Everything a government communicator needs — in one place

How to Brief Leadership When They Don't Want to Hear Bad News

The Slow Work of Being Taken Seriously

The Records Request That Asks You to Remember, Not Just to Produce

Building a Measurement Dashboard Your Leadership Will Actually Read

The Text Message That Becomes a Public Record

Representing an Organization That Might Not Keep You

What We're Watching This Week: September 1, 2026

The 30-Day Comms Audit: What to Check Before Year-End

The Budget Conversation Nobody Prepped You For

AI in the PIO's Office: Using It Well, Writing the Policy, Keeping Public Trust

A practical, self-paced course on using generative AI in a government communications office without losing the public's trust — and on writing the policy your agency almost certainly needs.Somebody in your organization used AI this week. Possibly to draft a media release, possibly to summarize a report, possibly to clean up a photo before it went on Facebook. In most agencies nobody wrote that down, nobody approved it, and nobody told the public. The tools arrived years before the rules did, and communications is where the gap shows first, because communications is the work that goes out in public with the agency's name on it.This course is not a warning against AI, and it is not a sales pitch for it. It is a working guide for the person who has to decide what the office will and will not use these tools for, put that decision in writing, defend it to leadership, and answer the reporter who asks whether a statement was written by a machine.It covers what AI is genuinely good at in a communications shop and where it must never go; the records, confidentiality, and disclosure rules that already apply to every prompt typed into a chat window; how to write an agency AI use policy that staff will actually follow; and how to handle disclosure so that transparency builds trust rather than costing it.Everything here is grounded in what has already happened to real agencies — the departments caught publishing AI-altered evidence photos, the cities whose ChatGPT logs were released under public records law, the states that now require AI disclosure by statute.Who This Course Is For:PIOs and government communicators at any level of technical confidenceCommunications managers who have been asked "what's our policy on this?" and did not have an answerSolo PIOs who are, by default, the agency's AI policyPublic safety communicators whose agencies are adopting AI report writing, transcription, or translation toolsAnyone who needs to bring a written policy to a chief, manager, or council

Getting Found by AI: Making Your Content the Answer AI Reaches For

A practical, self-paced course on getting your agency found by AI. Work through it at your own pace and apply the method across every piece of content you're responsible for.A resident opens their phone and asks an AI assistant a question about your community — is the water safe, when does the office close, how do I apply for a permit. The assistant gives them one answer, stitched together from the sources it has decided to trust. For most agencies, those sources are someone else's: an old news story, a third-party site, or residents guessing among themselves.This course is a practical introduction to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): what it is and how AI chooses which sources to quote, where to apply it across your pages and posts, and how to prioritize strategically so your official information becomes the answer residents get. It's far more about clear thinking and writing than anything technical — no code, no vendor, no budget.Who This Course Is For:Government communicators and PIOs of any technical levelAnyone responsible for service, eligibility, or emergency-information contentSolo and small communications teams with no budget for vendorsCommunicators who want their official information to be the version residents receive

Public Information 101: The Role, the Reality, and the First 90 Days

Nobody tells you what you're actually walking into. This course does. Whether you were hired for the role, voluntold, or are covering communications on top of an entirely different job — this is the honest, practical foundation you need.Drawing on Christine Townsend's book The Frontline Communicator, this course covers what the role really involves, the skills that actually matter, and the steps to take in your first 90 days to set yourself up for long-term success.

Communication Strategy for Government Communicators

Most communicators are so busy reacting that they never get around to strategy. This course changes that.A communication strategy is what holds everything else together — your media relations, your community engagement, your crisis response. Without one, you're improvising. With one, you have a framework that works under pressure and proves your value to leadership.Drawing on The Frontline Communicator, this course walks you through building a strategy that's practical, measurable, and built for the realities of government communication.