Involving people....
Today's world is funny. Sometimes even strange. Perhaps it was always like that. Let's take an example from now: The general perception that it is impossible to get citizens involved in politics and in particular in European politics.
Is it really impossible to get citizens involved? Absolutely NOT. But it is, of course, impossible if you only use ways and means from "communication the stone age". Forget about brochures, pamphlets and newsletters. Forget about meetings with a speaker or more. Forget about traditional visits by groups,who are confronted with (bad) speakers in an overcrowded room. Forget about boring websites, which are rarely updated and changed. Forget about TV and radio broadcasts and newspaper articles, which are (almost) only based on bad news, scandals and conflicts.
Yes, I realise that these many "forgets" can be a very difficult camel to swollow for many politicians and communication people. But that is the reality of today!
Don't blame the citizens! Blame yourselves, because you are not "up to it"!
Let me give 5 concrete suggestions:
1) Get your CONTENTS, your message, right. What do you want to communicate? Relate it all to people's daily lives. Show what it means and what it will mean to every one of them. Be absolutely correct and precise. And admit mistakes immediately, if you make any
2) Get your TIMING right. Plan, plan, plan. And ACT - don't (just) react!
3) Be very active and clear in your REBUTTALS. Do not let anybody get away with "murder". Wrong, false and incorrect information has to be addressed immediately - and with all appropriate guns blowing
4) Use a variety of the MODERN COMMUNICATION INSTRUMENTS - or even better: a coordinated number of them. Instruments which reaches and engages us citizens. Remember that we are all constantly bombarded with all sorts of information. And we are busy, busy, busy. So get to us by the means we use - not the ones we used to use. Blogs are good. So are Vlogs (video logs). And the new developments of the Internet are most helpful, esp. with the push and pull technology. Podcasting should certainly also be used in communication. The whole area of "On-line Communities" attracts millions of people. Just have a look at Lunarstorm. And many others. In all these cases citizens can subscribe (and un-subscribe) online themselves. Use sms and mms messages in the same way. Not least in communicating with the young people. Digital TV is making tremendous progress right now. It gives a lot of interactive possibilities. The instruments on offer increase and get better and better as we speak.
The limits do not come from lack of communication means. It comes from the very limited knowledge of those, who organise the communication. The grey cells and their lack of state of the art are at the centre of the stage.
5) And when you get familiar and confident with all these possibilities, then you should not shy away from using new ways of presenting your stuff. Use competitions, games, quizzes, story telling - INFOTAINMENT. The interactive means are super fit for exactly that. But really do it in ways, where we citizens feel and see that our points of view and our questions and suggestions are taken seriously and dealt with. Give us all a "WE-feeling" when Europe is concerned - not a remote "THEY-feeling".
This will change things. I am convinced of it.
What do YOU think?
Is it really impossible to get citizens involved? Absolutely NOT. But it is, of course, impossible if you only use ways and means from "communication the stone age". Forget about brochures, pamphlets and newsletters. Forget about meetings with a speaker or more. Forget about traditional visits by groups,who are confronted with (bad) speakers in an overcrowded room. Forget about boring websites, which are rarely updated and changed. Forget about TV and radio broadcasts and newspaper articles, which are (almost) only based on bad news, scandals and conflicts.
Yes, I realise that these many "forgets" can be a very difficult camel to swollow for many politicians and communication people. But that is the reality of today!
Don't blame the citizens! Blame yourselves, because you are not "up to it"!
Let me give 5 concrete suggestions:
1) Get your CONTENTS, your message, right. What do you want to communicate? Relate it all to people's daily lives. Show what it means and what it will mean to every one of them. Be absolutely correct and precise. And admit mistakes immediately, if you make any
2) Get your TIMING right. Plan, plan, plan. And ACT - don't (just) react!
3) Be very active and clear in your REBUTTALS. Do not let anybody get away with "murder". Wrong, false and incorrect information has to be addressed immediately - and with all appropriate guns blowing
4) Use a variety of the MODERN COMMUNICATION INSTRUMENTS - or even better: a coordinated number of them. Instruments which reaches and engages us citizens. Remember that we are all constantly bombarded with all sorts of information. And we are busy, busy, busy. So get to us by the means we use - not the ones we used to use. Blogs are good. So are Vlogs (video logs). And the new developments of the Internet are most helpful, esp. with the push and pull technology. Podcasting should certainly also be used in communication. The whole area of "On-line Communities" attracts millions of people. Just have a look at Lunarstorm. And many others. In all these cases citizens can subscribe (and un-subscribe) online themselves. Use sms and mms messages in the same way. Not least in communicating with the young people. Digital TV is making tremendous progress right now. It gives a lot of interactive possibilities. The instruments on offer increase and get better and better as we speak.
The limits do not come from lack of communication means. It comes from the very limited knowledge of those, who organise the communication. The grey cells and their lack of state of the art are at the centre of the stage.
5) And when you get familiar and confident with all these possibilities, then you should not shy away from using new ways of presenting your stuff. Use competitions, games, quizzes, story telling - INFOTAINMENT. The interactive means are super fit for exactly that. But really do it in ways, where we citizens feel and see that our points of view and our questions and suggestions are taken seriously and dealt with. Give us all a "WE-feeling" when Europe is concerned - not a remote "THEY-feeling".
This will change things. I am convinced of it.
What do YOU think?
posted by Niels Jorgen Thøgersen at 2:34 pm
1 Comments:
Hi Niels,
We have talked about all this before and many times. I agree on the whole about using fun tools if you want to communicate with young people.
On the other hand, I personally do not really feel comfortable with blogs for instance. People react differently to different tools. Through using multimedia communication you have more chance to reach out to more people, I guess.
Anyway, disregarding tools for communication, I think that the problem we face with European communication is due to politics, mainly focused on fast returns on investments. It's ok to splash EU flags everywhere for one day for one reason, but building the EU is long, complicated and hard...too long and too hard for political mandates?
Then we have the media who talk about Brussels doing this and Brussels doing that. When are we going to take time to teach people that the ones in Brussels represent their own countries and if they carry on forgetting about voting for European elections, they pave the way for more and more political chess playing, less and less democracy, more and more distance between citizens and "Brussels".
More than blogs and quizzes, I worry about the building of the EU in general. It's such a wonderful modern times adventure, everybody should be proud of it.
Brigitte
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