Public authorities often have a very dry, formal, rather boring style of communication. While correct and professional, sometimes you wish they would lighten up a bit!
ROMANSE is the organisation that carries out traffic control and co-ordinates travel information for Southampton and much of South Hampshire. Following a spillage of cooking oil in Southampton Road, Eastleigh, this afternoon it was fantastic to see this appear on their
Twitter feed...
E'LEIGH: Cooking oil spillage on Southampton Rd jct w/ Derby Rd, road to be closed at 1730. Fry-version via Chestnut/Passfield Ave/Leigh Rd.
...followed shortly afterwards by this...
A335 Eastleigh - Road now re-opened N/B between Derby Rd and Blenheim Rd after earlier spillage. Road now Crisp 'n' Dry!
Full marks to whoever was manning their office with a sense of humour!
This one (we appear to have a phobia of direct linking) was quite good too: http://twitter.com/ROMANSE/status/24745501379272704
ReplyDeleteI worked with them long before the days of Twitter, and if it's anything like it used to be then the traffic news side of things is usually be managed by one or two people at a time, so it's quite a personal and informal setting already. You should see the contents of some of the internal emails!
I think it's important authorities give tasks to people with the right style to match their audience - and Twitter is hardly used for serious communication. A lot of companies and services underestimate the importance of this - the Bournemouth Echo has hundreds of people following it who aren't the slightest bit interested in Bournemouth but enjoy reading their tweets. I know because I'm one of them!
I passed alert to a freind. He said
ReplyDelete"Very droll, if I may say so. It’s good to know that at least one public body can cook up something happily digestible when the chips are down!"
Thanks for enlivening an awful day