Rethinking the Economy

Stumbling towards a new model for creating growth, opportunity, and justice

Rethinking the Economy header image 2

Topos’ Framework: What Works: Testing

March 17th, 2010 · No Comments

[Part 3 of the Promoting Broad Prosperity review]

The other thing I like about Topos’ Promoting Broad Prosperity framework is that they tested their ideas with opinion research. You’d think by 2009 this wouldn’t be a novel concept. If big corporations spend lots of time testing the best way to convince you to eat Cheetos — and let’s face it, most of us don’t need that much convincing — you’d figure testing language for promoting social justice would be a no-brainer.

Yes, most progressive groups’ budgets are corn chip crumbs compared to Cheetos’ budget. So testing ideas & words wouldn’t be an everyday practice the way it is for Big Business. But even when folks on our side spend millions of dollars on a TV campaign, you can see from their ads that they didn’t do any testing. Or at least you hope they didn’t given how bad the ads are.

(Am I planning on testing RTE framework? With a budget of $0, not anytime soon. But if I ever get to the point where I could afford it? You betcha.)

Up next: where I think Topos’s framework needs work.

Tags: Uncategorized