So this, ladies and gentleman, is what I’ve been banging on for years. You give a smartphone and social media access to a frontline worker who ‘gets it’ and gets out of the office and then you sit back.
For the past six weeks swathes of England has been under water with the wettest January for more than 200 years deluging rivers and forcing them to burst their banks. Platoons of soldiers have been deployed as local government, fire, the Environment Agency and others have battled .
Through it all an army of public sector people have worked on in damp, wet and miserable conditions often without credit or recognition.
One of those is Dave Thoroup, an Environment Agency manager for Herefordshire and Worcestershire. When the radio need an update it is Dave who is the voice of the agency giving up-to-date updates on river levels, flood risks and advice.
He also uses Twitter to post real time updates that are hyperlocal and county wide. The state of flood barriers in Bewdley, business as usual messages in Ironbridge and advise not to drive through floods. Often they are basic mobile phone pictures like this one:
Going so high at #bewdley we’ve had to get the scaffolding out! River now past 2008 peak and rising. pic.twitter.com/4iIo0grcmm
Gauging high flows is part of our incident response. Means our data is accurate for warnings & advice pic.twitter.com/2SRT9StodJ
— Dave Throup (@DaveThroupEA) February 11, 2014
— Dave Throup (@DaveThroupEA) February 11, 2014
He’s using basic technology to post real time information at a time when people need it most. He also shares other people’s tweets and blogs here. He posts to Flickr too.
Why is this brilliant?
If you want the science, the Edelman Trust barometer talks of how staff lower down an organisation are trusted more than those at the top. People who are just like you are trusted even more. For communications people, this changes the game and turns on its head everything. To put it simply, the chief executive may not be the best person to front an interview or a campaign. The officer with the smartphone may well be. I say this repeatedly when I’m training people: it’s not enough to do a good job in the public sector in 2014. You need to tell people too. That’s why the people like Morgan Bowers the Walsall Council countryside ranger works really well on social. It’s a real person talking to a real person.
.@lis1986malibu I’ve just left but I believe so, water coming through Cripplegate Park very quickly now — Dave Throup (@DaveThroupEA) February 11, 2014
Why is Dave even more brilliant?
Public sector people get a shabby Press. Why? Because it’s always our fault. Often judged by people who proclaim to know the value of everything and the value of nothing and yet far, far more good is done by the public sector than bad. Dave is brilliant because he cares. People get that too. And yet there are so many people in the sector like him but for some reason he’s struck a chord with the folk who have come to rely on the information that he gives.
He’s also got a fan club:
Some say that there is no such thing as a “Dave Throup” & that it is just a state of mind that elite public sector workers attain to. #hero
— DaveThroupFanClub (@DaveThroupFans) February 11, 2014
So, here’s to Dave. And everyone in the public sector who does a vital job and that state of mind that elite public sector workers attain to.
Just think about what an army of people like Dave can do for the organisation they work in. Or what they could do for yours.
Creative commons credit
River Severn in flood http://www.flickr.com/photos/davethroup/12253595404/sizes/l/
Good observations. There are few things quite so dangerous as decision-makers trying to develop public policy, legislation, or budgets, whilst observing their region or nation through a telescope from the moon. Their motives may be laudable, but if they don’t know how things actually work on the ground, trouble is just around the corner.
Hats off to the Daves of the world.