Expensive communication
Stephen Law offers us a video of the Permanent Secretary for Government Communications telling a bunch of people that communications are goods things and that he is goods at doings them. I watched a minute or two, which was enough to confirm me in my surmise that I didn’t want to watch more than that. Stephen explains why.
He has little to say, surely? Strip out the “successful behavioural outcomes”, “partnership”, “stakeholder”, “co-creation”, “we’re on a journey” jargon and rhetoric, and his message boils down to:
• The public used to be seen by Government as passive recipients of information, not as customers to engage with, which they now are, ‘cos of the internet, twitter, etc. Citizens can now provide feedback on services.
• There should be more effective working together between government departments.
• Government needs to apply psychological research if Government wants to affect behaviour, not just make ads saying: “stop smoking”, “eat less fat”, “do more exercise”, “get a job”, etc.
Now, surely, all of this is pretty trite and obvious, not cutting edge insight? Won’t everyone in the audience already know this? Most of us know it, surely. It’s platitudinous.
Yes but you need a highly-paid expert to say it so that…well so that he can earn his high pay. What else would you have him do? Teach philosophy?! Come now.
3. Much of what Tee says seems to serve primarily as a device for reminding us of how successful he has been. The talk is in large part a puff for himself and his career.
4. Is Tee himself a good communicator? I found this presentation dull, uninformative, and I suspect it’s unlikely to motivate his audience to do anything different. The one concrete bit of advice he gives them is: think of how your next communication might be tweeted.
As I say, Tee earns over £160,000 per year of taxpayer’s money (equivalent to, say, the combined salaries of three university professors). Maybe he’s very good at managing. But I’d say he’s a rather poor communicator and, on the basis of this performance, a bit light on ideas.
You might think that, but I couldn’t possibly comment.
So we’ve seen where the government can save an additional £160,000 a year, and perhaps much more getting rid of pointless middlemen.
I don’t know if it’s platitudinous. I think there’s something to be said for government being boring and accurate and not lying. Let the citizens motivate themselves on matters of public policy, the lazy fuckers.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Expensive communication http://dlvr.it/BFvQT […]
I find it extremely annoying that the message is ‘the government needs to tell us how to live’ because apparently they know better. I don’t like pompous idiots telling me how to be a good little citizen.
As Wikileaks reminds us, when governments talk about communicating they mean not communicating. Governments communicate Messages, not facts. And most people think something is serious only when it’s deadly dull. So buddy’s communicating good.
Please excuse the ambiguity of the last sentence in my previous post. I meant the permsec was communicating well, by his employer’s standrads.
” Maybe he’s very good at managing”.
Highly unlikely. One of the most important abilities of a manager is the ability to communicate effectively and accurately. All I see in the above is the usual corporate/governmental twaddle designed to obscure the fact that nothing is being communicated. This language is absolutely interchangeable with that of every briefing, “information exchange” and “town hall meeting” that I endured in the last 20 years of my working life. Because it means nothing it can be made to appear to mean almost anything (rather like scripture…..)
Once when I was a civil servant I received a consultant’s report concerning departmental organization. Being newly arrived from the frozen North, I was unfamiliar with the language of the report (which was pure consultantese) so I sent it to the Official Language Translation Unit to have it translated into English. They sent a curt note to say that they couldn’t help – it wasn’t in French either. Fortunately they didn’t return the report so I never saw it again.
So is this like the job Mooney wants to have?
Are you kidding? Would Mooney like to be paid about $240 k a year to tell the Obama admin how to communicate? What do you think?!
Come to think of it, I would quite like that myself, and I’d do a better job of it.
Stephen said, on that post, something like “is this just jealousy and resentment? It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Yes and no, would be my guess. Yes perhaps about the money and perks, but no about the work. I strongly doubt that Stephen really envies what that guy has to do to get the money and perks. It’s too fucking boring, and too sly.
Same with Mooney. Do I envy his gigs? Sure! Absolutely! Especially the “Fellowship” – I would just love to spend 2 expenses-paid weeks in Cambridge chatting with clever people for $15 k and all the books I want. Hell yes. But I don’t remotely envy what Mooney does to get those gigs – I do the opposite of envy – which there isn’t one, but if there were, that would be the word for what I do.
I used to. When he was doing investigative journalism, and it was government and science, I thought that was a terrific job.
Unfortunately, this is the problem with intellectual honesty. It doesn’t pay. However, integrity makes what you say valuable, while those with dubious reputations have rather less value in what they say. Hence I will always appreciate integrity and substance over superficial dubious reputations.
Tee must have sounded convincing at some point in his career with a salary like that. Vaguely reminds me of the cathartic piece a few days ago about the jewelry salesman turned philosophy professor.http://chronicle.com/article/The-Lie-Guy/125582/
Speaking of the communications experts, Matt Nisbet, of all people, called Mooney out at The Intersection the other day over the obvious.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/12/10/sarewitz-dont-make-more-republicans-science-friendly-make-more-scientists-republican/#comment-85500
Scroll down for the classic Mooney response.
Sailor1031, you’re right. I have a notion that anyone who actually uses the word “communicate” is about to demonstrate that he hasn’t a fucking clue. All the signs are there – the motionless audience, the text-ridden slides he’s using as a prompt, the feeble attempt at humour that gets barely a reluctant titter (“Newcastle won’t let me in”), the incessant touting of the verbal equivalent of an interstellar vacuum – the word “engage”. And what is the purpose of this drivel? It’s got little to do with what he says he’s going to talk about.
OK, I’m no paragon, but i know crap when I see it.
But wow, what it could have been about….! It’s not about the way the internet might change the role of “communicators”. It’s about how, if it’s given it’s head, it reams them into the middle of next week. About how it has the potential to change the way democracy works. But no, he’s excited about the idea that you can retain the whole tedious process through which white papers are produced, and then allow someone to actually respond.
It’s not just that he’s earning tumps of money. It’s the amount of taxpayers’ cash being frittered on that room full of people not really listening to this tosh, but wallowing in the warm bath of shared ritual. Or worse, listening to it and actually thinking it means something. And then there’s the other portions of pap padding out the plenary session.
Worst of all, this has infected my daughters’ school. The first few paragraphs of their prospectus burbled on about “student outcomes” and, yes, “engagement”. I rang the office, taking care not to get vomit on the receiver, and asked if the head of the English department had checked it. If not, he should. If he had, he should be assigned to mopping out the toilets instead. It’s better now.
Er – sorry about the rant. It’s a Friday.