United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Statistical Division Summary of 26 organization reports UNECE Work Session on the Communication and Dissemination of Statistics Warsaw, May 2009

Anne-Christine Wanders - UNECE Statistical Division Slide Managing communication and credibility  External communication & dissemination functions: great diversity  Handling crises & communicating on misperceptions  guidelines, policy or plan in 13 organizations  need plan or improvement of procedures  openness – transparency – fast reactions

Anne-Christine Wanders - UNECE Statistical Division Slide Managing communication and credibility Challenges & concerns  Improve statistical literacy  Enhance trust & confidence  Improve usability & accessibility of statistical information on website  Competition for media attention  Shortage of staff & financial resources

Anne-Christine Wanders - UNECE Statistical Division Slide To charge or not to charge  Free: all information on website  Fees: printed publications, custom tabulations, microdata  Contracts for access to microdata in some organizations  Creative Commons licensing used in Australia & considered in Norway

Anne-Christine Wanders - UNECE Statistical Division Slide To charge or not to charge Challenges & concerns  Application of pricing & licensing policies  Frequent review & update  Maintain practices with growth of internet

Anne-Christine Wanders - UNECE Statistical Division Slide Working with the media How to maintain & improve media relations  Media training for staff  Hire media specialists  Cooperation between statisticians & information advisers  Press room on website – priority to media requests – statistics training  Media monitoring

Anne-Christine Wanders - UNECE Statistical Division Slide Working with the media Challenges & concerns  Improve media statistical literacy  Information overload – competitive news agenda – lack of specialist journalists  Improve relationship with the « new media »  More efficient media monitoring (web)

Anne-Christine Wanders - UNECE Statistical Division Slide Improving internal communication Current management  Intranet increasingly used  still extensively used  Newsletters in some organizations  Staff meetings – open sessions  Social events

Anne-Christine Wanders - UNECE Statistical Division Slide Improving internal communication Solutions  Foster two-way communication  Improve management communication  Internal training & coaching in communication  Increase interaction between operational groups  Make better use of new technologies

Anne-Christine Wanders - UNECE Statistical Division Slide Education & outreach strategies Existing strategies  Systematic pre-informing of respondents  Focus groups for new surveys  Censuses: marketing campaigns – outreach to local authorities & pressure groups  Multilingual distribution list – outreach to variety of media  Education section on website

Anne-Christine Wanders - UNECE Statistical Division Slide Education & outreach strategies Challenges & concerns  Lack of resources  Multiple, persistent language barriers  Establishing trust and credibility

Anne-Christine Wanders - UNECE Statistical Division Slide Other issues  Too much dissemination & too little communication in release practices  Delimitation between communication & dissemination processes

Anne-Christine Wanders - UNECE Statistical Division Slide Interest in experiences on…  Quality management in dissemination  Communication models  Use of new media & Web 2.0  Use of incentives to improve response rates  Pre-releasing data to media under embargo conditions  Quantifying effectiveness of public relations & media outreach activities