As communications professionals we receive a lot of information. Probably too much.
It’s our job to turn that complicated information into something meaningful and share it with the right audience, on the right channel, at the right time.
by an anonymous comms professional
It means we’re busy – really busy – and I often find myself going in to auto pilot working through a growing to-do list to just get stuff done.
It’s great to feel productive and to help people, it’s why we do what we do right?
Think about what a typical week looks like for you there’s probably some easy jobs that you can apply your communications skills to without having to think too deeply about it.
Proof reading the weekly staff newsletter. Writing some copy for the website. Updating the intranet.
How many times have you read something and just gone into that auto-pilot mode to get the job done and move onto the next task? I do, all the time.
With total information overload though it means sometimes stuff doesn’t always fully sink in. It’s hard to see the wood for the trees.
Recently I’ve had some difficult things going on at home. I was struggling and using work as my escape. Staying busy helped distract me from everything else.
I was working on a project which involved writing copy for our mental health service. That meant understanding what our offer was and who were trying to help.
To help reach our target audience I really tried to put myself in the position of someone who might be struggling and ask what might help our messages resonate with them.
How might they be feeling? What are the warning signs to look out for? The physical symptoms they might be experiencing.
I distinctly remember signing off at the end of the day feeling really proud of a draft page I’d written on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Little did I know that less than 24 hours later I’d be signed off work diagnosed with the very thing I’d been writing about.
It probably sounds ridiculous reading that. How could I not know? I’d been writing about all the symptoms. Flashbacks. Lack of sleep. Worrying constantly that it might happen again.
But that was the trap I’d fallen in to. Comms auto-pilot. Get stuff done. Move onto the next task. I didn’t take a minute to let what I was doing really sink in.
This is obviously an extreme example, but if you think about I, I’m sure you’ll have had some similar experiences.
How often do you really read your staff newsletter after you’ve written it or proof read it?
I’ll bet you didn’t raise that purchase order before the end of financial year deadline – even though they requested for it to be repeated for weeks in the run up.
Ever missed the expenses deadline you’ve been advertising on the intranet? Forgot to attend that really interesting event put on for staff?
These are the things that really resonated with me when I looked back at how I could have missed something so obvious that was staring at me in the face. Yes, they are probably trivial examples, but it made me realise something important.
We (comms people) are also a target audience. All staff messages apply to us just as much as they do everyone else.
Just because we work in communications doesn’t mean that messages aren’t intended for us.
So, next time you are in that position, take a minute and let it sink in. Even if you’ve already read it. Read it like it was written just for you.
A note from Darren to the author - sending love to you and yours and thank you for sharing this post x
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