Labs

The Behavioral Comms Lab brings together government communicators who are serious about closing the gap between what they send and what moves people to act. The Lab is facilitated by Dr. Laura Myers of the University of Alabama's Center for Risk and Insurance Research and Joseph Porcelli. Bring real problems: a draft you’re second-guessing, a campaign that underperformed, a message you’ve written the he same way for ten years, or a nagging feeling that it could do more.


Behavioral Comms Lab

The problem is rarely the information. It's the invisible shortcut standing between the message and the action.

Residents aren't ignoring public safety posts because they don't care. They're running a mental calculation — "this won't happen to me," "it hasn't happened here before," "I'll deal with it when it gets closer" — and walking away. Standard warnings don't disrupt those shortcuts. They often reinforce them.

 with Dr. Laura Myers's help and need your help test and provide feedback. 

The prompt guides you through six questions before writing a single word — who you're posting for, what you need them to know, do, or feel differently about, and most importantly, which specific mental shortcut is standing in the way. Then it writes a Nextdoor post designed to directly disrupt that shortcut.

It also handles the platform details most communicators learn the hard way: when to use an Alert vs. a Standard Post, why same-day event posts reach almost no one, and why leaving comments open is one of the highest-leverage things you can do.

No behavioral science background needed. Paste the prompt, answer the questions, and get a post built to land differently.

Your Safety Message Isn't Failing Because Neighbors Don't Care

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