Archive for the ‘Misc’ Category

Here’s the good news: About three out of four Americans believe in global warming. Here’s the bad news, that’s down from four out of five just a few years ago. That’s according to a new environmental poll sponsored by the Washington Post.

The demographic breakouts here are the standard ones for environmental issues:

• Democrats are more likely to accept global warming as real than Republicans, and are more supportive of policy action to address it
• Young people are more likely to accept global warming as real than older people
• College educated people (1/4 of Americans have a college degree) are more likely to accept global warming as real than those with less education (3/4 of Americans have junior college, high school, or even less education)

You know a simple way to raise levels of attention and concern about climate change? Call it global warming instead.

Click the links below for more:

• Environmental poll results
• Environmental poll story

The Center For Research on Environmental Decisions, a.k.a “CRED,” has published a new report called “The Psychology of Climate Change Communications.”  Here’s their pitch:

This guide powerfully details many of the biases and barriers to scientific communication and information processing. It offers a tool—in combination with rigorous science, innovative engineering, and effective policy design—to help our societies take the pivotal actions needed to respond with urgency and accuracy to one of the greatest challenges ever faced by humanity: global-scale, human-induced environmental threats, of which the most complex and far reaching is climate change.

At almost 50 pages, this is not light reading. But I’ve got a plane trip coming up so I am looking forward to exploring what the authors mean with tantalizing headlines like:

• “Make the message matter now”
• “Speak to two parts of the brain, how to make analytic data memorable and impactful”
• “How to avoid numbing an audience to climate change”

Click the link below to get your copy!
The Psychology of Climate Change Communication

Hat tip to D.K. in Georgia for sending this link my way!

Editor and Publisher, a journal covering the newspaper industry, has released the latest circulation figures for the top 25 newspapers across the country. The news is just ghastly. In the last six months:

• The San Francisco Chronicle lost 25% of its subscribers
• The Boston Globe lost more than 18% of its subscribers
• USA Today lost more than 17% of its subscribers
• The Baltimore Sun lost more than 15% of its subscribers

Click here to see the full article and check on the status of your hometown paper. Better enjoy it while you can.

Hat tip to Tech Crunch for bringing this to my attention.

Have you ever wanted to pre-test some important communications materials on some every day citizens before you release them to the public? Are you daunted by the cost, effort, and time associated with traditional polls, surveys, and focus groups?

I thought so. Today, I’m inviting you to provide some advance feedback on a new market research service I’m preparing — and to sign up to participate in the beta test program. Those who I select to participate will get some FREE market research.

I’m calling this new service the “Do Diligence Sounding Board.” It’s a high-tech hybrid of a poll and focus group — a standing panel of more than 10,000 everyday U.S. citizens. For an affordable fee, they will review your brochure, advertisement, web page, press release, etc. and give you feedback and suggestions from a general public audience perspective — not the expert-insider perspective that your peers provide.

Help me develop a service that meets your needs. Click here to learn more and share your thoughts and concerns about the Do Diligence Sounding Board concept, and to volunteer to participate in the beta testing phase in early 2010.