Getting Ahead Of The Crowd

I have had the pleasure of working intimately with the waste management industry over the last two years as a public affairs adviser to some of Australia’s leading environmental management corporations, industry roof bodies, property developers and advocacy organisations.

These experiences have led me to appreciate that for the most part the waste management industry has a profoundly positive sustainability story to tell but it generally approaches the telling of these stories in a reactive manner.

I, though, am a firm believer that the positive narrative ought to be told proactively and by operating in this manner your business will thrive commercially.

Now, I’m not going to use this space to tell you about the intricacies of your own businesses, but rather to talk about what I know best: communications and public affairs.

One way to quantify the value of communicating sustainability is to ask: is it worth doing for broader reputational reasons – in other words – is it important to your stakeholders? Or, is there a risk to my organisation if we don’t communicate what we are doing in sustainability sense to our stakeholders?

A national poll recently commissioned by Parker & Partners found that 82 per cent of Australians want action on climate change now, with the majority of them wanting strong action.

It may not be the # 1, or even # 2 issue for the bulk of Australia’s suffrage in this election, but there is no doubt that whichever party can best demonstrate its commitment to taking action now on climate change will benefit from a real boost in electoral support.

This is particularly relevant for organisations whose operations have a clear physical impact upon their communities a la the waste sector.

As most readers would be aware, the visibility of an organisation’s activities is usually what drives community concern and/or media interest – with each stakeholder group utilising the other to apply pressure.
The very nature of government for example, is that it watches these groups particularly closely. Media and community pressure are important drivers of political influence. And in an industry as regulated as the waste sector, government perception is critical.

Government also has a more elevated role in ensuring the best possible legislative and regulatory frameworks are in place to deliver good public policy outcomes.

The reality is that in pursuing sound public policy in the sustainability space, there is always a stronger likelihood of government focusing on those organisations which have the largest impacts on the community – in doing so it allows them to make the most amount of difference whilst applying the least amount of burden on the community.

There are of course other stakeholder groups in addition to the aforementioned, however we’ve found that these are the core set of protagonists which organisations grapple with when identifying the opportunities and risks for communicating their sustainability track record.

Which brings us to the issue of how organisations should approach the way they communicate their sustainability activities.

There are three broad principles which I believe are vital in telling your sustainability story:

• It must be real, meaningful and authentic
• It must be demonstrable – and be able to be measured and evaluated
• It must be positioned in the context of a commitment to ongoing improvements

Obviously, organisations which don’t take their sustainability credentials seriously enough – or worse, try to pretend they are more sustainable than they actually are (the dreaded ‘greenwash’) – run the risk of attracting high levels of scrutiny from government and media, and thus damaging their brand in the eyes of their customers and the broader community

One play for the sector would be to communicate the renewable energy potential of landfill, or the decline of greenhouse emissions from the waste sector as a whole, to stakeholders and the community at large. I’ll leave the nuances to you.

Experts Predict the Year Ahead

Parker and Partners released Trends 2010 on 11 February 2010, a snapshot of the political and policy landscape, and one or two bold predictions for the next 12 months.

The risks inherent in the Government’s media strategy, the rise and rise of Julia Gillard and the possible fate of four the state Labor governments going to the polls are all covered in Parker & Partner’s fourth annual public affairs forecast.

Trends 2010 also reads the tea leaves in key Federal policy areas like taxation, health, education, defence, and climate change, as well as the fast-evolving media landscape. As an example, Parker & Partners predicts that the proximity to the Federal election will ensure that the response to the report of the Ken Henry-led review of taxation will be more aspirational than prescriptive.

Parker & Partners is part of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, and was the team behind the much-discussed publication, Lobbying Kevin07.

The booklet is an invaluable resource for organisations that interact with governments, oppositions, minor parties and bureaucracies in a year when politicians will be fighting for votes and business backing.

“With five elections between now and March 2011 the political landscape has never been more interesting or more competitive,” said Sarah Cruickshank, P&P Joint Managing Director.

“As always, most of the political attention will be on Canberra, with the Rudd Government seeking its second term in Government.

“We believe the most likely timing for the Federal election will be in the spring. Although the potential for an earlier double dissolution election is still a strong possibility, should the Government’s legislative agenda continue to face roadblocks in the Senate.”

This year’s Trends includes for the first time findings from a wide-ranging poll What’s keeping Australians up at night?, conducted late last year by Ogilvy Illumination, Ogilvy Public Relations’ new dedicated research firm.

What’s keeping Australians up at night? results covered in Trends include:

• 39 per cent of respondents felt they were financially worse off than 12 months earlier, while 18 per cent actually felt they were better off;
• 29 per cent of respondents expect to be financially better off in the next 12 months, while 19 per cent thought they would be worse off in a year;
• Those over 60 are less likely to feel under financial pressure, while generations X and Y are more likely to be feeling the pinch (29 per cent compared to 39 per cent);
• Voter concern about so-called broken promises also splits along generational lines, with 67 per cent of those aged over 50 saying they are highly concerned about this issue compared to just 38 per cent of those aged under 40.

“A modern public affairs environment requires more than just access to ministers and their advisers,” said Greg Sam, P&P Joint Managing Director and Ogilvy Illumination Senior Counsel.

“Testing concepts and attitudes, researching community and stakeholder views, and having a deep understanding of how an issue is likely to play out based on proven methodologies are now must-haves for any sophisticated public affairs effort.

“The findings from What’s keeping Australians up at night? make for fascinating reading as they provide a great snapshot of community attitudes on issues respondents themselves identified as important to them and their families.

“The research has already been presented to some of Australia’s leading companies and political organisations, and we’re delighted to be able to share it more widely via Trends.”

Read the full report here.

Beyond the looking glass: building a case for compliance

The Australasian Compliance Institute (ACI), the peak professional body for compliance, was beginning from the ground up in establishing a strong mainstream media presence, via a public relations campaign, with the view to becoming the thought leader in compliance.

Howorth worked with the ACI to develop a thought leadership platform underpinned by media relations activities – against the insight that in the current economy, it’s not increased regulation, but effective implementation of regulation, that’s important.

Talking points for the resulting public relations campaign were developed around the notion that while instinct by governments may be to increase regulation to restore confidence and stability, this is not necessarily the answer. Rather, it is the responsibility of both government and business to drive economic recovery by demanding professional behaviour that delivers more than black-letter law requirements – this is what compliance is all about.

Howorth has worked to capitalise on this insight to raise awareness of the importance of a trained and experienced compliance/risk professional within an organisation – a role that had previously been little known and understood. In turn, the public relations campaign raised the profile of the ACI as the peak professional body representing these professionals.

By tapping into topical issues, including regulatory reform in the financial services sector, governance in sporting clubs and levels of executive pay, Howorth has communicated the ACI’s point of view through ongoing media relations activities.

The public relations campaign has resulted in prominent Tier 1 media coverage in publications including The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and Business Spectator.

Untangling the web of Government 2.0

Pia Waugh summed it up pretty succinctly at the start: on the question of Government 2.0 it isn’t a matter of if, but how:  just how will the government engage with its constituents online to improve policy development and service delivery and to begin to share its data and statistics.

Waugh, information and communication technology policy advisor to Senator Kate Lundy, was talking at a breakfast conference ‘’How can you benefit from web 2.0 and Government 2.0?’’ run at Ogilvy House in St Leonards by Frocomm. Both Lundy and Waugh have long had an interest in new technology, with Lundy assuming the task of educating some members of the Federal Government in both the necessity and benefits of change.

Government 2.0 is roughly defined as using web 2.0 technology to not only deliver government services but to make government processes more transparent and collaborative, as well as allowing government data to be utilised freely by the public and business to foster innovation. A case in point was during the Victorian bushfires early this year when companies such as Google used government data sourced through open access programs to provide information of huge benefit to those affected by the fires.

As Waugh pointed out, government has to react because a huge shift in attitude and expectation from the public means that all levels of government must change the way they do business. Online communication, she said, was driving massive change in government.

She instanced what she called the three pillars of government 2.0:

* Collaboration and transparency – to ensure engagement (it must be a genuine partnership) between citizens and the government in policy and decision-making, through gathering ‘’the wisdom of the crowd’’. Transparent and collaborative government is designed to grow trust and participation in policy development and decisions.
* Facilitating innovation – ensuring that suitable government data and systems be made available for public and private innovation, adding value to the data.
* Citizen-centric services – using technology to place a higher priority on the quality of the interaction between citizen and government as services are delivered.

Lundy has already run two public sphere events, with another scheduled for August. The two previous events, on the topics of high speed bandwidth and Government 2.0, followed a similar pattern. Before the event the public is invited to post comments, ideas,  links to papers and case studies on the public sphere blog. The postings are summarised and presented to the event. Blogs and Twitters are also set up to further encourage discussion and ideas while other interaction comes through the website or even the traditional letter.
The event is streamed live online, with live blogging and Twitter feedback, and some interested members of the public can give a ten minute talk. All contributions are then gathered in a briefing paper which is posted online to give a further chance for comment and modification before a final briefing paper is prepared.
Waugh cautioned that such events were not intended to replace the tradional system of asking for submissions but would augment that system by using online tools to better engage the community in public policy.
Another speaker was Martin Stewart-Weeks, Director, Public Sector, Internet Business Solutions Group, CISCO Systems, and a member of the Federal Government’s Government 2.0 taskforce.

Stewart-Weeks said the critical capabilities for Government 2.0 were the ability to share information and knowledge quickly, safely and easily; the ability to learn fast and to turn the results into new ideas for policy and service design, and the ability to orchestrate more complex communities of people and organisations inside and outside government.

He quoted the five rules of the art and practice of Government 2.0 as expounded by John S Monroe:
• Take control by giving up control;
• Keep the finger off the policy panic button;
• Brace for, and embrace, the unexpected;
• Relinquish your pride in your own expertise;
• Everything you know about productivity is wrong.

Stewart-Weeks cited a number of web sites, including the Harvard University project Herdict which uses the power of the herd (the mass of people) to show where web sites are unavailable throughout the world, the Urban Ecomap of San Francisco which gives a reading of household energy use at individual zip codes throughout the city area, and Digital Public Square from Washington which aims to put ‘’you, the citizen, in the driver’s seat to discover how District agencies work, participate in the democratic process and connect with your government. ‘’

All this, he said was establishing a new ethic of public value by harnessing the power of distributed networking and discovering the potential of collective intelligence.

‘’The public now have a voice and they are going to use it,’’ he said.

Brian Giesen,  Ogilvy’s Social Media director and a digital influence expert, pointed out the extraordinary growth in social media, instancing that 60 videos per second were placed on YouTube.

During Barrack Obama’s presidental campaign he had a significant presence on 16 separate social networking sites, including having more that 3 million friends on Facebook alone. Obama, Giesen said, offered a ‘’ladder of engagement’’ to those who wanted to help his campaign.

The statistics are incredible. More than 13 million people subscribed to the campaign’s email list; 70,000 people profiled on MyBarrackObama.com raised $30 million in campaign funds, while more than 100,000 people doorknocked Philadelphia on the weekend prior to the election.

A number of US government agencies were now using Government 2.0 to better respond with interested citizens, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which is utilising Twitter, microblogs, social networking, Flickr, podcasts, online videos and more to keep people (and the government) informed and engaged during the current swine flu epidemic.

All-in-all the overriding aim of Government 2.0 is to get more people, more involved in the democratic process. Which, as the conference no doubt agreed, can’t be a bad thing.