Herbert Molano

  • Challenge: creating engagement among the public at the city level on municipal topics


https://vimeo.com/382996159/eea32a6895

Colee Wilkinson

  • Introduction. Lawyer. Full time parent. Art background, fine art training. Developed an illustration portfolio. "Always felt my mouth was taped shut". Currently researching an area that overlaps with AN themes.

    • Area of interest: Power.

    • History: negotiation with agent re: illustration/design career. Didn't want to spend time freelancing to get the gigs (hence an agent). Wanted to create her own projects to devote her time and creative efforts toward.

    • Looking for new direction in 2019

    • relationship between the art and the project. Art is very labor- and time-intensive. Doesn't want to spend bulk of her time producing art. Wants to have impact, so must reduce amount of time creating art.


https://vimeo.com/383285071/ac2ec14276

Kevin

  • common narrative: background, a sense of dissatisfaction, something about that dissatisfaction that draws you to the CTA/Argument Ninja content as offering resources or a potential solution

Herbert

  • IT company for 25 years. Systems analyst. City issues and local issues become a priority. Efforts to persuade city council of various issues. Wants to make an impact. Had an impact on school district. Helped to create interest in critical thinking in schools. Helped to create a school with flexible hours, for kids who work.

  • Concern: lack of engagement of the general public in civic affairs, local city issues.

  • Challenge: avoid confrontational communication that is not productive.

  • Goal 1: learn methods of communication that are more effective and persuasive for the audience in mind

  • Goal 2: learn how to best leverage technologies to identify and communicate with potential audiences


https://vimeo.com/383285706/327cb5734d

Jon Lee

  • schooling in engineering, then computer sciences

  • wide variety of work experiences: diamond exploration, GIS work, IT / web development, game tech for concert lighting, etc. (all over the map)

  • wished he had studied philosophy, psychology, etc.

  • did a short course in mediation. Had insights into how he thought of mediation differently from others

  • important concept/skill: "distillation". Identify core points of difference, key ideas, and communicate those points effectively, that's a powerful skill

  • the world needs more critical thinking, esp right now


https://vimeo.com/383285941/ec8d537326

Brent Holley

  • benefitted "enormously" from Kevin's podcasts and content

  • want to get more people interested in these topics, issues and content

  • willing to help out in any way

  • some experience creating a podcast with friends


https://vimeo.com/383286216/0c4d30d5b9

Kevin

  • if our goal is to have reach and influence, it's important to pay attention to the medium and the channel (blog, podcast, note-taking, videos, etc.)

  • if your goal is personal improvement and development, the choice of medium is less important — do what you enjoy, create artifacts, opportunities to think within supportive groups rather than alone, in isolation

  • there is important values power of these technologies to facilitate critical and creative thinking by externalizing your thoughts and representing it in some external medium. Frees up cognitive space, cognitive load, memory, etc.


Question for the group: what are your interests with respect to the use of tools and mediums for reaching your audience?


https://vimeo.com/383286353/6d8ec042bb

Herbert

  • specific audience in Glendale CA that I want to reach. A couple hundred thousand individuals. Voters. People who have expressed an interest in certain public issues 

    • what is the population that I want to reach? What is the objective that I want to achieve? What is the medium that is most effective at reaching that audience?

  • Kevin: this is a marketing problem, as Herbert has framed it. 

    • can use standard marketing techniques to address these types of questions

    • illustrates the point that marketing isn't just about getting people to buy things - it's fundamentally about persuasion and persuasion strategies


https://vimeo.com/383286698/f1108af10c


Kevin's earlier history with audience-building

  • educational cartooning back in the early 2000s. How to find like-minded people, what channels were they using to reach audiences

  • Youtube appears, strategy changes

  • create content on a medium that is trafficked by large numbers, a subset of which will be members of your target audience

  • Today: the problem is that the online community has exploded and it's very difficult for people to find your content, unless you're playing to the algorithmic preferences of social media platforms, or you already have an audience


https://vimeo.com/382991764/ff04f03e8b


  • My early experience 

    • created a site with some videos on it, membership site ideas were much discussed as passive income stream

    • created a podcast in 2010 with both audio and video versions

    • YouTube was a source of outreach for audiences who wanted to talk to me

  • My experience with my first podcast: 

    • got featured on the front page of iTunes, helped to boost profile

    • algorithmic decision, I had nothing to do with it (a combination of novelty, initial ratings and reviews)


https://vimeo.com/382991881/787b37a725

Herbert

  • how I first found Kevin on Youtube

  • critical thinking search on YouTube

  • School of Life videos

  • compared Kevin's videos with three or four others, better quality than competitors, so started following Kevin

  • fallacies search: Kevin's content started popping up

  • from there, Herbert searched to see if Kevin had a podcast

  • observation: quality and clarity of the content was a big incentive to follow Kevin

  • But is there a more structured way of targeting an audience on YouTube?

Kevin

  • Yes. But the algorithms today do pose new challenges

  • Need to grab attention, e.g. create attention-grabbing thumbnails to distinguish your content within a sea of content

  • I didn't want to play the game of chasing attention. I didn't want the algorithm telling me what content I to create. I wanted to have other reasons for creating content, and then simply use YouTube as a channel for publishing and sharing.

  • title and keyword descriptions still very important for search optimization


https://vimeo.com/382992091/4f4b3d57c9


Colee question:

  • which medium would you recommend for a person starting out?

  • depends in part on the resources you have available to you, e.g. if you already have an audience and a budget for marketing content

  • Space investing company example: When a podcast is a great marketing tool

  • Blogging + social media: can use Medium to target an audience that is already interested in your topic area

  • Use Facebook in conjunction with Medium to create a targeted campaign

  • but it's important to know where your interests and strengths are in relation to writing versus speaking versus other modes of communication. Some people who can't write at all are great talkers, and would thrive in a podcast environment


Jon's question for the group:

  • what made you want to log on to this particular call?

  • Jon's answer 

    • not looking for one-to-many relationships per se ("audience building"), but very interested in learning how to manage small-group relationships online and in-person.

  • Colee 

    • Saturday's are not good! Sundays work for me

    • Today the timing was good but she also wanted to participate in this topic because she's interested in strategies for giving people a voice

  • Kevin 

    • podcasting probably has the most room to breathe right now in terms of freedom from external constraints due to company ownership of platforms, and freedom from needing to respond directly to an audience (e.g. twitter)

  • Colee 

    • is podcast easier to produce than video?

    • Kevin: yes. Which is not to say it's easy. But it is easier.


https://vimeo.com/382992727/871298b6ef


Herbert

  • I ran a blog for a while. I can write fairly easily

  • Video is the greater challenge. More hesitant, less confident about using it, but think it's an important medium to try out

  • Would like to develop skills in interviewing so that conversations go smoothly, productively, without derailing conversations 

  • Kevin: fear is a natural experience that we should anticipate whenever we start a new initiative. We all have domains of comfort and domains of discomfort. 

    • Also, anxiety regarding own's own qualifications to write or speak on a topic

    • communication practices can require a kind of therapy, where you learn to manage these fears and anxieties

    • this is, in fact, a part of a communication and persuasion skill set — the ability to manage own's own internal resistance to reaching out and trying to influence others


https://vimeo.com/382992954/23642d4145


Colee 

  • Question: How to deal with issues around publishing content when you don't think of yourself as an "expert".

  • Kevin: Concerns about expertise and authority are mostly a private psychological issue. From an external standpoint almost no one cares. 

    • your interest and experience on a topic likely already puts you ahead of 95 percent of the general public on the topic

    • a track record of content can substitute for a credential in many places

    • there are certain contexts where credentials come up and matter to people, but those are specific contexts 

      • e.g getting the attention of a particular tribe that is exclusionary

    • anecdote: my talk on complex systems theories in a workshop where I was asked what background I had (as a philosopher) to contribute to this discussion


https://vimeo.com/382993162/43350c5b5c

Herbert

  • never conducted an interview online

  • has spoken in public many times, but never had to interview someone

  • Joe Rogan - can say "I don't know" about the topic, but is still comfortable interviewing experts. His non-expert status seems to help him. 

    • lessons to be learned here.

  • Getting up the courage to do some video interviews with people

  • goals are to work on preparing for such interviews, conducting them, identifying audiences,

Kevin

  • conversation formats are easier to listen to and produce than monolog podcasts. But conversational interviews are vulnerable to sidetracking

  • recommendation: learning resources for developing interviewing skills 

    • Creative Live

    • SkillShare

    • Udemy

  • Critical thinking and persuasion skills have some general features, but also many topic- or domain-specific features. Critical thinking is always critical thinking about something. So you need to be prepared to learn some specific skills that are especially relevant to your goals, context and target audience

  • analogies: you can be generally athletic, but that doesn't necessarily make you good at any particular sport

  • strategy: identify the people and exemplars that you can study and work backwards from there


https://vimeo.com/382993302/e75c928aa4

Herbert

  • liked Kevin's interview on the Street Epistemology podcast

  • That provided a model for the kind of interaction that he would like to see when he starts his own interviews

  • but outreach and marketing is still the thing that he feels most unprepared to do 

    • also, what practices are important for sustaining an audience once you start a project?

Kevin

  • identify places where your audience already is likely to be found (forums, etc.)

  • advertise in-person meetings that target your audience at local venues 

    • e.g. my talk at the local library on homeschooling methods

  • learn from the experience of the event, plan another event that iterates on what worked and try new things


https://vimeo.com/382993636/a0610fa8ad

Jon

  • another important question: how do we make the best use of feedback from these events and meetings to optimize the value of the exercise?

  • probably the highest value skill is how to LEARN from any given experience so that you make progress toward goals. More important than hitting the target right away (which is unlikely)

Kevin

  • this is important. These communication opportunities need to be viewed as learning opportunities, part of knowledge-gathering


https://vimeo.com/382993949/4e43c6e7b1

Colee:

  • Herbert, you're a writer. What about writing in your local newspaper to generate interest in these topics?

  • Herbert: 

    • I have done a lot of writing in newspapers. But local papers have become less and less useful and relevant. Circulation is way down. My goal is to reach out and find audiences that aren't already engaged.

    • Herbert is looking to create an audience that is interested, and where dialogue and conversation can happen, AND that are well=regulated (don't run off the rails, which is so common)

    • This is why the Argument Ninja skills are so relevant


https://vimeo.com/382994079/01365925e2

Colee:

  • Author/book recommendation for Herbert: Eric Liu, civics professor

  • Eric Liu

  • re: avoiding conversations being derailed 

    • Jon is interested in conflict management

    • Coursera course on conflict management, Colee can recommend 

      • opened eyes on approaches and strategies, including how to manage the lifecycle of a conflict dispute and resolution


https://vimeo.com/382994227/41fcad6ff8

Jon: 

  • How useful would it be to use platforms like Zoom to host meetings where participants actually get to practice critical thinking and persuasion skills?

  • Jon is particularly interested in opportunities to practice (the "Dojo" metaphor), to flex our muscles.

  • Obvious problem: easy to get caught up in the subject matter issues, rather than the higher order thinking issues and communication issues.

  • Analogy: a writer's group

  • Can we make something like this happen?

  • That is, have sessions where each of us gets to practice our Argument Ninja craft together.

  • Does this resonate with you (the others in the meeting)? And is it practical?


Colee feedback:

  • like the idea, especial about moderating conversations

  • but we all have time priorities, only finite time. So our meeting times need to be productive for each of us

  • a different analogy: mastermind group

  • synergistic effect of feedback from the group

  • another important element: accountability

    • meetings put pressure on people to fulfill commitments


https://vimeo.com/382994367/6e70852243

Kevin

  • on the "mastermind group" analogy ...

  • mastermind groups often don't demand that participants do "homework" outside of the meeting time - you present your scenario and you get immediate feedback. This is valuable because such groups are supposed to ONLY contain people with relevant experience within the field or on the topic, so their immediate feedback provides value

  • reading groups and writing groups, by contrast, typically require a greater investment in time spent on familiarizing yourself with other people's work (e.g. reading someone's short story, getting up to speed on their issue, etc.)

  • Jon: reply 

    • this all goes toward the need for strong moderation

    • need to develop a sense of community where community belonging translates into a commitment to provide support and time for others

    • also, the need to "pass the baton"'

    • personally, not as concerned about the scalability issue

    • but certainly there are barriers to entry in terms of commitments of time and procedures to manage and moderate meetings


https://vimeo.com/382994643/2c89438f28

Herbert:

  • themes of interest - misinformation, disinformation, lack of information

  • challenges of arranging meetings: people come already with misinformation that they're attached to.

  • how does one disengage these people from their preconceived notions?

  • what's the best say to overcome the resistance and problems that arise from cognitive biases and misinformation?

  • admits to struggles with his own emotional control during such meetings, need to work on this


https://vimeo.com/382994854/72d3099fa3

Kevin:

  • this is all advertising for the Argument Ninja approach to these challenges 

    • you have a critical thinking goal (reducing misinformation), but you also have to deal with people's backgrounds, biases, etc, in order to strategize an engagement that fulfills critical thinking goals

    • you can't achieve these CT goals without deploying rhetorical and persuasive strategies

    • new course content that I'm working on is designed to provide a foundation for understanding these issues well, to provide a cognitive foundation for skill development, but it doesn't address the skill development component itself, directly

Kevin's plans/ideas:

  • member survey to help identity like-minded people with whom to have conversations and build support communities

  • develop a calendar around a set of meetings of different types on different topics 

    • use these to generate feedback on how these meetings are going, to iterate and improve over time

  • idea: have others volunteer to host or frame a conversation

  • develop a natural hierarchy, a smaller number of highly motivated members who are taking ownership of their community-building projects

  • conceptual topics/meetings vs case-study based meetings

  • doing local meet-ups in the real world; go online to help strategize such in-person meetings 

    • Jon: that's the part that I'm already familiar with; what I'm hoping to do is leverage the online community to find like-minded people


Kevin: I'll be there if you want to show up at a meeting


https://vimeo.com/382995010/6bee8747fa

Kevin: Why I don't just make videos and video courses

  • it's drawing too much on JUST what I currently know

  • it's also very conceptual, too much in my comfort zone

  • working on other people's problems, you see a whole new world

  • these function as case studies from which we can all learn

  • from a high level perspective, we need a way of documenting how these applied projects are going

  • need ways of documenting the progress of applied "Argument Ninja" initiatives (e.g. Herbert's civil engagement project)

  • imagine someone new people joining in 5 years. Would like them to have access to an archive of practical case studies

  • need to develop "institutional memory" about how concepts and principles can be successfully applied to specific practical cases, so people aren't forced to reinvent the wheel any more than they have to


https://vimeo.com/382995404/c797f51742

Brent: where does that term "institutional memory" come from?

  • it's an organizational and business management term

  • every business or organization has knowledge that is not codified or documented, but exists only in the memories and practices of the people and the history of the organization.

  • but this makes the organization vulnerable to disruption when key players die or move on, because that institutional memory is not preserved

  • "externalizing" accumulated knowledge — getting it out of people's heads — is a central principle of Knowledge Management


https://vimeo.com/382995549/ec7d9b959c

Kevin: technological innovations

  • technological innovations in knowledge management are coming, and will create amazing opportunities for us

  • can build an infrastructure that lets people document and share content, save and capture knowledge that we can all learn from


https://vimeo.com/382995659/7409d42572

Colee:

  • like the overall picture I just painted; like the case study model, like the model of building a knowledge resource based on personal interests and projects

  • light side and the dark side: very relevant to analyses of power

  • to me as a member of your community, the fact that your knowledge base focuses on these foundational issues, and attracts people who resonate with them, is a valuable thing


https://vimeo.com/382995831/cc96eecc77


Jon:

  • response to the concept of technologies for sharing

  • I'm not so interested in pursuing an audience (one-to-many relationships), and so much of the technology focuses on sharing in this sense.

  • But I do like the concept of sharing per se, i.e. tools that allow individuals to share content and information with other individuals

  • gives a reason for documenting my activities more than I have in the past, by contributing to a collective group knowledge

  • the matching of topics and people is very important. That will be a great asset if the framework can be built to enable that


https://vimeo.com/382995939/4a8d56e36e