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1    >> CAROL HARVEY:  Okay.  Let's get started.  We wanted to
2    end our day together with some advice from a key
3    strategist from the administration.  And you probably
4    weren't expecting someone that looks like Kasey.  You
5    probably were thinking of someone who is old and wise and
6    experienced.  But Kasey is exactly the kind of person that
7    we wanted to have on our panel today.  We have been
8    talking about, Kasey, attracting all kinds of people to
9    government of all different age groups, but particularly
10    focusing on young people.  And I kind of like to think of
11    Kasey as our Rob Lowe, in the real West Wing.  He is going
12    to describe for us his Office of strategic initiatives and
13    what they're doing, but also provide some advice on
14    strategies that we can use to work more effectively and
15    describe some of the strategies that he has used in the
16    past to work with the media.  Please join me in welcoming
17    Kasey Pipes.
18    (Applause.)
19    >> KASEY PIPES:  Thank you, Carol, and thank you all very
20    much for being here.  I realize of course that I'm the
21    only thing standing between you all and the end of this
22    conference, so I should be short and sweet.  I do
23    appreciate you being here very much and I bring greetings
24    from the President and his entire staff at the White
25    House.  The President was in California earlier this week,
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1    where he delivered a speech about his philosophy of a
2    compassionate government, and he praised the role of all
3    of our public servants and the people out in the fields
4    and the trenches doing the work at the different
5    departments and agencies everyday.  So we are aware of
6    what you do and appreciate what you do.  And I'm glad to
7    be here with you today.  Before I get into the text of
8    what I wanted to say, I should take a bit about my
9    background.  Carol mentioned my office at the White House.
10    I work at a place called the Office of Strategic
11    Initiatives.  And the function of this office is to sort
12    of be our in-house part think tank, consulting firm, who
13    encourages the White House staff to think down the road
14    and do not lose sight of the forest for the trees.  And we
15    do a lot of strategizing on communication strategy, and
16    I'll mention a bit about this later on, but my own
17    background is communications, speech writing, and being a
18    press secretary on the hill.
19    So, it's a subject that is very close, near and dear to my
20    own heart and I appreciate what all of do you every day in
21    that capacity, and I certainly can relate to the struggles
22    that you have in trying to get your message out.  And
23    that's what I want to talk about today is the message and
24    getting the message out and how we can do that better at
25    all levels of government, all agencies, all across the
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1    country.  I want to start with a story that has very
2    little to do with politics, but a lot to do with what I
3    want to say.  It's a story about a guy named James
4    Volvano.  He won in 1973, at the state level.  His family
5    were huge Joe DiMaggio fans.  His father knew he was
6    dying, and he got a chance to meet Joe DiMaggio.  It was
7    the fulfillment of a lifelong dream that he got to meet
8    his hero, the Yankee clipper.  And he literally died a
9    happy man, knowing that he met the great DiMaggio.  Many
10    years later, Volvano, who would tragically die of cancer
11    as well, got to meet Joe DiMaggio as well.  And he wanted
12    to tell him how grateful he was for giving his father that
13    one special moment of meeting his boyhood hero.  But the
14    only problem was figuring out how to say it in the
15    context.  The event was a reception line.  So Volvano was
16    going to be going through this line quickly, and he only
17    had just a second with Joe DiMaggio.  So he got up to the
18    front, and then it became his turn to meet him.  He
19    reached out his hand and he shook his hand, and he was so
20    nervous, he was just overwhelmed with nervousness, and he
21    said Mr. DiMaggio, my name is Jim Volvano.  My father met
22    you a few years ago, and then he died.
23    (Laughter.)
24    And then of course he had to just keep moving.  They moved
25    the line through.  So he went home that night and talked
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1    to his wife, and she said did you meet him.  And he said
2    yes.  What did you tell him?  He said I think I told him
3    he killed my father.
4    (Laughter).
5    So sometimes you can have a great message, and still not
6    do a good job of getting the message delivered.  And
7    that's a challenge that we all face.  We face it at the
8    White House, you face it at your agency.  How is it that
9    you can package what it is your office does and sell it,
10    so that the media covers it, so that reporters write about
11    it, so that TV stations do stories on it, so that people
12    read about it and know the good things that you're doing?
13    You can have the greatest message in the world, you can
14    have the greatest success story, the greatest program, but
15    if you can't get your message to the people, then what
16    good is it?  Nobody knows about the good things you're
17    doing.
18    So what I want to talk about a bit today are some ways
19    that, over the years, I have found helped get the message
20    out.  And again, I'm hardly an expert at this, probably
21    many of you should be giving us advice.  And you've been
22    doing this a lot longer.  But I have had some very
23    fortunate experiences in life, and two in particular that
24    I want to mention.  The first was on Capitol Hill, and I
25    worked for a great Congresswoman by the name of Kay
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1    Granger.  And I worked for her about 3 and a half years
2    before I went to Austin.  And I worked on the campaign in
3    Austin, and then I came up after the election to the
4    administration.  I did speeches, press policy for Kay
5    Granger, which was a great mix, because I got to know the
6    issue, I got to know what it was we were trying to pitch,
7    what the case was that we were trying to make to the
8    press, what it was that we were trying to sell.  And then
9    when I went to Austin, I focused mainly on speech writing,
10    which again was great training for taking a complicated
11    issue, boiling it down to 2 or 3 important things, and
12    making the case.
13    And those were great lessons to learn.  And over the
14    years, I've done a lot of thinking about ways to get the
15    message out.
16    I want to stalk about strategies.  And this is what I do
17    at the White House, sit about and think of long-term
18    strategy.  I want to talk about strategy that you can have
19    for your long-term success in communicating your message.
20    I want to start by asking a question.  And if you'll put
21    the question up here, it's a simple question, and probably
22    the answer for most of you is going to be yes.  But how
23    many of your communication agencies have a long-term
24    communication strategy, a one-year, a two-year, a
25    four-year plan for getting out the message at the
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1    Department of Education or the Department of Labor or the
2    IRS?  Or the Social Security Administration?  Whatever it
3    is, wherever you are, the principle is the same.  A long
4    range plan will help you see the forest and not the trees.
5    It will help you see over the horizon and predict where
6    you're heading.
7    I think -- I wish that was a little higher.  And so my
8    first point to you would be that's something to think
9    about when you go back to your offices at the end of this
10    conference, along with all the other great information
11    you've gotten, it's a great idea to just sit down with a
12    piece of paper and write out a one-year plan or a two-year
13    plan.  And here are a couple things to keep in mind when
14    you write that plan that I think work really well, at
15    least from my own experience.
16    The first lesson I learned when I worked on Capitol Hill
17    for Congresswoman Granger, and that is to be a problem
18    solver.  And let me explain what I mean by that.  Each of
19    you has a specific mission.  You're at education, you're
20    at labor, you're at HHS, wherever you are.  But your real
21    mission is you're solving problems.  You're solving
22    problems in healthcare or you're solving problems in
23    education or you're solving problems in foreign affairs,
24    whatever it is, wherever you are.  Your real mission as a
25    public servant is to solve problems.  And this is a lesson
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1    I learned when I worked for Kay Granger.  Because she came
2    to Congress after being a Mayor.  And what mayors do,
3    particularly in a town like Fort Worth, where they have
4    nonpartisan local election, nobody knew what party she
5    was.  They solve problems.  They don't fight, yell at each
6    other, have press conferences and denounce each other,
7    they just solve things.  And Granger, the polling showed
8    overwhelmingly in her first run for Congress, the polls
9    showed that she was a problem solver.  So we had to take
10    that image and transfer it to Capitol Hill.  Everything
11    that Congresswoman Granger did we wanted it to be in the
12    context of her solving problems.  Whenever we put out a
13    press release, we wouldn't just simply say today Kay
14    Granger commented on the problem with health insurance for
15    the uninsured.
16    We try to have a solution or at least a hint of a solution
17    in the very beginning, at the lead.  Today Congresswoman
18    Kay Granger outlined principles, proposed a program to
19    provide more healthcare for the uninsured.  It's a big
20    difference.  And it affects what the media will cover.
21    Because the media like to cover things that affect people,
22    things that influence people, things that have an impact.
23    And solutions by definition impact everyday people.
24    So think of yourselves in terms of problem solvers, what
25    is it you're solving?  What are the challenges you're
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1    facing?  What is it that you're dealing with?  How is it
2    that your department is helping everyday average people?
3    And that leads me to the second sort of long-term strategy
4    that you should keep in mind when you're writing your
5    plan.  And this is going to sound really simple, and it
6    is, but particularly in politics, a lot of times we forget
7    this.  It's important to put your long-term strategy in
8    terms that people can understand.  Simple goals.  Simple
9    problems.  What is the basic problem, narrow it down, zero
10    in on it, what is it that we're trying to focus on this
11    week, this month, this year, and then what are the
12    solutions for dealing with that?  What is it the head of
13    my department is going to address that situation?
14    I developed kind of a litmus test when I worked on the
15    hill that I tried to use whenever I would write a speech
16    for the Congresswoman, whenever I would write a press
17    release, whenever I would write testimony in front of a
18    committee hearing for her, I always tried to ask myself:
19    Would it make sense to people at the union hall in
20    Bartleson, which is a small town outside of Fort Worth,
21    very average place, very typical of our district.  Does
22    that language make sense to them?  Do they understand what
23    we're saying?  Are we using a lot of acronyms?  Are we
24    talking about CBO, and OMB numbers or are we talking about
25    fixing a problem that they are familiar with and that they
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1    can understand?  Again it sounds simple, but it's a
2    amazing to me how hard it is to do.
3    One of the things my office at the White House does is we
4    bring in people to consult with our staff and to give
5    their expertise and their advice on things.  And we met
6    with a military strategist one day to kind of talk about
7    some lessons you can learn from military strategy.  It was
8    fascinating, because he said that the number one question
9    in military strategy is asking yourself what will happen
10    next?  And he said he was telling his son that one day,
11    that that is what we -- that's what military profession
12    does.  We are always saying well, if we do this, what will
13    happen next?  And the son said dad, that sounds really
14    easy.  And he said it is, but it isn't when your hair is
15    on fire.
16    (Laughter.)
17    And that's true for all of you, too.  You get busy, things
18    begin to happen, things start to pop up on your screen,
19    you're putting out fires.  And it becomes easy.  I know,
20    because it happens to me, to stay focused on our basic
21    mission of public service and solving problems for people
22    and explaining what we's doing in simple ways that
23    everyday people can understand.  So, that's kind of a
24    long-term strategy.  I would encourage you to have a plan.
25    I would encourage you to couch whatever you do in terms of
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1    problem solving, first and foremost, and to do so in a way
2    that is simple and makes sense to everyday people.
3    The second issue I want to talk to you about is the
4    tactical level.  It's great to have a long-term strategy.
5    Everybody needs a long-term strategy, but you also need
6    tactics, you need day-to-day tricks of the trade that will
7    help you achieve your strategy.  And so if we move to our
8    second question, it's very similar.  Do you have tactical
9    approaches that you use?  Do you have a list of things
10    that you have found from your own experience worked very
11    well in marking your message and marking your agency and
12    getting news coverage and getting the good news about your
13    good works out there?
14    And what I want to do for just a few moments is talk a bit
15    about some things that I've learned, at least from my own
16    experience, have worked for me.  They may work for you,
17    they may not.  But I think they're pretty good, they're
18    pretty good little helpful hints.
19    And there's actually six of them.  Six tactics that I
20    think work really well in marketing your message and your
21    programs and your agency.  Number one, you have to have
22    the right product.  And again, this kind of goes back to
23    keeping it simple.  You have to zero from on what it is
24    that your basic mission is.  If you're in education, your
25    mission is not so much PEL grants as it is helping kids go
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1    to college.  Focus in on what it is that your office is
2    all about.  Because if you have the right product, you can
3    pitch it, you can sell it, you can have success.  If you
4    don't have the right product, you know, nothing will work.
5    And I've been very fortunate in my own career, because I
6    worked for a great Congresswoman who was a problem solver,
7    who wasn't a partisan, and who liked to get things done.
8    And now I work for a President that works the same way.
9    It's such a blessing to have good people and a good
10    product to sell.
11    The second issue is to have the right message.  You can
12    have the right product, but you can still sometimes manage
13    to not focus in on what the actual message is.  In other
14    words, play to your strengths.  Figure out what it is that
15    you do best in achieving your goals, in achieving your
16    strategy.  Find out what it is that is the secretary of
17    your agency's strong point, and make sure that you pitch
18    those stories.
19    The third little tactic is have the right setting.
20    Visuals are important.  Venues are important.  Scenery is
21    important.  It's very important that when you do an event
22    with your boss or whoever, with people at your agency,
23    make sure that it all matches.  Make sure that it all fits
24    your theme.
25    I'll give you an example of this.  One of the great sort
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1    of scholars in this area, if you can use that word, is
2    Mike Deaver.  I encourage you to read, he has a couple
3    books, usually both of them focusing on his time for
4    Reagan.  Here is what Mike Deaver says about venues.  He
5    said venues were almost more important or equally as
6    important as what is being said.  The visual is as
7    important sometimes as the words.  And he tells a great
8    story in the first book about the beginnings of the '82
9    recovery, when they began to get news that there were all
10    these housing starts.  So the press staff said let's have
11    the President go down to the press briefing room and
12    announce this.  This is great news.  And Deaver said no,
13    go find me the place in America where there are the most
14    housing starts, and then let's take the President to that
15    place, with that as a back drop, and do an event.  And
16    that's what they did.  It was a place in Texas, and they
17    did an event with the President.  He had a hard hat on and
18    a house going up behind him.  It was a great picture.  It
19    was a great setting.  You have to have the right timing
20    and setting.  You can have a right message, great
21    approach, and the right set, but there is an ebb and flow.
22    You know this as well as I do.  The media focuses on some
23    things and they don't focus on others.  You you know that
24    there is a certain time of the year that is coming up that
25    you can capitalize on, plan around that.  If there is
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1    education week or health week or some sort of other major
2    conference coming up in Washington, that's a great time to
3    get your boss and agency involved in making news, or
4    following up on news you already made and you just want to
5    reiterate your message over and over again.  And you've
6    got to focus in on when the media wants to cover that
7    story.  Timing is very important.
8    You also have to have the right tone.  You definitely have
9    to have the right tone in order for people to listen to
10    you.  The great writer Oscar Wild said that a writer's
11    challenge is to confront, but not affront.  And I think
12    that's true in the communications world, in the marketing
13    world.  And it has to be something you're confronting.
14    There obviously is an issue you're addressing, there is a
15    challenge you're facing, there is a problem you're
16    solving.  But you want to be careful, obviously, in the
17    way you present yourself.  You're not coming in to preach
18    at people or to look down at people.  You're coming in to
19    help people and empower people and help people help
20    themselves and solve problems.  The tone makes all the
21    difference in the world.  It's kind of like the old
22    saying, people don't care what you know, it's that they
23    know that you care.  It's true. If you do it in a
24    cooperative spirit and a spirit of helping people and here
25    is the good news that our agency brings and here are the
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1    good things we're doing for you, that's a message that
2    will make a difference.
3    Finally, I think you have to have the right audience.  I
4    mean, you have to have the right audience.  You want to
5    match your message with the audience.  I'll give you an
6    example of this from the President.  He -- I guess
7    everybody remembers when he went to ground zero a few days
8    after September 11.  If you remember when you got up with
9    the bullhorn he started in and mentioned a few things
10    about what a horrible tragedy it was and how sorry the
11    entire nation was.  And then it was like something just
12    kind of clicked.  And you know one of the firemen said,
13    you know, we can't hear you.  And it was like it clicked
14    and his message became at one with the audience.  And he
15    said the famous line that people that knocked these
16    buildings down will hear all of us soon.  You will never
17    forget that.  That bullhorn has been preserved by the
18    National Archives.  It's a piece of history.  That was a
19    magical moment where the message matched the audience.
20    That's what the guys in the hard hats wanted to hear.
21    It's what America wanted to hear, that the commander and
22    chief was in charge and he had a plan and we were moving
23    forward and we would rebound and we would rebuild, and we
24    would be okay.
25    Your message needs to match your audience.  Take your
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1    events carefully.  Find out when there is a trade
2    association meeting.  Find out what their issues are.  See
3    if you can match your message to those issue, to their
4    agenda, to their trade association, to their priorities.
5    I think if you do those things, it will help.  But only
6    you know exactly what your strengths are and what your
7    message is and what your product is.  So think about some
8    of those things.  Think about having a long-term strategy
9    and think about using some tactical approach, maybe not
10    these tactical approaches, maybe things that you know from
11    pitching stories to reporters or writing speeches for your
12    boss or marketing and getting a name brand to your agency.
13    But these are things that I found that worked, and I think
14    they might work for you.
15    So I would simply conclude on that very point, and I would
16    quote for you Ronald Reagan, who was once asked about his
17    moniker, about being known as the great communicator.  You
18    know what Reagan said about that?  It's fascinating.  He
19    said I never considered myself a great communicator, I
20    just felt like I always communicated great things.  And
21    that's the the essence of it.  Zeroing in on the great
22    mission that each department has, and honing that in and
23    going back to it and focusing on it every day and staying
24    on target and staying on message with it.  If you do that,
25    you'll have a lot of success.  If you do that, you can get
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1    the good news out to lots of people.  And that's what
2    you're in the business of.  You're public servants.
3    You're communicators, but you're public servants and you
4    want to spread the word about the programs that you're
5    doing that will help people, that will empower people,
6    that will solve problems.
7    I hope some of that was helpful.  With that, I'll be glad
8    to take any of your questions.
9    (Applause.)
10    >> Hi, Carrie Childers.  I work for the Department of
11    Public Affairs.  Understand that when you are setting up
12    features and setting up events, and I'm sure you realize
13    hitting the media at the right time, and I'm sure you
14    understand that, too, the media are just real real eager
15    to get your good news story.  And how do you make them  --
16    I'm sure all of us put out a lot of news releases about
17    the wonderful things we're doing, and maybe you can get
18    some small local pub, to pick it up, maybe a weekly
19    newspaper, but it's real hard to get the big TV stations
20    to pick up the big stories.
21    >> Karen Hughs always says that news is contention, and
22    news services like to cover controversy and tension.  But
23    the correlation to that theory is that still doesn't have
24    to change your approach.  I mean, even if there is a
25    controversial story, even if the reporter calls you about
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1    something that maybe is not really a part of your
2    long-term strategy, it's not the message you want to get
3    out, you can still have the right tone, you can still be a
4    problem solver, you can still approach it in a proactive
5    way that says you know what?  Here are the positive things
6    that the secretary of or the -- the veterans
7    administration, the entire department, is working on.  And
8    I think people fall into a trap of playing defense and
9    letting reporters or whoever kind of dictate to them the
10    story.
11    Obviously, you have to respond when those stories come up,
12    you can't avoid it, but you can control how you respond
13    and the tone and the way you respond and still not be
14    negative and still present your positive side.  I mean,
15    you have to look at those things as opportunities.  I
16    mean, it's going to be in the press.  They're going to
17    write the story.  It's better to be involved in the story
18    and to help put a, you know, a happy face and put the real
19    -- the good side of it that you're doing into the story
20    than just have them write that VA is ignoring this and
21    this issue.
22    So it's challenging and you put your finger on a real
23    challenge that all of us face every day.  But I think if
24    you really try and you really focus, you can kind of see
25    some opportunities to again project that problem solver
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1    image.
2    >> Hi, Rachel, NASA.  I think a lot of people in this room
3    are just having trouble getting their stories covered
4    rather than putting a positive or negative spin.  Do you
5    think you have a more idealistic view of the media because
6    you're used to having a fleet of reporters follow not
7    necessarily you, but your story around?
8    >> KASEY PIPES:  To be honest, our experience on the
9    campaign was almost more similar to the first question.
10    It's true that we had a lot of reporters covering us, but
11    they had stories that they wanted to cover.  So it was
12    challenging to get them to focus on the issues that we
13    wanted to focus on.  And again, I just go back to the some
14    of the tactics that I just mentioned.  I think that one of
15    the things that President Bush has always been able to do
16    is to provide solutions, is to say today I'm going to talk
17    about healthcare, but not just talk about it, but have a
18    program for it.  And you know obviously, I mean, you have
19    your own reporters that focus on space issues or veterans
20    issue, so you know what works best, and maybe some of them
21    are very hard to get them to give you the coverage you
22    want.
23    But we always were able to project a very positive image,
24    and you know I think -- I always felt like when I worked
25    on the hill, particularly being a Republican, we are very
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1    good about saying what we're against, sometimes, but
2    preGeorge W. Bush I don't think we were always very good
3    about saying what we're for.  And he is spectacular at it.
4    He is constantly helping everyday people with the issues
5    that are important to them.  So there is almost kind of a
6    way that you can kind of go around the media by talking
7    about issues that are important to people, whether they
8    are important to the media or not.  I mean, the media
9    obviously they have their own interests and they have
10    their own, you know, deadlines to meet and their bosses to
11    meet with and stories to cover.  But I think if you work
12    it hard enough and you try different tactics and put a
13    positive spin and you try to be a problem solver, it will
14    go a long ways.  Maybe not solve it, but it will go a long
15    way in getting your story out there.  Yes, sir?
16    >> With the upshot --
17    >> You are you have to use the microphone.
18    >> Sorry.
19    >> I'm very sorry for interrupting you.  With the positive
20    upshot, post 9/11 on the attitudes toward the federal
21    workers, there is some concern, when it comes to the
22    annual pay raise, and there seems to be -- and the issue,
23    naturally, is 4. something for military, 2. something for
24    the civilian, and there is a lot of talking concern, you
25    know, on parity on that issue.  Is that something that
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1    President Bush is look at very closely?
2    >> KASEY PIPES:  To be honest with you, I'm not a policy
3    advisor, so he obviously has a policy staff and they do
4    look at these issues, so I'm sure it will be reviewed.
5    But I can't speak on policy.  I wish I could, I'd give you
6    all a raise, myself included.
7    >> I have a question for you.  You more than likely meet
8    an awful lot of stress in your job and dealing with
9    people.  And when we say spin a story, I'm wondering, from
10    your standpoint as a speech writer, where do you draw the
11    line between spinning a story and either ignoring the
12    facts or maybe even, you know, lying about the facts, to
13    put it in a blunt way?
14    That seems to be very difficult sometimes with difficult
15    issue, and I'm sure you deal with that a lot.
16    >> KASEY PIPES:  I'll tell you a quote, another quote from
17    Karen Hughs.  Karen always says that spin is not something
18    that we want to engage in.  She calls it, again, very
19    similar to what I just said, persuasive communication.
20    Proactively explaining our position.
21    Again, this goes back to what I said earlier about having
22    the right product.  I've been very fortunate.  I worked
23    for two very good people and I cannot think of a time that
24    I've ever had to sit there and say okay, wow, how do I
25    explain this?
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1    Now, again, you do go through a process of playing to your
2    strengths.  You look at an issue and say what are the 2 or
3    3 most important things that we can stress?  But as far
4    as, you know, having to play with facts or anything like
5    that, it's just simply not something that we ever do and
6    it's not something that the President wants us to do.  We
7    are very concerned with getting his message out there, his
8    positive message, and we think that that speaks for
9    itself.
10    Anybody else?  Right down here?
11    >> My name is Daniel from the USDA.  I'm trying to address
12    this question.  I know that many people who are here, they
13    are concerned about Latino Americans, and recently it was
14    like a military coup in Venezuela.  And immediately the
15    response in the newspapers, it appears to me that I was
16    reading, you know, any person that is reading, it appears
17    to me that immediately it was endorsed, that President
18    Chavez resign.  And then later, 24 hours, he went back to
19    power.  And in these 24 hours, you know, it was like a
20    military group that it was something like you deserve it,
21    because you deserve it, you know, they did it to you.  You
22    did it to yourself.
23    And it was a military coup.  Any Latin American person
24    understands that.  But in the media and everything else,
25    it appears that it was not a military Coup.  And I think
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1    that what is happening is that many people, they should
2    realize, especially people who travel overseas that, you
3    know, Latin America is also doing their best to preserve
4    democracy.  And the United States should also accompany
5    these countries to do that.  And in the media, I think
6    that they should be more concerned that Latin America is
7    not just a long play, 44 revolutions per minute.
8    >> KASEY PIPES:  Again, I'm not a national security
9    council staffer, I can only tell you that the President is
10    very committed, particularly on the war on terrorism, to
11    promoting not only our interests, but our ideals.  You've
12    seen that in Afghanistan where we insisted on not only
13    going after the Taliban, but doing so in a way that
14    honored or values.  And you see that now with school in
15    session in Afghanistan and girls going to school for the
16    first time ever.  So this President is very much committed
17    to defending not only America, but the idea of America and
18    freedom and free government.
19    >> Hi.  My name is Barbara Helper and I'm a marketing
20    PR consultant.  I have first a quick comment for the other
21    people who just asked a question and then I have an actual
22    question for you.  My comments about the motion of how do
23    you get your story out there, I think in the age of the
24    Internet you do have some advantages, because you can post
25    the kind of stories you want to post on your website and
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1    they will still reach your audience.  And then I think,
2    also, that you can get your stories in more local venues,
3    and it will get picked up and it will get to the people,
4    and do outreach to your constituents, whether it's
5    hometown USA, or the school kids, and I think the story
6    will take on a life of its own if you pitch it correctly.
7    And that is the push/pull kind of strategy for getting
8    your story out.  And maybe try to tie your story to
9    something else that is of interest, whether it's job
10    creation or a new positive initiative or patriotism or
11    something else that people are a little more concerned
12    about, if you frame it that way.
13    My question, actually, is a question about how to
14    penetrate the White House and get your message to people
15    like you, whether they are special initiative people or
16    press people.  I was trying last week to contact the White
17    House and get through, and I found it virtually
18    impossible, whether it's by phone or there is no e-mail
19    contacts on the website.  Or if I wanted to send
20    information to give you a heads up, and this particular
21    example was a potential resource or something that you
22    might want to use in, you talked about special initiatives
23    or special venue or special patriotism type of thing.
24    So I guess my question really is:  Can you do something
25    with the website to give people more of a contact, so you
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1    know that what you're sending in might be filtered somehow
2    and get to the right person faster?  And also give you
3    some sense that you can make a contact, if I have
4    something to contribute to you that might be germane to a
5    story that you're pitching?  How does one do that?
6    >> KASEY PIPES:  Let me answer that.  Let me first
7    piggyback what you said about the local coverage.  That is
8    a great point.  And most people as you know get their news
9    from local news coverage.  And so there is always an angle
10    you can work back home if you can find a local angle for a
11    local paper, that's a great idea.
12    In response to your question, we very much value the
13    information from folks who are involved in these issues
14    and are out there every day.  The President often says,
15    you know, all wisdom does not emanate from the White House
16    or Capitol Hill.  It's people in the homes and heartland
17    of America that are closely dealing with healthcare,
18    Social Security, education, economic growth.  They run
19    businesses, they teach schools, they're in hospitals.  I
20    mean, they have a lot of ideas and we very much want to
21    try to solicit those.  In fact, we have done a lot of work
22    revamping and updating the Web site.  If you've seen the
23    website today as compared to, say, two years ago, I mean,
24    it's night and day.  It's astonishing.
25    It's not to say that we can't do better and we are trying
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1    to do better.  There also is a comment line at the White
2    House that you can call.  And then there is also oh I'll
3    be glad to talk to you afterwards.  There are some other
4    things we can do.  But the challenge is that the sheer
5    size of the calls and the letters and e-mails is a lot.
6    And so we do have some systems in place, as I mentioned,
7    we do have a comment line.  But I think your question is,
8    for a specific idea coming up pretty quick...
9    >> (inaudible) do it by subject or something like that.
10    >> KASEY PIPES:  If you call the White House operator, she
11    can direct you to the comment line and people dealing with
12    those issues.  So that is helpful, too.  But you're right.
13    We should look at ways to make sure the website does that
14    as well.  Kind of be a traffic cop and direct people in
15    the right direction.  But we very much solicit input all
16    the time.  So it's a great question.  Yes, sir?
17    >> Yes.  I'm Dave Mc Allister with USDA.  And my question
18    is similar, except that I'm interested in how you use
19    technologies, like e-mail, the website, or other
20    communication strategies that might give us a clue as to
21    future directions.  So can you talk about how your
22    communication strategies have evolved to stay current with
23    technologies?
24    >> KASEY PIPES:  Yes.  Well, that's a great question and
25    we are all constantly in the process of trying to
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1    capitalize on new technology.  The website now, if you
2    look at it today, the President I think spoke earlier this
3    morning.  Almost simultaneously the speech is up on the
4    website, the actual audio, the actual video as well as the
5    text.
6    We also, and again, I -- some of this is a little too much
7    nuts and bolts press operations, so I'm kind of a little
8    out of my field.  But I know that they do use e-mail.  I
9    know they use the Internet interactively.  And we are, in
10    my office, trying to think of better ways to use that as
11    well.  You may have ideas about what works best and what
12    you have found and what succeeded at USDA, and we are glad
13    to hear about that.  As I said at the beginning, the goal
14    is to get the message out.  The goal is to tell people
15    what we're doing.  And so if there are better ways to do
16    that, we are obviously are anxious to hear and talk to
17    people about that.
18    >> Kasey, my name is Virginia Bueno.  I'm with the U.S.
19    EPA.  I'm interested in the communication strategies that
20    you were talking about, but in particular, without giving
21    out any inside secrets, I'm interested in the process of
22    the White House's communication plan.  Or you don't want
23    to talk about that, at least talk about your work with Kay
24    Granger.  How do you insure that your communications
25    strategy is a living document, that it's constantly
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1    reviewed and monitored to insure that you're fulfilling
2    it, and whether you're getting the results that you want.
3    And how do you insure that your colleagues that are in the
4    White House, that the agencies are following that same
5    blueprint?
6    >> KASEY PIPES:  Well, it's not a secret.  In fact, the
7    approximated made it pretty clear what his goals for the
8    year were in the State of the union, and there's three.
9    And it's winning the war, protecting the homeland and
10    promoting economic growth at home.
11    We view that as our communication strategy for the year,
12    that we want everything -- remember, going back to what I
13    said earlier, being a problem solver, fitting your message
14    into terms that -- into problem solving terms.  We view
15    those three as we want -- we want as much as possible of
16    what we're doing at the White House to relate to those
17    three things.  So if the President is doing education
18    events or, you know, tax cut events, whatever, we want to
19    make sure we explain to people why this is important.
20    It's important because it relates to our war effort.  And
21    our war effort not only is fighting terrorism overseas,
22    it's protecting the homeland and it's strengthening our
23    economy.  So we are constantly in the process of making
24    sure that everything fits one of those three big
25    priorities.
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1    Now, as far as the agencies, and I can speak with a little
2    more certainty on this, because we are involved in working
3    with the agencies quite a bit, we actually encourage them
4    to develop -- it's not so much a one-page communications
5    document as it is just sort of a strategy document.  And
6    to me, those are interchangeable.  I mean, your strategy
7    is totally woven in with your communications.  It has to
8    be.  You have to tell people what you're doing.  And we
9    meet with them, with the White House liaisons and we meet
10    with the staff and we encourage them to put down on paper,
11    what are the three things that the Department of Education
12    will focus on this year, what are the three messages that
13    we want the media to hear?  What are the things we can do
14    to get that message out.  And to literally write a
15    one-page document.
16    And so that's one answer to your question, that's one
17    example of how we try to do some follow-up and encourage
18    people to put down on paper what it is that they're
19    focused on for that year.  And so -- but as for the White
20    House internally, it's the three goals that the President
21    mentioned in the State of the Union, and everything flows
22    from those.
23    >> Hi.  My name is Diane Ritter.  I'm with TCMA.  I was
24    wondering, as far as getting the message out to your
25    agency, I know you have to do it in a short amount of time
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1    for rumor or damage control.  But we also know that the
2    news is not necessarily good.  How would you suggest
3    employing the tactics that you talked about?
4    >> KASEY PIPES:  Well, I mean, obviously you want to be in
5    close contact with the agencies.  And we try our best to
6    do that and involve all of our friends across town and all
7    of the agencies in what we're doing.  In fact, most of the
8    policy that we come up with, we come up with after a
9    process where we worked with all of the agencies and we
10    have kind of come to terms on here are the things we want
11    to focus on in healthcare, education or whatever..
12    So you have that constant ongoing relationship and that
13    helps, because if something needs to get transmitted, you
14    know, we have the White House spokesmen are very familiar
15    with the agency spokesmen.  The White House political
16    office is very -- and our office is very familiar with the
17    White House liaison office at the agencies.  So we have
18    very good relationships and are able to communicate pretty
19    easily.  So I don't an anticipate that that would be a
20    problem.  And if there is an issue that they need to know
21    about, the sooner the better.  Call and explain what is
22    coming up or what is going on, and get it out there.  And
23    good evening, for me, it all goes back to being privileged
24    enough to work for a man that we all really believe in,
25    and we're not put in very -- we're not put in
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1    uncomfortable situations, almost never.  And it makes all
2    the difference in the world.  And I'm very grateful for
3    that.
4    >> I'm Diane Mosserelli, with the U.S. Geological Survey
5    in Western Virginia.  I think I have an answer and maybe a
6    question.  Two of the previous people asked about good
7    ways of getting ideas up to the White House.  And we have
8    something that we send in each week to our secretary,
9    Secretary Norton, of the interior, the weekly highlights.
10    And we encourage submissions from all over the agency,
11    just a very short paragraph on each item.  The total
12    report is only 2 pages long, and it's just a who, what,
13    when, where, and who cares sort of thing, you know, why is
14    it important?  And that's then we found a very effective
15    tool with communicating up the chain.
16    We regularly see things coming back with notes in the
17    margin from the secretary, getting calls from the
18    department, and also comments we have gotten comments from
19    the President in the past.
20    So we found that to be a way of really getting information
21    up to the White House from the U.S. Geological Survey.
22    The question, though, that I have is, we have just
23    recently established in a reorganization different
24    communications offices for each region, and we are trying
25    to work out long-term strategies, but at the same time
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1    it's so easy to get consumed by immediate fires.  And I'm
2    just wondering if you might have any advice for those of
3    us in the eastern region communications office how we can
4    balance being responsive to the short-term needs of our
5    customers, and at the same time get a strategy in place.
6    >> KASEY PIPES:  Yeah.  Well, that is a challenge.  And I
7    mentioned earlier, you know, the strategies of military
8    telling us that it's easy until your hair is on fire.  And
9    so one of the things that we have tried to do,
10    particularly with agency folks, is to have them, as I
11    mentioned earlier, write down on paper what their two or
12    three goals are.
13    And literally, if you have the page in front of you, I
14    actually have mine on my desk.  And it almost helps to
15    just look at it.  I mean, as things are going on, you're
16    you're in the business of responding to the crisis of the
17    day and putting out fires, but to stay focused and
18    remember what it is that we're trying to accomplish in the
19    long-term and not lose sight of that because of the
20    short-term.  It's a tremendous challenge.  It's not easy
21    for anybody, and I wish I had a perfect answer for you.
22    But that is the answer.  For me, it's just to have the
23    discipline of remembering and looking at and seeing and
24    focusing on what our goals are, and then as you respond to
25    these crises of the day, trying to do so in a way that is
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1    consistent with those goals, in a way that is problem
2    solving and has a positive tone and is proactive.
3    And it is a great challenge, an that's why you're
4    professionals and get paid the big bucks, I guess.
5    (Chuckles.)
6    >> Hello, my name is Sarah Alden, I'm with the NIH.  I
7    know a number of us here are working in health promotion
8    programs and it certainly helps to promote our programs
9    and initiatives, to have a presidential proclamation.  And
10    I'm wondering if you can give us some tips or insights
11    into the process of what has to happen to bring the
12    presidents onboard to promote certain national programs or
13    national observances.  For example, the great American
14    smokeout or breast cancer awareness day.
15    >> KASEY PIPES:  Sure.  That's a great question.  And we
16    do have a proclamations office that will put out
17    statements from the President on various issue, on various
18    cause, on various holidays.
19    I would probably encourage you to work through your
20    liaison.  There is one at HHS, I -- you might want to
21    establish contact, because they are constantly in contact
22    with us.  They can say that this is important to the
23    director, this is important to NIH.  Can you see if the
24    President would do a proclamation on this?  And the
25    President wants to.  He wants people to know about the
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1    good work that is happening at NIH.  And that's a great
2    way to do it.
3    And so we are very much attuned to those issues and like
4    to put out proclamations touting not only how important
5    the issue is, but again what we're doing to address it.
6    So I would say work through your White House liaison, I
7    guess.
8    >> Last question.
9    >> KASEY PIPES:  Last question.  Great, thank you all very
10    much.
11    (Applause.)
12    >> CAROL HARVEY:  We did want to get some feedback from
13    you on the conference itself, using your devices.  We will
14    not display the answers, so you don't have to worry about
15    embarrassing anybody with your answers.  But if you would
16    look -- if you would give us some feedback.  First of all,
17    we would like to know if you attended a previous
18    conference.  It was, let's see, December of '99.  And the
19    second one was December of 2000.  And they were both at
20    NIH, at the national center.
21    Okay.  How does this conference, if you did attend one of
22    the others, how does this event compare with the other one
23    that you attended?  If you did not attend the other one,
24    you can't answer that question.  You can make it up, but
25    that wouldn't be very helpful.
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1    And if you would please give us an overall rating for the
2    event today.
3    And would you attend another conference?  Mark, I think
4    that's as far as we're going to go.
5    One thing to keep in mind is that we are always looking
6    for people who would like to be involved to make things
7    like this better or more helpful.  And I am told that the
8    weather is deteriorating, and you can hear it.  And so I
9    thank you for attending today and have a good evening.
10    (Applause.)
11    (End of session.  4:00 p.m.)
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