If you’ve ordered my paperback book from Amazon, especially in the UK and have been told it’s out of stock, I can only apologise. To be honest, I’m bewildered, confused and more than a little annoyed. I suspect this is a combination of incompetence on the part of IngramSpark (who is my printer and supplier […]
Let’s imagine that we have a vaccination campaign that has gone really well in New Zealand, with a high proportion of the population receiving the Pfizer / BioNTech jab. As more people get vaccinated, community protection also increases. Let’s also imagine that, globally, numbers of cases of Covid-19 have fallen dramatically, but pandemic coronavirus variants […]
In my lengthy blog post yesterday, I talked about what the exit narrative for New Zealand may look like now we know more about the vaccination strategy. Thinking further about this, what I’ve realised is that the task is about changing New Zealanders’ relationship with the future. Let me explain. When the pandemic started, it […]
This psychologically-informed post offers suggestions for reframing the current narrative for strategic, high level Covid-19 communications. My analysis describes the current successful minority influence approach, but also the risks of continuing along this path. I propose moving from a story of safeguarding to a narrative of the potential benefits that are unlocked through vaccine uptake […]
The two earthquakes overnight offshore are likely to have woken many people up, who then had trouble getting back to sleep, or who had to evacuate because they lived in a potential tsunami-risk area. Or perhaps they had kids who were frightened and couldn’t get back to sleep. Or maybe you slept through the whole […]
In conditions of uncertainty, or when we are not entirely sure how to act or what to think, we look to others for cues on what we should be doing. This is where we all need to act as leaders. To practise physical distancing, to wear a mask if we can. To wash our hands. […]
I remember back to when I first started pushing back in Central Government on NZ on the idea that the Canterbury Earthquake recovery would be done in 2 years. This was the conversation that was happening in rooms in which I was being asked to provide advice, and appearing in documents too. One of the […]
The latest Auckland outbreak and the associated Level 3 restrictions can give us a clue as to just how transmissible the UK variant of the coronavirus can be in a school environment. This concerns me. The big bang approach to schools re-opening in England on March 8 was first going to be supported with mandatory […]
Low risk doesn’t mean no risk. This is the coronavirus comms challenge now. Anger directed against what is essentially a highly mobile, adaptive and close to inanimate object whose sole purpose of being is to replicate itself quickly and widely doesn’t really make sense. So we direct our ire towards the unwitting hosts of the […]
The situation explained at the 9pm conference is dynamic and very difficult, with Auckland being plunged into a high level of uncertainty again. Our sense of psychological safety is being challenged from multiple directions – not only by the potential spread of the virus that is being actively tested and traced, but also through people […]