Several of our colleagues recently attended the Innovate to Motivate conference, and they've been sharing feedback. Brian Bowser, Grassroots Coordinator for the South Central Affiliate, shared the following thoughts:
"One of the more interesting sessions focused on offline advocacy and the importance face to face interaction between advocates and decision makers. To me it seemed like common sense that an in-person visit is more meaningful than a fax, phone call, or email, but the session was still very insightful. The presenter was a professor from USC with a PhD in psychology and provided scientific evidence along with a case study to prove his point.
The basic premise was that as online communication tools become more popular and sophisticated the less effective they are. If everyone is able to deliver hundreds of emails to the capitol then the affect is essentially canceled out. In all cases is it advantageous to go back to what works….live meetings between real people. It is harder to say "no" to someone directly but it is also easier to read non verbal cues like apprehension or reluctance that isn't possible online.
With the new focus around offline goals this year and the activities we have already accomplished in our affiliate I see us as well positioned to be effective advocates moving forward. I also didn't interpret the presentation as saying we should abandon our online system, in fact we need to continue to build and improve on it, but at the same time not rely solely on it."
You can also check out the post below with Terri's lessons from the conference!
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