I think any outreach must start with understanding where the audience is coming from. The people most likely to make the considerable investment of “doing outreach” are in danger of being too convinced of their position and thinking it obvious; “how can people not see this?”.
If you want to have a meaningful conversation with someone and interest them in a topic, you need to listen to their perspective, even if it sounds completely false and missing the point, and be able to empathize without getting frustrated. For most people to listen and consider any object level arguments about a topic they don’t care about, there must first be a relationship of mutual respect, trust and understanding. Getting people to consider some new ideas, rather than convincing them of some cause, is already a very worthy achievement.
I think any outreach must start with understanding where the audience is coming from. The people most likely to make the considerable investment of “doing outreach” are in danger of being too convinced of their position and thinking it obvious; “how can people not see this?”.
If you want to have a meaningful conversation with someone and interest them in a topic, you need to listen to their perspective, even if it sounds completely false and missing the point, and be able to empathize without getting frustrated. For most people to listen and consider any object level arguments about a topic they don’t care about, there must first be a relationship of mutual respect, trust and understanding. Getting people to consider some new ideas, rather than convincing them of some cause, is already a very worthy achievement.