Missouri DOT Goes Mobile to Reach Employees

MoDOT NOW is an employee focused app created by the Missouri Department of Transportation.

It is a common trend among communication offices around the transportation world. We spend hours working with project and program managers identifying target audiences and the key messages that we hope will change behavior, garner support for a controversial idea, or perhaps increase participation in a public process.

But as we look outward toward “the public,” or “elected officials,” we neglect a tremendously important audience — our fellow transportation employees. Yes, do not be surprised if the people with whom you work are among the least knowledgeable about your agencies core messages and organizational priorities.

Brrr! Audio, video social media tools help Maryland’s SHA share the latest road information

It’s cold out there and the Maryland State Highway Administration — like most highway and transportation agencies around the country — has plenty of tips and suggestions to help people travel safely during difficult weather events. But it is where and how SHA is posting its information that is rather interesting.

Maryland’s highway agency is using a combination of SoundCloud, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to tightly integrate its safety messaging.

Internet trends clearly show more mobile

The 2013 Internet Trends report from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a Silicone Valley venture capital firm, was released last week. The report does a good job of showing what many of the people working in social media and communications have known instinctively for some time. There has been huge growth in mobile usage in just a few short years and that transition should be changing the way in which we think about our communication tools. 

Transportation Communication: Giving thanks

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, let’s take a moment and recognize a few things for which we in the business of transportation communication should give thanks.

Technology – In the late 1990s, I was new to government public relations, having recently left my job as a newspaper reporter. Often, I traveled around the state of Arizona with my boss, the director of the Department of Agriculture. Few reporters had email. Fax machines were the quick way of delivering information. To get a news release out to media meant several hours of fax machine calls. I carried a three-ring binder that held all my reporter and industry contacts. It weighed about five pounds. I often phoned news rooms with updates because it was faster to do that than actually send a news release.

Wasting time on the company dime? Build a social strategy for internal audiences

How much time to do you spend on Facebook? How about Twitter?

As a communications professional, probably quite a bit of time. According to Facebook’s IPO filing earlier this year, the average Facebook user spends more than 12 minutes a day using its site. That does not include time spent using Facebook’s mobile apps.

According to ComScore, Americans are spending hours and hours every month on social media sites like Pinterest (1 hour and 17 minutes), Twitter (36 minutes), LinkedIn (17 minutes) and even poor Google Plus (6 minutes).

While we talk a lot as communicators about what that means to our external marketing efforts, time spent on social media is becoming a serious issue for transportation agencies concerned about how their employees are spending their days. Are they wasting time on social media, or are they being more efficient?

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.”

Communication pros describe barriers to innovation

As we celebrate the beginning of 2012, the new year brings with it some age-old headaches for state department of transportation staffs trying to successfully roll out social media programs. I’m sure other state and local governments face similar challenges, but since I am familiar with state DOTs, I’ll focus specifically in this area for this post.

I recently finished a master’s thesis on mobile technology and government-public engagement, and quite a bit of discussion among state DOT communication staffs centered on the barriers to effectively keeping up with social media specifically and technology in general. As I mentioned recently, state DOTs are generally leaders in their home states in deploying social media tools and expanding public information and engagement. But it has not been easy to get there and some states are facing real challenges in this area.