2. What we were asked to look at
1. How do we communicate NTCities to the rest of the NT?
• Should we use guerrilla tactics and if so what are they?
• How could we use the 2013 AGM?
2. How do we capture learning and communicate it to the rest
of the organization?
3. How do we reflect past learning/ experience?
• How should we use case studies, project reviews and the
intranet to assist with this
3. What we have done since we last
met
Met as sub-group for the day in Birmingham (Sarah
O’Brien, Carol Murrin, Victoria Bradford-Keegan)
Invited Debs Gogarty, Assistant Director Internal
Communications and Deppie Pangalos BP Internal
Communications to help us
Invited Alison Minshall,
Head of Innovate
programme
4. Threw up some challenges …
Are we trying to communicate the programme or the
benefits of the programme?
Are our business objectives too broad? Are they
measurable?
What are the barriers to communicating this work?
NTCities is not a programme like the outdoors
programme, more a collection of projects like the
contemporary arts programme – how do we make it the
sum of its parts?
5. What is NTCities? Manch
es t er &
Liverpo
ol Call
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Terminology - Urban strategy,
sub-regional strategy, projects,
programme …..
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6. Outdoors programme – comms
lessons learned
Think Timely comms
Celebrate
strategically not avoids grapevine
success
just tactical noise
Dedicated internal
Listen, learn, Clear
comms resource
share, assert messaging
really helped
Explain objectives Get NTCities
Communicate
and benefits to into planning
with each other
get engagement guidance
Clarity within Percentage of effort
Ranger
the programme against business
Champions
– the 4 Es objectives
7.
8. Suggestions for moving forward
We need an overarching
message - its all about
testing!
NTCities is helping the NT to test
ways of reaching urban
audiences through 5 themes:
1. Recruit and retain members –
30%
2. Grow our audiences – 30%
3. Tell stories that will engage
urban audiences – 20%
4. Champion urban green space
and heritage – 10%
5. Develop internal learning – 10%
9. Suggestions for moving forward
Possible communications objectives:
We will develop the Exec Team’s confidence in this work
We will share what we’ve learned and show how it is
benefiting the organisation
We will create an internal conversation around the NT’s
relationship with cities
10. Suggestions for moving forward
We need:
Some common criteria that all the projects sign up to
The project managers to coordinate and act as champions for
NTCities – example of Innovate Programme
Some early insight/learnings to announce
To share this learning and start selling the benefits for
ADOs/RDs/PMs/GMs to get engagement
11. Towards tactics …
Do we need to find out what makes
our people tick? How do they respond
to the NT’s role in cities?
Need to do some self diagnosis and find some examples that
will resonate
Identify key facts and myths about our employees and
audiences
Ask Insight to look at the holiday cottage market
Get a slot at VE conference in Feb, Convestival in May and
Outdoors Conferences (if they’re repeated)
Use USB more as a network for testing
Should we look at running something like a mini
Convestival?
AGM 2013 - Cardiff
Editor's Notes
1. There’s no better way to engage and learn than by celebrating your successes 2. Think strategically about comms from the start; don’t dive straight into the tactical and leave the strategy to the very end when almost 6 months has gone by – hinders early engagement 3. Communicating in good time avoids grapevine talk eg is my property not going to be funded if it is not in the top classified properties” 4. Good to have someone on board supporting the programme from comms – told by one of Outdoors leads that it was “massively beneficial” having me as an expert resource as much of what’s been done this year wouldn’t have been done”. 5. Listen, learn, share, assert – listen to people on the ground, understand what works well and share lessons will allow you to be more assertive from the centre further down the line 6. Clear messages – while you want local interpretation to make it relevant, messages must be clear and properly understood to avoid it being muddied on the way down (G/PM comment) 7. Get support early on from G/PMs, RDs & ADOs through understanding objectives and engagement eg while Outdoors featured in Reg Bus Plans what was in there was not as aspirational as would have been liked. We needed them to get our big ambition. Outdoors failed in this because it was not in planning guidance for RBPs this year. 8. Workstreams need to communicate better with each other and also be part of an overall comms plan ie comms not just at programme level. Allows a more coordinated approach which means messages out are more consistent 9. The 4 E’s of the workstreams helped clarify what the programme was trying to achieve at a national level … the descriptors are still there but a couple of months in and people are already referring to the 4 E’s … simple sticks in minds 10. Business objectives - % of effort year on year dropped in Outdoors as confusing and not happening in reality. They took it from BPTL but didn’t work for them either and they also dropped it soon after. But the VCI strategy did use it effectively … rather than year on year effort they used it as a percentage against each task / activity 11. Ranger Champions came out of a discussion at the conferences. The issue was for rangers to have a voice, to be able to share what was working well with others. So champions felt like the right word for them as that’s what the programme is asking them to do. Its early days but they have terms of reference agreed and are well supported at the top. The key to it is getting someone who really cares / is passionate and wants to make it work; the next very important step is to get permission from line managers to allow them to do the role as it will mean some time out from the day to day work.
Lets look at some of the tactics that really helped get the programme on the map … Conferences – which lead to Ranger champions – ie action – networking / engagement / clarity on vision and objectives of the programme and ideas for delivering on the ground Booklet – clarified key things about the programme: how it fits with the Trust’s strategy, the vision and what success looks like, as well as the key initiatives we are focusing on nationally to help delivery on the ground. Intranet pages / and a way of sharing case studies / lessons learned / template Plus eg articles in Trust You, more stories on intranet home page and references in them to outdoors programme
