I actually spent about half the past weekend at an EA retreat near San Francisco trying to communicate these exact concerns—super refreshing and also kind of baffling to see such a well developed, detailed post so in line with the case I was making!
I am considering writing a post about potential projects to improve this area as well as lessons that could be learned from other movements who have experience in adjusting messaging of complex ideas to be most beneficial to wider audiences—namely in Science Communication.
Here’s a brief list of ideas:
Please keep in mind that this is a casual brainstorm, and that there are probably plenty of valid points of contention/concern that could be raised with the various items. Let’s try to be constructive and productive >>>>> dismissive/hyper-critical :) *
-More resources to the Community Health Team -Gathering a small, diverse team of highly skilled and well aligned Branding/PR/Public Communication Specialists and funding them as a dedicated “EA PR” / “Brand Management” / “Partnerships and Community Outreach” group either within the CEA or as a stand-alone entity -Rather than doing the above point internally, bringing in outside specialists (who are still generally aligned with the goals of trying to do good) to advise and consult with management at EA orgs -Fostering partnerships with groups, organizations and communities that are strategically aligned along at least some shared values (Scientific Skeptics movement, Science Communication field, Teachers associations, community advocacy groups in target impact areas, etc) -Spinning off more accessible (shorter, more concise, with a focus on production quality) versions of current communications projects: -Current long form Podcasts → Shorter, professionally done, narratively compelling podcasts a la “Planet Money”, “Short Wave” or “Unexplainable” -Current Forum Posts → Refined into articles of a more reasonable length with a coherent tone and style -Current Books → key ideas blurbs synthesizing main take-aways into self-contained articles/summaries -Current Web-Sites/Articles → Front pages with more refined, concise introductions to a subject that subsequently connect to the more in depth articles (currently most EA org web pages are very long and dense) -Diversifying the EA YouTube presence as well as on other platforms/media -Identifying EAs who have a good track record of positive public communication and connecting them with external media rather than relying on the same few well-known figures to do the majority of such communications (podcasts, news journals, influencers, etc) -Developing an “EA Onboarding” toolkit both to help people in EA better refine their approach to sharing EA with others as well as to help people outside of EA familiarize themselves with the movement in an approachable way (a Design Thinking approach would be very beneficial here) -Changing EA messaging among EA orgs and EA leaders to be more digestible, accurate, concise and respectful to audiences outside of the hardcore moral philosophy world → of particular note, emphasizing that EA knows it can’t be sure about any one approach, which is why we tend to divide funding and focus among many different possible paths to impact (longtermism and AGI get WAY more visibility/discussion in EA communications than is representative of their share of the community—and they’re especially controversial) -Opening up EA org boards to diverse members outside of the EA movement to provide a “reality check” as well as much needed perspectives. Organizational boards should make an especially concerted effort to ensure that members of the communities EA is trying to help are strongly represented -Sponsoring several “spin-off” brands aligned with but distinct from EA that use a different names and communication styles specifically designed to synergize with strategically important groups of people currently outside EA. Not every important group responds well to the standard approach of long, detailed lectures on moral philosophy—market segmentation and targeted communications are vital for an effective communication strategy -Updating current Recruiting practices in EA orgs to ensure candidates with diverse approaches to EA are not being screened out → full EA value and concept alignment may be important in some roles, but may actually be detrimental in others—particularly when entire teams are ideologically/stylistically homogenous -Plenty more I’m sure!
Would this be something people would like to see expanded upon / collaborate on to create some movement on the subject?
I actually spent about half the past weekend at an EA retreat near San Francisco trying to communicate these exact concerns—super refreshing and also kind of baffling to see such a well developed, detailed post so in line with the case I was making!
I am considering writing a post about potential projects to improve this area as well as lessons that could be learned from other movements who have experience in adjusting messaging of complex ideas to be most beneficial to wider audiences—namely in Science Communication.
Here’s a brief list of ideas:
Please keep in mind that this is a casual brainstorm, and that there are probably plenty of valid points of contention/concern that could be raised with the various items. Let’s try to be constructive and productive >>>>> dismissive/hyper-critical :) *
-More resources to the Community Health Team
-Gathering a small, diverse team of highly skilled and well aligned Branding/PR/Public Communication Specialists and funding them as a dedicated “EA PR” / “Brand Management” / “Partnerships and Community Outreach” group either within the CEA or as a stand-alone entity
-Rather than doing the above point internally, bringing in outside specialists (who are still generally aligned with the goals of trying to do good) to advise and consult with management at EA orgs
-Fostering partnerships with groups, organizations and communities that are strategically aligned along at least some shared values (Scientific Skeptics movement, Science Communication field, Teachers associations, community advocacy groups in target impact areas, etc)
-Spinning off more accessible (shorter, more concise, with a focus on production quality) versions of current communications projects:
-Current long form Podcasts → Shorter, professionally done, narratively compelling podcasts a la “Planet Money”, “Short Wave” or “Unexplainable”
-Current Forum Posts → Refined into articles of a more reasonable length with a coherent tone and style
-Current Books → key ideas blurbs synthesizing main take-aways into self-contained articles/summaries
-Current Web-Sites/Articles → Front pages with more refined, concise introductions to a subject that subsequently connect to the more in depth articles (currently most EA org web pages are very long and dense)
-Diversifying the EA YouTube presence as well as on other platforms/media
-Identifying EAs who have a good track record of positive public communication and connecting them with external media rather than relying on the same few well-known figures to do the majority of such communications (podcasts, news journals, influencers, etc)
-Developing an “EA Onboarding” toolkit both to help people in EA better refine their approach to sharing EA with others as well as to help people outside of EA familiarize themselves with the movement in an approachable way (a Design Thinking approach would be very beneficial here)
-Changing EA messaging among EA orgs and EA leaders to be more digestible, accurate, concise and respectful to audiences outside of the hardcore moral philosophy world → of particular note, emphasizing that EA knows it can’t be sure about any one approach, which is why we tend to divide funding and focus among many different possible paths to impact (longtermism and AGI get WAY more visibility/discussion in EA communications than is representative of their share of the community—and they’re especially controversial)
-Opening up EA org boards to diverse members outside of the EA movement to provide a “reality check” as well as much needed perspectives. Organizational boards should make an especially concerted effort to ensure that members of the communities EA is trying to help are strongly represented
-Sponsoring several “spin-off” brands aligned with but distinct from EA that use a different names and communication styles specifically designed to synergize with strategically important groups of people currently outside EA. Not every important group responds well to the standard approach of long, detailed lectures on moral philosophy—market segmentation and targeted communications are vital for an effective communication strategy
-Updating current Recruiting practices in EA orgs to ensure candidates with diverse approaches to EA are not being screened out → full EA value and concept alignment may be important in some roles, but may actually be detrimental in others—particularly when entire teams are ideologically/stylistically homogenous
-Plenty more I’m sure!
Would this be something people would like to see expanded upon / collaborate on to create some movement on the subject?