How Communications Can Make Preservation Relevant
For this year’s PastForward conference, the National Trust for Historic Preservation asked people to submit brief video messages for use in virtual town halls. I submitted one for today’s session, "Preservation and Relevancy: A Reckoning and Commitment to Act."
I was thrilled to see part of my video during the town hall — thank you, National Trust! I thought you, dear reader, might find it of interest as well.
You can see the video and/or read the transcript below. The survey I mention at the beginning is summarized in three blog posts by the Trust, starting with Building Relevance: A Snapshot of the Preservation Movement.
I’d seriously love your thoughts in the comments below. Where do you agree? Disagree? Where should we start? What else should we do? How much do you love my orange walls? Or not? Anything suitable for public consumption, I’d love to hear. Thanks!
[p.s. This is a great example of repurposing content. Easiest blog post yet!]
Transcript (post-intro)
In a survey last fall, the National Trust asked what we consider the top challenges in the field. The second most common response, behind funding, was communicating the relevance of historic preservation, including
showing how our work relates to climate change, racial justice, housing, and economic issues, as well as
telling the full American story,
changing the narrative, and
demystifying the process.
All of this is related. It’s ambitious, but it’s achievable. And I think there are steps we can take right now.
We can pass the mic to the people whose stories need telling.
We can use our resources to amplify their voices.
We can use stories to show how exactly how preservation addresses these broader issues.
We can listen to our audiences. It’s about them, not us.
And, we can ditch the jargon.
On a broader scale, we can start the hard work of reframing preservation. I wouldn’t mind renaming it as well. But in the meantime, we can use communications research and social science to understand
how humans perceive information,
how people really think about what we call preservation, and
how we can frame messages to actually change the conversation.
We can also stop thinking of communications as either a luxury or a given. It’s essential, and doing it well it takes skill and strategy. But it’s not rocket science.
We can strengthen the field’s communications capacity through training, community building, formal education, and hiring—starting with people of color.
Clear, compelling communications not only conveys our relevance; it plays a key role in attaining it as well. Thank you.