"If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The strugge between 'for' and 'against' is the mind's worst disease." —Sent-ts'an, c. 700 C.E. Who is your target audience? The first question you need to ask before starting a communications project can come down to analyzing one key motivator for your target audience. Values. Before you can unite an idea with an emotion to inspire action, you have to understand why your target … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: Do Aid Workers Need PR 101?
October 2, 2011 by
I ran across a first this week. A video of a TED Talk I didn't find remotely jaw-dropping, informative, or inspiring. The video, my October 2011 video clip of the month, features Amy Lockwood, deputy director of Stanford's Center for Innovation in Global Health talking about promoting condoms in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. Her ingenuous idea? Something "perhaps the donor agencies had just missed out on... … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: Drought & Filter Bubbles
August 1, 2011 by
With East Africa facing its worst drought in 60 years, I wince more than ever at a quote by Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg: “A squirrel dying in your front yard may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.” What Zuckerberg's assertion means on a societal level—such as during a regional famine overseas—is the topic of my August 2011 video clip of the month. It features Eli Pariser, author of The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: Crowd Accelerated Innovation
October 1, 2010 by
My October 2009 video clip of the month features TED's Chris Anderson giving a fascinating talk on a new phenomenon he calls "Crowd Accelerated Innovation." Web video is driving the global phenomenon, a self-fueling cycle of innovation and learning that he says could be as significant as the invention of the printing press. By watching his video, Anderson says, "you're part of the crowd that may be about to launch the biggest learning cycle in human history, a cycle … [Read more...]
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