New CEO Video Series Targets ADOT Employees

There is a common tendency among most transportation agency communication teams to overlook one of their most important audiences – the agency employees.

Internal communications is tough, whether it is done for a major corporation or a transportation agency. The organization is generally spread across a large geographic area. Employees in different work groups and geographic areas might have different access to, and comfort with, different communication technologies. And, at the end of the day, the communication team kudos for a job well done most often come from external communications with media or the general public. 

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Social Media Security and the Transportation Communicator

© Sedmak | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

I received an interesting question last month from a transportation communications professional trying to convince her organization to invest time and energy in social media. Yes, even in 2014 there are organizations that are still unsure of whether connecting with customers in the social space is the right strategy.

The question from the transportation pro was simple enough. Her directors were concerned about security for the organization’s network and IT infrastructure.

“One issue that keeps resurfacing is security. The idea is using social media will offer up chances for our system to be hacked, confidential and employee information to be stolen, etc.”

Shifting Audiences, Dead Newspapers Change Transportation Engagement

An interesting study recently published in the journal Political Communication studies the level of civic engagement following the closure of daily newspapers in Seattle and Denver.   The paper, Dead Newspapers and Citizens Civic Engagement, by Lee Shaker asserts that civic engagement in Seattle and Denver dropped from 2008 to 2009 after the Seattle PI and Rocky Mountain News closed their doors.

It is an interesting research effort that uses data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) conducted by the United States Census Bureau to analyze year over year participation in activities such as visiting a politician or attending a community organization meeting, such as a PTA or neighborhood watch group.

Pew Internet Offers a Peak into Internet’s Future

To remain most effective in communications, it is a good idea to pay attention to what’s happening on the Internet. After all, the societal embrace of the Internet with all of its information sharing and communications power has had a profound influence on society and the ways in which we see the world.

I often cite the Pew Internet and American Life Project for its ongoing tracking of trends related to the Internet and the ways in which we interact on the Internet. Pew Internet is marking the 25th anniversary of the Internet with a series of reports. The first report, published last month, was an overall look at the development of the Internet and its rapid adoption by society. It’s very interesting material and worth digging into.

It’s Personal: The Smartphone’s Influence on Transportation Communications

More evidence was released this week suggesting that the days of sitting-at-a-desk, full-monitor web site experiences are waning.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project published its latest research that shows roughly 63% of American cell phone users access the internet with their cellphones. That translates to more than half of all American adults. And of those who access the internet via cell phones, more than a third say it is the primary way in which those cellphone owners access the internet.

Perhaps the next round of questions should ask why isn’t everyone accessing the internet through their cellphones?

New Technology and Information Overload: A Few Questions from Neil Postman

Neil Postman, media and cultural critic.

Earlier today I was working on preparing materials for some training sessions and I was reminded of something said by Neil Postman, a very important media critic and social theorist who never lived long enough to see the full development of “cyberspace,” the term used to describe our online world in the 1990s.

Postman, during a 1995 interview on the PBS NewsHour, was asked, “What images come to your mind when you, when you think about what our lives will be like in cyberspace?”

Postman answered,”Well, the, the worst images are of people who are overloaded with information which they don’t know what to do with, have no sense of what is relevant and what is irrelevant, people who become information junkies.”

Content is king: Anytime, anywhere, any device

I love sports and read sports news several times a day. So it is probably not a surprise that a USA Today sports story,
“Pac-12 Conference networks come with big money at stake,”
caught my eye.

Actually, it was one specific comment made by Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott that got me to thinking. Commissioner Scott, describing the impetus for a new college sports  network, said this: “The idea is Pac-12 content, anywhere, anytime, by any device.”