Don’t Waste People’s Time On PR: BENN

Published 05/06/2023 · Updated 05/05/2023

benn.logo

Communications 101. What message do you want to convey? To whom? As in who is your audience.

This came to mind as I waded through this week’s missives issued from city hall and the National Capital Commission. A lot of words consuming pixels, electrons and time. Not ink on paper, this is the 2020s. Did the writers convey their message to their target audience? Not so sure about that. Is it time for the authors of these memos, reports, press releases get back to the basics?

Bulldog blogger Dan Stankovic addressed a key element of many reports from specialists in his column earlier this week. The Official Plan was drafted using industry jargon. Transect areas, 15-minute neighbourhoods, missing middle, sustainability. Industry jargon created over the course of the last couple of decades. The reader needed a lexicon to make their way through this complex document. Aside from ensuring that the reader was aware that the planners who drafted the document had taken their professional development courses seriously, could the document have used terminology that the target audience, most being not urban planners, understood? Stankovic is certainly of that opinion, and him being a subject matter expert, I defer to his professional judgement.

This Is What You Call Solid Waste

Let’s start with the report to council from the department tasked with coming up with a solid waste plan. Several thousand words, littered with industry jargon, that could have been boiled down to: “We continue to work on working on thinking about developing a plan. Later.” Because that is the message that they conveyed. They set out the process, in great but meaningless detail, that they are planning on planning on following. The rest of the report was just noise on the line to their target audience, notably city councillors. Aside from wasting their own time writing and editing so much about nothing, they also wasted the time of 25 members of council and likely a larger number of assistants to those councillors.

Next up, the ongoing saga that is the light-rail maintenance program. The tunnel through downtown leaks. That is not news. People living in the Swiss Alps are aware of it. That transit services across downtown will be disrupted for a second weekend should have been the main message to convey. The audience is transit users who might need to take a cross-town trip. This weekend their trip will be comprised of a bus to the LRT station, an LRT ride, a transfer to a bus, a transfer back on to the train, then another bus ride. Plan accordingly.

That the reason for the shut down is to identify and address problem areas associated with the recurring leaks in the tunnel is a secondary element. An explanation to residents and councillors about why the tunnel was being closed. However, calling these inspections, maintenance, repairs, whatever “routine” just encourages the residents of Ottawa to sigh and, spend their time less productively, as they muse about the obvious glossing over of one of a litany of problems that is the long-term failure in the design and execution of the Confederation Line.

City Considers Added Payment For Garbage Pickup

The NCC’s recent press release advised the residents of Ottawa (the audience) that the eastern and western parkways will be closed for specified hours on weekend days for the next several months (the message). Where it suffered was the extra several hundred words pontificating about the wonderful benefits that a limited set of residents may enjoy. For those who choose not to cycle on the parkways, the road closures are either irrelevant or an inconvenience, not that that is mentioned in the press release.

In fairness, sometimes communications from city hall get it right. The press release about the opportunity for residents to pick up wood chips was concise. It told us what we could do, where and when.

So, back to the basics. The message to staff is to think about what you need to convey and who your audience is. Stick to the facts. Your opinions on the benefits whilst ignoring the downsides reflects on your professionalism. Leave the industry jargon for inside your department communications. And at all times keep your audience in mind. Understand their ability to understand your message (keep it simple) and respect their time.

Ron Benn, a finance executive, has been a member of the Centrepointe Community Association for the better part of three decades.