Making sense of today's diverse media options and audience segmentation

First off, how ‘bout those Knicks last night!!

I’m not a basketball guy, but WOW—what a game…

I was struck by how that shared experience brought so many diverse folks together around a shared vision (a shared vision of victory in a basketball game, to be sure, but still…).

This came on top of a great conversation I had yesterday with a colleague who was brainstorming with me about the best way to execute a “next step” strategy of engagement on the topics of the AtA Series—and the more important challenge of how to communicate with folks outside of our immediate silo and media bubble.

And then yesterday our colleague Adam Wolfensohn shared the Democracy Map with me which comes to us from the group, Harmony Labs.

For f-ing YEARS I’ve heard folks blather on about how we consume our media differently nowadays, we’re all in our own information bubble and we need to understand how best to take our message to new audiences and sub-groups if we’re to co-create the potential solutions we require in this time…

and yet it’s always been this “truth” that I’ve had a hard time navigating or fully understanding the implications of.

The Democracy Map is the first time (and maybe I’ve just not been paying enough attention…) someone has broken down those audience groups and segments on terms that make sense to me and offered a coherent framework for how we might each then engage with those various segments, answering the fundamental question of:

To be clear:

How we each might make use of this analysis will no doubt differ, but what an incredibly great piece of work to consider as we think about how to advance not only our messages but our thinking and actions with regard to new possibilities.

Whatever you think about the Knicks and the playoffs, ultimately we are all (even our “opponents”) on the same team. This kind of research is really helpful in grounding our understanding of how best to communicate with each other and those we need to be in dialogue with as we continue to advance our good efforts, however we specifically define them.

Shout out to Harmony Labs and the great framing presented in The Democracy Audience Map! (Plus, it’s free, so thanks for that as well!)

Totally worth sitting with and considering its relevance to your own work!

More good to come!