NASA Has A New PAO Contractor
Keith’s note: According to NASA PAO: “NASA has selected PCI Productions LLC of Huntsville, Alabama, to manage communication services for all agency centers including headquarters, as well as its mission directorates, to enable the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of NASA information. … “This is one major step in our overall procurement strategy for communications that will allow us to more efficiently and effectively use the amazing capability of NASA communications organizations to connect the world with the agency’s missions,” said Johnny Stephenson, deputy associate administrator for Communications at NASA Headquarters in Washington.” FYI Johnny Stephenson spent most of his career at NASA MSFC – also in Huntsville, Alabama. On his Twitter account @jfstephenson1 he lists his position as “Director/Strategic Analysis & Comm at NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, Real Estate investor, Sports fan”. He has 106 followers. This is the number two Comms guy for all of NASA – yet he can’t even make his social media account accurate. Oh yes, the new NASA PAO contractor @PciProductions only has 7 followers on Twitter. Let the world-class outreach goodness commence.
2 responses to “NASA Has A New PAO Contractor”
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Apparently this effort to find a new, single contractor, to support NASA communications was done in order to consolidate efforts across the agency. But the NASA people in the different programs, across the different centers, are still each doing their own thing. Do they think the contractor is going to do the consolidating for NASA and that after the contractor effort, NASA will follow along? Until NASA figures out where it is and where it wants to go, I don’t give much hope to the consolidation effort.
NASA is too distracted by different kinds of social media and where to place their focus. I believe that most of social media misreports the numbers of their participants. They are using bots and fake accounts to drive up numbers so the numbers cannot be relied upon and do not matter. NASA needs to refocus on getting their technical job, which includes reporting about their efforts, in order.
I’ve noticed how in so many cases, NASA is no longer regarded as the source, the expert; media will go to interview people like Keith Cowing instead of anyone from NASA in order to get the story.
I thought this was an interesting recent exchange on a popular Facebook site-notice that these are avid space enthusiasts who are looking for a source to keep them up to date on space: “Can anyone recommend a space exploration news update?”…”I totally missed the recent launch to the ISS. Didn’t know it was happening, I’ve no idea who the crew are, missed the launch etc. I have long thought that there must be someone doing a snappy regular space round up”. I try to stay up to date on sites like Spaceref. When I want to watch a launch usually NASA.gov does not work so I go to place like space.com. If I need substantive information on a space mission or vehicle I go to Wikipedia. NASA rarely comes through with the information I need.