The Participation Blog

Once Upon a Presentation

A lot of government’s face time with the public often involves making presentations to groups in semi-formal public meeting settings. If the issue in question is not very controversial and the agency has earned and nurtured a level of trust with their public audience, there’s a good chance that people ...
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Wordsmithing

I was talking to ALEXA the other night and we were discussing the fact that the subtlety and effectiveness between almost the right word and exactly the right word can make or break any encounter between two people or between a facilitator (or presenter) and a large group. Are you
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Glossophobia is Not the Fear of Lip Gloss

Public speaking (glossophobia) is a source of high anxiety for most people – it’s our biggest social fear. So, when people are thrown into scary situations, they’ll typically hide in their more comfortable ‘expert’ zone and end up sounding like a robot reciting technical data. That, of course, sounds incomprehensible ...
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People Power

For a while now, it’s seemed clear that public participation is under assault at the highest levels of U.S. government. Functioning democracies share power with the governed. Of course there are arguments that politicians are obligated to wield their power on behalf of the people who elected them, therefore public ...
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You’re Odd

And by you I mean we – we’re all human, different, and irrational sometimes. And most of the time we have to operate in a (alleged) rational, objective, fact-based world. The world of our humanness and the world of reason frequently clash, which can make it tough to work with ...
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