A Nudge to the U.S. Federal Government on Communications and Behavior Change
Not wanting to sound pro-big government, but after reading the U.K. Central Office of Information (COI) “Communications and behavior change” I’m left marveling the benefits of such an integrating government body. 
The COI acts essentially as the U.K. government’s marketing department, supporting the communication needs of their government departments and agencies. It leaves the U.S. federal government Public Affairs and Communications operation looking widely untamed, disorganized and inefficient, by comparison.
The COI has done us all a favor, U.S. and U.K. alike, by reviewing the existing literature on behavior theory and change models with the hope of distilling some principles and practices that would guide future public sector communication efforts. After all, on both sides of the pond, “fixing” some of the countries’ most difficult and expensive problems requires people to change behavior. And both governments turn to communications to affect that behavior change.
Developing effective communication efforts to achieve this goal, however, is no easy task. In behavior theory, it is now generally accepted that people don’t always make “rational,” beneficial decisions. So we can’t just put forth the information important for sound decision making and assume they will accept and incorporate it into their lives. And that’s where the work of the COI comes in.
We might argue over aspects of the COI’s five-step process for behavior change communications planning. But the aim of the effort is unassailable: attempting to bring greater consistency, efficiency and effectiveness to the entirety of the government’s communications efforts is a good thing. Oh that it were possible in the U.S. as well. The closest we’ve come is the GAO report on PSA prevalence and activity within the federal agency, and even that was a one-off report, now dated.
Recognizing we’re a long way off from a U.S. version of a COI, perhaps a nudge to the COI is better placed: a nudge to continue this instructive work for the benefit of the wider communications community. And with such good guidance, we as communication planners can act a little more “rationally” in the decisions we make, ourselves, when developing public sector communication plans.
