The management game of communication

Over the last decennia, in many other countries, the number of communication students has shown an enormous increase, following student preferences and societal needs. In Finland, the number of places for students per discipline is regulated. There are no entrance fees but selection of candidates for an earlier set maximum number of freshmen. Over the years the number of communication students has approximately remained the same, and thus was kept artificially low compared with the number of applications. Only on the BA level in applied sciences a raise is noted in the percentage of communication students within the total number of students. At the national and university level it seems that the planners are not aware of how different the balance is when compared to other countries.

To quote Jason Schmitt in HuffPost: “At a college near you, at this very moment, a student is switching their major to Communication Studies. As an academic discipline, Communication Studies is posting strong growth. ... Perhaps equally important is that the discipline seems well positioned to maintain strong future growth potential.”  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-schmitt/communication-studies-ris_b_6025038.html

One can also wonder how to position communication studies within universities. Interest has risen in connecting with organizational studies and business schools. The EUPRERA 2015 Congress in Oslo (October 1-3), has as its central theme “THE MANAGEMENT GAME OF COMMUNICATION: How PR/Corporate Communication Supports Organizations and What Communicators Can Learn from Management Disciplines”. http://euprera2015.no/

To quote the EUPRERA website: “Kotler and Mindak in 1973 lamented the lack of management and economics courses for Public Relations students as well as the refusal of business schools to teach Public Relations. This state of affairs is not so much different today, as we see communication graduates with little organisational/ business knowledge and business graduates with little communication knowledge. ... There has been growing understanding based on research that communication practitioners need more business knowhow, that they need to have a better understanding of how their organizations operate, and that a strategic orientation ensures that communication executives are invited to participate early in organisational strategic decision-making.” http://www.euprera.org/?p=125

These are interesting matters to discuss in Oslo, and at the various universities.

More than 20% of research time is spent on applying for research funding, with decreasing success rates...

Researchers are spending more time than ever on applying for research funding. A survey conducted in the Netherlands, indicates that this fills now 20% of the time. Scholars write more project proposals, with a decreasing success rate of below 15%. In the process also good proposals are known to get rejected. The study also showed that 10% of scholars, approximately 20 big names, get more than 60% of the available free funding (Van Calmthout, 20-21.2.2015, de Volkskrant). They often work in medical sciences, bio sciences, or physics, involving large consortia of specialists. Other scholars are considered lucky with a few millions in a life time, while many struggle to get any, especially in languages and social sciences. This concentration has been intended, but do the happy few indeed yield 100 times as good results per euro invested as the others?

Similarly, also in Finland a sharp increase of time invested in funding is noted. Deans push scholars to write more and more applications for national funding, while their collective action makes the chances drop even lower as the budget as a whole does not grow. On average, American research shows that writing one proposal costs a full month of work. For the EU funding through Horizon 2020 there was so much promotion that the competition has increased significantly compared to 5 years ago. As the many more applications also need many new reviewers, some universities push less experienced researchers to become reviewer to ‘learn the trade’. This, next to choosing for familiar names or selecting your own stream or approach, explains why good applications also can be rejected.

So far, I have been lucky to have had in the last 8 years next to national funding 3 EU-funded projects, twice consortium leader. But we also lost a good application because the reviewers mistakenly thought that we had ‘misunderstood the call’. The call text focused on cultural factors, while the review said economic factors should have been taken into account. Moreover, the reviewers completely missed the fact that we used the most advanced approach that was indeed broader than cultural factors, as we research diversity rather than only cultural diversity. Needless to say that in the Security area all kinds of reviewers such as with a technical background are involved and this particular call needed a social sciences approach. Security calls are currently anyhow dominated by technology, often causing products that may seem to become a commercial success but do not resonate with needs in civil society. Reviewers check if human factors are included but do not note that this hardly gets budget within the project.

I also lost an ERC application because one of the reviewers said “I am not an expert in this discipline but I feel that this field is not useful”. The project officer coordinating the process should have taken notice of this remark and taken out this review, and the reviewer should in the first place have passed the review on to someone qualified in this field. ERC calls work with reviewer teams that are more specialised. But one might encounter a reviewer that thinks “organizational communication is about manipulating”, whereas the project actually was about societal problem solving, which is recognised by another enthusiastic reviewer, but the average is taken.

The review system depends on the quality of peer review, while with the growing numbers of applications we currently need too many new reviewers. But more importantly, the costs in researcher time of this system are becoming very high. The system has been successful in reaching concentration in financially intensive research areas. However, now it is time to ensure that also innovation in science is stimulated. The current system is reproducing the big names we already have, it emphasizes commercial impact too much, and it prohibits that new disciplines and approaches can break through.

Alpine views on resilience

It was again a great experience to be in Davos and participate in IDRC 2014. High up in the Swiss alps the views were good and so were insights provided into disaster resilience by an again very international group of participants. Margaretha Wallström, Assistant Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction of UN, gave an inspiring plenary on the process towards the upcoming Sendai 2015 conference where the new Disaster Risk Reduction framework will be discussed.

As our research project Public Empowerment Policies for Crisis management (PEP) will deliver a roadmap by the end of 2014, we may also have a modest contribution to this global process, though with a focus on Europe. Nowadays, the latter may make less of a difference than one might think. Disasters are not just a problem of poor countries, although risks are not divided equally, as demonstrated also by statistics presented by prof. Ortwin Renn in the same conference.

A community approach seems a more natural choice in the case of development countries, but its actual application often depends on involvement of NGOs. In western countries taking care of disaster preparedness has been delegated, for a long time already, to specialized rescue organizations. However, nowadays disasters are not seen as events needing primarily the attention of trained first responders, but rather as a longer process involving more actors including also civil society.  

A whole community approach needs different capabilities, including communication among diverse organizations and citizens, in order to enhance resilience on the individual, community and societal level. The legal tasks of response organizations do not include all of this. So where do such responsibilities belong? They seem to be a joint responsibility of various actors with unclear leadership and risk of negligence.  

A broad integrated approach connecting community resilience with e.g. health care and education would fit municipalities well.  However, research shows that local volunteer groups often feel their input is not welcomed by the administration. Municipalities have multiple tasks competing for attention. National authorities delegate more and more tasks to the local level, but the process often coincides with budget cuts. Moreover, Margaretha Wallström stated that it is unclear how activities of national authorities contribute to those of local authorities concerning Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). Activities on all levels, local as well as national, are important to enhance resilience. So are activities by diverse organizations and citizens groups. Recent cases of river flooding showed that citizen initiatives were created faster than authority response.  Activities of all actors are needed, as well as strong facilitation of cooperation. Resilience is a network characteristic, needing evolving cooperation and well-functioning links.

Contribute to the Roadmap of Public Empowerment Policies for Crisis Management by joining the discussion FORUM on www.projectPEP.eu ! We now also have a Crisis communication WIKI for professionals, for you to check out.

Juggling balls

Sometimes one feels one is swimming against the stream, loosing energy, while it would be better to find a more fruitful way of doing matters. That was the case for me recently. I was focused on building a research group but lost members when these were offered longer contracts than researchers have. Also, I used to treasure my office with its big table, and see it as the place where the team meets to build a long term perspective. But for the third time in recent years we will have to move to temporary work places dispersed over the university campus because tests say the air quality in our current building is not healthy. So much for building structures and long term team perspectives!

Sometimes things have to happen more often before one gets an inkling how to work with the tide, rather than against it. Finally I got it. This should not be about building everlasting structures in an environment that can’t facilitate that. A university may cultivate a reputation of longstanding scientific tradition, but nowadays conditions do not facilitate building long term perspectives. However, what universities are good at is forming interesting meeting places for groups of very diverse scholars. This in itself is a great good.

Therefore, I concluded that while I am not able to change the conditions, I am able to change my own perspective. I can follow the content of my research, which is on dynamic networked communication in demanding changing environments. It seems fruitful to use a postmodern perspective in my own work life also.

In my new view I emphasize utilizing moments and meaningful meetings, and who knows what beauty can come out of that. Now I again have something to share with the people around me. Projects are opportunities to gain experiences, just like meetings are opportunities to instead of having a boring time and making minutes, rather exchange your best ‘insight of the day’. Students can grab the moment when in class, to start discussing topics they are passionate about. Researchers could accept temporary arrangements when meetings and classes are opportunities seized to share interesting content.

As research managers we can better not see projects as building blocks for future structures, though one never knows. Mainly we can be jugglers that keep many projects as colourful balls in the air, to attract and inspire students and researchers alike. Let's do away with bureaucratic and long term planning. At best, university life is a string of moments and meetings that bring us opportunities to share and create new insights. You never know who you will meet and where, but with the right attitude this is an adventurous scientific journey. Each day you understand better how foolish you were yesterday, but there is no way to know what you may find out tomorrow.

Global risks

The report ‘Global Risks 2013’ of the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland, is impressive. You can find it here http://reports.weforum.org/global-risks-2013/

It provides an overview of risks as they are seen based on a yearly repeated survey of of over 1000 experts from industry, government and academia. Severe income disparities and chronic fiscal imbalance are considered the most prevalent global risks, next to (consequences of) greenhouse gas emissions e.g. for natural disasters.

The topic of ‘digital wildfires’ is scrutinized, including includes various risks related to the hyperconnectivity of society nowadays, such as massive digital misinformation and cyber attacks. For example, fake tweets have moved markets and influenced elections. This calls for an responsibility and a healthy skepticism of social media users. Obviously social media bring advantages as well as challenges.

Several of our research projects, and the researchers and students involved, aim at investigating and enhancing resilience, see www.crisiscommunication.com. Resilience can be seen on the level of individuals, groups and societies. It relates to the potential to bounce back and recover from crises. Resilience is considered especially needed where risks are non-predictable.

An important resource for resilience is human capital, communities that are able to self-organize. Flexibility and connections between institutions and with public groups, creativity and innovation help create safety as a co-production of social networks and governmental organizations. Communication can contribute to resilience by facilitating such cooperation. This includes sharing of information, e.g. by crowdsourcing. Monitoring social media is important, but what then? We should get also a clearer picture of communication strategies that facilitate this co-production and thus support resilience in various situations. There is a lot to be investigated and developed!

Old stereotypes die hard

Reaction to column by Pekka Mervola, newspaper Keski-Suomalainen, about too many and unnecessary communication officers that just polish organizational images (Turhaa töhinää viestinnässä)

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It must be disappointing that the number of journalists is under pressure, while the number of communication experts within organizations is rising (and where I come from faster than yet here).
But that is no reason to present such stereotypes of a profession that already 10 years ago was different than depicted by Pekka Mervola, as I also know of own practice.

I do not doubt that disappointing tales about professionals can still be found. But then, almost every day when I watch the work of journalists I am sometimes positively surprised but often disappointed that one isn’t much more critical and that there is so little investigative journalism.

He is welcome at our team where we teach students that an image is not something polished the way the organization wants it to be, but an image is owned by publics and valuable information on the organization’s legitimacy. Reputation needs to be earned and can’t be polished.

It must also be irritating to Pekka Mervola that communication experts do not spend all their time facilitating journalist reporting, actually the percentage of time is decreasing. Nowadays we have many other tasks.  Communication is an interface/bridging function that monitors consumer trends and issues relevant for the organization, and helps it to function better in cooperation with customers and other stakeholders. We also support change management.

Communication experts of organizations and journalists can both be considered attention workers, and can also both contribute to involving publics in decision making. Yes, we both have great ideals! Of course, both may also have opportunistic reasons and this may explain why you so cheaply utter these old-fashioned stereotypes, because you think either your palls may like it or it will deliver you more readers.

Actually, Pekka, we have much more in common and that may be a frightening thought to you…

Of course, I realize that it will be so easy to do away with my reaction, as it isn’t translated in Finnish, and yet that would be using even more stereotypes, now against foreigners. Of course, our communication staff department will be disappointed that I didn’t ask for translation. But maybe you have a heart and will visit us for an exchange of opinions and we can tell more about our different and modern views on communicative organizations. You are warmly invited.   ;-)

You may have to read this twice to appreciate the humour between the lines.
Prof. Marita Vos, University of Jyväskylä

Co-producing safety requires a changed culture in public administration

Mid December I was invited as a keynote speaker in an interesting Danish conference in Copenhagen. Much of the content of the day was devoted to the attacks in 2011 in Oslo and Utoya Norway (see earlier blog) and how we can improve preparedness for such sad events, but also other topics popped up of which some had also been mentioned by participants of the conference end of August in Davos Switzerland (also see an earlier blog). I would like to share these topics with you. One is the organizational culture in response organizations that makes it difficult to improvise in crisis times, and –related to this– the cooperation needed between response organisations and with citizen groups or communities.

          We plan for uncertain situations and exercise preparedness in the face of the unknown. If we plan in a too detailed way and develop too precise procedures, we will not be flexible enough to react to new and evolving situations. When we investigate scenarios we should keep in mind that these are just examples or prototypes of what could happen and that reality may be very different. Therefore, exercises should not focus on properly using procedures but rather on flexible problemsolving, in a less detailed but more effective way.

          In a crisis per definition structures collapse and hierarchies may not function in chaotic situations. However, many authorities have a culture of command and control. This makes it difficult to improvise in crisis times and flexibly answer to changing situations. A cooperative and flexible leadership style is also needed. This helps bridge cultural differences among different organizations in the response network, by bringing together experiences to find new solutions. The coalitions that need to be build in crisis times consist of organisations and public groups that may differ for each crisis situation.

          In developing countries community approaches in disaster management have been promoted in for several decades. Authorities and NGOs active in relief activities are expected to do so in contact with local civil groups. UN sources mention that this close cooperation still requires a shift in the culture of public administration. But it seems that for this, by now, western countries can learn from experiences in developing countries. Somehow Western European publics seem to delegate crisis preparedness to authorities, as indeed there are many specialist crisis response organizations. However, crisis response depends on a co-production with citizens and strong ties between expert organizations and citizen groups are an important resource. An example of such an inspiring philosophy can be found on the website of the American organization FEMA.

Some sources:
- Dynes, R.R. (1994), Community emergency planning: False assumptions and inappropriate analogies. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, 12(2), 141-158.
- Maskrey A. (2011), Revisiting Community-Based Disaster Risk Management. Environmental Hazards, 10(1), 42-52. (also see UNISDR)
- FEMA (2011), A whole community approach to emergency management: Principles, themes, and pathways for action. New York: Federal Emergency Management Agency. http://www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord.do?id=4941