By David Kahn

The truth is we can hardly hear you. Information overload, or as some have called it, “input fatigue” has become a serious communication challenge. There is so much information bombarding us that we have all learned how to filter most of it out.

• A weekly edition of the New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the seventeenth century.
• Advertising experts estimate that the average person is exposed to more than 1500 messages everyday.
• We have 150 channels on our high definition TV’s with 24 hour news programs.

In addition, we don’t put a lot of trust in the information that does get through. Watergate, Enron and even Martha Stewart went to jail! If you can’t trust America’s homemaker who can you trust?

Not too many years ago if I asked you what caller ID is you would have looked puzzled. Today more than half your community uses it to screen out unwanted phone calls. I still remember a time when it was prudent to open all my email. Filtering out information is how we all cope with everyone that wants our attention in an average day.

So the question is, who do we trust and listen to? The best answer I have found is our friends, neighbors and relatives. People we have “Trusted Relationships” with.

The implications for us as communicators is that traditional methods of delivering information are not good enough anymore. Most people will just filter it out. Information alone will not change attitudes and behavior. If we want to do that we need to do less mass marketing (publicity) and more relationship marketing.

Please don’t abandon your newsletters at the district or building level. Parents still want basic information like the lunch menu and school calendar. But if you want them to support a new program or a bond issue, get a core group of supporters, educate them, and have them map out their contacts with trusted relationships. Turn them loose and let the trusted relationships help carry your message.

Dave Kahn , Managing Director, Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc, served as MASA Associate Executive Director from 1980 – 1998. He is a past President and Executive Director of the Michigan School Public Relations Association (MSPRA) and is accredited in public relations (APR) by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA).