Dr. Jerry Jordan has been working with the Department of Energy since May 1998 to design effective assessment tools for pro-active public affairs programs. Officials at the DOE Ohio field office in Miamisburg, Ohio have developed public affairs programs that are designed to prevent public relations crises from occurring. These pro-active programs are quite different from traditional public relations activities which are usually reactive in nature. That is, many traditional public relations activities are designed to address public protests or respond to public concerns.
       In recent years, the DOE field office in Miamisburg has tried to focus its efforts on establishing and maintaining trust and open lines of communication with the local community. Their public affairs efforts have been aimed at establishing trust and building relationships in the community rather than waiting for the community to voice their worries and concerns.
      Dr. Jordan has been helping the field office develop measurement strategies to assess the effectiveness of their programs. Pro-active public affairs programs are difficult to assess because their goal is to prevent certain events from occurring. Traditional, reactive public relations efforts are relatively easy to assess. If they are effective, a crisis is averted and positive public opinion is restored. But when pro-active public affairs programs are successful, it seems as if nothing happens in the community because less public concern is expressed.
      Dr. Jordan recently compiled a resource book for the Miamisburg field office which outlined a number of measurement strategies and suggested how DOE might implement those strategies. "You have to do something besides a straight forward phone survey," Jordan says. "When their [DOE] programs are successful, people will not worry about DOE activities, they will trust that things are being handled OK."

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Last modified on May 24, 1999