Amy MacLeod

“If you do not change direction, you might end up where you are heading.” When I read these words from my fantastic colleague Alicia Planincic all I could think of was that proverb. “Based on the average of these forecasts, while Canadians are expected to increase the value of their economy by around $2,000 per person from 2023 to 2029, Americans are expected to increase the value of theirs by nearly $7,000. This means the gap will grow from an already large $18,000 today to $23,000 by the end of the decade (in 2017 dollars). This would leave Americans 40 percent richer than Canadians. That is similar in percentage terms to the difference between Russia and France, or Greece and the U.K. today—countries with very different living standards from one another.” from The Hub https://lnkd.in/gzsEzTEx

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Real question I received from a senior leader of a large Canadian enterprise this week: “Does having a crisis communications plan actually matter in a crisis?” It made me smile - crisis communications has been the bread and butter of my career. But I didn’t want to be flippant. So I decided I’d do a bit of research for him. Companies, especially large ones with big risk management departments, intellectually grasp the need for preparedness. After all, it’s just a matter of time before something somewhere in your business goes bad enough to cause a crisis. But what about quantitative proof? Turns out there is a significant amount of data that can show you whether it’s worthwhile or not to get a plan in place and, importantly, to test that plan from time to time. Here’s a few key stats: Firms with crisis management plans see 50% lower financial losses from a crisis compared to those without (Deloitte Crisis Management Survey 2022). Companies that manage crises effectively see their stock prices recover 20% faster than those that do not (Oxford Metrica, 2022). Organizations with crisis communications plans resolve crises 40% faster than those without (PwC Global Crisis Survey 2023). 60% of customers are more loyal to a brand that effectively communicates during a crisis (KPMG Global CEO Outlook 2022). Companies without crisis management plans can incur costs up to 4 times higher than those with plans in place (BCG Crisis Management Report 2023). 65% of stakeholders are more confident in a company's leadership if it has a robust crisis communications strategy (Accenture 2022). To me the verdict is and has always been simple: Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

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Want to know what we do over here at CSE? Check out our new Annual Report!

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At Blueprint, we are relentless champions of people-centered, data-driven, evidence-informed policy and practice. To that end, this past February, we convened the #BetterEvidence24 Conference in Ottawa.  We brought together over 200 leaders from government, academia, and the nonprofit sector to co-create a vision to “put data to work” to drive stronger outcomes for individuals, families and communities across Canada.  As the CEO of Blueprint , I was proud to convene such a deeply committed group of expert panelists and participants.  Today we released a report that shares key takeaways. https://bit.ly/3xgqfMu  Here’s a flavour of what’s inside our report:   - Evidence helps us make informed decisions in complex situations, strengthen delivery via feedback loops, and accelerate progress toward solving our toughest policy challenges.  - But, if evidence is a decisionmaker’s superpower, it is one that is chronically underutilized.  -To ensure policy outcomes match policy intent, we need make more frequent use of evidence, tightening the links between policy objectives, program design and service delivery.  -This means taking a whole-of-society, systems lens and using evidence to identify needs and understand what mix of policies, programs and services are best suited to meet them.  - Once decisions are made, we need to use data in real time to monitor implementation. Where are we making progress? Where are we stalling? How can we improve? Are there unintended consequences, or do changing circumstances require us to adapt?  In this way, we can move from administering programs to leading missions in service of specific outcomes for people across Canada. None of this is easy, but it will be worth it. As Public Services and Procurement Canada | Services publics et Approvisionnement Canada Minister Jean-Yves Duclos has said, “data and evidence play a key role in producing the best outcomes for Canadians.” Our report offers practical guidance on how to move forward.   I urge you to share this report widely with networks engaged in policymaking. The stakes are high: nothing less than enhancing public trust and securing greater prosperity for Canada. I look forward to continuing the conversation. #PublicPolicy #BetterEvidenceBetterData #PuttingDataToWork #cdnpoli 

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On recent travels, I was pleased to see Hidden Disabilities Sunflower 💜 lanyards available at Air Canada. 🌻 It's a program for people with non-apparent disabilities (like me) and it alerts crew, staff and others that a person may need more time, patience or assistance. Remember, the majority of disabilities are non-visible. Also remember that nobody owes you a performance or proof of their disability. There is no one "face" of disability and no two experiences are alike. That "abled appearing" person needing pre-boarding, using a power door button, sitting in a reserved seating area, or using the accessible washroom is likely living with mutliple disabilities and deserves privacy and grace. I've admired the sunflower lanyard 🌻 program since encountering it years ago in the UK. It helps people who wish to identify by wearing it to more safely navigate public spaces with their dignity in tact. So happy it's finally taking root in Canada - now to see it spread from airports to other busy public spaces! That said, abled people should never question, police or harass disabled people. Spotting this lanyard is not an open invitation for members of the public to approach and ask a person with a sunflower lanyard what's "wrong" with them (that's personal medical information you're not entitled to) or suspiciously comment that a person using this visual indicator is simply looking for "special treatment". Ableism is alive and well, but with more and more people rethinking biases, learning about disabilities and respecting the voices and choices of people with disabilities, we will progress as a society that includes *everybody*. In all things, disability included, let's not judge a book by its cover. Thanks Air Canada staff in Sydney, Australia for hunting for one of these lanyard for me before a very long journey homeward. ID: Jennifer is a white woman with green eyes and shoulder length silver-charcoal hair wearing a grey shirt and yellow backpack. Around her neck is a bright green fabric lanyard with a yellow sunflower pattern. In the background, a boarding area of an airport. #travel #disability #InvisibleDisabilities #sunflowerlanyard #inclusion #WomenWhoTravel #ableism #WomenInBusiness #DEI #airport

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For the North American geospatial and space community that relies on subscriptions and passwords as a form of extending software and intellectual property to enable data or fact based decision making - Does this Federal Court of Canada ruling raise concerns? Does this, along with recent federal stances on regulating the digital sphere, raise material issues relative to the way in which many small, medium and large data and tech businesses formulate their revenue and business models? Please DM me if you would like to discuss this issue.

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Is clarity the casualty of an emphasis on design tools used to "create" creativity in modern design? In my program (Communications Design) Syracuse University the entire faculty are unified in our emphasise that clarity is paramount in design (Marc Stress, Rachel Aubrey, Meri Page and @rod martinez). If nothing else, be clear. While innovation is crucial, it should never come at the expense of comprehensibility. The Canadian Army's new logo serves as a stark reminder that pushing boundaries without purpose can lead to confusion rather than connection. Thanks for this post and insights @josh white. Our mantra in the classroom: is it clear, clever or cleverly clear (the gold ring) - innovative yet instantly understandable. Effective design balances creativity with clarity, respecting tradition while embracing modernity. It's our responsibility as designers to educate clients on this delicate balance, ensuring that every design decision serves the intended message and audience. This case highlights the importance of strategic thinking in design. It's not about being different for difference's sake, but about creating meaningful, clear communication that resonates with its audience. What are your thoughts on balancing innovation with clarity in design? How do you approach client education in your practice? #DesignClarity #StrategicCreativity #CommunicationsDesign

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We've become much more than an officer of information. Catch the full episode: https://lnkd.in/gn88eYzM Thanks to Jan Enns for hosting this episode!

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I want to believe in the ability to turbo charge analysis and to find novel but true patterns in our knowledge. But human data is itself not “clean” so how can something built on that data be without our biases, prejudices, errors, politics, bigotry… I think we need far more checks and balances as Gen AI is a powerful but easily misled and misused beastie.

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The latest issue of CSAE's Association magazine features case studies of how data-driven decision making helped implement change and promote inclusion at four Canadian associations. Getting the right data and then digging deep can create both new opportunities and challenges worth taking on. #csae #associationexcellence #associationmanagement

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This afternoon, I had a great deal of fun speaking with an undergrad class of future comms pros at McMaster about SWOT/PESTLE, situational awareness, and working with multiple (often conflicting) stakeholder groups. And *I* have some key takeaways from their questions and the reflection I did ahead of the conversation that I want to share. _On how to prepare yourself to meet diverse stakeholder needs_ Travel and therapy. Get out there and experience things from other people’s perspectives and lived reality. Read books by authors who don’t share your language, your culture, your country, your gender, your socioeconomic class. Watch movies from different countries (and embrace the subtitle). Make friends. Do things outside your comfort zone! And build relationships all the while; it can’t just be you and your knowledge at the table. Speaking of having many voices at the table, my partner, Matthew John, MCM, followed that with the need to follow people on social media and read news from different perspectives so you have a more holistic and complete view of the issues, risks, and opportunities. (His insights covered strategic, operational, and tactical relationships from the comms perspective, and it was fantastic having his experience in the conversation!) _On being wrong when you’re certain you are right_ This was from a question from the class, and I really appreciated the honesty and vulnerability in talking about that moment when you get intractable tunnel vision. When I’m sure I’m right, that’s a good sign I’m probably wrong, in whole or in part, and my answer was that as much as being a communicator is being a trusted advisor, you, too, need trusted advisors. One of my most frequently used strategies is to get insights from trusted people on my work and my ideas, ESPECIALLY if I think those things are unassailable. Sadly, they are never truly unassailable. Perfect isn’t the goal, but ensuring I am leading with curiosity and always searching for the (likely) possibility of missing a salient detail, a key perspective, that is. As a friend said, “You’re going to be wrong; accept it.” Accepting it means you can accommodate it. _On me speaking_ Wow, I am your colloquial pal. I’m grateful Matt had all the terms and frameworks close at hand. The joy of dysnomia is I know the subject matter, but I’m going to explain it through metaphor rather than ever remembering the actual names. I’m grateful I didn’t slide entirely into charades! _On Zoom calls with the Owl_ It was so fun to be on the other side of the Owl! I could see everyone’s expressions while the owl desperately searched for the one person who was speaking. It’s much better than searching the Brady Bunch of faces to see if what I’m saying is landing well, though. *** Overall, it was a wonderful experience with some great questions during the Q&A and when opened up to the group. Thank you for the opportunity, Terence (Terry) Flynn, Ph.D., APR, FCPRS and class!

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https://lnkd.in/egdjyQX4 Transforming Canadian Government Policies with Lean Methodology: A Path to Efficiency and Effectiveness

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NEW from ICTC-CTIC: How can Nova Scotia meet its net-zero goals? Allison Clark and Todd Legere spoke to 14 industry leaders to develop key recommendations: 💨 Nova Scotia already possesses many of the skills needed for offshore wind and hydrogen production, both high-potential growth areas for the province. By leveraging the transferable skill sets of workers in the naval sector, offshore oil and gas, and tidal energy, Nova Scotia can accelerate offshore wind energy and other ocean-based clean energy developments—and work-integrated learning (WIL) programs could be the solution. 🎓 Investments in clean energy training and workforce development initiatives are needed to address labour market challenges that currently constrain Nova Scotia’s ability to achieve a net-zero future. This should include continued investments from the province to ensure more training seats in high-demand trades programs. 🤝 Scaling clean energy projects in Nova Scotia will require collective action and collaboration between all government, industry, and community-based stakeholders, particularly in coastal communities impacted by marine renewable energy developments. ⛓️‍💥 Supply chain resiliency related to wind energy should be prioritized, as onshore and offshore wind will be the predominant sources of clean energy for Nova Scotia over the next decade. https://lnkd.in/gdZqVY-n

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You get used to bad news in Canadian telecom, which is why a decision by the federal government on internet service competition yesterday was so refreshingly different. In short, Bell was asking cabinet to overturn a CRTC decision from last year that grants competitors wholesale access to its fibre network in Ontario and Quebec. Absent that, Bell's secondary request was that other big telcos (such as Telus) not be granted access, and that it be reserved only for smaller competitors such as TekSavvy. Rejecting that first request would have been good, but the government went a step further and agreed with the second ask, and is now formally requesting that the CRTC reconsider allowing the likes of Telus to use Bell's fibre network. While it outwardly seems that having the most possible number of competitors using networks and therefore offering services to consumers would be a good thing, the reality is this was an anti-competitive mistake in the wholesale framework. As the government rightly acknowledged, having large companies like Telus using a wholesale system designed to enable smaller providers to expand and grow would allow them to crowd out and kill off those competitors, ultimately resulting in only the big guys remaining. Under such a system, it would be easy for Telus to swoop in and sell services on Bell's network for super cheap and at a loss just to undercut smaller competitors, and then pull out again once those competitors were gone. It's good to see that policy makers are recognizing and addressing these problems, because they're not immediately obvious. Let's hope we see more of this: https://lnkd.in/gWthNwyt

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Work, Life, and Balance We hear a lot about the need to maintain work/life balance. There’s much to recommend that discussion – we all need it. But there’s a lazy fallacy which often takes over the dialogue, namely that work and life are two discrete provinces of our lives. Seen this way, the struggle to maintain work/life balance becomes a nightmare of impossible “either/or” choices. We end up more stressed than when we began. This “either/or” dichotomy arises when your work is “just a job”, the means by which you try to earn enough money to fuel your “real life”. It’s the boring part, but a necessary imposition to fund the happy part. Thus, when it expands to take up any more of your life than is absolutely necessary, stress arises. The happy part of your life is constantly jealous of the “gotta go to work” part of your life, and resents every second you're away from it. Any wonder you're stressed? Ask anyone who is married to one person but loves another. Misery all around. But ask someone who happens to be married to somebody they love, and they’ll tell you that life is good. That, in a very real sense, is the clue to resolving the work/life balance conundrum. When you love your work and you also love the rest of your life, the jealousy between the spheres reduces exponentially. If you think about all the people you know who seem to be free of any work/life balance stress, you’ll probably note that they think differently about their “jobs”. In fact, they don’t really have “jobs”, they have joy. What they really have is not just “work”, but their “life’s work”. What they do seems to be part of their identity, their sense of self-worth, their meaning in life. When you have your “life’s work” instead of just “work”, you feel a sense of mission and purpose. As you actually achieve goals you feel energized and self-affirmed. In fact, when you’re absolutely in your place of Alignment and living in the center of your Giftings, you’re in a place of “flow” where you actually derive increased energy from your work. This means you go home to family with plenty of energy and filled with contentment. Not a bad way to start the weekend. Almost invariably, when you’re in the right place, living out your Giftings in Alignment with your ideal clients, you’ll be more than adequately compensated financially and emotionally. This means that your “other life” doesn’t need to be jealous, in fact, your "other life" will be grateful because your work more than supports your “outside life”, it enables you to enjoy it more deeply, without having to skimp and do things on the cheap. It means that when Friday night arrives you’re not an exhausted, angry mess. Yes, we all need to think about “work/life balance”. But let's quit thinking of it in an “either/or” sense but rather that life can be more than the sum of its parts. Life needn’t be a zero-sum game. If you elevate your “work” to your “life’s work”, you’ll find that you can actually have it all, and more.

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Take the survey and share your perspective & feedback on the BC accessible employment draft standards! The standards are intended to remove and prevent barriers that restrict people with disabilities from equally participating in the workforce and accessing services in the community.  Link to the survey open for individuals and organizations: https://lnkd.in/e4TN5iga #accessibility #accessibleBCact #inclusiveworkplaces

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Dive into the 2024 Survey of Online Harms in Canada for outstanding analysis and research by The Dais at Toronto Metropolitan University and Pollara Strategic Insights. Excellent as this survey is, it’s also terrifying, revealing: younger Canadians rapidly shedding any basic media literacy they may have once had; older citizens increasingly drawn in to elaborate disinformation spirals by bad actors; platforms (hi Meta!) that have blocked legitimate Canadian media outlets out of greed are also becoming primary sources of “news” shoveled by shady dark-money funded operations (hi Rebel News!); and ever higher volumes of online hate, deep fakes and #AI-generated false news is polluting our national conversation. This was the first survey done since the introduction of the federal government’s Bill C-63 to combat online harms. A strong majority of Canadians support government regulation to curb online harms, particularly those targeting children. While there is a lot to digest in this study, it’s a solid document indicating how much work government, media, and tech edge-lords have ahead of them (if they care enough) to flush out the sewage of disinformation, propaganda and hate from the internet machine. Hats off to Karim Bardeesy and the DAIS team. #Disinformation #GenAI #Propaganda #Hatespeech https://lnkd.in/gUucADsz

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Why Pursue Accreditation in Public Relations? With just over two weeks left to apply for the 2025 cohort of the Canadian Public Relations Society's Accreditation in Public Relations (APR) designation, I hope to encourage those of you considering this life-changing opportunity. It’s not too late and fellow CPRS members are available to support you. In today’s fast-paced communications field, standing out means more than experience—it requires dedication to excellence and credibility. One of the most impactful ways to achieve this is by earning the APR credential. This journey deepens your knowledge, refines strategic thinking, and builds leadership skills. The 12-month process challenges you to explore best practices, build on foundational knowledge, and develop insights that truly set you apart, while connecting you with a national network of seasoned professionals and lifelong friends. CPRS is a family! Completing the APR process solidified my passion for PR and reinforced my commitment to uphold the profession and stay involved in CPRS. It remains a career highlight for me. The friends I’ve made (and continue to make!) are always a text, phone call or email away to share insights, tools and sometimes just an 'ear.' As communications practitioners, we have the unique responsibility to drive change, shape public perception, uphold truth and integrity, and foster connections. The APR designation provides the authority to excel in these roles, especially in fields like health communications where ethical, evidence-based messaging is essential. The investment in your growth pays dividends in career advancement, industry respect, and personal satisfaction. Consider this step. Visit the CPRS website to get started. https://lnkd.in/dZR3Uqpj #publicrelations #leadership #communications #accreditation

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