Communicating with the community with a utility voice can be complicated. Utilities need to show representation in their visual communications, check their biases as they release statements and content, and above all, build and maintain public trust.
Samantha Williams is the external affairs manager for Missouri American Water. She recently hosted a webinar on the subject of improving and evaluating visual communications for utilities. In this interview she shares some of her insights from that webinar including how diversity and inclusion differ, what to think about when evaluating visual communications for your utility, and just how important public trust is to every message your utility sends out.
- Intro: (0:00)
- Defining diversity and inclusion: (1:02)
- The nuances and differences between diversity and inclusion: (1:47)
- Representation, why it matters and creating engagement: (2:59)
- Recognizing personal biases to create better outcomes: (4:24)
- Who should review public communications for utilities before release?: (7:28)
- The challenge of building and maintaining public trust: (9:31)
- How Nike, Amazon and others are setting a new standard for comms: (13:27)
- Outro: (15:23)
Additional Resources
- Watch last week’s video: https://www.wwdmag.com/videos/malabar-wwtp-process-reliability-renewal-wwd-weekly-digest
- Watch Samantha Williams’ webinar on visual communications for utilities: https://register.gotowebinar.com/recording/2519066216123438083
- View the WWD Weekly Digest playlist: bit.ly/wwdweeklydigest
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