In the baking canyon of concrete, brick and asphalt at the unloved end of Lonsdale Street, the 42 degree forecast felt like 50 plus.
A mostly-silent northerly blew wind and grit straight out of the desert, rendering a hot day officially foul.
It was the early 90s and while every other reporter had found an excuse to chase down stories in the newsroom, I was still a cadet, so was despatched outside with snapper in tow to accost people trying to make their way home and ask them one question. “How are you going to cool down?”
My heart told me that The Age’s Chief of Staff had finally descended to the bowels of banality that I had narrowly evaded at the Herald-Sun. My head told me to get this done as quickly as possible so I could return to the aircon.
Out on the street, the churning wind and grit had emptied the city. People had left early, or were sheltering back in the office – only a few solitary souls with no other choice were making the regular mass pilgrimage to Spencer Street for the train home.
I learned a lot that day.
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- On a cripplingly hot day, only about one in four people will agree to stop and respond, so the question had to be direct on approach; no small talk to build engagement.
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- People on a deadline, trying to get to kids/dates/other obligations were far less likely to engage – extraneous questions, regardless of content, were secondary to their immediate goal.
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- People secretly like the chance to get their photo/ name in the paper, but even on a painfully hot footpath, they often blow their chance with irrelevance or flippancy. Some get to the point, others never do; but the direct, relevant, contextualised response is far more likely to be used.
It was only after about half an hour trawling up and down a couple of semi-deserted streets that I learned the most important point. When it is feeling almost barbeque hot, the asphalt is getting spongy and the northerly is sapping your energy, most people are not thinking about climate change, human rights, international wars or inequality. They are thinking about the heat, and what they will do to cool down.
Back in the office, I filed the vox pops, coordinated with the photographer and kept a low profile until it was time to clock off, with the satisfaction of the vox pops keeping my run of articles on page 3 on consecutive days alive.
In case I have been too opaque, let me spell out the analogy. Fast Forward to 2024 and the poorly dressed reporter is the HE sector. The few people on the street walking past are the members of the community we are currently speaking to. And the wind and heat are the cost of living, preoccupying almost all, to the exclusion of other, bigger, longer-term issues. Right now, people want to hear about solutions to their cost of living solutions to their housing problems, solutions to affording presents at Christmas. If we don’t try to fit into that dialogue, we are irrelevant to large swathes of Australians.
Reclaiming social licence and reconstructing links with community requires a completely different approach, that goes way deeper than a vox pop. It’s not hard to run a focus group with people from your database and post pics on socials of your latest swarre with three industry partners, but you’re not engaging with the 98% of the community that don’t normally tune into you; the people who control votes over which party will seize control over the sector through the new ATEC post-election.
Reaching community, persuading community that universities are more than a public relations train wreck, and building a process that actually drives changes that communities most want requires us to move beyond stunts. Don’t get me wrong, press releases signalling virtue can still drip like confetti and the photo ops will still be there, but stepping into zones where institutions currently don’t stray needs to be part of the agenda if we are going to drive perception change – and start to win more love from voters (whenever I talk about winning votes, people tell me HE will never win votes on its own, but it needs to be one of the reasons people decide their vote – in the nation’s top 10 – if research is to be fairly funded and regulation is to be slightly more reasonable into the future).
That’s why we are working with partners on new events for 2025. You can still pay your couple of grand to turn up for networking and bad coffee, we will still bring you 93% accurate forecasts of the predictable tropes the speakers will trot out, but in between those wildly popular sector gatherings, we all need to shake things up a bit. Venture into realms unknown.
Stay tuned, we’re on a freight train heading towards the Christmas break and there’s a phenomenal cluster of new events coming your way, developed in conjunction with the extraordinary leaders who have put their hands up to support Future Campus in 2025.
