 72 percent comes from new visitors. Wonderopolis is way above average, and we believe the large number of returning visitors show that these people are making the site a part of their daily routine.

Not only are visitors to Wonderopolis coming back, they're also coming from everywhere. During 2012, visitors from every state engaged with Wonderopolis, and these weren't quick clicks through, either. The length of time users spend on the site is well above industry averages.

Most importantly, visitors are engaging with the Wonderopolis community. From 2011 to 2012 the total number of authentic comments to Wonderopolis grew exponentially.

APPRECIATING THE INTANGIBLES

Wonderopolis has given us all a gift: It's making a difference in inspiring kids to dig deeper into topics that might lead them to be scientists, astronauts, historians, and journalists. Who knows what it can really do! It's wide open. Our world is limitless when it comes to wonder.

WHY FINDING THE PASSION CONVERSATION INSIDE YOUR ORGANIZATION MATTERS

Simon Sinek is one of our heroes. (You remember earlier when we told you to read his book Start with Why? Well … we really mean it. Seriously. Do it.) Many of us were stunned at how simply Simon stated the reason for finding the passion conversation in his brilliant book's introduction:

Studies show that over 80 percent of Americans do not have their dream job. If more knew how to build organizations that inspire, we could live in a world where that statistic was the reverse—a world in which over 80 percent of people loved their jobs. People who love going to work are more productive and more creative. They go home happier and have happier families. They treat their colleagues and clients and customers better.

Simon was of course setting up his reasons for starting with why. But we have to ask this: What if more of us were able to talk personally about and know the actual people we serve, like NCFL?

The entire NCFL team shares stories when we meet to discuss new ideas every week. As we hear these tales of wonder from teachers, parents, and children, it fuels our imagination and brings us all closer to the people we serve. It connects us emotionally to the work we are all doing.

Emily shared a story about a young boy named Colin, whom she met while visiting a classroom recently. “Colin had long hair and dirty fingernails. You could tell he was not from the best of circumstances. Wonderopolis is used in his classroom every day. Colin began quizzing me on the Periodic Table, which I confess I know little about! Then he smiled proudly as he schooled me on what Wonderopolis was all about. He made a parallel to Thomas Edison's approach to discovering things and inventing things. We had a long and wonderful conversation as he reminded me that Edison had no idea he was inventing electricity or the lightbulb as he was performing his experiments. His passionate conversation reminded me that we really have no idea what Wonderopolis truly means to children like Colin and to parents and teachers.”

That's part of what makes Wonderopolis so powerful. We have no idea of the true impact. The possibilities are simply and wonderfully … unlimited.

JUST ONE THING

Gather a few people to form a small team, and imagine that you can do only one thing as a company for your customers—just one thing.

USE THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS TO SPARK A GROUP DISCUSSION

What would our one thing be, and how could we do it really, really well?

What would make us remarkable at that one thing?

What would make it amazing and fun?

What would make it awe-inspiring?

THE PASSION WALL

Create a visual inspiration wall of things your team is passionate and not so passionate about. Choose a monthly theme for your team to post about things that inspire them and things that don't. Hold group discussions about what people have posted. At the end of the month have someone unexpected create a recap or short presentation on these items and ideas. You might be inspired about what it says about your team.

USE THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS TO SPARK A GROUP DISCUSSION

How do the things we are passionate about help others?

How do the things we love fit into the work we do in the world?

LOVE BOMB YOUR CUSTOMERS

Gather a small team together. Give them the names and contact information for five customers/advocates. It could be an advocate you find online. It could be someone who wrote you a great love letter. Ask each person on your team to simply call or email, or even write a real letter to your customers/advocates to let them know how much you appreciate them. Urge your team to see those letters and online comments as gifts.

ASK THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS TO HELP SPARK A MEANINGFUL DISCUSSION

How did this exercise make us feel?

Did we learn anything new about our customers?

Do you feel closer to our customers?

Imagine you are telling your team about this experience. How will you retell it?

How can you do this with your own teams?

How can we do this internally for our employees?