DCMS’ 10 #techpriorities, where are the opportunities?

Minister Oliver Dowden MP has just launched DCMS’s top 10 #TechPriorities for the UK. You can watch the video here, and read all 10 on the new dedicated microsite here.

Lack of space tech aside, they’re not rocket science, they’re sensible, general and, hopefully achievable pockets of UK tech excellence that will make most tech vendors, and specific govtech businesses breathe a sigh of relief at their chosen speciality being covered.

But, where’s the PR opportunity? How can we be part of this narrative? And should we?

1. Better integrated comms with DCMS itself, and other government departments — this is my call to action to central gov comms teams — if you’re going to talk about tech, talk to tech. The success of these 10 priorities will be pulled through by tech businesses of all sizes who would love to talk about the work they’re doing with you, and for you. Project wins and successes discussed in the media should not be dominated by big tech. Suppliers of all sizes have fantastic stories to tell and they all aid the public perception of these 10 priorities being the right ones.
2. Don’t ‘jump on the back of this’ — journalists, in the main, won’t want to receive emails from vendors giving commentary on whether these are the right or the wrong choices for DCMS to have made. They will want to hear from people whose lives are being changed by focus in these areas, later down the line.
3. Work with the comms objectives of your clients– we encourage our clients to always think about the comms objectives of the customer they are trying to reach. So, for example, if a local authority is focusing on social care improvement in their comms, a story that flags that they have not been doing so for years, even if the solution turned out to be your tech, may not sit well with them. So, work with the comms objectives around these 10 priorities. We’ll try to find them out as quickly as we can.
4. If you’re not in London, rejoice — regional tech hubs are going to get another year in the sun, giving many businesses the opportunity to show how they are building communities, creating jobs and supporting this strategy. Not everything about central government has to be a disagreement, work with it. Show your regional strengths, and your international ambitions, if you have them.
5. Get together to #BuildBackBetter — use your partner and business connections to get together and build group narratives on this. If you’ve got an agency like ours, hopefully your team will come up with this idea and help you build stories that show the full picture. Our job as the collective industry is to inspire and motivate people to care and be curious and there are plenty of ways a group story can do this. Maybe you come up with an entire storyline around one of Oliver’s 10 priorities and how you’re going to make it happen, together. Calls to action work, if you keep pressing at it.

If you’ve got any questions, give me a shout eleanorgiles@mantispr.co.uk

IMAGE: London, United Kingdom. Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Oliver Dowden holds a Covid-19 Press Conference in 10 Downing Street. Picture by Pippa Fowles / No 10 Downing Street.