How Supporting a Relay Race can Lead to Big Thinking about Communications!
I had a great weekend! Along with my husband, I was part of a team of people supporting the Coast Guard Team for the Baker to Davis Run. There were a few things about it that were terrific:
1. It was fascinating to be a part of such an intricate puzzle of logistics. There were 23 runners (20 main and 3 alternates) running a 120 mile course who needed to be delivered to starting points, followed for safety, and picked up. There were 7 support vans, a communications team, medical teams, and miscellaneous other volunteers (a total of about 50). And all of these needed to be coordinated in split seconds so that none of the team's advantage was lost to logistics. See the Team 1790 blog to read some of the highlights of each leg of the race. It was a great learning process and a little hint of what our armed services face on a daily basis.
2. The active duty and reserve Coast Guard personnel participating on the team were terrific. They were energetic, focused, and cared deeply about their mission. And it was really fascinating to hear about their day-to-day lives in the Coast Guard or as Reservists (one of the reservists is the head of City Planning for a city in California; another is a Las Vegas police officer; and I didn't get to hear about the rest).
3. Having been exposed to the Coast Guard through my husband's participation in the Coast Guard Auxiliary, I have become aware of how unheralded the Coast Guard is as a critical armed service. It is the oldest service and is responsible today for homeland security at every port and on every body of water in the U.S. as well as having numerous responsibilities in international missions. But it seems that, compared to the other armed services, most of us hardly know about the Coast Guard, in spite of its importance. It turns out that the one of the team members whom I met this weekend will soon be a member of the headquarters communications team for the Coast Guard. It got me to thinking about how interesting it could be to take on the mission to raise the awareness of the important role the Coast Guard plays in our Nation. Just as with any organization -- like a start-up company or large corporation -- the Coast Guard could be positioned strategically to accomplish certain key goals. And even though security is a necessary element of its mission, it would be highly possible to create a set of key messages and implement a consistent series of campaigns that could, over time, create a new understanding of the important role of the Coast Guard.
I never would have thought that a weekend of helping support a relay race could have such broad impact!
1. It was fascinating to be a part of such an intricate puzzle of logistics. There were 23 runners (20 main and 3 alternates) running a 120 mile course who needed to be delivered to starting points, followed for safety, and picked up. There were 7 support vans, a communications team, medical teams, and miscellaneous other volunteers (a total of about 50). And all of these needed to be coordinated in split seconds so that none of the team's advantage was lost to logistics. See the Team 1790 blog to read some of the highlights of each leg of the race. It was a great learning process and a little hint of what our armed services face on a daily basis.
2. The active duty and reserve Coast Guard personnel participating on the team were terrific. They were energetic, focused, and cared deeply about their mission. And it was really fascinating to hear about their day-to-day lives in the Coast Guard or as Reservists (one of the reservists is the head of City Planning for a city in California; another is a Las Vegas police officer; and I didn't get to hear about the rest).
3. Having been exposed to the Coast Guard through my husband's participation in the Coast Guard Auxiliary, I have become aware of how unheralded the Coast Guard is as a critical armed service. It is the oldest service and is responsible today for homeland security at every port and on every body of water in the U.S. as well as having numerous responsibilities in international missions. But it seems that, compared to the other armed services, most of us hardly know about the Coast Guard, in spite of its importance. It turns out that the one of the team members whom I met this weekend will soon be a member of the headquarters communications team for the Coast Guard. It got me to thinking about how interesting it could be to take on the mission to raise the awareness of the important role the Coast Guard plays in our Nation. Just as with any organization -- like a start-up company or large corporation -- the Coast Guard could be positioned strategically to accomplish certain key goals. And even though security is a necessary element of its mission, it would be highly possible to create a set of key messages and implement a consistent series of campaigns that could, over time, create a new understanding of the important role of the Coast Guard.
I never would have thought that a weekend of helping support a relay race could have such broad impact!
Labels: Baker to Vegas, CGAux, Coast Guard, communications strategy
posted by Abigail Johnson at 3:13 PM
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