- Lisa Grayhart, UofT
What do we mean by communications?
- two way talking
- not marketing
Why Communicate?
- help people
- spread the word
- build connections
Communications Planning
- Have a vision
- Know your environment (and audience) – avoid tech jargon
- Make the plan
- Work the plan
- Review – possibly most important
- cycle
Vision
- have goals that inform actions
- what is the benefit? rationale
Know Your Audience
- who is your user?
- what do they need/expect/want?
- tailor plan to demographic
- user-driven service delivery
- think about non-users: why not using?
Make a Plan
- make a fully actionable plan
- be at the table
- know your audience
- set your goal
- build key messages – those are the messages you are saying every time you promote the tool/service, which builds ground support and brand ambassadors
- select objective and tactics
- set timelines
- produce collateral
- perform rollout
- receive feedback – provide the opportunity to do that
- perform assessment
The Conservation
- what everything in communication is about
- frequently what makes the change difficult
- need to open that communication consistently
- user first
- tech translation, avoid jargon
- focus on benefits
- be open to feedback
- keep a record
- manage those expectations
- don’t be afraid to fail
Assess
- How did we do?
- Did we achieve the desired results?
- Can we do better?
- should be constantly going on
- want to assess the assessment as well
Build Capacity
- training – how much do we need?
- finding and cultivating communication leads – learning about what other areas of the campus are doing
- promotion
What do you think?
- ability to see what’s being worked on and their priorities
- opportunity to research
Where do we go from here?
- opportunities for the future e.g. hacker/makerspace, building a community around a server vs. just promoting it
- accessibility training
- integration