Work on This: Case Study One

Read the case study and answer these questions:

1) In the case study the media and the politicians are described as being possibly
detrimental to the project. What do you think should have been done from the
BEGINNING of the project to keep the media and the politicians as helpful to the
project?

In the summer of 1994 there were settlement problems in the north and south tunnels of
Hollywood Boulevard, on August 20 there was a 9-inch settlement along 200 feet of the
north tunnel of Hollywood Boulevard, the staff managed to fix the problem avoiding the
collapse of the tunnels. However, the media did not report the problem of settlement in the
appropriate context, making the problem seem worse than it was. They also turned the
reporting of events into personal attacks against the project staff. In addition, the politicians
of that time had very little time to dedicate themselves to the construction program, the
politicians' time demands generally made it impractical to inform them directly, causing
problems because the confidence of those politicians towards the project staff diminished.

Media
For the media to help the project team they could have used simple, personal stories and
symbolic news that favor the project from the beginning so they can inform the community
of news that favors the project instead of news that focus only in the problems occurred.

Politicians
As for the politicians, not being able to inform them directly, it could have been planned to
communicate the news to their staff so that the politicians were well informed and there
were no surprises if there was a problem, including good relations with the staff. The
politicians would become good relations with the politicians themselves, so that confidence
in the project staff will not diminish if there are problems.

2) Given this statement, "The media is in the business of meeting daily deadlines. So,
despite its focus on cynical revelation, editors need new news products each day."
What if anything could have been done to feed the media news product they could use
and at the same time influence the media to be a positive stakeholder for the project?
(Hint - Do NOT use any of the headlines included in the case study devise your
own.).

Taking into account the statement made by the present case study which indicates that the
communication is essential, I concluded that the elaboration of an adequate communication
strategy for this project would have meant a strong defense of the same against the public
officials and the general public. According to the guidelines presented in this case study, the
development and dissemination of small stories that contribute to good causes such as job
creation, support to the minority, economic growth, improvement of public infrastructure,
among others, can contribute positively by winning the goodwill of the general public and
the favorable support of public officials.
I would have suggested sharing the following headlines with the media:

Rail program plans events for the communication of advances in the project
Rail program plans events to teach the importance of safe behavior around construction
sites
Rail program provides places for the public to express their opinions
Rail program has its own pet named Travis the Owl
Rail program meets with the community to answer questions from project opponents

3) The author gives advice on handling communications with three different

stakeholders. Who are the three stakeholders and what do the suggested strategies
have in common?

Stakeholders in this problem would be the media, politicians and residents of the
Hollywood Boulevard community.

Media
Due to the settlement problem at Hollywood Boulevard we realized that a simple, personal
and/or symbolic story could have been presented, describing the rapid steps taken to
stabilize the tunnel. This way would have made the media and community members aware
of how problems were handled and trust in project members would not have diminished.

Elected Officials
They began to take ownership of the project and when the project staff was reorganized as a
Los Angeles MTA division then elected officials regained confidence in the project staff. At
this point, building relationships and building ownership was critical to establishing the free
flow communication channels necessary to keep officials informed of all events (good and
bad) in a timely manner.

Residents of the Hollywood Boulevard community

The strategy for Los Angeles rail program with the community was to assign community
affairs specialists to each project team so they could get first-hand information on the
progress of the project and the problems that occurred, and even created different events
and meetings so that communication with the community was more fluid and confidence in
the project was maintained.

Similarities of strategies
The strategies have in common the desire that all be informed of all the events of the
project, whether good or bad, and thus maintain the trust and support of the stakeholders
because good information generates confidence.

4) With regard to current communications strategies advice would you give to LA

Metro Rail TODAY. By today I mean, how should they be communicating now?
Current communication strategies allow us to communicate in many ways and cover long
distances in a very short time. The viable advice would be to communicate using internet
with applications such as Facebook, Twitter and even Whatsapp, so to communicate
continuously without the need to hold meetings continuously.

Some of the advantages of these applications are the following:

Advantages of Facebook
It allows being where the customers are.
It offers a place to receive comments and suggestions.
It is accessible to everyone on the Internet.
The news is easily indexed by search engines like Google.

Advantages of Twitter
It allows to converse with the general public in a horizontal (bidirectional) way.
It allows monitoring what is being said about our product or service and can respond
directly and immediately.
It provides a channel of attention to the general public to listen and answer complaints,
suggestions or comments.
It provides a marketing and communication tool to promote advertising campaigns.

Advantages of Whatsapp
It permits a very high percentage of the general public uses it.
Communication is direct and immediate.
It can send messages in different formats like text, audio, photos and video.
It can communicate the same message to a group of people simultaneously.