Right now, being a citizen in the U.S. feels unsettling, daunting and frustrating for people who follow the state of politics. Participating in the affairs of government seems like the last thing people might want to do. But put that in perspective: there are 500,000 elected officials in the U.S., ...
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If your job requires you to work with the public, at some point you’ll probably get a face to face or Zoom to Zoom audience with those people. They’ll give you their time and attention and you’ll have them in front of you or on camera. You’ll have this one ...
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There are no instant fixes to (re)building trust and there are no magic, automatic answers … but there are answers. At the risk of sounding like a shameless self-promoter, the courses that we teach all move the needle back in the direction of trust. (Re)building trust in leadership, science, ...
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Trust in expertise, academia, power and institutions of all kinds (particularly government) is at an all-time low. Research suggests that most people truly believe that business and government leaders are purposely misleading them. If that’s the case, how can a representative democracy function? This vacuum of trust opens the ...
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Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times said, “When one is accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” I think that explains much of the opposition that we see to the Black Lives Matter movement, LGBTQ rights, and most other social struggles that people are … struggling with. Diversity, equity, ...
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Television advertising salespeople are having a spectacular summer! One major marketing analytics firm projects 2022 mid-term political ad spending to exceed $8.8 billion. To put that in perspective, the 2018 midterms generated only $3.9 billion, and $9.5 billion was spent during the much higher profile 2020 presidential election. If you’ve ...
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500,000 local elected officials control more than $2 trillion of taxpayer money. And every day an estimated 1,500 public meetings are held in the United States, many of which relate to what happens to that $2 trillion. Local newspaper (and radio and TV) reporters used to tell us who said ...
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Trust in people who used to have credibility just because of who they were, and trust in traditional institutions – especially government – is broken at best, nearly non-existent at its worst. But trust does exist, just not necessarily where you might expect it....
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Why anyone in their right mind would oppose eliminating urban blight is beyond comprehension. Who could possibly protest building a park in their neighborhood? What would possess anyone to push back on making their lives better? All questions from clients that we run into on a regular basis. Here’s why...
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Democracy – and a Democratic Republic like the U.S. – is an exercise in collaboration and it’s how we’ve gotten this far. I’ll argue that the best public participation is almost always a collaboration. But in recent times, the idea of compromise has been branded as a weak-kneed, liberal-minded copout. ...
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