NATIONAL CONFERENCE

ON THE CONVERSION OF THE I.T. SYSTEMS TO

THE YEAR 2000

ROME, JUNE 17-18, 1999

Summary of the address of

Mariella Gramaglia, Deputy General Director,
Comune di Roma,

to the round table of June 18, 1999, on

"Communication to the citizen "

    Nothing, in public communication, is more hazardous than communicating the uncertain. 

    Public communication is a participant of the information universe, with a hystory that is far more recent than the press's but subject to very stringent ties: curtness, accuracy, objectivity, source certification, narrow margins for imagination. These rules must be stricly adhered to if the risk of sliding along the inclined plane of propaganda, against which citizens have long been immunized by the negative experience of the past and of which are, therefore, understandably suspicious, is to be avoided.

    Public communication is also a participant in the world of advertising.  On one condition: that only what is there be advertized for what it is and overstating be carefully avoided.
     Consumers may let a foam bath advertiser drag them into a dream bubble, but will be mercyless with the municipal utility advertiser. 

    I am talking the obvious for those in the know, but worth recalling when the millennium bug is on the floor, a theme wherein it is difficult to pass anything for certain, where even top experts seem to be daunted by doubts, while promising an exhaustive conversion of all of the system processes is but wishful thinking.  

    Therefore, the risk exists that we divide along the path of emotivity and irrationality, rather than one of rational approach. The optimist will praise the paradoxical advantage of Italy's system backwardness as compared with the US's, or finger out press sensationalism, or else, allege I.T. corporate economic interests as the sources of arbitrary anxiety inflation.  The pessimist will blame the former for using these alibi as the superstitious uses the amulet, to shy away from responsibilities, to plunge his head under the sand.

    The only mottoes I can offer, before the complexity of this problem, are: cool off emotions and single out problems.

    The former being especially addressed to friends and colleagues of the press and mass communication media, the latter to those of us who operate within the institutional universe.

    Millennialism, as the turn gets closer, is too easy and appealing a journalistic temptation, easily nourished by the gap (dramatically widened in the course of the century) between the swift pace of scientific development and the scarce understanding of its logics and mechanism.  Not to fall into this trap is to render a good service to the reader, is to produce good journalism.

    As far as we are concerned, I believe that nothing more ill-prepared could we devise than a generic "erga omnes" type communication, whether re-assuring, or of "mise en garde" (who for? what for?).

    First of all we must put our own house in order--which, to a good extent, be it known, we have already been doing--following three phased steps.

• Assessment and conversion of large I.T. systems.  For a large Municipality two macro-examples may suffice: Registry Office management system and salary management system for a number of employees that may equal that of a small town population.  At this level, information technology is the most important capacity to be deployed.

• Organizational tune-up, service process control, and assessment of possible domino effect whereby a disruption could affect others and trigger failures amongst different public entities that provide adjoining services.  Here, organizational capacities come into play.  At the municipal level, those of the general directors, at the level of city systems others, more horizontal ones, obviously in coordination with the former.  In our case, the Prefettura and the Agenzia per il Giubileo.  At this stage, contingency and alternative plans must also be (are being) prepared.

• It is only at this stage, when technical, organizational, internal communication and public manager awareness promotion activities have been refined, that speaking of external information would make any sense.

  With an obvious care to both the message and the media.

     A re-assuring message will make sense only if and when verification of public management committments will be such as to allow us to tell the citizen that there is nothing to worry about:  main services will be operational and hoarding would have no rational basis.  On the other hand, if margins of insecurity persist, recommendations should be accurate and target oriented: for example, retailers for the cold-chain, condominium administrators for elevator security, etc.

    But the media is likewise important.  Millennium Bug wall, bus and subway posters should, I believe, be avoided as the plague.  Fortunately, nowadays public administrations can count on emotionally cooler communication channels, ones that are more apt to a rational communication approach:   Urp network, institutional websites, mailing lists, televideo.  These are the media to be used, in a flexible and gradual manner as requirements suggest.