CHANNEL SHIFT: A future for public sector comms in 2013?
Posted: January 14, 2013 Filed under: local government, Public Relations | Tags: channel shift, local government, PR, public sector 2 Comments »
It’s always been tricky working out the impact of good communications.
Back in the day, you’d get a big ruler, a sheaf of cuttings and work out column inches.
Then maybe work out who could have read them.
Proudly, you’d boast of how 500,000 would have seen your campaign.
Then everyone would pat themselves on the back.
Only thing is, that nice as that is that just doesn’t prove a hill of beans.
How many turned a page and ignored it?
Add social media into the landscape and things get even more complicated. That niche Facebook page with 200 liking it? A waste of time? Not at all. Not if its the right number for that niche activity.
How do you measure success?
What counts? Likes? Retweets? Twitter followers?
Maybe the number of press releases you wrote or the tweets you sent?
The impact of communications – traditional or digital – must be not the passive audience who glanced at it but what people did as a result of it.
So, in other words, it’s how many people signed up for that course or how many used a web form instead of calling a help desk.
Frustratingly, that means it’s not a universal measurement. Getting 12 people signed-up for basket making session could well be just as much a success as getting 100 to join a library.
But it’s more than that.
One thing that’s always irritated me about measurement – particularly social media measurement – is a the vagueness of the results.
Take Klout. Break the news to your chief executive your organisations’ score is 55 and they’ll more than likely look at you strangely.
Other monitoring that produces a notional number also leaves me cold.
Your rating has gone up by 2.2. So what?
But it could well be that comms people already have the answer to all this right under their noses.
The cost of things counts
A few years ago, web standards organisation SOCITM did some research into the cost to local government of doing things for residents when they got in contact.
Doing something face-to-face costs £8.62, by telephone £2.83 and the web 15p.
Accountants PWC apparently also did some similar work calculating the cost of local government replying to a letter was around £10.
So maybe one way to evaluate some comms activity was to look at the situation before you got involved and then look at it after.
In other words, helping channel shift, that act of going from the expensive offline to the cost effective online.
Did the number of phonecalls dip? Did the letters fall? Did more people use the web to report it?
Using a compare and contrast you can come up with a notional sum of money saved.
That’s a figure that really start to pass the chief executive credibility test.
That’s also a language that officers can understand too.
That could well be the beginnings of an argument not just to better evaluate but critically to help explain and justify the role of communications in the public sector in 2013.
That’s quite a powerful idea.
Further reading
Dr Gerald Power’s white paper for Govdelivery on channel shift which is here.
Creative commons credits
Type http://www.flickr.com/photos/crankypressman/3754894091/sizes/o/in/photostream/
HALF TIME: Glass half-full comms
Posted: December 19, 2012 Filed under: Public Relations | Tags: bonfire night, comms, lgcomms, London Fire Brigade, PR, Public Relations, public sector, Richard Stokes, strike Leave a comment »
Are we better off saying the glass is half full? Or empty? Or pretending it’s full?
That was the iconoclastic view of London Fire Brigade’s head of comms Richard Stokoe.
Back at the annual LGComms Academy earlier in the year he spoke eloquently about the challenges the public sector is facing and his take on what it should do. We shouldn’t pretend that things are fine when they’re not, he says. Neither should it try and bea cheerleader for business as usual because business as usual is over.
Richard pointed to the example of the fire strikes in the capital in 2011 when far fewer appliances were available for use. Normally, there are 167 covering the capital but on the day of the strike just 27 were mustered. That’s around 20 per cent of the usual number and the potential for problems it posed was immense.
So, instead of saying how fine everything was London Fire Brigade instead pointed to the number they would have during the strikes and asked people to be more responsible as the level of service would be so much different.
PR was targeted at the areas of London with a historically high number of incidents.
What was the outcome?
Disaster?
A thin red line?
Zulu Dawn with fire engines?
Actually, no. Fewer calls.
According to the stats, 999 calls were 32 per cent lower than 2004 when Bonfire Night last fell on a Friday. Smaller fires were 56 per cent lower than the 2004 yardstick and 30 per cent down on the previous year.
It’s an approach that goes against the grain for many public relations people. Shouldn’t we be doing all we can to talk up what we do?
Certainly, his organisation took a bit of a battering for being so honest.
But I think Richard Stokes has a point.
If we’re doing less we should be telling people. If we’re not doing services at all we need to be telling people.
We risk far more in the long term by pretending that nothing has changed. We need a slab of honest realism. Residents would be better informed.
That’s something that public sector comms people are having to wrestle with up and down the country.
HYPER GO: Why bother with an unconference?
Posted: November 8, 2012 Filed under: local government | Tags: hyperwm, local government, paul coxon, public sector, sandwell council, The Public, unconference, west bromwich 17 Comments »
Hoorah. For the third time in three years there will be an unconference for those in and around local government in the West Midlands.
Called Hyper WM this half day event has grown from being a half germ of an idea to something a bit big a bit splendid and I’m proud to be involved with.
Staged at The Public in West Bromwich on Monday November 19 the event will give people the space to think a bit differently. Hats off to Sandwell Council’s chief executive Jan Britton and Liz O’nions for really picking up the ball and running with it and to Si Whitehouse who has played a big role this year.
It’s the biggest event yet there’s some tickets here if you’re quick.
But what’s the purpose of one of these things? Aren’t we all unconferenced out? Paul Coxon recently wrote a challenging and thoughtful piece that questioned the worth of unconferences. Paul has done some great work in local government and like anything half-decent if it’s a good idea it can stand a level of scrutiny. So here’s my own take on them.
What do I get out of them?
Simply, it’s a chance to connect, be challenged, think differently and learn. It’s a chance to see what is on the horizon and just over the hill. Do I learn something that I can put into place first thing Monday morning? Yes. But it’s often equips me for that thing that lands on my lap in six months time. Often it’s thanks to an unconference that I’ve knowing the basics and know the right person who can help. Like a glorified address book with ‘problem solving’ on the cover. Everything that I’ve done over the last three years with digital – direct or indirectly – has come from an unconference. How can I start to calculate that?
What would new people get out of them?
It’s a chance to take some time out of the office to learn and to think differently. Job titles are handed in at the door and there’s a chance to contribute to a discussion or even start a discussion with someone with something you have in common. The coffee break at a traditional event is often the most valuable time as it’s a chance to talk, ask questions and learn. A good unconference can be a whole lot of that.
What do sponsors get out of it?
A chance to test out ideas, horizon scan, see what ideas are developing and to attach a name to a room full of people who believe in doing something a bit innovative. There’s also the passing traffic of eyeballs to the website and to the event. But that’s almost a by-product.
Oh, no it’s not structured!
Rather like taking a dip in the deep end without water wings for the first time there’s a leap of faith involved. You may hate it. You’re more likely to like it. At the last Hyper WM there was the press officer who refused to come because he didn’t have an agenda. That misses the point.
Nine unconference pitfalls and ways to dodge them
Three years on from my first unconference and it’s clear that the model has evolved and has matured. There was an intake of breath at localgovcamp in Birmingham in 2012 when for a whole variety of reasons many veterans couldn’t make it. But others stepped up to the plate which was brilliant to see.
1. If the same faces turn up.
There’s no question that there’s a group of people who will turn up to unconferences. That’s fine. They’ll get the ball rolling and encourage and cajole. But the danger is there’s an imbalance of new people with fresh ideas. An imaginative use of the wait list can ration the right balance. Easy.
2. If the same faces pitch a session idea.
There’s also no question that the unconference pitching session where you stand in front of a room of people can be daunting. It encourages a certain type of people who don’t mind public displays of popularity. So how to fix it? Maybe it’s encouraging ideas before the event itself. Maybe it’s blank postcards and pens. And someone else reading them out. Easy.
3. If there’s no ideas
Like the actor who dreams of being on stage with no clothes surely deep down the unconference organiser dreads. Teeing up a couple of ideas and making the pitching less scary is a must. Especially from new people.
4. If there’s cliques
Open data people only talking to other open data people in open data sessions is a bit of a missed opportunity and a bit boring, frankly. The times when I’ve been to events I’ve made a deliberate policy of heading to an event where I’ve known absolutely nothing. In short, I’ve sat in the corner and said nothing. At one event I sat through a session on WordPress as a web platform. That’s not my day job. But I learned things that helped with the day job. If you’ve been before, find someone 
you’ve not met before and chat to them. Then repeat. You’ll learn things.
5. If the focus on problems not the shiny tech
I’d love to see sessions that floated a problem and looked for solutions that may or may not be about the tech. Coventry City Council Martin Reeves at the 10 by 10 WM event made a valuable point. At a recent session for chief executives social media wasn’t mentioned once, he said. Don’t be an evangelist. Bring a solution that may just have some tech as part of it.
6. If there’s measurement
Yes, but how do we measure the success? Maybe it’s coming back in six months time to see what people have learned and put into practice. Then working out what the cost of what that would have been if you’d bought it off the shelf. Good luck with calculating that.You’ll need a stack of numbers.
7. Yes, but aren’t we unconferenced out?
Not nearly close. If 150 people want to stage an event to talk museums and hold it in an unconference format that’s fine by me if those 150 get something out of it. The public sector is a broad church. With training budgets vanishing the unconference is a way of sharing knowledge. If a room full of public health people want to get together to crack something that’s fine by me. Or librarians.
8. It’s the brewcamps, stupid
For all I love big organised events it’s actually things like brewcamp – and teacamp in London – where I can see the most potential. What’s this? It’s a group of like minded people coming together to drink coffee, eat cake and learn things. At no cost. In a coffee shop. Splintering is the new black.
Crack those eight and you’ve a good chance of helping to create something vibrant and innovative. Best thing is you don’t have to be an organiser to play a big part.
Creative commons credits
Shropcamp http://www.flickr.com/photos/bryn_s/5655320144/sizes/l/in/pool-1638817@N22/
Hyper WM http://www.flickr.com/photos/danieldslee/5059208628/
Ally Hook http://www.flickr.com/photos/nohaatef/5058081740/sizes/l/
TRADITIONAL DIGITAL: What comms teams should look like in 2012
Posted: June 13, 2012 Filed under: communications, government, local government, Public Relations | Tags: comms, comms 3.0, communications, digital, future, press office, public sector, web 2.0 16 Comments »
All the best films have a challenge at their heart.
In Dunkirk, its Johnny Mills as a British corporal steering his men to safety.
In Pulp Fiction, its Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta getting away with accidentally shooting Marvin in the face.
One if the biggest challenges facing press offices and communications teams is how to blend the old with the new to stay relevant.
There was a fascinating post by Ann Kempster who works in central government about what comms teams should look like. You can read it here. Emer Coleman from the Government Digital Service and others made some excellent comments.
A couple of years ago I blogged about what comms teams needing to adapt and have traditional and digital skills. I probably over-sold open data. We’re not there just yet but will be but the basics I still hang my hat on.
Back then I said the communications team needed to be both digital and traditional so calling something a press office these days is a bit of an anachronism. It would involve the basics:
- Have basic journalism skills.
- Know how the machinery of local government works.
- Write a press release.
Work under speed to deadline.- Understand basic photography.
- Understand sub-editing and page layouts.
But would need to have these too:
For web 1.0 the press office also needed to:
- Add and edit web content
For web 2.0 the press office also needs to:
- Create podcasts
- Create and add content to a Facebook page.
- Create and add content to a Twitter stream.
- Create and add content to Flickr.
- Create and add content to a blog.
- Monitor and keep abreast of news in all the form it takes from print to TV, radio and theblogosphere.
- Develop relationships with bloggers.
- Go where the conversation is whether that be online or in print.
- Be ready to respond out-of-hours because the internet does not recognise a print deadline.
For web 3.0 the press office will also need to:
- Create and edit geotagged data such as a Google map.
- Create a data set.
- Use an app and a mash-up.
- Use basic html.
- Blog to challenge the mis-interpretation of data.
So how can we make the joint traditional and digital press office work?
There’s no question that the traditional press office and the digital press office should be under the same roof.
There’s no point in having an old school team with spiralbound notebooks and in the next room a digital team with jet packs and Apple macbook pros not communicating.
So what can help make the joint digital and trad comms team work?
Press officers won’t all head voluntarily to this bright new dawn. It’s just not going to happen overnight. Some won’t change and will be left behind.
The bright ones will adapt and are adapting to a place where a bog standard comms plan will include old media + social media + web as a matter of course. After all. We don’t all have specialists for TV or radio sat in most press offices and certainly not in local government where I work.
We all need a specialist digital comms officer to help blend the old and the new
Once I knew a man who was a mechanic. He used to repair petrol engines. At night school, he learned how electrical generators worked.
When his company changed to electrical generators he alone had the expertise for both and was invaluable in training staff.
That’s the approach we need for press officers.
In other words, what will blend old and new in the short and medium term is the dedicated social media or digital communications officer.
On Ann Kempster’s blog the anaology was made about digital cameras. We don’t refer to cameras as ‘digital’ these days. They are just cameras. That’s true and that’s where we need to go with comms teams.
But in many ways there’s more to it than that. I remember working as a newspaper when the first photographer – who was not a popular man – walked in proudly with a satchel with the paper’s first digital camera and laptop. “Schools broken up early has it?” came the dry-balloon bursting quip from the long-serving deputy chief reporter. The same 
quip was made every time the photographer walked in until the whole of the company’s photographers had them. Somehow, knowing the characters involved that made it funnier.
There was a cross-over period while photographers adapted to the new technology but the basic work of the photographer remained the same. Composition was unaltered. They were still building the same things through their view finders. But with digital communications it’s asking people to use a completely different set of skills. Like asking a photographer to become a sculptor overnight. But still take pictures when needed too.
From experience, the shift from the traditional to the traditional + digital takes time but it has to be coaxed and encouraged. That’s where the digital specialist in the comms team comes in so long as they share the sweets, horizon scan and work to give back-up to help others gain confidence. They also need to flag up the successes. They need to do some measuring and reporting back. We need to include digital stats along with traditional media ones so when the cabinet member in local government, or whoever, gets told what’s happening in the media they’re getting the digital picture too.
Just because an organisation has given the green light to social media doesn’t always mean the influential people in an organisation get it. One of the big complaints is that digital is tacked onto the busy day job. Well, if the day job means press releases churned out to dwindling newspapers maybe that work needs re-calibrating. But you need to convince the powers that be that it’s not 1985 anymore and digital and traditional is the way forward.
Why do comms need to share the sweets?
That’s something I’ve been banging on about for a long time. Comms needs to train, give advice, shape policy where needed but most importantly hold the door open for others to go through.
Across the country these either formally titled or informally tasked digital comms people can be seen doing good things. Look at Helen Reynolds in Monmouthshire County Council, Geoff Coleman at Birmingham City Council and what Al Smith did at Newcastle City Council and elsewhere as a couple of examples.
It’s the path that Walsall Council’s comms team has taken too thanks to bright leadership. As a result we now have press officers like Tina Faulkner and Becky Robinson who by no means are digital natives putting together inspiring campaigns like this one which saw a morning with a carer and her husband who suffers Alzheimers. They found magic in this approach which told a human story beautifully.
The challenge is to find the innovator in every comms team and gently give others room and confidence to grow if they need it.
Creative commons credits
Posters http://www.flickr.com/photos/brocco_lee/6055430502/sizes/l/in/pool-778206@N20/
Facebook http://www.flickr.com/photos/westm/4690323994/sizes/l/in/set-72157624125586003/
Newspaper http://www.flickr.com/photos/judybaxter/2828795347/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Flowers http://www.flickr.com/photos/danieldslee/5576302231/sizes/l/in/photostream/
TWITTER GRITTER: Beware Inferior Private Sector Product
Posted: February 6, 2012 Filed under: government, local government, social media | Tags: #wmgrit, gov.uk, grit, gritting, local government, private sector, public sector, roads, snow, transport 8 Comments »
We’re told local government should be more like the private sector.
If that means charging £20,000 to make a change to a Government website then I’d rather not, thanks.
This week the gov.uk website, built in-house by geeks using open source (ie free) software was launched.
I’m not a webbie but even I can see the value in being able to make changes and tweaks suggested by people and there’s a great piece on it here on the Cabinet Office digital blog.
In an entirely different scale and in an entirely different corner of the digital allotment there was a public versus private issue in local government I stumbled across.
A private company is approaching councils offering to take over grit alerts.
That’s an area I do know something about as Walsall Council, I’m proud to say, was amongst the pioneers of the Twitter Gritter model along with places like Derbyshire County Council and Kirklees Council. Our engineers looked at us a bit funny at first, heard us out, trialled it and now are big advocates for it. It’s cost us £0 in three years but we’ve connected scores of times with people.
What’s Twitter Gritter?
It’s real time alerts keeping people up to speed on what their council is doing to treat the roads.
If we go out at 2am to treat the roads and only two shift workers and a drunk see what we’re doing isn’t it a good idea to tell people?
It’s also talking back to answer questions and pass on serious problems like a burst water main that’s turning to sheet ice.
I’m not against the idea of the private sector. Far from it. I’ve spent a big chunk of my career there and there are plenty of freelancers and organisations whose time would enrich the organisations they help. You’ll know them by the track record they have. Others in the private sector? They’re poor bandwagon jumpers, to be fair.
What I see in the public sector with events like UK Govcamp, Localgovcamp and other events are people willing to share and develop ideas to make the world a better place.
That simply wouldn’t and isn’t happening in so much of the private sector.
What does the private sector Twitter Gritter look like?
You can read the text I’ve posted to a Google Doc here. I’ve taken out the name of the company to spare their blushes. Nothing against people looking to make a profit out of something, per se. But when someone you don’t know asks you to hand over the keys to your Twitter account so they can do a poorer job and charge you for it then forgive me for being underwhelmed.
Why is it bad?
I’m tempted to just leave it to Mike Rawlins’s 140 character reaction.
@danslee is this serious? Has someone actually proposed this to you?
— Mike Rawlins (@mike_rawlins) February 3, 2012
But here are FOUR cut and pastable reasons and can be shared with gritting engineers to help them avoid making the wrong decision.
1. If it means handing over access then don’t. You wouldn’t do that with your email. Don’t do it here either.
2. If it’s broadcasting then don’t. The social web works best when it’s two way. People can ask questions and report problems. Run simply and sensibly that’s possible. Talk to your council’s social media person. They’ll tell you. Don’t if it doesn’t.
3. If it’s not their area of expertise then don’t. It looks what it is. Something developed by people who don’t know how the social web works. You wouldn’t let non-engineers loose on an engineering project. Don’t do the same here.
4. If it costs when it can be done far, far better for free in house then don’t. So many other councils already do it. Look at what Birmingham City Council’s in-house freelancer Geoff Coleman has achieved on a budget of nil, for example. Good freelancers will always work with you to shape something. They’ll pass you the skills so you can flourish. If they don’t then don’t.
GETTING OUT: Why we need to get out of the Facebook page comfort zone
Posted: October 28, 2011 Filed under: communications, Facebook, government, local government, social media | Tags: al smith, Alastair Smith, bognor regis, civic engagement, communications, criticism, Facebook, julia burns, local government, newcastle city council, online, public sector, sussex police 9 Comments »
Like it or not the public sector can’t say it’s truly got social media until it’s got Facebook right.
Right now it hasn’t. All too often it’s a tumbleweed corporate page shovelling out press releases and a handful of brave people following. Often it’s nothing at all.
That’s as social as standing outside the Town Hall waiting for someone to emerge from a window with a megaphone and then disappear. Now hear this? I’d rather not, if it’s all the same.
Since Facebook is the largest social media platform and, as the presentation cliche goes, if it were a country it would be the fourth largest in the world.
But the fact is most people just don’t want to ‘like’ the institution. It can be seen as social suicide. But if you provide interesting, targeted, social timely content they may. A page for a specific library may work. And yes, you can follow the excellent Coventry City Council route an de-brand your page so the barrier is as low as possible as a session at Hyper WM in Warwick heard directly from Ali Hook.
For instant followers, a crisis really works. The Queensland Police Facebook page saw numbers rocket when flooding struck the state.
But as Ben Proctor in the same session said:
“For me the reluctance of people to “Like” your Council’s web page is a signal that they don’t have a real relationship with your Council. Broadly Facebook is what people use to manage their real life relationships. I don’t think the solution to this is to be found within the Facebook environment.”
It’s an interesting point worth reflecting on. You can read his full round-up of Hyper WM here.
Should we pack up and go home?
Absolutely not.
I’ve written about things local government can do elsewhere. But what you do on your page is actually a really small part of the Facebook landscape. You’ve got 500 residents signed up to your corporate page? Fantastic. Think of it in terms of people coming to your meetings it’s huge. But in a borough of 300,000 they not even one per cent of it’s population.
If you believe that your reputation is what people are saying about you in the local paper, on the radio or online then this is a question you’re going to have to face.
The conclusion is actually simple. You need to go out to the big wide world and start to talking to people on Facebook itself. Not on your corporate page but actually on Facebook itself. On the Facebook group that has been set up as a protest but is actually shouting into a void.
You need to get out of the comparable safety of the corporate Facebook page.
That’s a deeply profound step to take.
So, how do we go out onto the wilds of Facebook?
1. You can don a tin hat and go on with your own profile. But that opens the whole grey area of personal and work profile and whether or not last summer’s holiday snaps from Magaluf really create that professional air.
2. You can create a work profile. Or rather you can’t. Facebook’s terms and conditions don’t allow you to and you run the risk of having the profile and maybe any page it may administer taking down.
3. You can use Facebook as your page. If you’re an admin you have the option to use Facebook as your page to comment on other pages. That’s a brilliant piece of functionality that I just never knew existed until the excellent Ben Proctor pointed it out to me.
4. And be sensible. You’re really unlikely to have a cogent debate on cultural diversity on a far right website populated by trolls. But the single issue pressure group that’s shouting about an issue the council may not be aware of is crying out to be listened to. The Citizenship Foundation’s Michael Grimes’ one page blogger engagement guide for organisations is just as important here as it is for bloggers themselves.
But has anyone actually done this?
Case studies are thin on the ground. Al Smith’s blog on how he engaged with the regulars of the Cooperage pub on Facebook using his own profile is a good starting point. You can read it here.
Far less well known is an example of Sussex Police venturing onto Facebook to talk to worried residents who joined the ‘Make Our Streets Safer Again in Bognor Regis’ Facebook group. Julia Burns, a Sussex Police communications officer, presented what she learned at a Local Government Improvement and Delivery event in Coventry a while back.
You can find the slides at the Communities of Practice site here (log in required).
In a nutshell, a Facebook group was launched by disaffected residents worried about their streets with more than 2,000 joining in three days. Advice from Julia was to engage on Facebook using a frontline officer’s profile. After overcoming some trepidation, fear and nervousness an officer did just that and got a positive response. The site’s admin became engaged offline with the police and her voice, and those of her group, started to get an audience.
This very necessary step all points yet again for the need for this to be properly resourced. Maybe, that means re-calibrating what you are doing as a comms team or as an organisation.
Which is another mountain to climb altogether.
Creative commons credits
Facebook logo http://www.flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/986548379/sizes/o/in/photostream/
