ADOT Communications Team earns honors at TransComm

We don’t normally talk about ourselves – the ADOT Communications Team – on this blog.

Instead, we’re more focused on sharing stories and highlighting the accomplishments of the ADOT engineers, planners, maintenance crews and all the other (numerous) departments who work everyday to plan, build and maintain this state’s highway system.

We like it that way … but today we’re so excited that we’ve just got to tell you about a few honors our team received yesterday.

TransComm
Unless you run in the same circles as state transportation communicators, you probably don’t know about TransComm … so let us explain.

TransComm is the annual meeting for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ (AASHTO) Subcommittee on Transportation Communications. This is a conference that brings transportation communication professionals together to learn and exchange ideas.

It’s also the place where state DOTs are recognized for the work of their communications and public relations teams through the TransComm Skills Contest.

The contest is conducted annually by the AASHTO Subcommittee on Transportation Communications and is the premier competition in the transportation industry. So, you can imagine how thrilled we were to get the word this morning that ADOT’s Communications Team earned three awards!

The honors were announced last night at the conclusion of TransComm and ADOT Communications were on hand to receive recognition for best interactive presentation, best external video and best blog.

Interactive presentation: This is a presentation that was developed to provide basic background information on transportation to the public (view a portion of the presentation – a video). It utilizes video and graphic design to effectively communicate with audiences the particulars of transportation funding in Arizona. It has been successfully delivered in a variety of venues, including several town and city council meetings.

External Video: You probably know about this one! Having received more than 4,000 views on YouTube, it’s one of our most popular videos. Of course, we’re talking about “Building a Freeway – Caissons.” The video was recognized for taking a highly technical engineering/construction topic and presenting it in an entertaining and interesting manner. We still love re-watching this fast-paced, stylish (and educational) video!

Blog: If you’re reading this, then you’re already familiar with the ADOT Blog! We launched it a little more than a year ago to connect with the public and give people a better understanding of how their transportation system is planned, built, maintained and financed. It’s proven to be a valuable tool allowing us to shine light on not just what ADOT does, but how and why we do it. When the awards were handed out last night, it was noted that the ADOT Blog does a good job covering a breadth of transportation topics, which is something we’re proud of (but, we know there's plenty more to write about!).

OK … tomorrow we’ll go back to blogging about the rest of ADOT (we have a really cool project video coming up!), but thanks for indulging us (and letting us toot our own horn!). And, also thank you for reading, watching and interacting with us – you’re a great audience!

One last thing … 
At the end of this year’s TransComm it was announced that Arizona would be the host state for the 2014 conference – a tremendous honor. We’re looking forward to hosting our colleagues in two years!