(09/17/18)
By Jenifer Wisnewski, Georgia Department of Natural Resources

ACI President, Jenifer Wisniewski

WOW! A lot happened in Missouri. I hope all who attended the fabulous conference hosted by our friends at the Missouri Department of Conservation truly got to connect the dots with all their communication channels and with new contacts from across the United States! And man, what a museum and aquarium! Missouri did a phenomenal job hosting. South Carolina and Georgia have quite the conference to top next year in Savannah. (Mark your calendars for July 7-11, 2019!)

Watch your inbox for a survey soon that ACI is sending out about how each state’s communications/I&E/marketing staff is organized. We will share the results with all of you so that we can use the information when making organizational decisions.

Serving you as president is something I have been looking forward to doing. The Association of Conservation Information has been the biggest ingredient in my success as a communicator in a wildlife agency. All communicators and marketers should take full advantage of the benefits of being a member and leverage your relationships between conferences to help each other out. My line is always open if anyone wants to call and chat about anything – from ideas and feedback, to a sounding board, or just to listen. (Blondie’s song “Call Me” is now playing in my head.)

When was the last time you borrowed ideas from other people? ACI is great for doing this (Birds are Awesome!). But there are other great places to keep up with some great communications if you aren’t already. Some of these are actually ACI-award-winning channels of communication, so you know they are excellent. Others are some of my personal favorites to use for ideas.

Social Media

• Iowa – facebook.com/iowadnr – instagram.com/iowadnr/
• Utah – facebook.com/UtahDWR/ – instagram.com/UtahDWR/
• Powderhook – The McKean articles are fantastic when the newsletters come out – facebook.com/Powderhook/
• The Council to Advance Hunting and Shooting Sports R3 Community – https://nationalr3plan.mn.co/
• And if you aren’t following ACI on Facebook yet – facebook.com/AssociationforConservationInformation

Email

• Michigan – https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/MIDNR/subscribers/qualify
• Alabama – https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/ALDNR/subscriber/new
• Georgia (shameless self-promotion) – https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/GADNR/subscriber/new?qsp=GADNR_9
• Jay Baer – Convince and Convert – jaybaer.com/blog/

Whom do you like to follow? I’d love to hear!

Happy communicating!