Pattern of Life (PoL)

Pattern of Life (PoL ) is a predefined pool of content used to simulate audiences, mirroring the rhythm of real online activity.

PoL content is published in the same channels as scripted content from the Master Events List (MEL). The key difference is that PoL content is designed for dynamic publishing by the Facilitator. PoL allows the Facilitator to publish content "on-demand" rather than in sequence as is the case with the MEL.

Why use PoL?

A combination of scripted injects from the MEL and on-demand message stacks from PoL provide the player with a blended content experience within their Virtual Desktop, which feels realistic and engaging.

Benefit	Description
Efficiency	Automates persona behaviour, reducing manual effort during the exercise
Realism	Personas behave like real individuals. A good example is if you want to stimulate multiple tweets seconds apart from each other
Engagement	Adds depth to the exercise by ensuring that players are receiving content from personas that feel real

Terminology

Term	Definition
Deck	The grid where stax are referenced (up to 64 buttons available) which is created by the designer in the Editor and available to the Facilitator in the Facilitator Dashboard
Button	The cell in the Deck where the designer has placed a Stack for execution
Stack/Stax	The sequence of posts generated by the designer and assigned to a button
Queues	The unseen resources that allow Stax to be published. One is required per team (which by default is the Session team - i.e. publishing to everyone). If you edit a deck button and select a Superteam, pressing that button will start one Queue per team (i.e. Conducttr will attempt to publish this stack to all teams in the Superteam)
Post	An individual item within a stack e.g. a tweet

Running

PoL content fires around scripted MEL events during an exercise

In the Facilitator Dashboard you can view the deck by clicking the PoL tab located at the top of the dashboard. On the deck there are two modes:

1. Play mode

2. Edit mode

In this example there are six buttons on the deck in total, but only two are queues as they're set to Session.

Play mode

The deck will automatically be on Play mode. This allows the Facilitator to publish stax, turning them on and off independently. All available stax are low-lighted. When the Facilitator presses a button, it highlights yellow. This signifies that queues are in use.

Each button displays the following information:

Edit mode

Edit mode allows the Facilitator to modify some settings for each stax:

• Loop: Stax will repeat once completed

• Session: Decide if everyone in the session will see the content or a specific team/Superteam

• Number: Determines where your content will start. E.g. if it's set to 1, the first piece of content in your stack will be sent. Alternatively, if it's set to 3, the third piece of content will be sent

⚡Queue limits

Each licence has a Max Queues setting so on the higher licences you'll be able to publish more content at the same time. All users can have at least six queues running at one time.

In the above example, if the stack 'Positive statement reaction' is sent to the Banking Superteam, 3 queues will be used because there are 3 teams under that Superteam.

⭐Superteams

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Designing

How to

1

Navigate to PoL

Click a deck position— this will create a stack waiting for content. Then click the AI magic icon.

Designers can create multiple decks, but only 1 deck can be active at any time.

2

Use the AI Stack Assistant

The AI Stack Assistant generates a flow of reactions and chatter across multiple posts.

The style & strength of the content generated depends on:

• The Faction voice which is described in the Faction Description field

• The exercise context given in the Exercise setup

The Stack Assistant expects you to select:

• Faction

• (Optional) which personas from the faction to use/how many posts to generate

• Channel & beliefs (positive, negative, or mixed)

The channels available for the Stack Assistant are:

• Email

• MicroBlog (Twitter/X)

• GoSocial

• Help Desk

3

Generate a preview and then Generate Stack

Click Get preview to see a sample of content the AI will generate. If you like it, click Generate Stack.

If you don't like the sample, change the text in the Point of view field or the Faction voice or the description in the Exercise Setup.

4

(Optional) Create stax manually

If you need a different channel to the ones available on the Stack Assistant, you can create a stack manually. Click + Add new content to start adding the individual posts to a new stack.

⚡Mixing channels in a stack

It is possible to mix social channels in the same stack but we don't recommend it.

Why? Because when you're running an exercise it's easy to forget that the content is published across multiple channels and you may watch the stack timer expire only to wonder where your content has been published!

Email can't be combined with other channels in the same stack. This is because email isn't a feed in the way that social media is.

Automate PoL

Designers can pre-set PoL stax to start and stop automatically at specific times in the MEL by using an action inject This is ideal for worldbuilding stax or reactions to fixed events in the scenario.

1

Select Action

Create a new inject and in Inject details, select Action. Then in the Action drop-down menu that appears, select PoL Stax Status.

2

Select Status

In the Status drop-down menu, select either Start or Stop .

3

Select Stax

From the Stax drop-down menu, select the stack you want to stop or start.

Now when this inject fires during the live exercise, the PoL stack 'Celeb Gossip' will start playing automatically.