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Engaging the Community – Going Beyond the Cheap Steps

October 8, 2012
communciations, Leadership, management, Marketing water, sustainability
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In a prior blog, I raised the question about marketing your water to your community.  The issue resulted from a comment that public dollars should not be spent on advertising.  There were several comments about this and we perhaps need to explore that option further.  One question raised was “how do we engage our community?”  There are a variety of ways to engage the community, but most utilities pursue only superficial, and inexpensive solutions, if pursued at all.  The typical solutions include speaker’s bureaus, mailers, flyers, notes on water bills, the consumer confidence report, press releases, presentations at commission meetings and water conservation efforts.  But how well do these work?  Certainly every utility should pursue many if not all of these options.  Getting positive information out to the community is needed, but does it change the perception of the community toward the utility?  Hard to say, but if that is the goal, you may be surprised how limited the impact of these efforts may be.  For one thing, most mailers, etc are viewed as junk mail so are not read by the customers.  Likewise most people do not pay attention to commission meetings, or read the paper (assuming the paper publishes the press release).  So many of these well intended, and time consuming efforts may be create limited engagement.  More proactive and maybe time consuming efforts are often needed to create an impact.

So what might work better?  If trying to change perception of the utility, more hands-on engagement may be needed.  It may mean reaching targeted audiences that can change current or long-term perceptions.  This can occur in a number of ways.  Here are a few:

  • School competitions for water conservation, hydrant painting, model water tanks – the concept here is to provide fun to elementary and middle school kids while encouraging them to learn about a given topic.  Normally involves teachers and parents, which enhances the message and spreads the “word.”  There are state and national competitions that students can participate in as well.  Utility management support is required, as and some resources and some devotion of time from staff to coordinate efforts among students and teachers.  But it puts the utility in front of an impressionable audience and provides a learning opportunity very different from the normal classroom.  How would that not be memorable?
  • Middle school programs with utility staff – the concept here is to encourage utility staff to communicate directly with middle school kids about what they do.  The key is to get younger kids interested in pursuing jobs in the field.  One of the ongoing issues in the utility industry is “graying,” and the potential for almost 50% of the workforce to retire in the near future.  Getting students to change their careers in college is too late.  Often high school is as well.  Middle school kids have rarely given much thought to their careers.  What better way to recruit that to put the utility in front of kids and get them thinking about going into the water field.?
  • Tours of facilities for school kids – most students learn visually, so tours of the facility are useful to create interest and enhance learning. Security is an issue, but they are kids.  It is always useful to know what goes on with water and wastewater. And it’s normally a positive, out of the classroom experience.  What kid doesn’t like a field trip?
  • Summer internships for high school students – this is another effort to engage and educate students, while perhaps setting the stage for a future employee who understands what win needed to do the work.  Teachers and parents are required to be part of the process – otherwise who recommends the students ad how do they get to work?  It helps if this is coupled with earlier introductions to the utility, so kids have become interested in the career prior to the job opportunities.  Think about the kid who learns about and tours the utility in middle school, knowing internships might be available in a couple years.
  • Partner with local universities on research issues – The focus is universities, not trade schools or community colleges, because universities do research and this capacity is often underutilized in the business work.  In part this is because their mission is misunderstood – they teach students to think as opposed to technical skills, which means things might take a little longer.  But universities have lots of technical resources, literature and skills that can be useful to utility systems.  Often the cost is less than consultants, and the access to data and knowledge is usually beyond that of consultants as well.  The utility needs to find the right person to connect with for small projects as some university folks avoid small projects, but many engineering professors welcome the opportunities.  Also many universities are public entities, which means bid laws may not apply for public agencies.  That makes it easier….
  • Sponsoring research projects for graduate students – graduate students need projects to complete their thesis.  They need real data and utility projects and research are generally beneficial.  And they need jobs so research is like an extended interview.  Professors are looking for research to collaborate on.  Utilities often need testing of pilot projects before design is initiated or completed.  As a result, utility sponsored research is a win-win for everyone.
  • Offering paid internships for undergraduate students – college students need money to pay tuition and experience to get a job.  The utility can engage and educate students, while perhaps setting the stage for a future employee if they do the job well.  Internships are extended interviews to gauge student skills.  And universities can help recommend good students.  Another win-win.
  • College scholarships – scholarships recognize good students, while creating the potential to attract future talent.  AWWA has found that most students who receive scholarships in from the water industry, stay in the field.
  • Co-hosting conferences – many conferences are looking for sponsors, money and locations.  Local conferences normally get some press, which helps the water profession.  Another win-win.
  • Hosting training programs- like conference, training is something all engineers, finance people, and operations and field personnel need.  Like conferences, many training programs are looking for sponsors, money and locations.
  • Participation in activities like Habitat for Humanity – utilities have tools and skilled labor.  They can help with community based activities.  Management needs to be engaged and show leadership for such projects to be successful, but there can be no losers in activities like this.
  • Awards – Apply for them.  They are noteworthy, and publishable!
  • Newspaper advertisements about events or accolades – some elected officials are opposed to self-laudatory commentary or marketing.  But in the competitive environment we operate in, we need to maximize revenue opportunities.

There are more, how many utilities actually engage in these efforts.  Money is often used as a reason not to, but if long-term engagement is what is desired, perhaps spending limited dollars to pursued these options could present a positive benefit:cost ratio to the utility.  That would make it worthwhile.

Defining Leadership

October 4, 2012
communciations, Leadership, management, Marketing water, sustainability
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Defining leadership is like identifying ethics – it is easier to identify what is not leadership than what is.  In fact Scott Adams titled one of his Dilbert books “Don’t Step in the Leadership,” as a quip to indicate the difficulty in defining what is leadership.  One of the problems is that leadership cannot exist if there are no people following the direction.  Hence a leader of one is not a leader.

 

There is good and bad leadership.  Lemmings are an example of the bad leadership.  That’s what your mother was talking about when she asked you if you’d jump off a bridge to be like the other kids.  No, what we want is positive direction, with a long-term improvement to conditions or reduction is the severity of a risk or problem.  As a result is if often easier to measure results after the fact – it’s what we leave behind that defines leadership.  Hard to tell when leadership is happening now.

Elected officials are often pointed to as leaders, but we could spend pages discussing the fallacy of that argument.  For elected officials it is often circumstances that define their leadership skills:  Lincoln in the Civil War, FDR with the Great Depression and World War II, Washington refusing to be named king are examples of leadership.  Congress today, not so much.

Likewise we have business leaders, but mostly they are making money for their stockholders; few are making a big difference to use today.  The latter is why we all know Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Mark Zuckerberg, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone – they all made a difference in our lives and how we live.  But who is the CEO of Goldman Sachs?  See you probably don’t know and that’s the problem.  The impact on your life is missing.

Hollywood puts up leaders.  Ok I like Clint Eastwood, but aside from some great movies he’s made or directed, I don’t really have much reason to follow him personally.  Mostly we know a lot about what we don’t want, see the  Kardashians.  Music is similar – not much leadership there despite some great, and potentially insightful tunes (thanks Ronnie van Zant, Hughie Thomasson and Danny Joe Brown, RIP all).  No, leadership is not defined in the entertainment industry.

Leadership is defined by leaders, which is the problem since leadership it is how leaders approach situations.  It is what leaders envision that causes others to buy into their vision and cooperate toward achieving their goals.  It is how they approach a challenge and coalesce resources to resolve it, regardless how big the issue may be.  It is how they carry the torch, while supporting their staff which does the work.  It is how they guide as opposed to direct employees.  It is how they share accolades with the staff and accept the blame for failure, as opposed to the opposite.  All good, but most times leadership is hard to see when it is happening.  Ultimately, leaders are defined by what they leave behind – does the organization or product survive their departure, or not?  The goals of Lincoln and FDR survived their passing.

So what is leadership and how do we apply it to the water industry?  Well I’m not sure we are any closer to a definition of leadership, but maybe we have a better idea what to look for.  Clearly leaders in the water industry will be the ones trying to create a long-term vision that will be expected to survive their time in the field.  They will argue for sustainable use of water and the necessity to cooperate and communicate with other users to reach optimal solutions to over-allocation issues.  They will test new technologies as solutions to old problems.  They will implement “outrageous” concepts like indirect potable reuse and develop cooperative efforts with other industries to get to solutions like using water and wastewater sites to generate distributed power,  things most don’t consider cost effective or proper today.  They will participate in research efforts and outreach to the public and the youth.  And they will empower and train their staff.  Ok, maybe not all these things, but look around, where are the leaders in your utility?

We need to talk more about this subject….

 

 

If You Manage An Aquifer To Last 100 Years, Does This Demonstrate Good Leadership?

September 29, 2012
communciations, groundwater, infrastructure, Leadership, management, sustainability, water sewer management, water supplies
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Across the United States, we hear the regulatory discussions about managing groundwater supplies.  There are 20 year plans (which many think is the long-term perspective), 50 year plans and 100 year plans; no doubt a myriad of others.  The concept of managing groundwater seems reasonable, but the query here is whether or not managing for a finite period demonstrates good leadership.

In most cases, the concept of managing aquifers for finite periods is associated with the need or desire by local and state officials to develop a certain region, and obtaining the necessary water to meet development projections.  “Sustainability” for elected officials and developers is distinctly different than that of water resource professionals. The whole intent of elected officials and developers is to continue to build more, attract more people and business and, well, to use more water.  This is in contrast to the fact that water supplies in most basins is relatively finite or fixed, which means that inevitably the supply will be exceeded by local demands, the opposite of “sustainability” from a water resource perspective.  Compounding the problem is that water resource professionals are normally pretty creative in stretching finite supplies with reuse, conservation, use policies, restrictions and augmentation with other supplies, actions and programs which actually may work against their long-term goal of sustainability – there is a finite number of reasonable solutions that may work, each with increasing cost to the customers, which works against the goals for the elected officials to limit costs to customers.  As a result, a conflict over the differing views of “sustainability” are inevitable.  As solution requires leadership.

Leadership is understanding that there are constraints to the resources.  Leadership is understanding that there is a limit to the reasonable solutions and a limit to development, or the type of development that can be accommodated.  For example in Colorado, Denver Water, going back 100 years, built tunnels and reservoirs to transfer water from the west side of the Rockies to the east.  This worked for 70 years or so, until the Denver area started to explode, exceeding the capacity of those transfer systems.  As this occurred, groundwater was far less costly than tunnels, reservoirs and acquiring access to water supplies west of the Rockies (and the downstream water delivery contracts impacted this as well).  A 100 year management plan was developed and approved by the State Legislature in 1985 to allow water to be withdrawn from the Denver Basin, despite very limited recharge.  This is not to say that the plan for management was not a good leadership start (certainly it is an improvement over doing nothing), but what happens in 70 years?  We assume some up with a solution to extend the life of the aquifer, but when will that occur and who will lead that charge?   What will be the political backlash when the initial rumblings begin?  The good news is that the major users are utilities, which have resources to pay for treatment, aquifer storage, indirect potable reuse, direct potable reuse and a host of other potential options, but not every basin is so lucky.  If the major users are agriculture or ecosystems, who pays that bill?  If the answer is no one, what happens to the industry?  The jobs?  Communities?  People?

The query begs the question, how do we align competing definitions for sustainability, as defined by local officials, developers, water resource professional and others?  And how do we educate the local officials and the populace of the perils of over-allocation of water supplies?  This is a legacy leadership issue, and it requires hard and sometimes unpopular decisions that can change the course of history.

Legacy leadership is defined by what is left behind not by the current condition.  It’s how we change our thinking and actions to adapt to the changed conditions.  We look back as great water projects of the 20th century – Hoover Dam, the channels carrying water to Los Angeles from the Colorado River and central California that allowed southern California to develop, or the numerous dams across the west that permitted crops to grow in arid regions.  You can search out who led those projects.  That is their legacy.  Those that came afterward reaps the rewards created from the efforts of these leaders.  Now we face a changing condition in the 21st century.  Who will take the 21st century leadership mantle?  And how will we change our viewpoint to protect our resources?  We can start by trying to change the perception of deeper groundwater, especially confined systems, as primary water sources, when they may better serve us in the long-term as back-up or emergency sources in many regions, with surface water as the primary sources.  Where surface waters and surficial aquifers do not exist, perhaps development as desired by local officials is not the sustainable way to go?  So who takes the lead in those areas where there are insufficient resources and tells the developers, no you can’t develop here?  That will be leadership….

 

Marketing Water – Why Don’t we do this?!

September 12, 2012
communciations, finance, funding, infrastructure, management, Marketing water, sustainability, water sewer management, water supplies
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A comment I heard recently from an elected official was that it was inappropriate to use public dollars for their water agency to market their water product.  Interesting, and it suggests a major barrier to the development of local utility systems.  The cell phone companies, cable television, bottled water companies and security agencies all market constantly to our customers.  Virtually all of them charge more for their service than we do for water and wastewater.  The costs for all have increased faster than water and sewer.  But try surviving in the desert with only cable tv and no water.

Utilities compete with every other vendor for the same dollars.  They want our customers to value their products more.  They want our customers to divert dollars to them, so they need to increase the value of their products in the minds of our customers.  This is what marketing is all about.  If you cannot show the value of your product, the value diminishes in comparison to other products.  So while the needs for water and sewer systems increase, we see more of our customers’ dollars go elsewhere and the accompanying  demands to control our rates.

Water and wastewater systems must market their product.  Clean healthy water is available to virtually everyone.  People expect their faucet will turn on and provide good quality water, and that the toilet will flush.  They take it for granted, yet much of the world does not enjoy the same quality of consistency in service.  Water service is a commodity, and comes with a cost.

We say we want to operate the utility like a business, and many systems are run this way.  Most charge based on usage (or should).  But we fail to pursue one of the basic tenets of running a business:  marketing our product.  The annual CCR is not a marketing tool.  Water bills can convey messages, but they do not really function as marketing either.  Water conservation programs can help, but here the message is use less, not the benefit of the product.  We simply do not market water.  It is why the bottle water industry continues to grow, despite the fact that public water systems offer water at least as safe and healthy as bottled water, subject to more regulatory oversight, at a fraction of the cost.

So given that utilities, the majority of which are owned by local governments, are operated like a business, why shouldn’t we spend money on marketing the benefits of clean, safe water?  Why not market the benefits of 24/7 service?  Why not highlight the efforts of dedicated employees that ensure the system operates 24/7?  Why not raise consciousness of the water commodity to increase its value in the public’s eye?  The only reason not to market is the benefit competing services.  That does not benefit the public good, nor support the need to recover the costs of service and repair and replacement needs of the system.

Creating a marketing plan, or branding program for your utility is a major undertaking.  DC Water spent year re-branding their system to raise consciousness.  Creating marketing programs to engender success requires multi-media outlets, consistent messages, and vision.  It requires that employees and elected officials be on the same page with their customers.  We need to understand customer expectations of the service to raise value in their minds.  If marketing can sell pet rocks, we can market the value of water.  It is in our best interests to do so.

Communication, like water is a need

September 9, 2012
communciations, Environment, finance, funding, infrastructure, management, Marketing water, sustainability, water sewer management, water supplies
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Water management is a fundamental need for the development of civilizations. Always has been.  If you have any question about this, ask yourself what differentiates the developed world from the undeveloped.  Water supply, sewage management and flood control rank 1-3 among the differences.  Safe drinking water and good sanitation go back beyond the Romans, and is a necessity to insure that the populace, and those performing work are productive as opposed to sick all the time.  At present there are agencies that operate to manage water supplies and drainage, and a few that do both.  Mostly these are regional agencies, which belies the need for local decision making to respond to local conditions.

An example – in 2007/2008 the State of Florida was in the midst of “sever drought.”  The water management agencies spent considerable time and political capital working on water conservation strategies, limiting utility withdrawals, cutting permit allocations and demanding conversions to alternative supplies in the future.  The southern half of the state was hard hit.  Utility customers cut their demands significantly.  Unfortunately the customers’ reward was surcharges to make up lost revenues to overcome large operating shortfalls and potential defaults on borrowing documents.  The short-term implementation was designed regionally, but had significant local consequences that were not considered.

But more interesting was the actual “drought” conditions.  It seems that the hard hit areas were in the central part of the state, not the southeastern coast.   The central part of the state, including the Everglades had received about 60% of the average rainfall, but along the coast, the two year shortage averaged less than 10%, and most residents realized that their rainfall accumulations were not as severe as inland.  Since most of the southeast coast’s water supplies were local, not based on the central part, the local question rose, “why were the water conservation measures required of these utilities and residents? and  Why was this not a locally driven issue?”

The case highlights the fact that while most water resource planning efforts are regional, the impacts occur locally, and often local impacts are not fully considered.   Credibility of the utilities is critical for emergencies or difficult situations.  During this condition, a survey of coastal utility customers found that the customers were better informed on rainfall totals than the regional information provided, which undercut the credibility the local utilities were trying to build with their customers, which impacts future needs for cooperation at the local level.  Something about crying wolf…

Why aren’t We Paying the Cost for water and Sewer?

July 8, 2012
Environment, finance, funding, infrastructure, management, water sewer management
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It is budget season again which means the annual battle for water and sewer rates.  The costs for power and chemicals go up every year, and billions of dollars of deferred maintenance obligations exist.  So why is it that utilities find it so hard to get the revenues needed to update and operate?  The easy answer is politicians, but the issue is more complicated than that.

 

Much of the growth and expansion of the US and Canadian economies can be traced to the development of water, sewer, storm water and transportation infrastructure.  Without water, and associated wastewater disposal, the public health suffers, people get sick, and are less productive than if they are healthy (and you don’t need transportation then).  The lack of clean water is a major barrier to growth and development in many parts of the world.  So going back over 100 years, the federal government saw the benefit of improving drinking water quality.  Utilities responded, building filtration and disinfection facilities which were so successful that we are still reaping the benefits of those improvements.  Many central cities began expanding their systems as a means to provide service to surrounding communities.

Development of regulations relating to metals in water occurred in the 1940s, and developed through the 1962.  The Safe Drinking Water Act reaffirmed many of these standards, and of course added new ones as new constituents.  Over 90 percent of the US population has access to safe, potable drinking water on a 24/7 basis.

Unfortunately we do too good a job and have for 100 years.  People take safe water and sewer for granted.  Regulation or not, people assume it’s all good (the bottled water folks aside (see Peter Gleick’s new book).

 

The solution?  Marketing.  Local governments, their employees, their systems and their solutions are all kept under wraps.  No one actively markets the benefits of utilities?  Why not?  Why don’t we use our CCRs, monthly newsletters, meetings, and community involvement to market ourselves.  True most of us in the industry are not great marketers and we see so many other issues it is not a priority.  The private sector sees the benefits of marketing, but utilities often see the lack of active marketing in the attitudes of our elected officials, who do not often understand the value of the service.  IF people value your product they will pay for it.  The difficulty that many utilities have in getting rate increases to update and improve their inrastructure is an indication of failure to understand the value of the product.  That’s a marketing failure!  I once had an elected official tell me marketing was not something the public sector should do.  I asked why.  There was no answer, but he acknowledged it would help.  So we need to make marketing our efforts, and products.  So who’s got some great ideas out there to market?  Who has some great success stories we can all use?