G.A.F.F.
How do you get people to care about animals? Release a few wild predators into the city of Ottawa, and you are sure to get a heightened sense of awareness. In case you didn’t know, it has been three days. 3 DAYS and they still haven’t found the bear that was sighted in Westborough. That is like five minutes from downtown. A freakin’ bear.
And then there is the cougar in Gatineau. I am not talking about the pack of 36 year old single women that descend on Maxwell’s to feed every Friday.
So, how do you get anyone to care about anything? “Everyone in Ottawa has an agenda” is the most overused phrase in the business, but the truth is that everyone with an agenda is in Ottawa. For the most part they follow the same boring formula. Write to an MP, call a Minister’s office, have a reception, take an official on a tour of a facility, etc. You provide decision makers with information, they chose selectively what they will use - I fully realized this on Tuesday when a parliamentarian read an email I sent him pretty much verbatim at a Parliamentary committee. I call it decision based evidence making.
This has significantly reduced the effectiveness of issue advocacy in Ottawa. Decision makers expect you to provide them with a “deck” and a one-pager on every issue under the sun. But, do they actually care?
I call the magic threshold the GAFF (The Give a Fuck Factor.) There is a magical nexus that is very simple to explain by saying “well, this will affect me” but few people actually know why or how it will affect them. For example- Climate change affects me because it will make stuff more expensive and significantly increase the likelihood that I will wake up to an ocean-front view in the Province of Alberta. As if they need something else to make property more expensive.
There are lots of ways to increase the GAFF. It is part of the cube. Want people to start caring about Muslim extremists? Fly a couple of planes into a building. You have to do something that will make people take notice.
GAFF is the first and only question that every advocate should be able to answer. The biggest problem is that most people won’t ask it. Decision makers will patiently wait for you to finish your presentation, say they will follow up with you, and usher you out the back door while the next group is meeting their staff at the front. The first sentence out of any advocates mouth after “nice to see you” should be “the reason this is important to you and your constituents is… I tell clients that if they can’t explain the problem, the effect and the solution in three sentences, they are in trouble.
But sometimes, you convince them too early and they stop listening. No solution is ever achieved by making something that is already illegal more illegal. For example- street racing will not be solved by changing “reckless driving” and “criminal negligence causing death” to “racing without a license.” And there is the delicate balance- you need an issue which can be solved by a simple policy but you also need a policy that isn’t so simple that it won’t accomplish anything.
And then there is the cougar in Gatineau. I am not talking about the pack of 36 year old single women that descend on Maxwell’s to feed every Friday.
So, how do you get anyone to care about anything? “Everyone in Ottawa has an agenda” is the most overused phrase in the business, but the truth is that everyone with an agenda is in Ottawa. For the most part they follow the same boring formula. Write to an MP, call a Minister’s office, have a reception, take an official on a tour of a facility, etc. You provide decision makers with information, they chose selectively what they will use - I fully realized this on Tuesday when a parliamentarian read an email I sent him pretty much verbatim at a Parliamentary committee. I call it decision based evidence making.
This has significantly reduced the effectiveness of issue advocacy in Ottawa. Decision makers expect you to provide them with a “deck” and a one-pager on every issue under the sun. But, do they actually care?
I call the magic threshold the GAFF (The Give a Fuck Factor.) There is a magical nexus that is very simple to explain by saying “well, this will affect me” but few people actually know why or how it will affect them. For example- Climate change affects me because it will make stuff more expensive and significantly increase the likelihood that I will wake up to an ocean-front view in the Province of Alberta. As if they need something else to make property more expensive.
There are lots of ways to increase the GAFF. It is part of the cube. Want people to start caring about Muslim extremists? Fly a couple of planes into a building. You have to do something that will make people take notice.
GAFF is the first and only question that every advocate should be able to answer. The biggest problem is that most people won’t ask it. Decision makers will patiently wait for you to finish your presentation, say they will follow up with you, and usher you out the back door while the next group is meeting their staff at the front. The first sentence out of any advocates mouth after “nice to see you” should be “the reason this is important to you and your constituents is… I tell clients that if they can’t explain the problem, the effect and the solution in three sentences, they are in trouble.
But sometimes, you convince them too early and they stop listening. No solution is ever achieved by making something that is already illegal more illegal. For example- street racing will not be solved by changing “reckless driving” and “criminal negligence causing death” to “racing without a license.” And there is the delicate balance- you need an issue which can be solved by a simple policy but you also need a policy that isn’t so simple that it won’t accomplish anything.
posted by Atlas Hugged at
7:06 a.m.
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