Beyond bins, data and dog poo

© Nigel Bishop for Granicus Summit 2018

Public servants get a tough press and so it is a treat to hear them speak plainly about what they actually do.  Sometimes they also get rewarded for the good they deliver every day. – and you can see one happy winner of the annual awards at the Granicus Summit 2018 right here.

In recent years, we’ve been lucky to attend this series of conferences for many of the people working in the UK public services for exactly these purposes.

A more resilient, forward focussed bunch of people it is rare to find at any conference and this is a good job considering the challenges they face with the online epidemic of ‘fake news’ and the ongoing reductions in UK public spending.

Inevitably, both of these difficult subjects came up at the Granicus 2018 conference in September. You can read, watch and listen to the session resources from the event here.

Beyond the normal need to review the practice of public communication and finding ways to improve it in difficult times, there were also some challenging and inspiring stories shared – notably from the Manchester based communications team who had to manage the horror of the Manchester bomb attack of 22 May 2017.

These sort of stories are always difficult to listen to but the learning from these sessions is invaluable for people and fellow professionals to hear.

© Drawnalism at Granicus Summit 2018

There’s a short slideshow of some of the images gathered from the event to see below but we’d recommend a visit to the post event resources page – here – if you are interested in communications for the public and how it is communicated to the people.

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Thank you @leanneehren You had all of us hanging on every word at #GranicusSummitUK Recording available at https://t.co/kP562BrDFy #govcomms #CommsAcad #WorldMentalHealthDay #nhscomms https://t.co/JRkIBwQA6q

— Granicus UK (@GranicusUK) October 10, 2018