Sustainabilty & Science-Related Communications

An experienced practitioner in communications, I have worked successfully with a wide range of clients from corporate decision-makers to professional campaigners. My specialist areas are the sustainability and science-related disciplines.

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July 2010. This month I found myself in a dusty tent listening to a panel of 6 people working in media, music and comedy talking about social media. It was in the middle of a music festival attended by 30,000 people, and here are my notes from the session.

  1. Marieke Hardy , a radio presenter and writer talked about twitter as like the well known literary game, the “6 word” story, a challenge invented by Ernest Hemmingway. This new, abbreviated medium requires discipline! See some 6 word story examples here.
  2. Women from 35- 45 are the group most online (that is, doing status updates and actively participating in social media). Therefore, the primary market for Coke (13- 18 year olds), probably won’t be relying on facebook so much for their brand information.
  3. Radio people are so far the best at social media! (Anecdotally) They understand the conversation and dialogue aspect of what they do, radio is a more personal medium.
  4. The panellists took different approaches to social media. Marieke uses it as dialogue and can’t stand the self promotion aspects, while the comedians (Will Anderson ) and musicians (Blue Juice) were quite shameless with “plugs” for their shows, podcasts, albums, etc.
  5. Marc Fennell from TripleJ says that some journalists feel a bit like social media is “eating them alive”, that they are being over-taken by this technology which doesn’t require journalistic standards
  6. The last word from one panellist was “hang out with your real friends!" "Go out for pizza with them!"
  7. Also the panel gave some advice to “be in control of your digital footprint” – use the privacy settings available, untag photos, or do whatever you have to do to present the face you want to the world.
 My question to the panel would have been about, even knowing the costs and potential privacy risks of personal media, did they think the benefits of this form of unmediated communications were worth it? But we ran out of time, and a great new band was about to start - communicating with a huge crowd on a whole other level through their music. 

April, 2010: After a long and somewhat demanding summer, I am now in the wrap-up phase for Earth Hour in Australia. In this project, I became fully immersed in the rapidly evolving and changing social media landscape, as it was my role to look after all the on-line communications. In effect, this meant website content, email blasts that were relevant and useful to over 100,000 willing particpants, plus keeping the discussion flowing on newer mediums like facebook and twitter !

I had to keep in close contact with those managing the traditional media liaion, plus sponsorship and also tie into the overarching online strategy of WWF-Australia, the organisation that fosters the Earth Hour brand. In the digital space, Australians were very much connected to literally millions around the world - to share views, activities and committment to address climate change.

 

August, 2009: New Project - World Wide Views on Global Warming.

I've just started on public relations and media for a very exciting new project called World Wide Views on Global Warming (or WWViews for short). It was initiated by the Danish Government to give citizens a voice in the crucial climate talks in Copenhagen, December 2009. It works on a model of 'deliberative democracy', getting 100 randomly selected people together to hear the facts then talk amongst themselves, then vote on pre-set questions. On the day, the same thing will be happening around the world in up to 50 other countries and all the results complied one one big global tally room

There will be some great stories generated from the people's individual journey, not to mention the policital implications of what they are discussing. Plus this forum may lend itself to some of the rapidly rising new media channels. Check it out and see!

WWViews Australia Website. WWViews Australia Twitter Feed. 

 

 
 
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