Wednesday, November 21, 2012 local gov goes international
GUEST EDITOR: Jim Garrow 
comms2point0 has given us a platform to link up with some fantastic people from all over the UK and beyond. And then we stumbled upon the brilliant Jim Garrow doing great things in Philadelphia. We were chuffed when he agreed to be our Guest Editor. He tells us all about the importance of trust and reaching out...
What's up. My name is Jim. I work for the US government. (Audience: Hi Jim.)
That sentence there, "I work for the government," has been, at least in the last couple of decades, nothing to be proud of. In the US in particular, government has fallen out of favor.
And according to the Edelman Trust Barometer, it seems like we've all had a bit of a problem with trust recently. (see slide 1)
At the same time, there is a similar, and I would argue related, trend occurring. The rise in trust of regular people which is something I've written about before is unprecedented in modern trust surveys (see slide 2)
In short, people like people, trust people, distrust faceless organizations, dislike authoritarian regimes.
We (you and me) have this great charge now that we've seen these data. (You have your Spiderman tights, right?)
We must do something about it, because frankly no one else will. We need our governments to be more real people, less bureaucratic automaton. Social media gives us that ability. We no longer need to let staid press releases and three seconds of a white hair talking head filtered through the meat grinder that is the mass media. We can talk directly to the public! In our own voice! And they can talk back to us!
(Of course, why would they talk back to us? Well, frankly, they won't if we merely shift our communications from being directed at the media to being directed at the public without any change in tone, content, focus or accessibility.)
These are truly exciting times for the engaged government communications office. But, if you ask me, that's not even the coolest part of how social media is changing our jobs.
The best part is what you're doing right now. You're reading the words of a bioterrorism planner on the other side of a vast ocean. What went into making this happen is no less amazing. It's the culmination of dozens (hundreds?) of Twitter messages between myself and the deligtful organizers of this blog. I've never met them, and my ribbing about bringing them over here to replay our Revolutionary War aside, it's likely I never will.
But that distance doesn't matter. Neither does the amazing difference in our official capacities. While I've only played press officer a few days in the last year, I learn every single day from this blog; in return, I'm happy to pass along every bit of information on crisis risk communication I know. But this blurring of role boundaries goes beyond this blog. I'm on a first-name basis with heads of public health and emergency management organizations (both government and otherwise) across the US because I reached out to them via social media. I've been invited to present all over the US and Canada because of relationships that I've forged on my blog and Twitter.
Social media gives us an opportunity to trade war stories, lessons learned, to find out what works in some other part of the world or some other field altogether, to pick the brains of the best in the business, to move your comms to the next level, to push the envelope. And why wouldn't we do that? What have we got to lose? Doing the same thing that we've always done? Not meeting fun new people?
I charge you today: reach out. Say hi. (Right down there, below "Post a New Comment.")
To quote Simon Pegg in one of my favorite movies: "As Bertrand Russell once said, 'The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.' I think we can all appreciate the relevance of that now."
Jim Garrow is the Operations and Logistics Manager for the Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness Program in the Division of Disease Control at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. You can read his excellent blog here.
Reader Comments (5)
Hi Jim. Good stuff. Of course, that line about re-playing the Revolutionary War. Our man was mad. We were a long way from home. Anybody could have beaten a load of blokes in red coats thousands of miles from their natural habitat. Seriously. This is nothing to crow about. Whereas, standing alone against fascist tyranny in 1940 takes some doing.
Some really good points and it really does re-inforce your point when a bloke who lives in the Black Country, an area near Birmingham, is reading stuff written thousands of miles away.
In a time of budget cuts, huge change and challenge we think doing and then sharing is really important. I've learned so much from blogs and tweets. It's rather a digital university.
Thanks so much for contributing to the blog and I recommend anyone who isn't familiar with Jim's work to take a look at his excellent blog. You can find the link at the bottom of his piece.
Hey Jim
Thanks again for the post. I love it and you've nailed the trust issue.
I'm a big fan of the US so when we first realised that comms2point0 could go Stateside it was a beautiful moment.
Think again regarding never actually meeting up in person, mind - Dan and I won't rest until we have run up the 72 'Rocky' steps to the entrance of the Museum of Art in Philly and shadow boxed. Then we'll expect the full guided tour.
Darren
I was just thinking about this the other day, how out in the rural shires we rarely got to share ideas with all the cool PR and public affairs folk in that there london. I used to have huge FOMO (fear of missing out) in fact that's what I almost called my company. FOMO comms. Anyway.......my point is, since twitter came along I don't have a fear of missing out anymore. It's not all about being in London (the guys leading this blog are from REALLY odd places). And you're some random chap from the states. Yet it's like we're in the same room and we're all local. Love the blog Jim, which i wouldn't have discovered without twitter.
Well said! I'm a communications officer for the public sector in Canada. It was great to find this article! Thank you.
Thanks Lindsay
We'd love to hear a bit more about your role and what, if any, the differences are in Canada v the UK?
Best wishes
Darren