Module 3 - ESMC Intro by Diane

Please note, the views expressed here are my own and don’t reflect my employer or any of the organizations I'm affiliated with.


My background is in Global Development Studies, Political Science and Drama minors with a degree from the Augustana Faculty of the U of A. My training focused on political science and public engagement through face to face facilitation and popular theatre. It has taken me some time (almost 15 years) to be engaged in a career that uses the majority of my skill set. The first seven years of my career were working in roles as policy advisor and public relations with the provincial government. Although the positions had varied titles, many were communications related in one form or another. The world has changed since I graduated, and I’m now studying Effective Social Media Communications to adapt to the changing role. There used to be public/official communications and internal communications, with "people communicators" who were housed somewhere else. I have worked in each silo at different times, with the associated bureaucracies that came with each role. Now there is a direct line of contact via social media that is both exciting and difficult for large organizations to adapt to. It's not unheard of for official tweets to go through multiple levels of approval before being released - not exactly real time conversation intended by the medium. 


Professionally in addition to overseeing my organization's Communications Strategy and delivering on a Corporate Communications Plan, I'm facilitating internal communications with our Councillors and staff, which include everything from staff newsletters to official meeting packages and requests for decision. I also build relationships with mainstream media through traditional methods such as interviews and news releases. In the online world I'm responsible for keeping our website current, training staff so that they can do the same for their programs, maintaining our Twitter feed and building a profile in other platforms like YouTube. Social media presents an additional opportunity to directly engage with our stakeholders and ratepayers. All of this in a growing municipality where the sky is truly the limit on what we do and how we share the stories of our communities. I grew up here and am excited to return to share what I've learned while developing the narratives of an area that I love. The question is where to focus my time to maximize our efforts and impact to those who need it the most?

For a large, rural municipality the internet and social media allow opportunities for connection that wouldn't otherwise exist. Citizens can watch or listen to most meetings online, instead of driving up to four hours to attend our meetings in person. We have some citizens very engaged in social media and others without phone or internet access, there are often links to socioeconomic status that determine level of social media connectedness. There will never be a one size fits all approach to communications for our municipality and a hybrid model is in order.

I still prefer a face to face discussion to an online one.  There is something sterile and disconnected about digital communications which I work to overcome, but don't always feel authentic. I like getting my hands dirty and working directly with community members where they are – physically, spiritually, emotionally. Meeting their needs as they have self-identified. I have done some of the work I’m most proud of while in places that barely have access to basic water and electricity. Bridging between the ultra modern world of social media, professional communications and emerging technologies, and my background in development can be a challenge. I have seen the great opportunities that providing cell phone or internet access to a remote community can bring. Not all of those communities are in the developing world, some are in rural and aboriginal communities at home in Alberta.


As I see these changes, I feel nostalgic for a time before immediate technological connections, where playing in the park and gathering in the town centre or local coffee shop grants immediate social connections. Today's coffee shops are filled with people linked into their digital devices. I wonder if these communities I serve who are growing into technologies will lose the strong social fabric my parents’ and grandparents’ generations recall which sometimes feel foreign to me. I also celebrate the benefits of increased health outcomes, improved literacy, and economic opportunities that can come with these advances. I hope it is possible to take the best of both worlds, without being consumed by the Pandora’s box that could be opened.