It’s sometimes tough to get people to take communication very seriously. I mean, everybody communicates – you’re always communicating something whether you think you are or not – and professionals assume they’re communicating well even when they aren’t. The question comes up a lot in relation to authentic public engagement, which means that people will have some measure of influence on what you plan to do. But in some cases, people aren’t going to have any meaningful influence because what you’re doing has been predetermined. If that is the case, if people can’t actually have some level of influence in what you’re doing, your best option is hyper-accountability and hyper-communication. You can’t talk with interested and concerned people too much. Read more