Vodcast

EP 04. Reimagining council marketing

Meha Patel: Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Future Makers Vodcast. I’m your host Meha and today we have a special guest from Georges River. Please join me in welcoming Tiana.
Tiana, would you like to give us a quick introduction?

Tiana Kamura: Hi guys, I’m Tiana and I work at Georges River Council as the marketing officer.

Meha Patel: That’s amazing, Tiana. So, let’s start off with your educational and career background and what led you to your current role.

Tiana Kamura: I finished high school, and I decided not to go straight into university. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to study. I’m a New Zealander, so for me to go to university I was going to need to pay for my studies upfront, so I didn’t want to waste any money or time on something I wasn’t 100% sure of. I went straight into the workforce, and I felt like that was the best way for me to kind of get an understanding of what I liked and what I didn’t like and maybe what I wanted to study. 

 

One of the things I found out working in the private sector was what made or broke a job I was in. It was communication between the organisation and the staff.
In a job where I loved, they had excellent communication with us about their values and their policies. Once I’ve realised that’s what I really loved in a workplace, I started to look into that and that’s when I discovered the Bachelor of Communications. So, I went to university, and I studied that, and I loved it. Actually, I just graduated this year!

Meha Patel: Congratulations!

Tiana Kamura: So, that led me to being at Council, I was just looking around for communications jobs and seeing what was out there before I’d actually graduated. I came across the Careers at Council, and I was looking at what was going to be needed or required from me in those roles and seeing that they were multidivisional structures where I would get a huge breadth of work and working in maybe departments like environment or something that I would never really consider. That sold it for me.

Meha Patel: Oh, I see. And how many years have you been working at Council for?

Tiana Kamura: I’ll be coming up two years this year, so I feel like I’m still a baby when it comes to council. You’ll work with people who have been there for like 10, 15, 20 years. And so, yeah, I’m really just at the start of my career at council.

Meha Patel: I see, and can you briefly explain what your role entails and what your main responsibilities are?

Tiana Kamura: Yeah. As I said, I’m the marketing officer and I work in a broader team known as City Futures and that’s made-up of communications, marketing, and economic development. In our marketing team, our role is to create branded communication and marketing material to persuade the community and engage with them.

Meha Patel: I see, and from that what does a typical day in a life look like for you?

Tiana Kamura: Ok, so I head into work nice and early. I like to be there when it’s a little bit quieter and greet everyone as they are coming into the office. I’ll put all my stuff down first and then run and get a coffee as well. Once I’m sat and I’m ready, I go through my emails. I actually love going through my emails, which some people don’t like.
It just feels very adult to me, so I’ll go through my emails, I’ll tackle anything that’s ad hoc, get that out of the way. I know personally I’m likely to forget if I if I don’t do it right away and then I’ll head over to our planner and I’ll look at those strategic initiatives that we’re working on. 

At the moment, I’m working on trying to increase the utilisation of venues around the LGA. So, working on stuff like that and having a look around, doing some research and social media management is a big, big responsibility of mine.

Meha Patel: So, you mentioned the project that you’re working on and the social media side of it. 

What do you find rewarding or enjoyable about your role?

Tiana Kamura: There are so many aspects of my work that I find rewarding, and I pretty much find my whole job enjoyable, which is like rare. One of the first things that come to mind is when we put out social media posts, we might put out something that is not quite council and to see like a positive reception from the community is always a great feeling. 

We recently did one at one of our events where we did like a TikTok style vox pop. We went around one of our skate parks and we had the clinkers. They’re like a chocolate and inside there’s three different colours. We went around to everyone at the park, and we were like, have a guess of what you think the colour is and then take a bite and then show us what you got. We did that before Easter and then I came back over the break it went semi viral for a council video. It had like 20K views, which is like awesome for us. So, stuff like that’s really rewarding to me when you take a risk on what Council communication looks like.

Meha Patel: The social media side of it sounds really interesting. I mean, is there a specific project or an initiative that you’ve been involved at Council, that you’ve really been proud of?

Tiana Kamura: Yes, there was one last year around the time of the Olympics. Our whole City Futures team worked on this together and we pitched to the media about our event at one of our skate parks, the same skate park, and it was for the break dancing and the skateboarding event. 

We had a live streaming there and we pitched that to the media and Sunrise actually came back to us and they were like, this is great. We’d love to be there. We’re going to be there at 4:30 AM we need like 10 people there to like be part of the crowd, so our whole team went to the skate park that like before sunrise and it was so much fun being able to like, celebrate all our hard work, be on TV and really like showcase Georges River as this awesome place.

Meha Patel: Absolutely. That sounds amazing.

Tiana Kamura: Yeah, that was fun.

Meha Patel: Yeah. I mean, it seems like a really fun and supportive work environment from what I’m hearing from you. Can you describe like the workplace culture at Council?

Tiana Kamura: I find it to be one of the most positive places I’ve worked in. I think it’s because of the nature of the work and the organisation with the hybrid working model and the flexible hours, it just breeds this positive energy, so everyone comes into work being their best self because they’re being taken care of by the organisation and so it’s just a really positive culture to work in everyone’s super respectful of each other and also really understanding and empathetic as well, which is a great organisation to work in.

Meha Patel: Well, that sounds really supportive. I think when you’re in an environment like that, you really tend to thrive. I think that’s why you really enjoy your role at Council.
What sort of advice would you give to someone considering a career in marketing at Council?

Tiana Kamura: I would say try before you buy. So, I came from a cadetship and one of the great things about councils is that they offer a lot of programs like that. So, work experience when you’re in high school, grad roles, cadetships, you are able to go into these positions and see what your day-to-day might look like. I feel like that’s a really great way to be able to go in and see for yourself what it would be like before you make any big decisions.

Meha Patel: Of course. Do you mind me asking, how was that transition from you being a cadet to a full-time role?

Tiana Kamura: So initially, I was the communications cadet, and I was able to come in on a part time basis and take on all these tasks that a communications officer would do. One of those was social media and then once our team expanded and we had a marketing function, the social media went over to the marketing team and that’s something I’m super passionate about showcasing council on social media, so I applied for it.

I had learnt so much in my cadetship, I was successful, so I was able to transition over there and that’s something that’s really great about council is that you can make those moves internally with secondments and internal promotion. So that was awesome being able to transition over there.

Meha Patel: Amazing. During your cadetship, where you also balancing uni at the same time and how was that experience like?

Tiana Kamura: Yes, I was. So luckily it was a part time position, which was great. My workplace, they were always so understanding of any university responsibilities that I might have. I’m super fortunate, I studied 100% online, so that was really easy to manage the workload and the study load. Being able to go into work, be 100% focused and then come home and watch my lectures.

Meha Patel: Oh, that’s great. I think our final question is how do you think young leaders can help shape the future of local government?

Tiana Kamura: Coming from my experience, being young and working in the private industry and also growing up around social media and the internet and all these new technologies. I find that we’re coming in and we’re taking a little bit more risk. We’re more comfortable around all these new technologies and softwares and we’re implementing them in ways that I feel like can be moulded to fit Council.

Taking on the advice of people who have worked in Council longer than us and using our own transferable skills, we’re able to integrate that into council and kind of reshape what it is to work at Council and how councils I guess are received.

Meha Patel: No, I completely agree the importance of integrating technology within Council to sort of keep up with the future. I think that’s really, really important.
Yeah, I think that’s a wrap on today’s episode. Thank you, Tiana, for joining us and giving us a glimpse of your journey. It’s been an absolute pleasure to have you on. If you did find this episode interesting, feel free to pass it along to someone who might find it enjoyable too. Once again, thanks, Tiana.

Tiana Kamura: Thank you.

Meha Patel: Bye!