Stop Calling It Data Center Misinformation
Yes, many worries are unfounded. Don’t dismiss the fear beneath them.
Welcome to the Arc of Outrage series. In the first installment, I introduced you to the Arc coming for data centers. I warned you that facts and explainers will not stop it—nothing will! This series is designed to help data center proponents flatten the Arc and ultimately survive it.
The outrage is real, and people are starting to call you names. The ascent up the Arc of Outrage is nothing if not personal and ugly. You—the leader tasked with building something associated with a data center—are going to be tempted to diagnose this angry opposition as driven by misinformation.
Or, even worse, as merely “emotional.”
“Misinformation” is often an accurate description of a claim. “Emotional” is in fact the water in which you now swim. Neither is a helpful diagnosis, given the fight you now find yourself in. While your newest stakeholders may in fact be both misinformed and emotional, they are first and foremost your stakeholders and partners in navigating the Arc of Outrage.
In this Both True, I remind you of something I’m now saying a lot to the leaders who are my clients: Avoid your instincts (because they are wrong regarding the Arc of Outrage) and start engaging with your stakeholders in ways that are more effective.
Both of these things are true:
Some claims about data centers are flat-out wrong or wildly exaggerated.
The fear underneath them is real—real enough to stop your project. And explaining it as irrational or driven by misinformation won’t make it go away.
The situation
During the fracking wars, I showed up with fact sheets. And thought I was going to reason with people.
As a geologist, a hippie mama of two young boys, and an environmental scientist with a lot of exposure to the oil and gas industry, I was sure I could help. About a year into my new role as the CEO of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association (COGA), I fed my boys homemade yogurt, left my old log cabin in the Boulder County mountains, dropped off the cloth diapers, and swung by the Buddhist preschool on my way to Denver. I could relate to the moms who had come together to form Erie Rising and Longmont ROAR. In a not-too-distant parallel life, I would have been one of them.
So one of my first endeavors at COGA was to hire a research assistant and build a library of fact sheets. If only, I reasoned, I could explain the importance of fracking, the relevance of oil and gas production, and the myriad protections we had in place, we could get this conversation back on track.
I was sensitive to the fear and outrage mobilizing the moms against fracking. I was just wrong about how to engage with that fear.
So, probably, are you—in how you are thinking about engaging with data center opponents.
The most important lesson I learned from the fracking wars
Calling “misinformation” the problem makes it sound as if you believe that your citizen stakeholders are stupid. Naming the fear and opposition as “emotional” in nature implies a kind of irrational hysteria.
Think about it: When your spouse says “You’re wrong,” you start making the case for why you are right! When your sibling says, “You’re just being emotional” over political differences, you get … more emotional! These are the most human of responses. (I will remind you of this again and again.) They have nothing to do with intelligence or expertise—theirs or yours. They do have a lot to do with how people progress through the Arc of Outrage.
Back in the fracking wars, public meetings were filled with three-minute public comments consisting of the wildest, completely unfounded hyperbole about fracking. I thought that, surely, if we could correct the record, we could lower the temperature. It seemed it should work like this:
People have wrong information.
You provide correct information.
Kumbaya.
Here is how the Arc of Outrage actually works:
People have wrong information.
You provide correct information.
The crowd boos.
People call you names.
The next meeting another 100 people show up.
They run you out of town, sometimes literally.
Like me, project proponents who decide that the problem is “misinformation” tend to make predictable mistakes. They get busy with the business of informing. Commission studies. Hire and cite experts. Send consultants and lawyers to the meetings to explain.
Really want to piss people off? Run a media campaign, too.
Build this before you build your data center
Your company needs to be pursuing two parallel paths right now: compiling your information resources and building trust.
The information resources will be important, and they do take time to compile: commission the studies, hire the experts, consider the informational messaging needs, write the fact sheets, and assemble the frequently asked questions. You will ultimately have to make the case for data centers over and over and over again. You will have to answer the same pressing questions over and over and over again. You’ll need those materials. Your supporters and neutral stakeholders will want this information, and ultimately, you will have to have all the answers.
But those resources won’t help you right now. Here’s the real work you are undertaking right now:
Allocate company personnel who have operational knowledge and decision-making authority to start engaging with your key stakeholders, such as elected personnel, regulators, key business leaders, and ascendant community leaders.
Hire up a team of smart and savvy community engagement experts to help build your listening and community engagement strategy.
Next, get out there and listen. Pay attention to both what is being said and the emotions underlying it, gather perspectives, and map relationships among stakeholders.
Make it clear that you are listening, not persuading—by setting up meetings in series, demonstrating that you have heard what was said and it has affected your company approach.
Prepare your project leadership for a long haul with significant course corrections, reflecting the process of engaging with community leaders and responding to stakeholder priorities.
You are in the business of building trust, and building trust requires time and repeated engagement. Your company’s initial responsibility is not to change anyone’s mind. It’s to demonstrate that you are listening and that you will show up again and again.
A couple of reminders to the leaders setting up these teams:
This work is hard, and it burns out staff if done incorrectly. You will need to ensure that have robust internal support for your team. Resist the urge to give them impossible goals; you are not going to manifest a positive outcome through force of will.
Your project will be shaped by the community. The projects that survive the Arc of Outrage do so because community leaders take a chance and support (and ultimately approve) them despite overwhelming public opposition. They need robust incentives that benefit the community to do so. And they will need a story down the line of why the community was better because they said yes. Give them what they need.
Right-size your expectations. Your project is caught in the Arc of Outrage—and so its timeline just got a lot longer and its budget just got a lot bigger. Do not waste your precious time on internal battles over dollars and schedule milestones that you will laugh at a year from now. Get realistic, double your resources, and get to work.
The Arc of Outrage series
This Both True series is not about avoiding the Arc of Outrage—because that’s impossible. Data centers are industrial infrastructure with real local impacts, and communities are going to react. This series is about how to flatten the Arc, survive it, and, in the process, get important projects built. I will continue to bring you series installments in the months ahead.
But right now is the best time to develop your Arc of Outrage strategy—reach out if you would like a briefing and tailored advice for your situation.
Forward this email to the people who need to get projects built.
Heart this piece and comment below so we can all learn from each other.
To your survival and ultimate success,
Tisha