Hey Gleb.
I really like your insights on general EA marketing and the way you help people build a local EA community in the Facebook EA Marketing group.
When I first opened this video I was pleasantly surprised that you made such a modern, attractive video about effective giving; exactly what I hoped InIn would do. Unfortunately, again, you put your Organisation, Intentional Insights (InIn), on the same level as Givewell, ACE, TLYCS and GWWC.
Isn’t this exactly what the EA community had a problem with?
a) Posting to the forums and EA sites with a much higher frequency than others, creating the impression that InIn was a bigger deal in the EA community than it really was, and
b) using the EA brand despite wanting to target laypeople using listicles and clickbait articles.
You updated from b and started to drop the label and go for advocating “effective giving” only, which was great and could no longer taint the EA brand. However, this new video again puts Intentional Insights on the same level as much more rigorously researched organisations with an entirely different target group and an already established good reputation.
This video could have been great if it left out your organisation entirely. Now I don’t really want it to get shared. I hope I don’t sound too harsh when I say that, from this video, I get the impression that InIn wants to leech off the reputation of the most popular EA organisations.
Thanks for your good words about my insights on EA marketing, really appreciate it!
Regarding having InIn in the video, the goal is not to establish any sort of equivalence. In fact, it would be hard to compare the other organizations with each other as well. For instance, GiveWell has a huge budget and vastly more staff than any of the other organizations mentioned in the video. The goal is to give people information on various venues where they could get different types of information. For example, ACE is there for people who care about animal rights, and GWWC is there for people who want a community. InIn is there for people who want easy content to inform themselves about effective giving. This is why InIn is specifically discussed as a venue to get content, not recommendations on effective charities or things like that.
Also, please remember people’s priors. This video is not aimed at EAs. The people who watch this video will not have any idea about the popularity of various organizations. InIn would get fine credit within the EA community if we had just produced the video without including InIn itself. The goal is to provide a broad audience with a variety of sources of information about effective giving. We included InIn because it provides some types of content—such as this video—that other orgs do not—as you say, they have a different target group :-)
Seconding resuf’s comments: both that this is a pretty good, professional looking video, but also that it’s another instance of you seeming to listen to some of the exact-letter-of-the-request when people ask you to stop or do things differently, without understanding the underlying reasons why people are upset.
And that this is especially important if your goal is to be a public-facing outreach organization.
A key part of my phrase was “you seeming to listen to some of the exact-letter-of-the-request”. (Like, people specifically asked him to just stop, and he didn’t do that, instead picking whichever of their requests seemed most doable without having to change course)
Hey Gleb. I really like your insights on general EA marketing and the way you help people build a local EA community in the Facebook EA Marketing group.
When I first opened this video I was pleasantly surprised that you made such a modern, attractive video about effective giving; exactly what I hoped InIn would do. Unfortunately, again, you put your Organisation, Intentional Insights (InIn), on the same level as Givewell, ACE, TLYCS and GWWC.
Isn’t this exactly what the EA community had a problem with?
a) Posting to the forums and EA sites with a much higher frequency than others, creating the impression that InIn was a bigger deal in the EA community than it really was, and b) using the EA brand despite wanting to target laypeople using listicles and clickbait articles.
You updated from b and started to drop the label and go for advocating “effective giving” only, which was great and could no longer taint the EA brand. However, this new video again puts Intentional Insights on the same level as much more rigorously researched organisations with an entirely different target group and an already established good reputation.
This video could have been great if it left out your organisation entirely. Now I don’t really want it to get shared. I hope I don’t sound too harsh when I say that, from this video, I get the impression that InIn wants to leech off the reputation of the most popular EA organisations.
Thanks for your good words about my insights on EA marketing, really appreciate it!
Regarding having InIn in the video, the goal is not to establish any sort of equivalence. In fact, it would be hard to compare the other organizations with each other as well. For instance, GiveWell has a huge budget and vastly more staff than any of the other organizations mentioned in the video. The goal is to give people information on various venues where they could get different types of information. For example, ACE is there for people who care about animal rights, and GWWC is there for people who want a community. InIn is there for people who want easy content to inform themselves about effective giving. This is why InIn is specifically discussed as a venue to get content, not recommendations on effective charities or things like that.
Also, please remember people’s priors. This video is not aimed at EAs. The people who watch this video will not have any idea about the popularity of various organizations. InIn would get fine credit within the EA community if we had just produced the video without including InIn itself. The goal is to provide a broad audience with a variety of sources of information about effective giving. We included InIn because it provides some types of content—such as this video—that other orgs do not—as you say, they have a different target group :-)
Seconding resuf’s comments: both that this is a pretty good, professional looking video, but also that it’s another instance of you seeming to listen to some of the exact-letter-of-the-request when people ask you to stop or do things differently, without understanding the underlying reasons why people are upset.
And that this is especially important if your goal is to be a public-facing outreach organization.
Find a better letter, then! Telling him to stop would be like the Sorting Hat telling HPJEV to stop.
A key part of my phrase was “you seeming to listen to some of the exact-letter-of-the-request”. (Like, people specifically asked him to just stop, and he didn’t do that, instead picking whichever of their requests seemed most doable without having to change course)