Frequently made mistakes in organizing a side event

CASE OF A WRONG COMMUNICATION PLAN

An organization has developed a new initiative for conservation. They want to bring this initiative a step further by organizing a side event with their partners during a conference. The communication officer is asked to develop a plan for the side event:

In short her objectives (and means) are:

Present the current conceptual framework our initiative in the light of current discussions of the conference (through a presentation by one of the initiators)

      Present the logframes developed as a way forward for our initiative (by a panel discussion with experts).

     Invite suggestions on the challenges of applying this contextual framework at national and global level (through buzz groups).

Asked for suggestions on this plan she got as feedback this not going to work. You are jumping to means, you focus on the wrong audience and you have objectives that are not helpful to make the event a success.

HOW TO DO IT RIGHT?

Before developing the plan, she should have asked her boss:
Is this really possible? (no, the effective time one has for  a side event is only one hour)
Would this audience be available to attend our side event? (no, they would have their own events).
What is it that you really want and what we realistically can achieve? (e.g. support from conference participants for our initiative). 

On the basis of such last objective, she then could have developed communication objectives (see examples in illustration 1). Once her manager agreed with them she could look at how to achieve them and plan the session (see examples in illustration 2).

A good side event is based on good communication. Good communication is based on a clear and focused communication objectives that are the basis for the means and approaches chosen for the side event. It is not the other way around. And mind you: give enough attention to the attuitude objectives, they mostly come last if given any attention at all. 

Visiting Boč ten years later!

In 2002 – 2003 I was involved in assisting Slovenian protected area managers in dealing with the issue of threats by visitors to biodiversity in the mountain landscape park of Boč. After long discussions they decided on a strategic focus to deal with only one threat (trampling of the Pulsatilla Grandis) during one specific event (1st of May celebrations). See story board for the change that took place and the role of communication. 

Five years ago I went back. Simona Kaligaric showed me around and explained that since 2002 the 1st May event is every year managed more effeciciently by the municipality. The community now really takes care of the site. E.g. the hunters association decided to turn the adjacent corn field they owned into grassland. They were afraid that the fertilizer they use for the corn, may harm the soil of the Pulsatilla.. "It changed my professional life", Simona said then. "Leaving my desk and interacting with the people in the field, makes my life definitely more complicated, but also much more succesful."

Last week on a sunny saturday – it is now ten years after the project - I was again in Boč. And again Simona showed me around. When we came to the foot of the mountain at the end of the village we saw many cars nicely parked at a parking. “Yes” Simona said, “these days many people use the trails to walk up the mountain through the dense forest. These challenging nature trails are an initiative of the mountaineering society; they look after the paths here”. 

When we came to the mountain inn, we saw more cars parked on a small parking and not a single one parked ‘in the wild’ as was the case ten years ago. A group of people from a nearby town were practicing karate on a field. “Look behind them”, Simona pointed out, “there is the basketball court that we made ten years ago – it is still maintained by the inn and used by groups of young people who come here during the year. Actually all facilities, e.g. campfire and camping places we made for the event management of the 1st of May are now used during the whole year. And people take responsibility: the hunters associations mow the pulsatilla field every year to make sure there is no overgrowth. The municipalities take positive interest. I myself have not been here for quite some time, as I am now promoted to head our office in Maribor. But I am always surprised how well it works when you define the communication objectives properly. We used to think in terms of agriculture or biodiversity. We now know we have to be much more concrete and start small. Define stakeholders, find opinion leaders and listen to explore how they can be part of the solution.” Then we went to the two sites of the Eastern Flower: they are doing well, much better than ten years ago and Simona and her colleagues hope that the habitats will slowly grow bigger.

Communication to generate and support change

These ten steps belong to the story of change in Boc. Also look at the ten steps to plan communication strategically. Note that the steps in the process were not immediately all exactly clear, but became much clearer as the process progressed. It were the focus groups that brought to light how redefine the issue. Once that was done the circular process of steps for planning communication was revisited a few more times.

World Wide Views on Biodiversity

A case of interactive policy making on a global scale.

Communication stories

Communication is a powerful agent of behavior change. Successful local initiatives use networking, knowledge exchange, technology and media to change attitudes, communicate incentives, catalyze collective action, and replicate best practices. This is lesson 7 of twelve lessons learned in The Power of Local Action, Lessons of Ten Years of the Equator Prize. 

Communication objectives: action

One of the communication objectives of an award initiative is: to recruit a group of communications students. Reading the project proposal, a colleague suggested that recruiting is more a project objective and not a communication objective and offered the following alternatives:

·         

      Raise awareness among students of how nature can provide solutions for society challenges regarding energy needs and savings

·         Inform young people and the larger public as a whole on how nature can provide solutions for society challenges regarding energy needs and savings

However communication objectives are always about changes in knowledge, attitudes and or practices (behaviour). And they have to be SMART. Raising awareness is a management objective – a communication objective would be more precise in stating the change from current to desired knowledge about nature and energy. Same for information. Recruiting a group of students is a communication objective aimed at action: sign up! 

Best practices in communicating forests

Know your audience – Is your message packaged appropriately? This was one of the lessons learned by foresters. The theme of one of the plenary sessions of the Asia Pacific Forestry Week was communicating forests. The organizers had agreed to let me do an interactive session instead of yet another presentation. The two hundred people in the room turned their chairs around and started animated conversations around: What are good examples of communications that support positive change? What are do’s and don’ts? This is what they came up with.

Lessons learned
*Networking
*Targeting people who will respond to your message
*Simple message
*Don’t let foresters communicate – well, not all the time
*Forest media specialists are in short supply
*Media is a participatory process

Do’s
*Start young
*Have a clear goal and get stakeholders onboard
*Know your audience – Is your message packaged appropriately?
*Tailor your message for your audience and keep it simple
*Be creative
*Be positive where possible
*Offer solutions where possible
*Make technical information practical
*Get your hands dirty - make sure we capture what is happening on the ground and at the community level
*Choose your spokesperson carefully
*Get to know the media (personal contact)

Don’ts
*Don’t push
*Try not to be exclusive
*Keep your enemies list as small as possible
*Don’t just summarize – Focus
*Don’t tamper with the drivers of change?
*Don't threaten

CEPA case study format

Think how users of the toolkit will look for case studies and for learning. In my experience they will search CEPA stories on conservation issues they are currently dealing with: e.g. coral reef CEPA stories, water CEPA stouries, tourism, etc. Formulate those categories and ask for stories about them. Ask for stories of say 500 words, that make clear: 1. the context (the place in nature where the conservation issue occurred and the underlying causes); 2. the players (who had to change in attitudes and behavior); 3. the interventions (what kind of messages and communication methods were used – next to other interventions); 4. the turning point (when change really started to take off – this is where peer learning occurs); 5. the impact (how in the end the realized positive change looked like for nature, for the people involved and for the organizations involved).

Communicating local stories

How to communicate messages from a wide range of voices around the globe about what they consider essential to make the world more sustainable and how they contribute themselves? The Guardian last year provided us with a good example: web page with stories how people experience climate change. You click on the image of a person and a small window opens with a short text in which this person tells his or her story. The project is called the human face of climate change. Although the content focuses on the threats, the format seems to me a good way to communicate local case studies on sustainable development to a worldwide audience.

Protected area issues that can change

Storytelling about positive change they had experienced in the last ten years in their PA area helped to analyze the role of behavior change. And how communication can trigger specific changes in knowledge, attitudes and practices of key audiences. A major lesson learned was that change starts with small steps. With this in mind participants worked in pairs to plan communication for an issue they wanted to change in their area. The issues included joint management of the Guanta (bushmeat); illegal fishing of the Parago (fishermen threatening biodiversity); private landowners encroaching on a Nature reserve (natural resource management); reintroduction of a species; management of forest fires; tourism development; hunting; improving relations with neighbouring communities. In most cases communication had to focus on the first step: bringing stakeholders together for joint planning, identifying leaders, researching what they already know, what they need to know to come to the workshop, what (additional)skills they need etc. In many cases it was hard to resist the attraction to solve the whole issue as experts and push their solutions through various (sometimes even participatory) communication means. During the feedback by colleagues and facilitators we discussed planning the first communication steps towards a co-creation of solutions with the stakeholders as an often more effective and sustainable approach. But in the reality of the Ecuador PAs this is often more theory than practice.

Case study format communication stories

Communication can support the process of positive change in a protected area when it focuses on knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP). Storytelling about cases of positive change helps people to analyze the change process and discover the role of communication. In our workshop for protected area managers in Quito, we used an upgraded version of the template we developed over the years in CEC (click on the matrix). The open questions make it easy for managers to tell their story and compare their experiences with their peers. It is important though to explain what we are looking for. E.g. WHEN is not so much asking for a date, but for the description of the moment change really started to take off: the tipping point.

Stakeholder engagement in Montenegro

In selling the idea of new protected area in Montenegro, the issue of trust in the governmental bodies would be the major one, because of the long period of centralized decision-making. This is the issue my student adresses in her communication strategy. And this is my feedback.
Good: Your plan proves you have internalized most of the theory of the CEPA toolkit and the participation cases and exercises of the lecture. What I like is that you thought of collecting names and addresses – such a database is vital in a communication plan. If you add interets, values etc. to nbames you get slowly a relation management system. What I also like is that you specify objectives for the meetings before formulating an agenda. And that you check the agenda with stakeholders. The more stakeholders are involved in the organization of a meeting the more productive such meeting will be. You also thought of how to publicize the meeting. I also like the idea of a local product fair – this also is a way of generating ownership of the process by stakeholders. What you did very well is to include learning from the process through monitoring and evaluation.
To improve: A next time you should formulate the objectives per targetgroup by specifying their existing knowledge to the level of desired knowledge. Or from the level of trust or mistrust they have now, to the level of trust you need (if you do not specify that exactly you never know how to evaluate your communication. So this type of stakeholders analysis is needed to formulate and establish criteria to assess the effect of your interventions.

Stakeholder engagement for Paleśsie National Park

How to get local support for the idea of a national Park? This is my feedback on the paper by my student from Belarus.
Good: What I like is that you have tried to visualize your communication plan in a real situation in Belarus. You have sketched well the area, the culture of the people and the gap in trust between citizens and the government.
To improve: A next time you should realize that most elements of your communication plan (benefits, jobs etc.) belong more to the management aspects of the project to establish a PA than to a communication plan. The communication is about improving the knowledge of audiences, their attitudes, their actions. So you need to establish first what they already know, and what they need to know; what their sttitudes are and what they should be etc. That would change also the mapping of your communication plan from a series of almost random activities to convey information to a series of strategic communication interventions to contribute to a change in the social and maybe economic systems of the communities.

The case of Tatra National Park

My Slovakian student describes the role of communication in the establishment of this park in the period 2002 - 2004. This is my feedback on his paper.
Good: Your paper is a good description of a real case to formulate a new PA management plan with participation of key stakeholders. It shows how long this project takes (three years) and what phases one has to go through. And what the strengths and limitations of participation are. Especially where you touch on what the project learned and the recommendations it made to the government (early communication, time frame, etc.).
To improve: Although communication should be integrated in the total management of the process to formulate a new management plan, you should be much more specific on how communication can help improve, influence and change knowledge, attitudes and practices of the various key audiences. That way your would showcase that you have internalized the various aspects of the communication and participation theory. This would also underpin and illustrate your comments about the information focus and public hearings as opposed to other two way communication modalities. The planning is very global and more about the management plan than about the communication activities. Next time make clear in what currency the budget is made.

The case of the Cres-Lošinj archipelago

What can communication do to avoid negative perceptions and generate positive support? My student from Croatia describes the case or a marine reserve that was established top down and now has to face opposition from local stakeholders. This was my feedback on her communication strategy.
Good: Your plan is concise and I like the idea of backcasting of a case that really happened and that provides you with the opportunity to see what you would have done differently. The first is that you integrated communication in the activities to establish the PA. And that you assumed that the ministry would be willing to accept the outcomes of a participatory process. This is crucial. And mostly cost quite some time to sell such an approach internally. Your communication plan shows that you know and have understood the basics of the theory of stakeholder involvement.
To improve: To make your plan really work and to show the decision makers how the meetings provide the results promised in the communication plan, it is important to think much more through the details of the process of the various meetings and through the psychology of the various stakeholders, such as fishermen, tour operators etc., who have to change. That would give more detailed ideas how to structure your meetings. It also may make time planning and budget more realistic.

Turning the Karwendel mountains into a PA

How to realize meaning ful participation of twelve stakeholders in the planning of a protected area? TThis is my feedback on the strategy designed by a student from Austria.
Good: I like a concise plan. In the introduction you describe the three objectives of the communication strategy: knowledge – attitude – action. The strategy is based on two way personal communication between initiators, government and key stakeholders. You describe the process from small talk to the real hard work in a working groups. You have understood that there is lot of ‘psychology’ involved in the process. You also have a reasonable estimation of costs.
To improve: A next time you could think through the process maybe a bit more in detail: now the planning seems very optimistic. These participatory approaches take much more time. A next time you also should think that your plan has to convince the decision makers to say yes to the plan and provide the budget and be willing to play some role in the implementation of the plan. That means investing in the presentation of your plan. A decision maker wants to be sure that he gets value for money. Your plan is concise – that is good, but it needs more information to base a decision on.

The case of Sargan-Mokra Gora

How can communication help to extend a recently established nature park? My feedback on a communication strategy by a Serbian student was as follows.
Good: Your paper shows you have internalized some of the theory of communication and its role in establishing or managing a PA. You describe well the situation of a PA in a country in transition. Public participation is often quite difficult under these circumstances, so a more instrumental use of communication might better work. You define a number of knowledge objectives for communication in terms of messages.
To improve: Action speaks louder than words. Since its establishment the PA already has communicated and established relationships as you describe in the 3rd paragraph of your introduction. Any communication strategy should build on this and involve the manager. As a film maker he should be aware that he is also a major communicator! Communication alone can do very little, it has to be integrated in all activities of the PA. Next to knowledge objectives you should also think in terms of attitude and action objectives for communication interventions.

Turning Laganas Bay into a national park

How can communication help to generate support for the idea of a national park? This is my feedback on a communication plan written by a student from Greece.
Good: You describe the need for participatory planning as a condition for the successful establishment of a PA. You describe the core of the process as face to face interactions between people. In this description you prove that you have internalised most of the theory and practical tips of the two CEPA toolkits. You see this as a process for which more meetings are needed, that build on each other.
To improve: A next time you should realize that participatory planning also implies that the PA initiators from the start should be willing to make trade offs, and also change their own previous perceptions, opinions and ideas, where appropriate. There should be decision moments in the planning that reflect this. The planning further seems a bit too optimistic. These processes take much more time. Same for the budget: the travel costs of participants and catering costs for meetings seem rather low.

My own valley: a protected area?

One of my students describes the participatory planning process she designed to establish a protected area in the valley where she lives. This is my feedback on her paper.
Good: You describe the interventions as participation aspects of change management. You are concise and to the point. The situation analysis gives the bigger picture. Your stakeholder analysis describes the target groups as ‘people of flesh and blood’ and diagnoses as first need the building of trust and identifying opinion leaders. Involvement you plan through joint fact finding. You invest time in jointly identifying opportunities and barriers for change. You recognize the power of stories (word of mouth) in communication and understand that you engage in a process that can only partially be planned in advance. What I like most is that you have used your own experiences and your own words. You avoided jargon and still you are theoretically correct.
To improve: You have to think more through the management aspects of the process in terms of time and money, otherwise it will be difficult to interest the decision makers to give you the 100.000 euro budget you ask for. For such a process you may start with a feasibility study of 10.000 euro and then specify the rest of the budget on the basis of this first exercise.

The case of the Commonwealth Lake Reserve.

How can communication bridge the gap between local communities and the government after it has launched top down a protected area? This is the issue addressed by a Ungandan student.My comments were the following:
Good: You describe the real life case of the Commonwealth Lake Reserve. There seems to have been no concern how to guide the transition by the local communities from fishing to tourism. This is a process that needs some degree of participation in the planning and implementation. In your plan you try to repair this omission by formulating a communication plan.
To improve: A next time you should think more deeply whether education and communication alone could repair the damage done so far and convince the communities the PA is good for them. People believe what they see, not what they hear. Or action of the government or the PA speaks louder than words. The objectives of the education program and communication program you should formulate much more in a SMART way. Remember an objective is only an objective when it contains a result. So do not start the formulation of an objective with a verb. As to the content of the objectives – they seem to be more management objectives than communication objectives. The latter are always focused on knowledge, attitudes and actions or practices (KAP). The meetings you envisage can be more strategically planned when you first formulate objectives for each meeting: what should participants know, feel and do after the meeting. You list a range of other communication means but you do not specify what and how the add value to the rest of the communication plan.