S2E16: Words with Impact; Communication Tips for Privacy Technologists with Melanie Ensign (Discernible)

The Shifting Privacy Left Podcast

I'm delighted to welcome guest, Melanie Ensign, Founder and CEO of Discernible, where she helps organizations adopt effective communication strategies to improve risk-related outcomes. She's managed security & privacy communications for some of the world's most notable brands, including Facebook, Uber & AT&T.
Melanie counsels executives and technical teams to cut through internal politics, dysfunctional inertia & meaningless metrics. For the past 10 years, she's also led the press department & communication strategy for DEF CON. Also, Melanie is an accomplished scuba diver and brings lessons learned preventing, preparing for & navigating unexpected high-risk underwater incidents to her work in security & privacy. Today's discussion focuses on the importance of communication strategies and tactics for privacy engineering teams.

Topics Covered:

• Melanie's career journey and how she leveraged her experience in shark science to help executives get over their initial fears of the unknown in security & privacy
• How Melanie guides and supports technical teams at Discernible on effective communications
• How to prevent 'Privacy Outrage'
• The value of preventing privacy snafus rather than focusing only on crisis comms
• How companies can use technical communication strategies & tactics to earn trust with the public
• The problem with incentives - why most social media metrics have been bullshit for far too long
• Why Melanie decided to leave big tech to start Discernible
• Insight into the 7 Arthur W. Page Society Principles, a 'code of ethics' for communications professionals
• What makes for a good PR story that the media would want to cover
• Why press releases are mostly ineffective except for announcing funding raises
• The importance of educating the community for which you're building
• Melanie's advice to Elon Musk, who does not invest in a comms team
• What OpenAI could have done differently, and whether their go-to-market strategy was effective
• The importance of elevating Compliance teams to Business Advisors in the eyes of stakeholders

Resources Mentioned:

• Subscribe to the Discernible newsletter
• Discover Github's ReadMe Newsletter
• Learn about the Arthur W. Page Principles

Guest Info:

• Follow Melanie on LinkedIn
• Follow Melanie on Mastodon

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Chapters

1. S2E16: Words with Impact; Communication Tips for Privacy Technologists with Melanie Ensign (Discernible) (00:00:00)

2. Introducing Melanie Ensign, CEO of Discernible (00:01:15)

3. Melanie describes her journey from studying shark science and marine biology to a focusing on corporate communications and then specializing her career in privacy and security communications (00:02:39)

4. Melanie explains how she leveraged her experience working in shark science to help executives get over their initial fear of the unknown in the realm of security (00:07:41)

5. How Melanie guides and supports technical teams like privacy & security engineers for effective communications (00:11:31)

6. How to prevent 'Privacy Outrage' (00:14:05)

7. The importance of preventing privacy snafus rather than over-focusing on crisis comms (00:16:36)

8. Authenticity - how companies can use technical communication strategies & tactics to earn trust with the public (00:19:49)

9. The problem with incentives - why most social media metrics have been bullshit & remained that way for so long (00:23:29)

10. Why Melanie decided to leave big tech to start Discernible (00:26:38)

11. Melanie outlines the 7 Arthur W. Page Society Principles, a sort of 'code of ethics' for communications professionals, (00:31:06)

12. The do's & don'ts when communicating for public relations purposes? (00:34:58)

13. Why press releases are mostly ineffective except for announcing funding raises (00:39:21)

14. The importance of educating the community you're building for (00:42:36)

15. Melanie's advice to Elon Musk, who devalues the importance of a comms team (00:46:19)

16. Debra & Melanie discuss ChatGPT, what OpenAI could have done differently, and whether their go-to-market strategy was effective (00:47:31)

17. The importance of elevating Compliance teams to Business Advisors in the eyes of stakeholders in order to demonstrate business value (00:51:30)

18. Melanie shares helpful resources for effective communications (00:55:12)