Future Here Now: How to talk to the public fairly

Toolkit

The other day I complained here about how toxic our approaches to communicating with the public are - true of most governments, organizations, and businesses alike.

One of the big mistakes we make — and one that trashes our reputation and ability to do anything constructive at lightning speed — is that we sell the public a false bill of goods in term of what they think will happen as a result of their communication with us.

We tell them that “Your opinion matters!!!!” and “We care what you think!!!” But it doesn’t take long for them to figure out that we didn’t really mean it, that key decisions had already been made, or that we’re going to heavily filter what gets back to the higher ups, or we are doing the bare minimum to get some federal oversight off our backs. Any fleeting belief that their time and effort might make any difference goes out the window as soon as that realization dawns.

Those false bills of goods - some might even say lies, or at least lies of omission - are a big part of the reason why that public we want to support us (or at least not fight us) treats us with such distrust.

When I work with organizations and communities, we make our plans for how we will talk with the public based on a super simple framework: