Rob Sand on Communication & Transparency in Government - Chief Influencer - Episode # 003

This Chief Influencer is an elected official and a former prosecutor. Rob Sand is the State Auditor of Iowa and the author of The Winning Ticket. Rob is the only elected Democrat in state or federal office in Iowa. He shares his insights on communicating effectively in the twenty-first century, being accessible to his constituents, and amplifying great ideas from both sides of the aisle. 
Takeaways: As an elected official, Rob needs to influence the everyday people that comprise his constituency in order to begin making any impact. This is becoming more difficult with the growing partisanship of voters and the erosion of long-standing political coalitions. Rob provides people with an open look into how the state government works. He tries to educate people on what he does as the state auditor and what is going on in the government in general. Rob connects with the people of Iowa in two key ways. First, Rob travels to all 100 county seats in the state to talk with people in person. Second, Rob is very active on social media and actually manages the accounts himself. Every Tuesday evening, Rob goes live on Facebook for “Transparency Tuesdays” to tell people the highlights of what he worked on in the prior week and what is going on in the government. He leaves time to address comments and questions at the end. Many public-facing leaders avoid going live with their constituents as they are afraid of making a mistake and tarnishing their image. When Rob live-streams, he focuses on being himself, something that people really connect with.  Many elected officials seem very distant from constituents and by utilizing social media Rob is able to overcome traditional barriers and invite people in to look at what really happens. It creates an opening for dialog and community between Rob and Iowans.  When Rob comes across a great idea or innovative practice that each county could implement, he compiles those ideas and shares them with officials from every county each year. It doesn’t matter who came up with an idea, if it works, Rob will share it. 
Quote of the Show:“It's important for people to have a sense of the ability to reach their government, to reach levers of whatever degree of power and to actually have an interaction there” - Rob SandLinks: Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobSandIA  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robsandia/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robsandia/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robsand1/  Website: https://robsand.com/  The Winning Ticket: https://a.co/d/c9xQN6w  Ways to Tune In: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0DjyDgAnBZ1Pgy4Lyojgs1  Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chief-influencer/id1688769403  Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/27c24d98-1121-465a-bd8f-d7314a9a4482  Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podc....asts/chief-influence YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@chiefinfluencer