GovComms: The Future of Government Communication

Leading is always challenging; you need to have authority, be an inspiration to others, guide your people through change, diplomatically manage the politics of internal and external stakeholders – the list may well be endless.

For those searching for someone who has navigated these turbulent waters with finesses, we have the man for you – Paul Maddison, once Commander of the Royal Canadian Navy and the current now High Commissioner of Canada to Australia.

Paul has seen dramatic changes in his 38-year naval career, the rise of consultative communication and women in the workforce to name just two. Now as High Commissioner, he fosters bilateral relations between the two nations using an innovative communication strategy.

A must listen for all in a leadership role, with any interest in defence or international communications.

• Changes seen during Paul’s 38 year long military career, including the introduction of a consultative communication approach and the rise of women in naval roles
• The importance of genuine and authentic leadership
• The role of storytelling in effective communication
• How to inspire subordinates and instil confidence in them
• The move from Naval Commander to Diplomat
• How the Canadian Embassy creates and manages content
• The importance of innovation in communication

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Libby Varcoe, Content Community Lead at the Digital Transformation Agent, is no stranger to the content world having started around the same time that contentgroup was in its early stages. It all started with a conversation she had with a fellow communications graduate in a café back in 1997 who merely said: “look, I think we need to break into this content world.” And from then on, she was hooked.

Opening her own agency in 2002 called write-minded, she has worked with some massive names from around Australia including The Australian Museum, The National Museum, St. George, Qantas and many more. As a boutique content agency, she would help brands create and implement their best content strategies focusing on online channels.

While doing a nine-week contract for the Digital Transformation Agency, she was offered the opportunity to join the team permanently, which she took. And two years on she is now the Content Community Lead, leading a team of content designers to transport our government across federal, state and local areas to the digital age.

Discussed in this podcast:

• From the late-1990s to now, content continues to become more relevant to the government and public sector
• Departments shouldn’t just focus on a content team; all teams should have an understanding of content
• Why it’s important to approach content proactively rather than leaving it to the last minute
• Why archiving is important
• There are over 44 million ‘.gov.au’ pages floating around the internet
• How making the government/citizen interaction online easier boosts community participation
• Taking inspiration from gov.uk and their approach to content – click here

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Starting her career on Myspace, Lola Berry built an audience alongside a growing, though niche, market focusing on nutrition and health products. Though today these can be considered as standard for most social platforms, for Lola it was quite the opposite and early days for healthy blogging.

Through consistency and perseverance, she was able to build her empire by mastering YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as well as finding time to have a successful writing career. Her ability to adapt as platforms changed built her audience and through her belief of honesty to her fans, they remain to watch her journey.

There’s a lot we can learn from Lola, who can be labelled as one of the first Australian influencers. Whether you are creating a social profile for personal growth or for work, Lola provides valuable insights into how she built her empire, and how you can too.

In this podcast

• The how and why being honest on your platforms promotes growth and builds relationships with your audience/ Why honesty is the key ingredient
• The importance of transparency in your social media campaigns and that builds towards organic growth/Authenticity + transperancy = organic growth
• Why you should bring a unique approach to the field to stand-out against competition/ Dare to be different, it’s the only way to stand out
• Reasons to consider Instagram as part of your communication strategy
• How Lola continues to have high physical book sales in the digital age
• The double life of an influencer – separating work and play

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From increasing the sales of a major bread company to boosting awareness of a vitamin supplements brand, Matt Hurle is a leader of the pack when it comes to selling your brand. At the forefront of the rising industry of influencers, Matt is the Sales Director at TRIBE, a company that aims to connect multi-million-dollar brands with everyday people through micro-influencers.

A micro-influencer is identified as an individual with a minimum of 3,000 followers/likes on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram who has a pre-built audience that engages regularly. As one of the newest tools in marketing, micro-influencers provide brands with a doorway into the lives of consumers by subtly endorsing products and events to their following.

It’s entirely cut out the middleman and makes it easier for brands to target future customers. Unlike purchasing a time slot on TV or clipping in the paper which targets a broad audience, it’s a highly efficient process and as discussed with Matt has proven results. The idea behind this new approach to marketing is rather than having a commercial pushing a product at the consumer and telling them to buy, an influencer is merely recommending it to you and thus increases the chance of sales.

Discussed this week:

• The reach that micro-influencers have over celebrities with millions of followers
• Why brands should start embracing micro-influencers and implementing them into their marketing strategies
• Looking at government departments embracing influencers
• How the Victorian Government hired 30 influencer mums and broke Twitter
• How easy it is to become an influencer (only 3,000 followers/likes!)
• Influencing as the future of marketing

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Recorded during David’s time at the ASEAN PR Summit in Bali, this week’s InTransition podcast considers the importance of bridging the gap between Eastern and Western communications. Focusing on the eastern approach of listening and understanding, the potential for collaboration and economic growth among the East and West increases.

Discussed in this podcast:

• Bridging the East and West
• Listening -> Understanding -> Speaking -> Dialogue
• The future of communications is in technology and the future of technology is in these youthful nations
• The quality of communications in the ASEAN region
• Problems facing public relations and communications

Combining the philosophical differences leads to strengthening ties between nations and creating the opportunity for growth throughout the southeast Asian region.

Talking to speaker Anne Gregory, professor of Corporate Communication at the University of Huddersfield, we learn insights from the conference as well as the future of communications in government.

Read David's blog post about the future of business relations between Australia and the ASEAN nations here.

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Social media and the digital landscape are forever changing and growing. While small brands are in a position to adapt, monolithic corporations and government agencies find it difficult to change. The other challenge is many departments are simply change adverse, or too slow. On InTransition we look at the benefit of giving your communications department more room to move.

Catherine Payne, Executive Director of Digital Communications at the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning in Victoria, works towards building a strong, supportive, creative communications team and has already seen the public’s perception of her department improve in the space of 12 months. Though not an easy task, Catherine credits the success to her team. To her, all that was needed was a) for communications to be taken seriously and b) to rearrange the traditional approach to complex situations. For her this was approaching her role in a  proactive, rather than reactive manner, and by hiring people from a variety of professions – especially journalism..

Discussed this week:

• The ongoing debate about the value of digital communication in the public service–
• Proactive is better than reactive
• Building a strong, open team is crucial to digitalising your communications plan Hiring individuals with skills based in journalism is a major plus
• The need to engage your audience
• The short-term difficulties of implementing new communications models into our department, as well as their long term benefits

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With the sheer size of the internet and the power consumers have to filter through information that appears in their social feeds it can be hard to create engagement with your audience. In the digital age there are so many options for each individual, so how do you engage them?

Bouncing from our blog post looking at the importance of storytelling to capture your audience’s attention, this week on the podcast we talk to Gabrielle Dolan who has been consulting brands how to increase the ability of internal and external communications through sharing stories with your audience.

Discussed in this podcast:

• Building a connection with your audience through storytelling to create an emotional connection,
• Using stories to boost engagement between yourself and the audience,
• Taking a story from your past to implement something for the future,
• It’s not the topic people tend to focus on, it’s the relatability and authenticity in your voice that will really grab people’s attention,
• Looking at one her past roles which turned a snake story from a women’s childhood into a speech redesigning crisis management at their work, and
• The importance of authentic leadership and storytelling in the modern workplace

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This week on the InTransition Podcast we discuss government communications in the digital age with the ACT’s Chief Minister Andrew Barr.

Minister Barr is a well-known presence on social media and has always been an early adapter of new technology. Unsurprisingly, as Chief Minister he operates his social media accounts personally, and is known to cut out the middle man, breaking stories online himself instead of via a journalist.

This week, hear the Chief Minister on:

• governing in a digital age,
• connecting with the right audience on the right social channel,
• how the public’s lack of faith in an unbiased media has fostered the rise of social platforms as a news source,
• how he deals with internet trolls,
• the impact of increasing polarisation in online debate,
• how he organises his social media calendar and strategy, and
• fears Australia is heading in the same direction as the US and UK with the election of Donald Trump and rise of Jeremy Corbyn.

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This week on InTransition we talk to Osama Saeed Bhutta, Director of Communications at Amnesty International and former Head of Communications at Al Jazeera.

Osama started out as a volunteer organiser and press officer for the Stop the War movement in the UK, which later landed him a position with the Scottish National Party as a media and research officer.

Fast forward a decade and a remarkable career with news organisation Al Jazeera, Osama is now the Head of Communications for Amnesty International. His role is to unite and mobilise the world against ever worsening humanitarian crises, widening gaps in wealth, education and equality and more refugees than ever before in the history of the world.

“The other side make very emotionally laden arguments,” he said of the difficulty in presenting an engaging, rational opposition to many of today’s issues. “When you’re trying to get into people’s hearts, that kind of fact based approach, which has historically been the approach of NGOs, is less successful, and at the moment, we are being eaten for breakfast as a movement.”

Discussed in this episode:

• When images work against you and disempower your audience
• The problem with highlighting the problem
• The need for positive messaging in the harshest times
• The importance of publicising the historical
• The role of the internet in uniting people and the need for people to get out from behind their keyboards

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This week on InTransition we speak with Petra Masinova, an international communications professional with two decades of experience spanning seven countries.

David explores Petra’s childhood under a communist regime and the joy she felt when travel bans were lifted and she crossed her first international border.

Since then, Petra has represented her home country before the European Union and worked as the Global CEO for Newton Media, a multinational media monitoring and analysis company.

Tune in to learn more about Petra’s work in international government communications and why she’s excited to be contentgroup’s new Chief Strategy and Business Development Officer.

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