It has been
one year since I started writing my wee column in the Waterford Today. WOW,
time does fly as you get older!
I switched
from another “Waterford” free sheet, due to the fact that it was not really
being produced in Waterford. As a “blow-in”, who is passionate about Ireland’s
Oldest City, I was very conscious that to be supporting the “Made in Waterford”
brand, I had to be contributing to a Waterford produced product. A chat with
Paddy (The Editor) Gallagher and we agreed a seamless transfer to Waterford
Today. A publication that has a small, but significant, tagline that you may
never even have noticed - “ABC accredited circulation”.
It is funny
that having worked, so many years ago, for the exhibition arm of a European
publishing company, that literally sold hundreds of thousands of pounds of
monthly advertising, I would once again understand the significance of Audit
Bureau of Circulation figures. These are figures that detail just how many
people are reading a particular publication.
Sometimes,
you do wonder if such stated figures are correct. But, judging by the number of
people who do tell me that they read my wee column, on a regular basis, I have
to assume that, in the case of Waterford Today, their readership numbers are
extremely high and reflective of the ABC accreditation.
That is
good news for me. As I know that when the newspaper arrives through your
letterbox or is collected at your local newsagent, you will read this and share
with other family members in the household. Yes, I also publish the article as
a blog and this in turn is shared through the Waterford Business Group and the
Ferrybank Newsletter (both on Facebook). These additional outlets give the
article extremely high readership numbers and for that I am eternally thankful
and, well, surprised and humbled.
To have the
opportunity to speak one’s mind, through the medium of print, without the need
to hide behind a pseudonym, is a wonderful opportunity to spark debate and
openly discuss significant issues. As can be seen from the reaction to my
recent article on Summerval. Front page headlines in one weekly newspaper and
headline billing on Deise AM!
The point
of such articles is to inform, you, members of the general public, by making
more
transparent the information that is readily available to you, but is
perhaps deliberately difficult to find. For Waterford to move forward we do
need more inclusiveness and this starts with early engagement and a more open
communication flow. Something that we in Waterford are, if the truth be told, not
particularly good at.
There
appears to be a communication block when it comes to getting many a vital message
across. Maybe, the people of Waterford have just switched off to the current
crop of communicators, as they feel that they are constantly being spun. Or
perhaps the way that the information, deigned to be divulged, is being packaged
is wrong, inappropriate and written in gobbledegook. The messaging becomes
irrelevant because it is presented very poorly.
An advert
on local radio does not reach ALL the masses. A notice in the local papers is
NOT always read. A leaflet left in a public building is NOT always picked up,
and so on.
To get any
message across and understood you need a combination of many resources. Perhaps
the one most forgotten about and most powerful is face to face interaction.
Nothing beats “wearing out the old shoe leather” when you need to maximise
communication messaging.
My wee
column, “Waterford Business Matters”, is my contribution to help readers
understand the many, many, issues that I see face the City, County and SE Region.
If we do not know the issues then we cannot tackle the source of our problems.
Economically
and socially we are in a very tough place and I feel that we need to be more
open, honest and frank with our discussions on how to make Waterford so much
better for EVERYONE.
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