Communications Committee: June 17, 2008 Meeting Summary
Participants:
Stan Sehested, Dave McKinney, Russ Roberts (Gina Gibbs-Foster called later for briefing)
Future meetings clarification:
The remainder of this year’s meetings will be teleconferences. Our next face-to-face meeting will be held in January at a location to be determined.
Topics for Hector BIC columns and newsletter President’s Message:
Meeting participants suggested several good topics, including:
Houston Communications Roadmap
Before the meeting, committee members were e-mailed an Excel matrix that attempts to comprehensively capture our industry’s efforts at answering the challenge from Houston city government. Members were (and still are) asked to list their messages, targets, communications vehicles, and other data pertaining to this challenge.
During the meeting, Stan volunteered that ChevronPhillips has been visiting newspaper editors in communities where their facilities are located, informing them on plant activities. “They are amazed that there’s another side to the story,” he noted.
New Media:
Some members are actively researching and/or pursuing the value of social media. It was suggested that TCC start a truth-telling blog (weblog), perhaps engaging university PR students to help write it.
As a means of testing this idea, Dave offered his college class as a laboratory in which students would be invited to analyze an industry-negative story, check it for errors, omissions, and balance, and comment on the results. The results might provide an idea of what a student-authored blog might look like.
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Summary of May 27 Meeting
