Innovation: Dissemination of policy briefs and public outreach

Innovation has been on my mind for a while and for different reasons. Think tanks in Central and Eastern Europe, for most part, have employed traditional ways in reaching various audiences. Policy briefs or studies distributed to policy makers and media alike, publishing short articles in the press, TV appearances at talk shows or short statements for the news, holding press conferences have been the ‘bread & butter’ of usual think tank communication strategy. With the advancement of internet, most have added a web-site with their policy products; a few innovative ones have added ‘youtube’-like video features, interactive sections, blogs and comments on their web-site. Certainly there is a visible progress in this respect.

Yet, two innovative communication strategies have impressed me last week.

First the Kosovo Stability Initiative (IKS) has distributed their ‘Thinking Green Fact_Sheet’ in some 100 coffee bars and restaurants in Pristina. Knowing the Balkan’s ‘coffee culture’ this is a spot on distribution strategy. Simple, cheap and hopefully effective (yet to hear about the feedback from IKS).

Second, Slovak Governance Institute (SGI) is pushing the use of social networking websites such as Facebook one step further. We all know (and some are members) of all sorts of online communities. Many think tanks in CEE and its network PASOS have established their fun clubs / supporting groups on Facebook. Having done this, SGI will soon launch an advertisement campaign for their project ‘New Ideas for Slovakia’ aimed at the 1-million Slovak registered on Facebook. Each Slovak on Facebook will see a small add and link to the new policy briefs that SGI has recently published. According to Miro Beblavy, SGI director, this way of reaching the broader public is much cheaper than any other media and worth the experiment. I am really curious in the results.

With young people reading less and less conventional newspapers and not following news on TV, strategies such as these two might find the shortest route to reaching out new audiences.