Regardless of how smart or “woke” we think that we might be, the facts are that humans are driven by emotion first and logic second. And our emotional brains push us to be biased in lots of interesting ways. We’re inclined to think we’re smarter than we are, that people ...
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Lord Acton is known to have said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” David Brin later said, “… it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible.” The genesis of public engagement is based on people’s right to some influence on the decisions that have an effect on ...
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I’ve been binge watching The Tudors on Netflix and, in homage to Anne Boleyn, I realize that these are stressful times for most of us. Whenever I start feeling a little whiny, I think about my doc and nursing friends and relatives working in public health, elder care, and in ...
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We’re not on the same page. People in the U.S. aren’t even in the same library, it seems. Having or facilitating conversations between people who differ so dramatically in their views feels like an insurmountable task but there are better and worse ways to approach them so consider this. Read ...
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If you’re fortunate enough to still be working as the economic fallout from the pandemic continues to evolve, you may find yourself in a position of delivering, or advising on how to deliver, less than great news to your peers or the public in coming weeks. If you find yourself ...
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On top of your real everyday life, your job and priorities have changed in the past few weeks. Although most of the people who read this are typically responsible for public engagement in their organizations, a lot of you also do double duty managing public information, internal communication, public affairs, ...
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An article in the recent issue of Psychology Today addresses how our eyes, gestures and tone put us in synch with each other in ways that online platforms will never duplicate. Like all primates, we’re social creatures and regardless of how effective WebEx, Facetime, Skype, Zoom and the others are ...
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I suspect you know someone who doesn’t buy into the COVID-19 issue as that big of a deal or they actually believe that it’s some kind of manufactured hoax. You’ll hear statements like, It’s just like the flu, in fact the flu’s killed more people so far ...
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As the novelty of camping at home slowly evolves into growing agitation and anxiety, we’re all going to have to learn how to better deal with it. Some thoughts. Read More …...
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As the following story says, just when we most need to connect to people on an interpersonal basis, that’s the last thing we can safely do. Here are some ideas about staying humanly connected while still staying as safe as possible. Read More …...
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