Transportation Research Board 2020 Annual Report (2021)

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16 TRB • 2020 Annual Report GOAL 6 Communications New Ways to Tell TRB’s Story One of the most visible changes to TRB in 2020— especially as we moved to an increasingly online world—is the update to TRB’s website. The new website shows off a modern design but also highlights the clear connections to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Other new features include a blog and an events calendar that integrates other offerings from the National Academies. Internal codes allow social media to pull in images from the website when users post about TRB offerings. Our Global Affiliates’ logos are featured on the home page. It is a more appropriate storefront for the workings occurring behind the scenes, as TRB’s communications staff now are housed within the National Academies’ larger communications department and have a formalized strategy under new leadership. In addition to TRB’s weekly newsletter, three mode-specific listservs send out announcements of new projects, calls for nominations, calls for problem statements, and requests for proposals as they arise. Each of these lists are made up of a couple thousand subscribers who often are responsible for further spreading the message at the university transportation centers, professional groups, consultancies, or the state DOTs they represent. Paul Mackie, Director of Communications

TRB • 2020 Annual Report 17 Audience Growth In March, TRB surveyed subscribers of its long-standing weekly E-Newsletter, finding insights into TRB’s community. The survey showed significant engagement from TRB’s core volunteers and friends in standing committees, panel members, and transportation agency professionals in the United States as well as in Australia, Canada, India, and Spain. It also showed huge potential for audience growth with younger, female, and other underrepresented audiences. TRB is working on several communications initiatives that will bear fruit over the next year, including a significant revision of its communications strategic plan, a major design update to the E-Newsletter, and more ways for volunteers to engage in a valuable way. Changes will be aimed at impressing the existing TRB community and reaching new audiences. TRB continues to reach more key audiences through multiple platforms, including growing social media presences. While Twitter and Facebook remain social stalwarts, TRB has focused especially on improving communications through LinkedIn, where researchers and professionals are looking to interact, promote their work, and find solutions. The world should welcome more ideas from nontechnical transportation professionals who can communicate innovations in transportation more visually and less technically. I hope to refresh in everyone’s mind that transportation safety is not only an engineering business—it is everybody’s business. TRB has provided me with research-based tools and peer-to- peer learning, not to mention the knowledge I’ve gained during the four times I’ve attended the TRB Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., in the past decade. Rudynah Capone, Innovation and Technology Transfer Manager, Louisiana Transportation Research Center