On Our Radar, page 1

Image Credit Patrick Kyle

Since residents of Bennington, Vermont found PFOA in their tap water last year, it seemed a given to many of us that a broad, preventive response to chemical contamination would be crafted and approved by the State Legislature and Administration in 2018.

Ryan Johnson for NPR

NPR shared an excellent piece today on the impact of technologies on our brains. This is the subject of near-daily discussion in our offices because marketing communication has become a technology-driven field -- and we find ourselves coaching our clients, particularly the nonprofits and government agencies, to add more so-called martech (marketing technology) to their world in order to advance their cause cost effectively.

The need is well documented. The Kauffman Foundation and others have detailed the female-male gap in business startup rates, gross revenues and number of employees for comparable businesses, even within the same industry. The challenge has become identifying promising, practical solutions -- especially in non-metro areas.

"If I were to tell you that marketers were using astrological signs as a way to understand/target specific groups of people, you’d tell me that’s a ridiculous strategy." So begins a rant post by Adam Singer on Search Engine Watch. And I couldn't agree more.

Amidst all the talk about the declining population of younger working-age people in Vermont and much of the Northeast, this research finding from the Pew Research Center Fact Tank struck me: "Immigration projected to drive growth in U.S. working-age population through at least 2035."

To me, this is yet one more reason to increase our awareness, knowledge, and communication competencies around cultural differences, diversity and inclusion.

Say it isn't so.

We often work with public sector government agencies, so we are acutely aware of the financial and political pressures they experience. (To our way of thinking, our client's pain is our pain.) But recent news that paid advertising placements were being sold in U.S. national parks startled us.

I've watched with excitement the trend to make it easier for ordinary investors to identify sustainable, carbon-free, ethical or socially responsible investments. Nationally — see An Investment Strategy to Save the Planet, New York Times' Fixes column), and locally — see Is Your Money Invested Where Your Values are? — our options are increasing.

Yet the reality is that for most people, more of their money is spent day-to-day than is invested. So Wired's article Want to Be an Ethical Shopper? Get DoneGood’s Chrome Extension caught my eye.

The White House hosted the United State of Women Summit on June 14, inspiring those participating both in real life and virtually. #StateOfWomen is a case study in an event done well. This photo of 11-year-old Mikaila Ulmer, founder of Me & the Bees Lemonade, as she introduced President Obama explains one reason why.

That reason is a consistent focus on the why — in this case, equality, diversity, and inclusion. As noted by attendees ranging from Wired magazine to the League of Women Voters, in addition to "political heavy weights such a President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Representative and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Attorney General Loretta Lynch as well as Hollywood elites, including Oprah, Tina Fey, Mariska Hargitay, Kerry Washington, Patricia Arquette, and national business leaders like Warren Buffett and Dina Habib gracing the stage," participants from around the country were all ages and more diverse than your every-day star-studded White House event. The #StateOfWomen consistently demonstrated the why of the summit.