NCI recently had a chat with PR expert Ben Brown about working with social media in public projects and found his following advice and insights valuable.
Ben recommends that if there is a hot political climate surrounding your plan, perhaps you should avoid starting your own project blog. Rather, do some homework to seek out the most influential bloggers in the community and try plugging into their activity. Treat them as you would the press; build a relationship based on respect and transparency. Provide them with information that relates to their interests, helping them as they report on the project. For instance, provide a bike advocacy blog with research and facts about the street and pathway design elements of the project.
The lesson is that even though social media sounds like a game-changing opponent to traditional media, the same rules apply. Focus on building relationships. If bloggers don’t have accurate, up- to- date information on a project there is no way they can accurately represent it. If you treat people with honesty and with respect they are more likely to provide a fair view of your project. As what can happen with the press and stakeholders in general, if you ignore people and don’t invite them to the party, they are likely to become cynical.
Other thoughts and experiences on working with established bloggers in the context of your projects? Give us your feedback in the comments…
4 responses so far ↓
1 Jim Strozier // Jan 26, 2010 at 6:42 am
We have toyed with starting our own blog, but have opted for commenting on existing blogs as suggested. It is difficult to track the blog conversations at times, but we have found a lot of misinformation that can be easily corrected.
2 Joni Scanlon // Mar 1, 2010 at 3:36 am
Jim, it’s probably not that hard to create your own blog as part of a total outreach package. You can use your blog to update folks and respond quickly to rumors, etc., and also spot misinformaton in comments, as you said, and use it on an FAQ page. It engages you in an immediate, direct dialogue with the public, which you definitely want. Speaking of which. . . I need help! Please take this brief survey to gauge use of new media for public outreach by communities. It’s quick and you’ll find it at
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8XSHFZ2
Gracias.
3 Caity Raschke // Mar 20, 2010 at 2:45 am
Attended a charette today+ yesterday and felt micro-managed within an inch of my life. Many of the people who attended apparently enjoyed it + said so: they appeared to be retirees in the main. I’m a blogger/community member who doesn’t want what council is proposing. I don’t think I’m just being paranoid when I say they appeared to take the detail of a charette without the spirit of it.I tried to point out that there are supposed to be information sessions not just for the handful of people going to the charette; they bored us for hours with talks by ‘experts’ and kept saying there would be opportunity to question experts later ; the later never came. Very clever facilitators, very flawed process.
4 NCI // Apr 8, 2010 at 1:11 pm
We appreciate your comment. Just because an event is called a charrette doesn’t mean that it necessarily qualifies as a NCI Charrette. Not knowing anymore about the charrette in question we cannot comment on whether or not it meet the standards of the National Charrette Institute although it certainly doesn’t sound like it. We view the charrette not as an isolated event but the second of a three phase process called the NCI Charrette System. Simply put a charrette must have excellent preparation and follow-up. It must also be conducted under the values and processes described in the NCI curriculum. The first test for a charrette is the 9 NCI Charrette Strategies, which embody the operating values of the NCI Charrette System.
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