Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Telling the broadband story – the government makes its case

Demonstrating the benefits of the national broadband network

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Paul Wallbank

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Further to yesterday’s post about NBNCo’s inability to tell a story, I received a polite message from the long suffering staff at the Minister’s office that pointed me to some of the resources that NBNCo and the Department of  Broadband, Communications and Digital economy have posted.

Here’s the list of case studies and videos;

http://www.nbn.gov.au/nbn-advertising/nbn-case-studies/

http://www.nbnco.com.au/nbn-for-business/case-studies.html

http://www.nbn.gov.au/case-study/noella-babui-business/

http://www.nbn.gov.au/case-study/seren-trump-small-home-based-business-owner/

All of these case studies are nice, but they illustrate the problem – they’re nice, standard government issue media releases. The original CNet story that triggered yesterday’s story tells real stories that are more than just sanitised government PR.

It also begs the question of where the hell are all these people successfully using the NBN when I ask around about them?

What’s even more frustrating is the Sydney Morning Herald seems to get spoon fed these type of stories.

The really irritating thing with stories like yesterday’s SMH piece is that it’s intended to promote the Digital Rural Futures Conference on the future of farming being held by the University of New England.

Now this is something I’d would have gone to had I known about it and I’d have paid my own fares and accommodation. Yet the first I know about this conference is an article on a Saturday four days out from the event. That’s not what you’d call good PR.

The poor public relations strategies of the Digital Rural Futures Conference is a symptom of the National Broadband’s Network’s proponents’ inability to get their message out the wider public.

When we look back at the debacle that was the debate about Australia’s role in the 21st Century, it’s hard not to think the failure to articulate the importance of modernising the nation’s communications systems will be one of the key studies in how we blew it.

Despite the best efforts of a few switched on people in Senator Conroy’s office, a lot more effort is needed to make the case for a national broadband and national investment in today’s technologies which are going to define the future.

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Comments

4 responses to “Telling the broadband story – the government makes its case”

  1. David Glance

    So – the problem with stories like the wireless cows is that this has been touted as being around the corner for so many years. Instead of the NBN, just insert your favourite enabling technology. Wireless cows really doesn’t need the NBN to facilitate it and the CSIRO is wrong to say that it will be ubiquitous – take it from someone who tried putting wireless sensors in vineyards

    The problem with the NBN is that – yes it will be generally better to have faster networks – but we really can’t say definitively how that is going to really benefit society – it certainly won’t suddenly transform us into a knowledge economy – nor surprisingly – silicon valley has a generally crap network infrastructure – try using T-Mobile to access 3G there for example – but that hasn’t stopped them.

    Reply
    1. Paul Wallbank

      Good points David, I think this is part of the problem – I had a client in 1998 who was monitoring his farms in Portugal from an office in Sydney via dial up modems, so basic telemetry is nothing new and not an issue.

      The Silicon Valley point is important and we need to realise that developing industrial hubs is about marshalling human capital as much as it is financial capital or natural resources. This is a big problem facing Australia where our human and financial capital has been focused on building and speculating on property for the past thirty years. The NBN can’t fix that.

      Reply
  2. maungle

    Completely agree Paul – it’s something I’ve been trying to point out for a couple of years now: http://explorecomms.com.au/2012/02/22/the-great-nbn-marketing-fail/

    Reply
  3. Gavin Heaton

    Yep – NBNCo seem to think the NBN is a story of technology. But it’s a story about changing people’s lives. You’d think that a decent ad agency would have picked up on that thread. Or maybe they did and the bureaucrats didn’t want to listen.

    Reply

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