Mass media and our most cynical memes say we live in a post-fact era. If that’s the case, who can we trust — and how do we invest our trust? We used to seek experts as arbiters of reality, but then looked to “people like us” whether we were picking a restaurant, planning a vacation, or clicking on a trending news item. But as our filter bubbles burst, consumers and citizens alike began to turn inward for the truth — and by designing for empowerment, the smartest organizations meet them there.
In this exploration of some of today’s most engaging brands, content strategist Margot Bloomstein draws on two decades of personal experience building trust into companies, their websites, and their broader messaging. Author of Content Strategy at Work and the forthcoming Trustworthy, she explores why trust in the old guard has fallen apart — and then presents how today’s smartest companies and institutions rebuild trust by building and bolstering the knowledge of their customers. We’ll dig into examples from America’s Test Kitchen, Volkswagen, Crutchfield, GOV.UK, and other organizations of the public and private sector to ask: How do brands develop rapport when audiences let emotion cloud logic? What happens when cultural predisposition affects public safety? And how do voice and vulnerability go beyond buzzwords and into broader corporate strategy?
You’ll see how design and content come together to empower users — and how the same tactics can work across industries, scale, and audience. You’ll uncover a play-by-play approach to educating and empowering consumers and citizens alike — and learn how thoughtful design and content can rebuild our sense of trust itself.
Presented by Margot Bloomstein at Fluxible 2018, #fluxible2018, on September 23, 2018, in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario Canada.
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Inconsistency may not affect our loyalty,
but it undermines our ability to evaluate
and trust.
It didn’t matter to supporters.
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Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, Blur: How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload. Bloomsbury, New York, 2010, p. 45
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Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, Blur: How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload. Bloomsbury, New York, 2010, p. 47
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63% of the general population finds it difficult
to differentiate between real and fake news.
Source: 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer
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Only 48% of Americans say they believe
climate change is mostly due to human
activity.
Source: Pew Research Center “The Politics of Climate”
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Only 40% of Americans say they have
a “great deal of confidence” in science.
Source: AP-NORC Center study Confidence in Institutions: Trends in Americans’Attitudes toward Government, Media, and Business