Rude behavior at public meetings used to be an anomaly – the exception to the norm. But that ship sailed a long time ago. Media deregulation, the loss of the fairness doctrine, and the general suspension of the equal time rule gave rise to Rush Limbaugh and hate radio, ...
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I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve been in the audience in tough public meeting settings and watched the speaker lob verbal duds into the crowd without a clue that he or she is doing it. I don’t know of any institution that provides formalized training in ...
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You’ve probably noticed that we’re in a hard-to-explain business. I’ve largely given up trying to describe what I do for a living if the person asking isn’t already connected to it in some way. As Run DMC said, “It’s tricky.” There’s no simple soundbite answer, but one accurate ...
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There have been times when companies (mostly) would call asking for help with some kind of embarrassing issue that they were afraid the public would find out about. Someone in senior management would typically ask, “What can we do to make sure people see us as being trustworthy and credible?” ...
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Charles Blow, the journalist, once said, “One doesn’t have to operate with great malice to do great harm. The absence of empathy and understanding are sufficient. In fact, a man convinced of his virtue even in the midst of his vice is the worst kind of man.” Chuck’s right, and ...
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I’ve always believed that fake news might just doom us all eventually unless we figure out how to deal with it. But it may be that we’re worrying way too much about that. What do you think?...
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Any work that you’re doing with the public has to start with defining the problem or challenge that you’re trying to solve. This means that there needs to be a common, agreed upon understanding and belief among everyone that a problem exists in the first place, and exactly what that ...
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In 2022, the U.S. Federal Government received 930,000 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. And that’s just the feds. If you’ve worked in the public sector at any level, I expect you’ve dealt with public information requests and the challenges that they create. There’s a baked in tension between the ...
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Usually when I first walk into a room full of agitated people, I hear Jimmy Buffett singing in my head – “You got fins to the left, fins to the right.” Dealing with disparate groups and the thorny problems that they struggle with poses challenges for facilitators from lots of ...
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Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and my friends and I had to ride our chickens to school (couldn’t afford horses), we were taught a quaint subject called “civics” and/or “government.” That gradually came to an end as school curricula changed and narrowed. And that lack of basic understanding of ...
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