Lisa Vitols
Meteorological Service of Canada
Contact: kent.johnson@ec.gc.ca
As Environment Canada endeavours to improve weather information tools to reflect the evolving needs of Canadians, one innovative team chose a social science, qualitative approach to service development. Members of the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) national service office focused on a subset of the public who make critical decisions that affect the lives of many other Canadians – municipal officials. Rather than counting web hits or using numerical, computer-generated surveys to evaluate the usage of different tools, the team made informal, interactive presentations about existing weather information to small groups of municipal staff from the parks, engineering, roads and public works departments of local communities. The discussions, stories and connections that emanated from this initial interpersonal outreach led to consistent discoveries about how municipalities use weather information to improve safety for Canadians, and how MSC might improve products and services to support them. This validation of the social science approach to service development will inform future efforts targeting other Canadian decision makers.