Community Media - Interactive World

Time to Bury Public Services? The Big Theme in the 80s and 90s was privatization of industries which had been taken into public ownership, or which had evolved as ‘public services.’ The task was achieved without much political difficulty because many industries which it was assumed retained a strategic significance such as manufacturing, coal, and steel were making a loss and were now perceived to be a burden on the hard-pressed state. In other cases industries such as oil, gas, telecoms, electricity and water had evolved to make a safe profit and had become highly valued assets that could easily be (un)bundled for sale. The Post Office (once attached to Telecoms) is the last vestige of the entrepreneurial state, where a commercial public service is retained for the common good, is perhaps the final remainder of a commercial service in public hands. There was a sense that state ownership and asset sales had reached the end of the line. No politician would dare to touch social care...

A Still from Naata / The Bond 2003 How do we move from a state of secrecy to publicity, openness and celebration? The aim of this blog is simply to outline how you can achieve your aims by asking (and answering) a set of questions about your identity now, and thinking about where you want to get to. Building better communications may initially encounter resistance within a group or an organisation. So it’s a good idea to start with some basic questions such as Where are we now? Is our group or service a well-guarded secret? How do we promote our services? Why do we want people to be more aware of what we do? What is unique about what we do? Here are some questions to consider  … Does your community group, charity, or service communicate a clear ‘emotional charge’ or a unique identity? maintain its relevance over time by evolving in response to changing perceptions? make people want to get involved? get demanded by service users because it represents ex...