north central texas council of governments
public involvement intern
Background
The North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) Transportation Department is the largest Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) in Texas and fourth largest in the United States.
It was established to assist local governments in the DFW-Arlington, Denton-Lewisville, and McKinney urbanized and surrounding areas in coordinated planning efforts to support the quality-of-life expectations of residents as these areas continue to grow and develop.
During my internship at the North Central Texas Council of Governments, I honed in on my corporate communications and B2B skills by supporting the Transportation Department’s public involvement program.
My biggest projects included revitalizing the branding efforts for the Transportation Department’s recruitment and retention initiatives, creating and implementing a targeted e-newsletter for local businesses in 12 counties in the DFW Metroplex, and designing marketing collateral for the department’s external partner, GoCarma.
In addition to these projects, I created small-scale marketing collateral for various projects and helped develop strategic communications plans for 5 program areas for FY24.
recruitment and retention marketing
My job wasn’t only to get the public involved as the Public Involvement intern, I had to find ways to keep them there.
It first started with revitalizing the branding for NCTCOG’s college recruitment marketing collateral.
This process included developing a new color palette for the agency to use, updating out-of-date language, and creating more engaging and punchy graphics that would make the idea of working for a transportation agency fun. I incorporated the DFW skyline into all of these materials to narrow the scope of what areas NCTCOG generally serves.
These fliers were first used at college career fairs across Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. They now go with every employee to various community outreach events they attend.
Career Fair at Texas Tech University
Career Fair at Texas A&M University
Spotted by me at UT Arlington’s Comm Day Career Fair :)
Once these fliers started making their rounds and new employees began at the agency, my supervisor and I got approval by our director to develop a professional development workshop series to support retention efforts.
These posters were created to send out to new employees. They also were hung around popular spots in the office. They follow the new color palette I developed.
The first event was in April 2024, with two other events to occur in July and October 2024.
business e-newsletter - NCTcog business digest
The NCTCOG Business Digest e-newsletter aims to disseminate crucial information on regional transportation and air quality initiatives that may impact businesses, their owners, and employees in 12 counties in North Texas.
During my internship, I tracked local and regional business activities, such as economic development, employment statistics, chambers of commerce, and potential infrastructure project stakeholders. Using this research, I established communication channels with targets that would benefit from the newsletter. This included visiting chambers of commerce, joining other teams the department worked closely with (i.e. the aviation team when toured airports), and attending community events to introduce the agency and what they aim to do for the DFW region.
At the end of my internship, the first issue of the newsletter was sent out to over 750 contacts (you can view it by clicking on the photo).
It had an open rate of 23.4% and gained 46 new subscribers in its first week.
Gocarma break room poster
I worked closely with Katy Linburg, VP of Operations of Carma Technology, to develop this 18x24 break room poster. NCTCOG works closely with GoCarma & TEXpress Lanes to bring this exciting technology to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
These posters were also sent to other government agencies across the nation who partner with GoCarma.
The poster includes a dynamic QR code that provides analytics for GoCarma to evaluate the posters effectiveness by region. In this case, the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.
The poster’s design is in accordance with Carma Technologies branding guidelines.
