Whether we're seeking to attract the next gen of the water workforce or to effectively brand ourselves to our customers, effective communication is the foundation. The value of communication in the water industry cannot be overstated. Adam gives us some concrete examples of both why this is and ways we can improve. Every utility is only one negative media story away from losing the trust of their customers. Has your utility been branding itself as if customers had a choice? Are you regularly planting seeds of trust via proactive and consistent communication?

Communication is all about audience, audience, audience. If we're going to talk about attracting the next generation of the water workforce we have to know who they are. Guess what? It's not the Millennials. They're already here and we need to work on creating organizational cultures that keep them here. Ben gives us numerous insights into Gen Z and what it will take to attract and retain them in the water workforce. Our industry provides many benefits they are looking for, we just have to communicate it to them effectively!

In our chat with Stephen, we touch on many topics such as what are some of the biggest blind spots we face in this industry, why we need to be encourage our operators to come to the table, and how leaders telling their stories about times when they felt excluded can help open the gates for others to tell their story. We also touch on the amygdala's role in diversity, WuTang, Daimler Chrysler, and more.

Diversity, inclusion, and workforce are hot topics in the water industry right now. Mimi White, Human Resources Consultant at Montgomery County Environmental Services gives tangible tools and insights in how to make this truly happen in your organization.

We regularly mention that we are huge fans of the US Water Alliance's Arts and Culture initiative. This initiative provides examples of ways to use partnerships with local artists to build awareness of water issues by communicating in a language we can all relate to—art. Inspired by teaching his daughter more about what he does at work, SwiftComply founder and CEO, Mick O'Dwyer reached out to an illustrator to bring the story of fatbergs to life.

The H2duO speak with Karen Raucher, one of the research collaborators on the AWWA Communicating in the Spotlight guide for water utilities. This document is a guide on risk communication tactics around various water quality issues facing water utilities today. The landscape has changed and utilities need to gain the skills necessary to effectively communicate water issues to be the trusted source of information in their communities.

We have to start engaging with our communities in more creative ways to get them to hear us and pay attention to us. It’s the only way to convey the value of water. Art has a way of engaging the heart and mind in a way that facts and figures alone never could. We picked Tyler’s brain about how we can use art such as words and photography to not only inspire our audience, our communities, but also recharge ourselves in the process. We all have a voice. If we want to create change, we have to be more courageous, more mindful, and more authentic.

At the 2019 Imagine H2O Innovation Summit, the H2duO joined forces with Travis Loop to co-host a session on communication's role in solving workforce challenges. We were so pumped up and inspired, we decided to continue the conversation in a joint podcast episode.

The US Water Alliance has an initiative dedicated to reaching out to artists and cultural practitioners and inviting them to be a part of the one water conversation. We’re firm believers that infusing water into the art and culture of our communities can begin a conversation about water that facts and figures alone cannot. As Radhika points out for us, this approach creates new tools to engage with our communities and a new lens for our technical experts to use when approaching innovative solutions for the water industry.

In the water quality world, we obviously are trying to avoid infectious disease, however, in communicating the value of water there is nothing we want more than to go viral in the hearts and minds of our communities. But our aim isn’t to go viral…it’s to keep it simple. Our top three takeaways from our conversation with Duke are to keep our message simple, remember that our social currency is defined by the quality of our engagement not the quantity of followers and that at the end of the day, human beings make decisions emotionally, period. We use reason to rationalize the decision we’ve already made. If you can conjure an emotion in a target audience and that emotion is one that will drive them to take action, you’ve won.