A Day In The Life Of A Communications Director At California High Speed Rail
A day as California High-Speed Rail Authority's Chief of Strategic Communications is "never the same," involving immediate responses to breaking news—like monitoring a recent attack on a French high-speed rail system—and ongoing efforts to engage the public through social media and by sharing "the stories" of project workers, alongside regular board meeting preparations.
Communication, Public Relations, Crisis Communication, Media Relations, Strategic Planning
Advizer Information
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Melissa Figueroa
Chief of Strategic Communications
California High-Speed Rail Authority
Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo
none
Creative Writing, Journalism
Government & Public Sector
Communication and Marketing
Transfer Student
Video Highlights
1. The Chief of Strategic Communications' day-to-day work is highly dynamic and responsive to current events, such as monitoring news and preparing talking points for potential press inquiries.
2. The role demands creativity in public engagement, utilizing social media and other platforms to present information in a fun and engaging manner, contrary to the stereotype of a bureaucratic agency.
3. A significant part of the job involves internal communications—meeting with project personnel to gather their stories and manage the work for the board meetings which occur every six weeks
Transcript
What does a day in the life of a chief of strategic communications look like?
A day in the life of someone in my role is never the same. For example, this morning we are closely monitoring events in Paris for the Olympics. This is because there was an attack on their high-speed rail system in France.
While the attack was not here, it is a system that we are building in the states. We anticipate a lot of follow-up press questions on how this could be mitigated if it were to happen here. My staff is closely monitoring this and we are preparing talking points in case our executives are asked about the issue.
It depends on what's top of mind in the news that day, but it's sort of standard every single day. We are constantly finding new ways to educate and inform the public on what we are doing on this project. We are trying to be current on social media and we don't want to be a bureaucratic state agency. We want to be fun and engaging.
We also meet with people working on the project, the men and women in labor, and tell their stories. Managing the work of the board is another part of the job. Our board meets about every six weeks, so there is a regular cadence of work that goes into that. That is sort of ongoing and the most usual thing I would say that's about my job.