EP #139 Clarity Over Cleverness

In the GovComms chair this week is the Director of Communication with Cushman & Wakefield, Ben Roberts. Ben is an experienced strategic communication expert with comprehensive experience in the Australian Public Service and in the Australian Defence Industry.

A Navy veteran, Ben has spent the last several years in senior communication roles in the Defence industry and prior to that he was a senior speechwriter in the public service where he wrote for Ministers, agency heads, the Senior Executive Service, ambassadors, and more. He was also a political adviser many years ago.

Ben talks about how he began his career in communications with host, CEO, and founder of contentgroup, David Pembroke.

"What I really cut my teeth on was speech writing, especially. Lots of speeches, lots of constituent correspondence and things like representations to ministers. That's where somebody will come in and say, "I need your help with this matter. Can you please write a letter to the minister on my behalf and kind of flag this issue with them?" Doing lots of that kind of work. Also, things like op-eds, media releases with the Cumberland Newspapers and all that kind of stuff. It was really great"

The pair also discuss how best to communicate with ministers offices. Who to befriend, and how best to leave your mark.

"Always make friends with your EAs and your EOs, they're the gatekeepers to your senior executives and they're a very important person for you to be friendly with because they can be influential and they can also give you more information when you need it. And you don't necessarily want to bother, you don't want to bother your DepSec, but you can talk to the EO and get the information that you need out of them. That's really important."

The two discuss some of the best advice to help government communicators engage effectively with citizens, to help build community, and to help restore trust in government. Some of this advice includes your communication being frequent and sincere, clear and concise and understanding context.

"Firstly, you need to be clear, and that's a point in really all communication and something that I'll return to time and time again when discussing this with people, which is don't ever try and sound clever. Go for clarity instead. Clarity over cleverness every day, all the time. "

Discussed in this episode:

• The importance of context
• The future of communications
• Why you should utilise your LinkedIn

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