No sh*t! What LibDems sewage splash teaches us about insight
Plus... free webinar on Residents' Surveys, why new MPs might be called Chris, auditing accessibility of your social posts, data mining to hold Zuck et al to account, and the Orlo Tour
No sh*t! What LibDems sewage splash teaches us about data and insight
The pretty disgusting problem of sewage dumping in our rivers is a big theme for the Lib Dems - and one which has so far been relatively successful as a campaigning issue for the yellows, who are seeking gains in the local elections and to increase their MPs in the next Parliament.
On 16 April the Times (which has been running an award-winning Clean It Up Campaign) ran a story headlined ‘Tories hold three quarters of worst-hit seats for sewage spills’
This news line was based on Lib Dem analysis of Environment Agency data on discharges of raw sewage into seas and rivers.
The Lib Dems have taken the raw data and assigned each spill incident to a constituency and the corresponding political party of the MP … leading to a conclusion about which political party was the worst for sewage in rivers.
This is a clever political story that layers multiple public datasets to find a new hook and hammer home a core narrative - landing it in a newspaper read by Tory voters. In many ways, a good job.
But is this really insight?
Think about it - it was never going to reflect badly on the Lib Dems. When you only have 15 MPs, the Conservatives 346 and Labour 201, you can be sure you won’t come off badly when you start totting up numbers in this way!
The LDs also certainly knew before they started the analysis they were onto a winner - after all, it would have taken quite a bit of work from a party with relatively small resources to pull all this together, so you’d want to have some assurance it told the story you wanted and would yield a strong attack line.
If you hold 346 of 650 constituencies (as the Conservatives do), by dint of that big number, total spill incidents and hours of overflow are going to add up to a lot - and (almost certainly) more than if you hold 201 seats or 15 seats. And don’t forget the Conservatives hold some big rural constituencies with lots of major rivers within them, which by dint of simply having more water mileage to spill into, is likely going to make for some big numbers.
For me, the chart in the article entitled Number of sewage spills by party in 2023 is particularly worthless in terms of insight.
Yes, you can definitely argue that the Conservatives have had 14 years to do something about the problem (and before them, New Labour) and apportion political responsibility that way. But given how deep-rooted and fundamental the national issue of overflow sewage overflows is (good long-read here from Sky News), I see no credible connection between the colour rosette your current local MP wears and how much sewage ends up in your rivers.
Put it like this; if the Lib Dems were to sweep to power and nab 346 seats, would the sewage spill numbers suddenly change, based on that change - no, they would not. If the volume of poo being pumped dropped, would the MP’s political party change? No, it would not.
There is no simple correlation you can draw between the two data points - one changing does not change the other.
What does this mean for comms pros?
This story, on one hand, demonstrates a clever way of using data in storytelling to support a broader narrative and present a fresh hook. However, it’s also a good example of data being used selectively rather than objectively.
It also shows us why data literacy is important in comms. If you were confronted with a story like that from a campaign group or journalist, having the ability to think critically about the flaws in the data and analysis can help you manage a story and ensure a balanced or even revised telling. Sometimes busy and non-data literate journalists will need the flaws in data supplied to them pointing out (this was confirmed by a police comms team I recently worked with).
Reputationally there can also be implications to (inadvertently) using data in a political or ideological way, especially if you work in the public sector.
You don’t need to be a data analyst, but having the ability to ask ‘is this analysis credible’ and do some initial ‘kicking of the tyres’ can be a valuable skill for your team and organisation.
Free Webinar: Surveys: Making comms count without the cost
Coming up on Wednesday 15 May (12 noon - 1pm) we're teaming up with friends from Hertfordshire Council to run a free lunchtime webinar on Residents' Surveys.
As many public organisations face ever-decreasing budgets, comms professionals are increasingly asked to do more with less, or even cut some activity.
Drawing on Hertfordshire's experiences of working with a low budget, this session aims to equip you with the skills and knowledge to produce your own in-house survey successfully, including:
The how and the what (what questions)
Understanding weighting and benchmarking
How to publicise the survey to drive up responses
How to share the results of the survey
Sign up here.
Making plans for... Chris?
Agency 56 Degrees North tell fun stories using their own internal data
Northern strategic comms and public affairs agency 56 Degrees North caught my eye with a LinkedIn Newsletter on "five statistics that you (probably) haven't seen elsewhere" on General Election candidates.
Insights include the serious (that most candidates are men) and that law is the most common profession for those standing, but also the not-so-serious - namely, that Chris is the most common name for candidates. What we also learn is that the agency is closely tracking those standing, in what is set (when Rishi finally sends the country to the ballot box) to be the biggest intake of new MPs for many years.
What does this mean for Comms Pros?
Good political intelligence is obviously a key commodity for 56 Degrees North and their current and prospective clients, so tracking those in the running to become new MPs and understanding their background and interests is pretty essential.
This piece of content serves to neatly and light-heartedly demonstrate their credentials, and is a great example of how you can extract value (in this case marketing and reputational value) from administrative data you already have with a little effort and some basic data skills.
While the fact the most common name of candidates is Chris is hardly usable insight, you're left in no doubt that a) they are on the ball, b) they are data savvy, and c) if you work with 56 Degrees you will get access to these types of granular insights and a whole lot more.
It's worth thinking about what data your team and organisation hold that, when analysed, could provide a fun and interesting segway into key themes and topics.
How accessible is your social content?
I’ve been deep in a social media audit for a local authority of late. One piece of insight that they have found most useful is Reading Grade assessment across their social media content during the whole of 2023.
The orange line is roughly Grade 4, equivalent of writing suitable for a 9-year-old. This is the level the Government Digital Service recommends for writing on .gov.uk sites.
The red line is roughly the reading age of a 14-year-old, which is recommended as a maximum level for written content for the ‘General Public’.
Where social media content uses lots of hashtags, ‘@’ symbols and emojis, there’s a fair amount of cleaning to do, and there will always be some degree of error on an individual basis.
However, over a dataset of hundreds and sometimes thousands of posts, this analysis gives a good visual yardstick of how accessible your content is overall. The underpinning data also allows you to pinpoint examples of higher reading grade content to avoid in future, and lower reading grade content to emulate.
Beyond reading age, there’s lot of scope for using this approach to audit use (or not) of accessible language and adherence to house style and tone of voice.
Using public data to keep Zuck and Co's feet to the fire on online safety
I’m delighted to be working over the next few months with online safety and young people's mental health charity Molly Rose Foundation. Even though the UK Online Safety Act and the EU Digital Services Act have both passed into law, it's (sadly) far from job done in terms of keeping young people safe online.
There is a real need to keep the pressure on policy makers and social media executives to ensure we as a society prevent dangerous self-harm content proliferating online. Over the next few months I'll be working with this fantastic charity to sample and crunch key public datasets to scrutunise the extent to which social media companies are fulfilling their legal, moral and ethical responsibilities.
As a dad to two teen/tween girls navigating a social-media dominated world, this is the type of work that fires me, and it's a huge honour to be asked to be involved.
If you have an idea for a similar project where data could be used as the basis for advocacy work, feel free to drop me a line. I offer a highly discounted rate for work with charities.
Join me on the Orlo Tour in Glasgow and Manchester
I'm really pleased to say that I've been asked to join this year's Orlo Tour in both Glasgow (19th June) and Manchester (10th July). I'll be joining forces with Darren Caveney to run a session on 'Facing Our Fears: Using Data for Great Comms'.
Aimed at public sector comms, marketing and customer service professionals, the Tour offers a free morning of insightful conversation, best practice advice, lessons learned and thought leadership.
The sessions also give you the opportunity to network with like-minded professionals and gain valuable insights from others in the public sector.
It's a fantastic opportunity to develop and gain inspiration – book your spot here.
Types of work I like to do
- Workshops: Data literacy (including AI) for comms pros: audience insights, campaign tactics and evaluation.
- Projects: Social media data deep dives, using quantitative and qualitative analysis of big datasets for better outcomes and efficiency.
- Thought leadership: Keynote sessions, 1:1 support and editorial pieces on data in comms.
- Bespoke: Data mining, cleaning and merging of datasets, data for storytelling, thematic analysis of big content datasets, advising on good practice.
If you work in comms and want to make more use of data in 2024, drop me a line at alex@whetstonecomms.com for a chat. I always love talking about data and learning from what others are doing and thinking.
Data Communications Chronicles is written by Alex Waddington, founder of Whetstone Communications, which helps public sector and not for profit comms teams do more - and deliver more - using data.