Smart people don’t often take kindly to criticism about how they communicate what they know so well. The challenge is that subject matter experts (SMEs) are usually more accustomed to communicating with other SMEs than they are in communicating with people who aren’t SMEs. When you know a subject well, it’s hard to remember what… read more →
Growing up in America’s cheese state and having lived, and then worked, all across this country has shown me that people, although similar in many ways, are weirdly different in specific parts of the U.S. It appears that we have three very different personalities: friendly and conventional, relaxed and creative, and temperamental and uninhibited. Where… read more →
With all due respect to my civil engineering pals, I’m not sure that I could have thought of a subject less sexy and interesting than storm water management, and then I ran across the story below. Okay, maybe sexy is pushing it, but if you’re looking for public involvement success examples, try this one. Read… read more →
We’ve shown you many times here that trust in institutions – non-governmental organizations, big business, news media and government – is at generally historic lows. Recent Pew research into trust finds some interesting variations like public school principals being the most trusted and ethical by several barometers. Police are ranked in trustworthiness almost as much… read more →
Trust building requires the right behavior from the builder. It’s not always all about you, and it requires you letting go and being accessible, reliable and objectively truthful. It’s not that tough. Read More … Getting people to trust you starts with you trusting them. It can’t be done blindly but it means laying a… read more →
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is a lovely, thoughtful film. Whether you or your kids grew up watching Mr. Rogers or not, go see it. Especially this holiday season, given our current state of public discourse and general political discombobulation and the work that we all do. You’ll feel better about the potential of… read more →
If you’ve not yet read this, I’d encourage you to do so. Matt Leighninger and Quixada Moore-Vissing summed up the current state of affairs nicely in this paper from Public Agenda. As they said, “When citizens do not feel their voices matter, particularly when they have made the effort to consciously engage, it can breed… read more →
We’re living in a remarkable new age of professional propaganda where lies have become as common as truth. We’re in the truth telling business, however, and the challenge that we face is that it’s usually easier for charlatans to make fake information more melodramatic, attention-getting and interesting than it is for us to make the… read more →
Similar to the benefit of expressing some humility is the benefit of not sounding like you know it all. When experts are dealing with concerned, anxious people, it often feels like the more answers the experts can produce, the more confident and convinced those nervous people will be. But the fact is it just doesn’t… read more →
We work with clients who are expert in their respective fields, and they’re understandably confident in what they know. But in this new age of anti-science and the demonization of expertise, that confidence is often mistaken for arrogance by an angry, skeptical public. When experts need to establish themselves as trustworthy and credible, a certain… read more →