Communications Manager

Purpose of document

This document shares operating procedures and documentation related to the Communications Manager role.

Who we serve

On October 2022, the Communications department (Jane & Richard) conducted a small user research study by analyzing the #introductions channel on the DVS Slack. Over a 30-day period, we analyzed 28 introductions written by members. Here are the findings:

• In general, there are three broad categories that define DVS members:
  • Casual students: Students who have developed an interest in dataviz through their major, or through a specific course in their program.
    • Their main goals are to:
      • Learn more about the dataviz field
      • Make new connections
      • Get guidance on how to start a career
      • Have fun and experiment with dataviz
      • Learn from other’s experiences
      • Gain new skills and advance existing ones
      • Build a portfolio of their work to land jobs
    • Positive outcomes they want are:
      • Find relevant job that aligns with their interests
      • Make new friends, build meaningful relationships
      • Have clarity on how next steps in their career
    • Barriers or obstacles to achieving their goals are:
      • Feel overwhelmed about all the knowledge and information available, don’t know where to start
      • Challenge to navigate existing resources and don’t know where to find them
      • Difficulty finding employment
      • Don’t know what skills they need to develop
  • Casual employed: Practitioners who occasionally work with or create dataviz
    • Their main goals are to:
      • Increase job security
      • Want to increase income and have more flexibility in their career
      • Be part of an engaged community
      • Build hard skills (e.g. learn a tool)
      • Learn soft skills (e.g. storytelling)
      • Do work they are passionate about, such as pivoting into a job with more dataviz focus
      • Strengthen their network and build new connections
    • Positive outcomes they want are:
      • Have in-demand skills in the market
      • Be valued at work
      • Build confidence communicating with data
      • Have a place to ask specific questions
      • Financial stability (e.g. remain employed)
    • Obstacles to achieving their goals are:
      • Don’t know where to go to develop hard and soft skills
      • Feel shy meeting new people
      • Challenges receiving constructive critique about their work when they are the only one in the team who makes dataviz
  • Experienced practitioners: Dataviz is their full-time job, examples include analysts, designers, and developers.
    • Their main goals are to:
      • Mentorship by contributing and sharing their experiences and knowledge
      • Find more clarity about their career focus
      • Crafting functional and aesthetically pleasing work
      • Empower people with data visualization
      • Help others discover the joy of data visualization
      • Belong in a community
    • Positive outcomes they want are:
      • A professional space to bounce ideas off of
      • Be recognized as an expert
      • Be valued for skills at work
      • Be acknowledged for good work
    • Obstacles to achieving their goals are:
      • Lacking certain technical skills
      • Risk of wasting time mentoring people who are not committed to learning
      • Not many resources available to support experienced practitioners compared to beginners
  • Thought leaders: They are more public than most practitioners and frequently share their perspectives and teach skills they’ve acquired through experience.

Tools used

	What it is	Tasks
Slack	The DVS Slack is an online community where our members can gather, ask questions, and exchange ideas. Board Members are also in this Slack and can answer questions.	Post to the #announcements channel when there are updates or news Regularly monitor if questions arise and either answer them or redirect them to the right person. Channels to monitor: #dvs-suggestions, #general, #help-general
Buffer	Buffer is an online tool to schedule social media posts. Read the full documentation.	Create posts by putting together copy, designing graphics if needed, and input them into the content planner. Collaborate with the Virtual Assistant to schedule them into Buffer.
Canva (documentation)	An online collaboration tool to create media assets. Read the full documentation.	- Design graphics in Canva - Keep the Brand Kit updated if it changes - Upload brand assets if any are new - Educate team members on best practices using Canva (e.g. how to share files with the DVS team and how to access the Brand Kit) - Help onboard new team members to use Canva - Keep the files organized in the DVS team environment
Mailchimp (documentation)	Design, schedule, and send emails to our email list. Read the full documentation.	- Own all Mailchimp tool, be the go-to person for - Manage and maintain the email list - Advise the team on best practices using Mailchimp - Ensure all emails sent out meet DVS brand standards - Copyedit the emails to ensure it aligns with DVS brand - Create graphics for emails if needed questions and ensures emails sent out do not conflict in timelines - Organize and manage the monthly newsletter. Put reminders in place for content to be submitted, and edit the email
Zapier	Automates tasks and creates new functionality between different tools	- Monitor how Zapier is connected to Mailchimp, and ensure it’s working properly
Memberspace	When someone joins DVS as a new member, Memberspace handles all the registration and account details.	- Owns communications connected to Memberspace (welcome email, payment reminder), and that the emails look like it matches the DVS newsletter
Squarespace	Where we host the DVS website	-Add an announcement bar when there is a campaign - Provide support in creating new pages when needed

Social Media Content Planner

See detailed documentation.

Setting up 2-Factor Authentication with 1Password

One of the challenges of logging into social media accounts is that it would ask you to verify through the phone number associated with the account, either by entering a code sent via text or email. This poses a problem because team members are not always in the same time zone, or online currently, and the code would eventually expire. To bypass this problem, 2-factor authentication (2FA) is setup with 1Password.

Here is a video that shows how you can set up new accounts with 2FA through 1Password.

Monthly Email Newsletters Reminders

At the end of each month, DVS sends out a newsletter to their subscribers with news and programming updates. It's the Communications Manager's role to gather content from all the Board Members and ensure the content is sent on time.

Setting up the monthly newsletters for a new year

At the beginning of each year, set the dates when the newsletter will be sent each month.

• Pick a date that is at least 1 day away from the last day of the month. This is to ensure that people who are in different time zones still receive the email in the same month.
• Choose a weekday, try to avoid Fridays if possible.
• Set the due date for content by the DVS team at 1 week prior. If the newsletter goes out on Jan 30th, the content is due to the Communications Manager on Jan 23rd.
• Then, go into this Google Folder, create a new folder for the year, and create an empty Google Doc per month. Refer to past years on how to structure this. Here is a detailed tutorial video on how to do this.
  • Don't forget to create a new folder for images

Email reminders are sent to the DVS team each month

Email reminders are sent to the DVS Team 1 week before content is due. There are two parts to this process, which is largely automated.

1. Setting up dates in everyone's calendars
   • Go to this spreadsheet, and create a new tab for the year. Use the previous year as a template on how to structure the content.
   • Update the Google Doc links, Content Due Date, and Publish Date
   • Check the Attendees column if you need to add/remove anyone. This column lists the calendars the reminder will be added to.
   • Go to Zapier, and turn on the automation "Monthly Newsletter - Update Calendar", located in the "DVS Newsletters" folder.
     
   • Paste the content from the year tab into the 'Automation' tab. Check if the automation has run properly by waiting 10 minutes, and see if it's on your DVS calendar. It should also show the attendees.
2. Email reminders sent to DVS team
   • Once the calendar invites are set up, this acts as a base for the email reminders.
   • Zapier will send an email to everyone on the calendar invite attendee list 1 week ahead of the content due date. Make sure in Zapier, the "Monthly Newsletter - Notification Email" automation is on.
   • You do not need to do anything for this to run.
   • If you updated the attendee list in Step 1, then you have to do so in the automation of Step 2. Go into the automation "Monthly Newsletter - Notification Email", and edit the emails in the 'Action' step.

Zapier Automations

Here is a list of automations setup in Zapier by the Communications Manager

• Monthly Newsletter - Update Calendar: An item is added to Google Calendars of DVS Team, each month.
• Monthly Newsletter - Notification Email: A week before content is due for the monthly newsletter, the DVS Team receives an email reminder to share updates.
• Dataviz Events Calendar: When someone submits a new event to the Google Docs on this page, a new event is created in Google Calendar called "Dataviz Events", which shows up in the public calendar. Here is the Events Submission Form, and a feedback form for the events calendar.
• New Eventbrite published > Dataviz Calendar: When a new event is published under the DVS Eventsbrite page, it is automatically added to the dataviz events calendar.
• New DVS Subscriber -> Check if in IIB Awards list + tag: Checks if new Mailchimp subscribers are already on the IIB Awards email list. If they are, they get tagged.
• MC Landing Page -> Google Sheets Add Row -> Tag in DVS Audience if exists: Adds a new row to this Google Sheet when they sign up from this Mailchimp Landing page to join the IIB Awards email list.

Yet Another Mail Merge (YAMM)

Yet Another Mail Merge is a tool used to send bulk customized emails with Gmail. It's a paid tool and is currently linked to the Communications Manager DVS gmail. It was initially used to send emails to IIB Awards submitters, informing them about the status of their submissions. Video tutorial on how to use YAMM.