I’ve just won a CIPR Excellence award and the feeling of elation is still incredible in the days after the event.
by Louisa Dean
I entered the awards to ensure my team, (and it wasn’t just the council comms team, but a wider group of allies), were recognised for some really special work we delivered.
The award win was for everyone who worked for me over the last eight years planning the communications for the funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, also known as London Bridge.
And that’s what awards are – they are a recognition of the work you have delivered, they are a recognition within the sector that you are among the best and they boost morale within your team like nothing else can.
Awards are not evaluation – they don’t mark your comms homework – because if they did, we would all be entering awards and we don’t all do that. There is an emotional element to awards that simply isn’t there when you calculate your outputs, outcomes and outtakes.
Why I started entering awards
I started entering awards when my comms hero, Jill Spurr, told me that the work the team had delivered for the funeral of HRH Prince Philip was worth sharing with our comms community. I felt I was just doing my job but I duly filled in the application and some weeks later, we won our first CIPR PRide award. Actually, we won two.
One of the reasons I started entering awards was to gain recognition for my team’s work from outside of the organisation – a sort of external critic. I was proud of the work we delivered, I wanted to share it and I knew that other opportunities would come from it – presenting at seminars sharing that good practise and mentoring future comms superstars.
Being shortlisted in an award among your peers, even people you admire, is a massive success. That campaign or project you worked on and put all your effort in, has been recognised by your industry, by people you respect. I’m told it is great to be shortlisted and that is an achievement – I’m not a great loser and have practised my happy loser face – but it’s true, being shortlisted is an amazing achievement.
The UnAwards
At the UnAwards last year, the feeling in the room was immense. There were over 130 comms professionals who were excited that they could win, although they knew not everyone would. Everyone was supportive, everyone was proud and everyone wanted to talk to each other and learn about their achievements.
Choosing the right awards
You do have to pick and chose the right awards for you and your organisation, what would your senior leaders be proud of and doesn’t seem frivolous. But when so many of us struggle to have the work of communications really understood by the top table, having an award that demonstrates the degree of your passion, professionalism and knowledge, that’s easy to understand. It’s easy to say (with pride) “We have an award-winning Comms team” and understand what that means.
When something means as much to you as the work I planned for the funeral of HM The Queen, Elizabeth II, you have to enter some awards – although it does cross your mind, will other people recognise how much this means?
Why we should all enter awards…
Being shortlisted was enough, but winning was something else… amazing, incredible, and produced some tears.
It was about the partnership working, it was about the hours meeting other communication professionals to plan activity, it was about re-writing messages, it was about sitting in meetings for hours on end and it was about something that really mattered to me.
I won three awards at UnAwards and recently the CIPR Excellence for my work on delivering the communications for the funeral. I have one more award entry to hear about and then I will stop talking about the funeral, maybe!
But I won’t stop entering awards – and here’s why I think you should keep on entering too:
- Do it for recognition within your organisation and your profession
- Do it because you are proud of the work you have delivered
- And do it because your team deserve that morale-boosting feeling that you get when a short list is announced.
It’s a bit of an over-used saying, but we really are all winners.
The 8th annual UnAwards will open in September. You can find out more HERE
Louisa Dean is head of communications at Reading Borough Council. You can say hello on Twitter at LouisaDean23
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