These pages contain an ongoing conversation with the end goal of building thriving, loving and equitable communities. So many great programs and initiatives already exist with the goal of bringing such communities about. We aren’t looking to be another.
But something has thus far been missing: The platform of understanding and relationships that such initiatives are built upon.
The Relational Intersect seeks to be that platform.
The Relational Intersect is that point where people come together. Where my image of myself and you runs into your image of yourself and me. It is a place fraught with opportunities for miscommunication.
“You” might be a government agency, a political party, a community initiative, a company, a product or… you. “Me” is any of us – or, to be more precise, our identity. And the complex swirl of emotions and unconscious actions and reactions that chart the course of how this relationship gets underway, is The Relational Intersect.
– Simon Dixon
People who need help the most can often be the most challenging people to give help to. Why do messages of assistance often get ignored? How should those that are in power build healthy relationships with those that aren’t?
How, across the divides of money, power, race and culture, do we build thriving, loving and equitable communities?
On this site, in these writings we will explore the strictures of identity all of us carry and how, when understood, they can positively inform our relationships; on a personal level and on a community level.
What makes brands so powerful (and so frightening) is that we pay too little attention to the manipulative forces at play.
Behavior change can come about from many motivators, including negative ones. However, as motivation wanes, the behavior change will go with it. If you’re interested in true, long-lasting behavior change, the key is in identity.
The way we imagine our personal and national identities makes us liable to act and think in certain ways and, just as importantly, makes us liable to interpret other people’s actions through the prism of our own imagined identity – not through theirs.
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Simon Dixon has spent his career studying the ways that perceptions and communications develop between individuals and groups and has used these insights to develop effective communications strategies that deliver measurable results.
Simon's previous speaking engagements include:
