My first published (APWA) article
“The words escape me” — is how I feel about words; always finding it difficult to express myself through words. But, I am proud to share this article - not only because it’s my first published article, but because I had the opportunity to boast about my team and the words just seemed to flow. Special thanks to my boss who helped me through it.
This article was published by American Public Works Association (APWA), a national hub to share and recognize innovations and accomplishments in public service.
Communicating with creativity
at San Francisco Public Works
Nicole Woo, Creative Producer, San Francisco Public Works
Editor’s note: This article came from “I came up with that! Innovations to take back to work,” an education session at PWX 2019 in Seattle that focused on innovations that APWA members from the young professionals’ segment have brought to their agency or firm. This issue features an article on how a city enhanced access for its public works staff to asset management.
San Francisco is a beautiful city and global destination. It’s a city packed with history, new adventures to discover and, most of all, amazing people doing extraordinary things. Some of these people are the employees of San Francisco Public Works—the ones who are dedicated to keeping the city safe, clean and beautiful. But they often go unrecognized.
The core purpose of the communications team at San Francisco Public Works is to provide timely, relevant and accurate information. There’s also a desire to celebrate the accomplishments of San Francisco Public Works and shine a light on the hardworking employees who get the work done. That, in turn, can lead to a deeper understanding of the department, bolstering support and partnerships.
The department still relies on conventional communications platforms, such as press releases, websites, newsletters and social media, to communicate with various constituencies. But in this age of information saturation, it’s not enough. The department had to get creative to grab people’s attention.
The monthly newsletter, for example, has evolved over the years and now benefits from being produced on a digital platform that allows for more interplay with readers, incorporates video, and offers a more dynamic design.
That was just the start. We now produce in-house webinars, podcasts and videos. These digital mediums aim to amplify the diversity of our department’s portfolio and scope of work and the demographic diversity of our staff. The production team is small, and the equipment and software used is not fancy. But combined, it is enough to generate compelling content.
Public Works TV was the first out of the box with its launch in 2017. The department’s top boss at the time requested that we create a daily, hour-long talk show-style program. The creative team balked, first because there was no funding for such a labor-intensive endeavor but mostly because it was clear that such a format would be neither logistically sustainable nor interesting. The team brainstormed an alternative plan that relied on short, produced weekly segments that focused on the department’s people, projects and services.
At the table were Rachel Gordon, Jennifer Blot, Julian Pham, Nicole Woo, Shih-Wei Lu and Bryan Dahl—our communications director and deputy director, creative director, creative producer, community coordinator and public relations specialist.
They wanted Public Works TV to represent the vast range of our department and workforce—not just in the topics presented but also in how they were presented. We landed on the idea of using our employees as hosts and held open auditions.
The result was more than what we could have hoped for: drawing a group of public works employees with no prior broadcast experience but a whole lot of moxie who offered passion, perspective and authenticity. Among the roster of hosts were engineers, IT specialists, accountants, street cleaners and landscape architects. In addition to making on-air appearances, they served as Public Works TV ambassadors and helped the production team develop story ideas.
Throughout the life of Public Works TV, Julian Pham and Nicole Woo have led the technical and creative production, which includes scheduling, filming and editing the episodes. They’ve also created a library of more than 60 episodes that can be found at sfpublicworkstv.org. Individual episodes also are added to pertinent webpages on the department’s website and are posted on social media platforms to promote projects, services and special events.
The format and style of each episode differs, depending on the soul and content. They range from interviews to documentaries, educational narratives to light-hearted fun videos—such as lip-sync battles—and trivia. As creative individuals, we are thankful for the opportunity to take artistic liberties to help the storytellers best express their stories—within the framework of a government agency. We strive to be inclusive, to not offend our audience, and to maintain ethical standards.
We have been able to leverage the episodes so that viewing them counts towards required training hours for our employees. We also use Public Works TV to give new employees better understanding of what our department does and the type of culture we hope to foster. Public Works TV is available on YouTube, SFGovTV (local television), and archived on its dedicated website at sfpublicworksTV.org.
Like the rest of the world, the COVID-19 pandemic put a pause on the regular production of Public Works TV since most episodes were shot in the field. We had to step back and reset creatively to ensure that the important stories unfolding over the past year could be shared. This gave rise to Snapshots, a series of podcasts and webinars. Snapshots focuses on process and journeys, providing snapshots into what is happening behind the scenes with our projects and services and in our lives both personally and professionally.
We host the “Snapshots LIVE!” webinar series on Zoom, bringing together subject-matter experts from the Public Works team and outside partners to do a deep dive into a specific topic, such as San Francisco’s new animal shelter, the unique floating fire station now under construction, emergency storm response, a streetscape project in the historic Fisherman’s Wharf neighborhood and the one-year anniversary of the COVID health crisis. Each presentation is live online where viewers can ask panelists questions in real time. The webinar is recorded and edited for future viewing. To view our webinars, visit sfpublicworks.org/snapshots-live.
“Snapshots” is our new podcast series that pushes the boundaries of conventional government communications by focusing on some of the most searing issues of the day. In the wake of the George Floyd killing and the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, we produced Snapshots: Racial Justice. The series featured 14 emotionally gripping employee soliloquies and conversations involving deeply personal experiences around racial bias and injustices.
Among those we heard from were a highranking Black manager at Public Works who recounts an incident when he was a young teen. He was standing at a bus stop with his sister near their house when he was surrounded by police with guns drawn. Fear coursed through his body. The officers accused him of snatching a purse, only to let him go minutes later when they realized they made a mistake. We heard from a Chinese man teased at school by racist bullies who mocked his Asian heritage, and from a White man who grew up on a Midwestern farm with no people of color in his life until he left home for college.
Their stories leave an impact on listeners who are left thinking about their own experiences and the lingering effects of racism that impact all of us at home and at work.
Another series, called Snapshots: Still We Rise, commemorates the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic and how it dramatically changed how we work and live our lives. Sharing these experiences has allowed us to get closer to each other, while physically apart. We heard from front-line field workers and people who left behind their offices to work from home. We hear about the struggles that parents have had with their kids’ schools shuttered and what it’s like when neighbors morph from stranger to friend.
The first podcast series focused simply on letting Public Works employees talk about their everyday work.
All podcasts can be heard at sfpublicworks.org/snapshots.
The Public Works videos and podcasts allow us to use our own voices to tell our stories. They capture the here and now and, as archived material, will serve as time capsules so that future generations can have a better understanding of who we were, what we did for the betterment of San Francisco, and why. They provide context and peel back the façade of a local government agency to see a rich tapestry of people behind it to get the job done.
Find the original article here:
https://apwa.partica.online/reporter/july-2021/columns/communicating-with-creativity-at-san-francisco-public-works