| Way
67
Create an advisory board
An advisory board of experts
in your field can be very helpful. They might
help in designing message, the product, the
communication, the sponsorship, all kinds
of things. If they are seen to be important
in the area of interest, they can confer gravitas
to the project that might otherwise be hard
to get.
An advisory board is particularly
useful in the early days of a product's life
cycle. The lifelong experience and know how
of the advisory board replaces the inexperience
and lack of track record of the actual subject.
The members of the board can be good interview
subjects, each taking a different angle of
the overall story. But do remember to train
them (see Way 42).
Way 72
Involve the community
How can you involve your local
community? Well, it depends what you're message
is. When it was announced that British Coal
was to close dozens of mines and throw 36,000
miners out of work, the local communities
staged a protest jaunt to 10 Downing Street.
There's a lot of power in this kind of grass-roots
mobilisation. The closures were deferred,
largely because of the massive protest march
and the ensuing uproar of indignation. |
