📚 Cultivating New Soil Through Storytelling

Welcome back! 👋🏼

Who was the first person to make bread rise? How about the person who discovered that dried mud could become adobe to create shelters? Were they celebrated for their world-changing discovery or did they (I assume she) carry on in their daily communal life?

We often equate technological discovery to world-altering events. The printing press, the radio, the mass adoption of the smartphone, and now the buzzy AI. While technology can shape our lives, ancient human practices still live deep within us.

I remind myself that the tools we use to sustain our humanity are older than the issues that we are working toward solving. For our last newsletter of the year, I want to reflect on how we shift our communications toward the values we and our organizations hold. Read on for more...​​​​​

I chose nature as a metaphor for social transformation because we are shaped by nature constantly. Nature has been our guide since we appeared on this earth. We can learn from nature to inform how we move through this current moment of uncertainty, extremism, and change. And importantly how we thrive now and on the other side of change.

Throughout my research, I stumbled on the Praxis Project, a health and social justice organization. Their social determinants of health perfectly illustrated how I viewed social change and how different layers and systems influence outcomes.

Using their framework as inspiration, I illustrated how we collectively can work to transform the unhealthy soil of our world into something healthier.

• 📊 Stats The Kids Still Love YouTube - YouTube remains the top social app for teens According to Pew Research, 13–17 year olds visit YouTube the most daily with TikTok following closely behind. You won't find them watching TV, but video is still big for this audience.
  • 🤓The Root🌱 - Gen Alpha's media consumption is primarily digital and on a smartphone. Testing a digital video strategy on YouTube and/or TikTok can help you reach young activists.
• 📰 Read (Atlantic) Substack's Extremism Problem - Like many tech platforms, Substack has given up on content moderation. A recent Atlantic piece shows the platforming and monetizing of Nazis on Substack. I and 100+ Substack publications published a joint letter asking for answers. read our joint letter.
  • 🤓The Root🌱 - Without tech regulation from the clipped wings of Congress, social media and tech companies do not value investment in content moderation and a safer experience. It's important we keep speaking out about the real world harm that tech can cause.
• 🧭 Explore Google's Year in Search 2023 report is out and it's always fun to explore what we as a collective was catching out attention. Whether it's Taylor Swift putting Travis Kelce on the map or more people discovering how delicious bibimbap is, it was a wild year!
  • 🤓The Root🌱 - The best feature of the report is the Local Year in Search which shows the search activity in geographic areas. For local campaigns or non-profits, this can be helpful to understand your audience, their behaviors, and preferences.

And that's a wrap on this year's newsletters! It's been an honor to launch this storytelling newsletter this year and hear how it has helped so many organizations and activists doing great work.
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We hope you found this newsletter helpful in your work. If you have any topics you want covered or have any questions, please reach out to let us know.
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In Solidarity,
Sam Chavez
Roots of Change Founder