During its meeting on 14 and 15 September 2016 in Madrid, the EA CPC started to work on translating the EA Strategy 2017-2025, still to be worked out, into a communication plan.
Early in the process, the EA Communications and Publications Committee (CPC) dedicated one full day of the committee meeting in Madrid to a workshop covering a future communication plan, EA’s use of social media and short-term updating of the EA website.
The work is heavily influenced by the preliminary results from the EA strategy development project. Luckily the CPC is chaired by Peter Kronvall from SWEDAC, who is also much involved in the EA strategy project.
Although the strategy is not yet finalized, discussions on actual tasks for fulfilling the strategy prove very fruitful. They prepare EA for future work items and resource needs, while feeding valuable insight back into the strategy project. Measurability, strategic choices and clear objectives for the organisatio needs to be easily communicated. When elaborating on the strategy, it can be hard to identify the objectives that underlie actual tasks. “Discussing the strategy in the view of producing a communication plan will strengthen the strategy project”, says Peter Kronvall.
CPC members put a lot of energy and efforts in the Madrid workshop session so that all three addressed topics could be progressed:
Communication and marketing plan: a first draft has been produced and will be circulated for comments among CPC members by 30 September. It is expected to finalize the communication and marketing plan shortly after the endorsement of the EA Strategy 2025.
Social media: a draft “publication plan” for twittering covering one year from 1 October 2016 has been developed and will be circulated for comments within the CPC by 30 September. The “publication plan” will be a very useful tool for the EA Secretariat which is in charge of managing the EA Twitter account.
EA website: a number of improvements have been identified and will serve as an input to the ongoing development of the EA website. Special attention was given to the parts describing the EA MLA and the peer-evaluation process.