London 2012 Olympic Games: a digital triumph - The Guardian (blog)

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A record number of spectators attended the London 2012 Olympic Games. Photograph: Dan Chung/The Guardian

What makes a good Olympic Games great?

Four years ago I was speaking to the organisers of the Sydney Games to see what communications lessons we could learn from what, until London 2012, was considered the most successful Games ever.

Sydney had gone down as the ultimate sporting party, and had allowed the world to look at Australia in a new light. I was trying to work out, from a government point of view, what kind of Games we wanted London to be.

There were three lessons I took from Sydney:

First, a successful few weeks of sport is not enough – a Games can be so much more. You hear this time and again from every city that hosts a major sporting event. So from the outset, we were determined to put plans in place that were ambitious enough to match Locog and the government's wildest dreams of success in 2012. That could turn a good Games into a great Games, and make sure that people are not just talking about it for decades to come, but feeling the benefits too.

For communications, one of the main challenges in the first few years was convincing people just how big this would be, and how big an opportunity for the country. By the time we got to "super Saturday" or "thriller Thursday", and the whole country and the media would be united in awe of the Games, it would be too late. The foundations needed to be in place long before.

That's why we were talking tirelessly about legacy right from the start. It was a tough message, with years to go before 2012 Olympics and with the media focus on building the venues and hitting the budget. But it was vital to the government's goals.

And that's why we launched, a year ahead of the Games, a co-ordinated, cross-government campaign – the GREAT campaign – to promote Britain abroad with confidence even in difficult times. Having the confidence to go out to the world and promote what Britain has to offer, during the economic downturn, and through last year's riots, has set us in good stead now we aim to generate £13bn in economic benefits from the combined efforts around London 2012.

And that was the second lesson from Sydney: collective success is the best way of delivering individual triumph for everyone involved. Simplicity of messages and clarity about what you want to say, are crucial.

We brought together staff from every government department across Whitehall to work in one communications directorate. The largest cross government communications operation ever. We had one website, twitter-feed and phone number. One message.

Our priority was simple: remove the barriers to effective collective communication. By creating a culture in which sharing communications was the norm and not the exception, most of the job was done.

This was tough given the scale and complexity of the challenge: 25,000 international and national media over at the Park and thousands more across London; 19 government departments with roles to play delivering the Games; alongside Locog, the GLA and all the sporting bodies. Stakeholders ranged from the Met Office to Health Protection Agency to the utilities, all of which needed to be brought into a co-ordinated structure to maintain consistent messages.

We set up daily director of communication calls with our key partners, Locog, the GLA, the Met and core government departments. We spoke every day throughout the torch and the Games, so we could talk, share, decide and support. By the time of the athlete's parade, more than 125 teleconferences had taken place.

Part of that simplicity for the government was knowing when to speak, and when to be silent. Ahead of the Games, we talked legacy and explained the scale of the challenge ahead. But then it was crucial to provide the space for sport to shine through once the Games started. And how they shone.

The third lesson is, that in terms of communications, it's the two weeks before the Games, when the journalists need copy, but there is no sport, that are the most pressured. We saw it in South Africa in the last world cup when the focus was on crime and security. In Beijing, the focus was on human rights and pollution. In London, our issues were security and transport. We dealt with all of this in communications by putting in place our contingency planning. Our community of communications professionals got us through.

'Don't look back and wish you had done more' was the big warning from Sydney. Could we have done more? Of course there is no limit on what the government still wants to achieve with 2012, but everyone involved in the Games is confident that we have the foundations firmly in place to give London 2012 the lasting legacy that such an incredible Games deserves.

And perhaps the hidden legacy for the government from these Games is that we've got a generation of incredibly talented government communication specialists who have seen the value of this level of collaboration – which can only strengthen the effectiveness of government communications for the future.

Sarah Jones was director of communications at the Government Olympic Executive from 2008, and is deputy director of communications for Government Olympic Communications

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