The Participation Blog

Negativity Bias

People pay closest attention and respond to the things that scare them; we’re just wired that way. So, the people who want to get your attention and keep you responding to whatever they’re selling will continually tell you things to make you believe you’re going to lose something or get ...
read more →

Stories Give Your Facts Meaning

Stories make facts memorable. Research suggests that people forget nearly half of what they learn within 20 minutes (80% is gone in a month), but stories help fix that problem. So, getting people to understand and remember what you want them to know about whatever you’re planning or doing takes ...
read more →

Preparing for More Fake News

Intentional disinformation, lies, fake news and just plain bull$%&# will be a bigger part of our future than it’s been part of our past, and artificial intelligence (AI) makes it easier and more widespread. As useful and beneficial as AI can and will be, everything has consequences – AI makes ...
read more →

Don’t Get Mad, Get More Effective

We teach classes to help clients and other students understand and deal with public and stakeholder anger, emotion and opposition. Developing better emotional intelligence makes a world of difference in accomplishing things that matter. And it’s not just about them, it’s also about you and me. Emotional intelligence means understanding ...
read more →

Meetings Aren’t the Problem

Meetings get a bad rap and I confess that I’ve sometimes been guilty of piling on. Traditional public meetings are often the least effective way to engage a community, in light of all the other options and formats. But it’s not necessarily the meeting itself that’s the problem, but how ...
read more →

Who Knew?!

Somebody said to me recently, “You must be a real extrovert to do what you do.” As a guy who has always avoided large social gatherings, that made me laugh until tears ran down my leg. But I’ve discovered that I might very well be an ambivert. Until recently, I ...
read more →