Latest / Modern Gov Matters / Making Connections and Climbing Higher at 3CMA's Annual Conference
Transcript
- Speaker 1: Find a network. Find your people. Find a group that energizes you. Find a group that you can count on. And hopefully you find that with 3CMA. Sarah Loyd: Welcome to Modern Gov Matters. I'm Sarah Lloyd, and this podcast is all about honest conversations with public sector communicators about what's working, what's not, and the stuff that keeps you up at night. Modern Gov Matters is presented by CivAll, powered by Social News Desk. This week we're at the 3CMA annual conference in Denver, Colorado. CivAll is the grand sponsor, and we've been excited to talk to many government communicators about what they're getting out of the conference. Speaker 1: My name's Ashley Hughes. I'm from DeKalb County, in Illinois. Speaker 2: Okay, and is this your first time at the conference? Speaker 1: First time at three CMA, so I'm loving it. Speaker 2: All right. And what's been your favorite part so far? Speaker 1: I think my favorite part is I am a one person team. so to get some valuable tools that help support the work I do every day, being a one person team, and just being around like-minded individuals that get it, is always refreshing, right? We have a 24 member board, 24 departments, and sometimes they don't understand my world. So it's nice to be around others that understand our worlds. Speaker 2: Yeah. What's been the most surprising thing about this conference for you? Speaker 1: I think how robust it is, how many people are here, I'm very impressed by the time and the details that they took to do this conference. I've been to several other conferences and I would say this one definitely stands up to to be top up top of those leaderboards. it's it's a nice refreshing experience. Speaker 2: Awesome. And what would be one piece of advice you would give to other government communicators? Speaker 1: I would say Find a network. Find your people. Find a group that energizes you. Find a group that you can count on. And hopefully you find that with 3CMA. Sarah Loyd: my name is Ashley Leong. I work for the city of College Park, Georgia. Okay. And is this your first time at 3CMA? Yes, this is my first time at 3CMA. It's been a lot of fun so far. It's been really cool seeing everyone from all over the place. Just like meeting people from California, Canada, Virginia. It's been really nice. Yeah. And what's one thing that has surprised you about this conference? I think the most surprising thing is being able to speak to everyone from different states, like how relatable our work is to our communities, like how we have sort of similar problems, similar similar projects, but we all have like a really nice passion for helping the community and bring these projects to life. All right. And what's one thing you've learned so far that you're gonna take home with you? I think my best takeaway from this conference was probably the engagement session, just really diving deeper into being more engaging, more collaborative with the public. They learning that at any point in time they still want to be involved in the process and they want not just feedback but they want to be included in our work and because it affects their lives point blank period. So they they want to be included and keeping that engagement and collaboration involved is very important. All right, and what is one piece of advice you'd give to other government communicators? one piece of advice I give is to definitely keep an open network. You never know when you can reach out to other people for help for advice for something specific or something general that you just haven't tackled yet. There's always avenues to to improve make improvements or find help in many ways. So I am Christian Magana, I'm the public information officer for the city of Yuma. It's been a great experience just getting to know what everybody goes through in that it's not just a City of Yuma exclusive thing. We all kinda experience the same thing and It's just great to bounce ideas back and forth to see what we can do to be more engaging with our public, with residents. Yeah, I've been hearing that a lot from people today, that they're just you know, excited to make connections with other people who are going through the same thing. Yes, yes. I mean data centers is a big topic. I know that a lot of people are worried about water, especially with the Colorado River reduction. So it's just great to hear how people are approaching those kind of sit those situations and bringing trust to the residents because at the end of the day we're all here to be good stewards of our our cities and our counties for our residents. Yeah, absolutely. what's been your favorite part of the conference so far other than you know just making connections? I think it's just learning about how to engage with the public right now there's a lot of unfortunately there's a lot of mistrust in municipal government and it's just great to hear from experts about how to approach the residents and to instill that trust because like I mentioned at the end of the day we're all here it's for our residents. Yeah absolutely and what's one piece of advice you would give other government communicators? Take the time, listen to your community and if you listen to your community they will give you what you need to do to bring up that trust. Speaker 1: Hi, my name is Keisha Gaz and I'm with the City of College Park, Georgia. Speaker 2: All right. And is this your first time at 3CMA? Speaker 1: Yes, this is my first time here in Denver and 3CMA. Speaker 2: All right, and how have you liked the conference so far? Speaker 1: So far the conference is interesting to see different people from like different states and cities, but we all have like the same common interests, knowledge, as well as like obstacles that we hit. Speaker 2: Yeah. And what's one thing you've learned at the conference so far that you're gonna take home with you? Speaker 1: everyone deals with the same issue. It's not just you when you feel like it's you, it's not you. So that's one thing I have learned. And then another thing that I've learned is different techniques that I can use day to day. For one, they talked about incorporating a newsroom because sometimes when people want you to post things on social media or the website, the good information for the citizens gets varied. So you can either create a different website or just create an icon to make sure all of the important information stands. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great advice. And what's one piece of advice in general that you'd give to another government communicator? Speaker 1: So another advice, well one piece of advice that I would give is to attend conferences because you can always learn something new that you didn't know and to get out of your area and meet new people. Sarah Loyd: I'm Scott Lehtonen, the executive director for 3CMA. we help run the conference. We have a lot of folks in the background who make it happen. It's myself, Catherine, are the two full-time staff. But again, without all these hands helping to make it happen, we would not be here today. All right. And what what brought us to Denver this year? What are you excited about in Denver? Denver, the last time we were here was twenty nineteen. It was the first conference that we had sold out and has been the number one requested location to return to. So we're really excited once some of the citywides moved and we were able to secure a location for our twenty six annual conference. All right. And I understand this year's conference has been huge. tell me a little bit about kind of the size and scale of the conference this year as compared to previous years. We have continued to grow each year. As I mentioned, the first time we sold out was twenty nineteen in Denver. This year, with eight hundred and eighty attendees, we are sold out. The hard part is that we have more than a hundred People on the waiting list. Saying no is one of the worst things to say. We love saying yes. We're simply limited by capacity, but we're looking forward to next year. We can invite even additional attendees to be a part of the conference. All right. And what's your advice for people who want to come next year? Register early. Get a hotel room. Make sure you get yourself in the block. Go ahead and give us a call if you can't get in. We're always happy to help accommodate that, but register early. Alright, and tell me where it is next year. We are going to be in New Orleans at the Hilton on the riverfront September 8th. through ten. That's wrap from the 3CMA annual conference in Denver, Colorado. If you found this episode helpful or interesting, please share it. And for more episodes, visit moderngovmatters.com. I'm Sarah Lloyd, and we'll see you again in two weeks.