talk to me helping public sector professionals reconnect with users, and each other External communications and internal communications are
deeply linked. If your team doesn’t know what its users need
to hear, then approaches will differ, and communications will become inconsistent. Read on to find out how thinkpublic helped one public sector body reconnect with its users...
social innovation and design
In 2008, thinkpublic were approached by a senior executive at a high profile public sector body. Having attended one of our regular Social Labs, he was impressed by the thinkpublic approach and wanted to know if we could help. About to launch a high-profile national service, the 80-strong team were not communicating the organisation’s role consistently to outside stakeholders. Mixed messages kept being put out.
thinkpublic paid the team a visit. After an afternoon of interviews and workshops, we soon discovered that internal communications was the main challenge faced by the team. This was affecting how they communicated their work to the outside world. So we went out to meet their users, to find out what they needed to hear from the team about their new product.
thinkpublic filmed interviews with representatives of all the team’s different stakeholders. When we went back to the team and showed them the stakeholders’ enthusiasm and commitment for their new product, it recommitted them to their work. It helped them understand what their users expected of them, and the role they needed to play in their sector. Their next challenge was to step up to that role.
By reconnecting with their users, the team have realised how they need to communicate the strengths of their new product.
We organised a second series of workshops, designed to help different members of the team see how they could improve the overall approach to internal communications. Using our interviews with stakeholders, we identified key messages about the team’s services that each stakeholder needed to hear. And we developed visual tools that would help them remember these messages, to embed the new communications strategy within the team. The products developed are now being used across the organisation.
The project has delivered good results. By reconnecting with their users, the team have realised how they need to communicate the strengths of their new service. And by employing visual methods that get people talking about internal difficulties in new ways, thinkpublic have been able to stretch the team to meet their internal communications challenge in a positive way. The team now have an enhanced understanding of their users, and the tools to communicate and engage with them better into the future.
find out more: To find out how thinkpublic can help improve your communications contact: thinkpublic 5 Calvert Avenue London E2 7JP +44 (0) 207 033 9978 deborah.szebeko@thinkpublic.com www.thinkpublic.com