Two of the hardest things to deal with in public engagement are emotional, angry people and apathetic people. There’s no shortage of angry people who believe that they’re being mistreated or hurt by companies, government, or “the system” – the reactions of those people are on full display, they make ...
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Great answers to tough questions are kind of a holy grail for the public work that you do. The subjects that you deal with are almost always complex, hard to explain and often the details are pretty boring. The questions that you get from people are rarely easy to answer ...
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Most of us would agree that Santa Claus is a pretty righteous dude. He’s not only in touch with himself, Mrs. Claus and the reindeer, he’s got a general handle on the emotional needs of every child on Earth. He never takes a Christmas Eve off or just phones it ...
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A few weeks ago, I did a customized online training session for a group of more than 30 environmental engineers who wanted help better understanding the angry public they were dealing with on one of their cleanup projects, and what to do about it. Now, the guy who set this ...
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Information is the bedrock of engagement, so where, how and why people acquire information and news is enormously important to the work that we do. Half of the adults in the U.S. get at least some of their news from social media, which should scare the pants off of all ...
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From the Words Matter desk comes this strong suggestion to eliminate three specific words from your verbal and written vocabulary. Words matter. A lot. That towering elocutionator and forty-fourth U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle made that point so clearly when he said, “One word sums up probably the responsibility of ...
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Research and empirical evidence suggests that just about everyone agrees that the way we do campaigns and elections in most democracies could do with a serious rethink and overhaul. The trouble is that there’s no real consensus on what and how things should be improved. Some of the best public ...
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One of the public engagement techniques that we explain and discuss in our training classes is the Citizens’ Jury. It was developed back in 1971 in the U.S. but interestingly doesn’t seem to be as embraced in America as much as it is in some other democracies. It’s a ...
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Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) has been a particular topic of conversation for us in recent months because we’re finally paying it the attention that it’s deserved but hasn’t gotten. More and more of the students and clients that we work with are making it a priority in their communities ...
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As you’re reading this, the fall campaign cycle in the U.S. will be in your rearview mirror, although I’m confident we’ll still be knee deep in the nasty aftermath. This will likely go down as the ugliest, most vitriolic campaign cycle in recent memory and it’s widened the gap further ...
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