Who are you?
You are actively involved in nature protection or pollution control, either as a professional or a committed volunteer. You may work for a land trust, a watershed association, a Conservation District or some other formal organization. Alternately, you may have a blog, listserv, or other online forum where people gather to discuss the environment.
Either way, you are interested in improving your skills at communicating with everyday citizens – so you can be more successful at moving them from passively agreeing with you to actively supporting and cooperating with you.
Who am I?
I’m Eric Eckl, a public relations and marketing consultant for people like you. I have many years experience getting the word out to protect nature, control pollution, and conserve water and wildlife.
I divide my time between this website and the clients it has attracted, and Beaconfire Consulting, where I consult to national nonprofit organizations such as the Wildlife Conservation Society, Conservation International, Trust for Public Land, and others.
I have led advocacy and fundraising campaigns, managed media relations, and oversaw web and print publishing activities for several federal and nonprofit conservation organizations. I have appeared on CNN, been quoted in the New York Times, and raised millions of dollars for good causes. I frequently speak at technology, marketing, and environmental conferences.
What is Water Words That Work?
Water Words That Work is blog that explores how nature protection and pollution control become more confident and successful whenever they set out to change everyday citizens’ minds and behavior. Water Words That Work re-orients nature protection and pollution control experts to the vocabulary and perspective of nonprofessionals, and helps you translate your shoptalk into messages that are clear and compelling to everyday citizens.
Water Words That Work is intended to help nature protection and pollution control experts succeed at tasks like these:
- Working with reporters and bloggers
- Overseeing behavior change campaigns
- Preparing websites and print publications
- Fundraising
- Speaking at public meetings and hearings
- Lobbying public officials
Water Words That Work is also a company. I – and a network of graphic designers, programmers, videographers, and other campaigners — provide public relations and marketing services to people like you.
About the Name
It’s fun to say and easy to remember. But the title “Water Words That Work,” is also a nod in the direction of message meister Dr. Frank Luntz, author of Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear.
Dr. Luntz is a pollster with a talent for finding rhyme and reason in how Americans respond to words and phrases – positively to some, negatively to others. In particular, I admire his ability to translate social research into clear and straightforward advice that is equally useful whether you are being interviewed by a reporter, writing a fundraising letter, speaking to the Kiwanis Club, or putting a new page on your website.
However, Dr. Luntz plays for the other team.
Most notably, he is the architect of the polluters’ strategy to question the science of global warming and thereby steer the conversation away from consequences and solutions. Every time you find yourself in a futile argument with some naysayer about the reality of global warming — instead of trying to persusade a more open-minded person to do something about it — you are falling into a trap that Dr. Luntz has laid for you. We may all pay a very high price for his success.
Dr. Luntz now acknowledges the reality of global warming, so we can only hope he will try to redeem himself by working to advance solutions rather than stall them.
