Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Boost Your Results with Virtual Engagement

Some days I wish I could call an emergency meeting of all Agitator readers, if for no other reason than to get your immediate reaction to one or another of our most insane ideas—or at least Kevin’s insane ideas. That was my wish exactly 11 years ago this week. In a the post Meet With […]

Learn More August 7, 2024

Harris Defeats Trump. Trump Defeats Harris.

Conventional wisdom and a veteran political analyst who had predicted the winner in four of the five prior presidential races leading up to this 1948 election were clear; not only would Dewey win but Republicans would retain control of the House and Senate. Dewey of course lost and the Democrats won control of both chambers. […]

Learn More August 5, 2024

Activism’s Double-Edged Sword

Social activism and creating a “movement” is hard work, made harder by a conflicting reality. More extreme actions, often effective at gaining (media) attention and increasing pressure on organizations or institutions, are likely to reduce popular support. What constitutes ‘extreme’? Is it in the eye of the beholder or context dependent? Blocking highways may be […]

Learn More August 2, 2024

Red State, Blue State? Dig Deeper

These two profiles seem like stereotypes or memes for urban/rural, or red state/blue state. This is 3rd party data. It’s big data, it gives us mass market reach as I can know these sorts of things for most people. It’s also entirely correlational, not causal. Having said that, the data are certainly suggestive of two […]

Learn More July 31, 2024

Is Your Work Necessary or Critical?

Necessary and critical are synonyms but not equal. The former is more neutral, the latter more promotional, market-y. Which one should you use if you’re making a claim? Research from the National Academy of Sciences analyzed over 10 years of grant applications and found that more promotional language increases grant success. The relationship is really […]

Learn More July 29, 2024

Subtract to Boost Donor Engagement?

Addition by subtraction. Less is more. Remove barriers. Mark Twain apologizing for the length of his letter, noting it would have been shorter if he had more time. Leonardo DaVinci defined perfection as when there is nothing left to take away. All these expressions and sentiments can’t hold a candle to our bias for addition […]

Learn More July 26, 2024