Monday, November 21, 2011 the guardian : improving local government comms debate
by Dan Slee
There were some fascinating points to come out of an online Guardian discussion on how to improve local government communications.
There was also plenty of pointers for people across the public sector.
One thing was quite clear. We need to change, evolve and adapt. The old ways of working no longer work for everyone.
Yes, carry on with the traditional comms.
But realise that new channels are evolving that need a whole new approach and way of thinking.
By all means wait two weeks to sign off a press release if you have two weeks. But would that work in crisis comms?
We'd all be pretty sure the resident whose street had iced up would like to know if his bin was going to be collected that day. Or rather, by 8am.
In the Guardian discussion Tom Stannard, director of policy and communications at Blackburn with Darwen borough council made a good point:
"There is no absolute best practice yet, rather evolving good practice: Councils should continue to be part of this evolution.
"Trying to utterly "corporatise" social media channel management will probably backfire in the long run, if you're not training and empowering staff who manage at the frontline to use these tools, experiment and innovate with them, and weave them into a corporate plan on customer contact.
"If we aren't training and enthusing our staff about the benefits and potential of digital and social media for customer services in the long run we're missing a trick."
We're all learning. We can learn by doing and sharing.
Which is exactly why Comms2point0.co.uk has come about.
Read the full Guardian discussion.
Reader Comments (2)
Thanks for the link, Dan - I hope your readers will find our discussion useful.
To hear more about our live discussions each Wednesday lunchtime, you can sign up for Guardian Local Government Network updates here.
Hannah Fearn
Editor
Guardian Local Government and Housing Networks
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along.