USDA Marketing Assistance Project/Armenia

“US in the World” - A New Communications ToolJanuary 19, 2005 - Carol Radomski

Objectives for Today

Understand purpose, contents and uses of USITW guide

Review key concepts and recommendations

Discuss core messages

Practice answering tough questions

Click here to launch the movie.

TASK FORCE

• Energy: Energy Future Coalition, National Commission on Energy Policy, National Environmental Trust, Apollo Alliance, National Religious Partnership for the Environment, NRDC…

• Development: InterAction, Better Safer World Campaign, Seattle Initiative, Center for Global Development, Global Justice, Global Interdependence Initiative, Population Action International…

• Security/Peace: Security Policy Working Group, Directors’ Forum, Carnegie Non-Proliferation Project, Peace & Security Initiative, Win Without War, CSIS, Stimson Center…

• US Role in the World - general: National Council of Churches, Center for American Progress, Campaign to Preserve US Global Leadership, Brookings Institution, MoveOn, National Voice Campaign, New America Foundation, Foreign Policy in Focus, Council on Foreign Relations…

TASK FORCE

• What do we stand for?

• What do we want to say?

• How do we want to say it?

Goals

SHORT-TERM:provide tools for • issues education • policy changes

LONG-TERM:• develop an engaged and informed

public• create a movement for positive change• promote principled and constructive

U.S. foreign policy

Develop a tool

1) Factor in HOW the public thinks and reasons about these issues

2) Draw on multiple types of public opinion and communications research

3) Consider the implications of messaging choices for various issues and purposes

COMMUNICATIONS & PUBLIC OPINION EXPERTS

• Celinda Lake• Robert Boorstin (incl. Greenberg/McInturff research)• Greenberg Quinlan Rosner• The Frameworks Institute• Cultural Logic• Steve Kull/ PIPA• George Lakoff/ Rockridge Institute

Introduction to the Guide

1. A communications tool

2. Has a point of view - positive, global engagement is good

3. “Preach to the unconverted”

4. Reach diverse audiences

5. Assumes you know the issues

6. Offers user-friendly support

Insert PDF of Getting Started and Top Twenty Recommendations tabs

Or show PDF page 33 (book page 32)

The basic premise:Global issues affect us all. Everyone one of us should have a stake in shaping “our” foreign policy.

Trou

tman

San

ders

US in the World is “About”

• Democratic participation

• Justice

• Equality

• A better world for future generations

Photo by Ilan Kelman

Photo by JQ Jacobs

Photo by Rick McCharles

“‘Born in conservation’ if you don’t mind, ‘captivity’ has such a negative connotation”

Sijke

and now the news...

Global mayhem...

MTPE

AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis

…and only the Americans are there to help.

World Vision US

(U.S. Army photo by Spc. Daniel T. Dark)

Photo by Thomas Hartwell, USAID

REUTERS/U.S. Navy/Jacob J. Kirk/Handout

AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis Museums Teaching Planet Earth

Another day…same stories.

AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko

“Most people killed by the tsunami died because they are poor. Even with much improved warning systems, little can be done to prevent natural disasters from becoming massacres as long as people’s livelihoods, infrastructure, and public health conditions are precarious. To minimize the death toll in future disasters we need to do a much better job of supporting long-term economic development in these countries.”

--Michael Clemens

Research Fellow, Center for Global Development:

USDA Marketing Assistance Project / Armenia

“From up there all the trouble spots in the world seemed rather small… The first day or two you try to recognize the countries… Then you keep missing the countries and look only at the continents. By the sixth day, the whole world becomes a beautiful blue and white and yellow painting. So fragile. Those boundaries really disappear.”

Prince Sultan ibn Salman al Saud of Saudi Arabia, Shuttle astronaut, 1985

Source: The NASA Earth Observatory

It’s an interconnected world...

Use “Big Ideas” that -

• resonate with your audience

• reinforce what you are “about”

• keep your audience on the right path

WHAT’S THE “BIG IDEA”? WHAT’S THE “BIG IDEA”? U.S. ACTIONS SHOULD BE…U.S. ACTIONS SHOULD BE…

• Pragmatic/smart/effective/realisticPragmatic/smart/effective/realistic

• Far-sightedFar-sighted

• ComprehensiveComprehensive

• CollaborativeCollaborative

• The right thing to do/trustworthy/principled The right thing to do/trustworthy/principled

• Mutually BeneficialMutually Beneficial

“I will suggest to you that the challenge of U.S. dominance, which none of us fully appreciate yet, is that we are like a 12,000 pound elephant in the world’s living room… and we shake our head…and our trunk breaks five pieces of family china. And the entire planet stares in horror, and we have no clue.”

— Newt Gingrich

TOP 20 RECOMMENDATIONS

Personal Favorites:2. Talk about the interconnected world.

7. Give examples of other countries and NGO’s working alongside the US

15. Use numbers sparingly and put them in context.

19. Don’t repeat negative big ideas - that only reinforces them.

• A scaffolding for more effective messaging — not a script to recite

• A user-friendly tool, not a magic bullet

• Designed to help us communicate more effectively in the short-run and...

• Promote collaboration across issues and organizations

• Help us all be part of a “bigger story” in the long-run

US in the World is...

This Guide Is Your Guide

• Ultimately, the Guide belongs to you

• Order the book, share your ideas or sign up for more training at www.usintheworld.org

• Join listserv on communications strategy at

gii-moderator@aspeninst.org.

• It’s one world and we’re all in it together…