If you’re of a certain vintage you’ll remember the 1990s comedy sketch show, The Fast Show. There was a Paul Whitehouse character in it called Archie the pub bore, who claimed to have done every job under the sun, when striking up unreciprocated conversations with confused pub customers. Long distance lorry driver, vicar, boxer, pianist, ballet dancer – he’d done them all. Archie claimed each of these jobs to be the “hardest game in the world, that” “I done it myself – 30 years man and boy”. Each week his claims got more and more unbelievable. But I don’t think he ever claimed to be a comms person.
by Darren Caveney
That’s where I come in. Because I could now be that pub bore and talk about 30 years in comms.
This week exactly 30 years ago I left the final year of my PR degree early to go and work on the Euro 96 football tournament. It was an incredible experience and I was lucky to begin my career with such a high profile event.
From there I worked in agencies, utilities, local government and the NHS until I set up my own comms consultancy.
I genuinely can’t believe 30 years have passed. A hell of a lot has happened in that time, both personally and professionally.
So, I’m feeling very reflective this week, and wanted to share a few of these reflections, lessons, lowlights and highlights.
Here are seven of them…
1. Be lucky
Legendary South African golfer, Gary Player, famously once said
“The harder I try, the luckier I get”
I totally get that. But by the same token I do think that it’s become harder to make your own luck. That first Euro 96 job came from me writing a letter to the Football Association. It wasn’t advertised. Can you imagine the competition for that role now? And the difficulty in getting the right person’s attention?
I do think luck has played a part in my career – but I do also believe that we need to try and see opportunities early and chance our arm occasionally. Try to make something happen, because great opportunities rarely land in the laps of normal people.
2. Work hard (and be nice to people)
I have always had a work ethic. From being a trolley boy in Safeway at the age of 14. I liked having my own money so there was an incentive. I also realised quickly that I wouldn’t be the smartest person in the room or organisation so I would have to work harder than most.
3. Bad managers can kill jobs
We all know this. And most of us have skin in the game here. I think my managers got progressively worse as I became more and more senior. So – in turn – they were more senior, and very senior in the organisation. Not all but there are three or four who jump out as being, well, hopeless, ineffective, meddling or over-bearing.
If you’re in this position it’s easy to say ‘get out’. But the jobs market isn’t a fun place right now.
If your manager gives you not only the Sunday nights, but the Monday and Tuesday nights too please think about your Plan B. Because it generally isn’t good for your mental health and wellbeing.
Of course, we can learn from adversity and challenge. It can make us better, stronger, wiser. It did me some good I’m sure, and made me very clear on the way in which I would and wouldn’t lead.
Thank you to all of the great managers and leaders I have worked with. I learned something from you all.
4. Learning doesn’t have to be paid for
Most comms teams I work with now have little to no training budget. And this is a real issue. I see teams who haven’t had formal training in years.
But, there are many ways to learn. And formal training isn’t the only show in town, or any kind of guarantee to success.
I always tried to go the extra mile here, such as volunteering for projects others didn’t fancy/I could learn and develop from. Annual reports, customer magazines, corporate identity relaunches. All brought their own pressures to the younger me but they really helped me to learn my craft.
I would also recommend asking if you can shadow someone you respect or who you think is doing great work. It could be a team or an individual. Spend a day, or even a week, with them if you can and it’s such a valuable experience that you just won’t get from an online course or similar.
5. Experience is more important than qualifications
I may be a lonely voice here.
I’m not saying don’t get qualified, of course. But, formal, academia doesn’t suit everyone, and isn’t accessible for some people. I managed to get myself a PR degree back in the 90s from the peerless Anne Gregory at Leeds Business School (again, I got lucky) but academia isn’t something I particularly enjoy.
I always found recruiters were more interested in hard experience and demonstrable evidence of having delivered the important parts of the job so that’s where I put my focus.
When I was an in-house director and head of comms, experience always top trumped qualifications for me.
And I now also see this first hand when I am placing interims in comms teams. In over 3 years of doing this I don’t recall any recruiting manager referencing qualifications as the critical factor when deciding on candidates. So, yes, get qualified - we should all always be learning - but there is much, much more to it than a traditional paid for course or qualification, in my experience.
6. From zero digital, to all digital, to oh, digital…
I can remember being in a role in the late 90s and having to queue up for the one PC in the office which had the internet. My kids look at me in bewilderment when I tell them such tales. It was all about print and design and traditional advertising, even direct marketing. I used to love print and design, and made friends with people from both industries so that I could learn from them. I actually loved print, and the excitement of opening a box of fresh print. Remember the smell? Lovely!
My social media journey began in 2008 when myself, Fran Collingham and Jayne Surman clubbed together and commissioned the late Nick Booth to teach us all about this new thing called Twitter. We really were early adopters in local government comms. I still remember my then CEX’s face when I asked him if we could have a corporate Twitter account. It’s fair to say he wasn’t keen. And social quickly became an important tool in the comms armoury. It’s sad to see where some social media has ended up but comms is an ever-changing beast and we constantly need to adapt.
Email has remained a constant throughout this time, and is still surprisingly under-appreciated by some.
And I have lost count of the number of times I’ve read that websites are dead. They haven’t died, I can report.
7. Highlights
Well across three decades there are too many to mention here. I might need to pen another couple of posts to do that justice.
Getting the chance to host a two-day comms conference for the Foreign Office in Jordan was pretty cool, as was being asked to speak at EuroPCom in Brussels. Flying to the Isle of Man to run training for the Government there was a great experience. I always fancied a trip to Scandinavia or New York too to be involved in a comms event but that never quite came off.
I loved leading Sandwell’s new corporate identity relaunch in 2002 with the team at One Black Bear. I still think it looks good today, and I still have the printed guidelines. They are a genuine work of art.
I’ve enjoyed award wins at four different organisations. Seeing people realise that their work was really good, despite what they were sometimes told by others internally, was one of the best parts of my in-house career.
There’s the UnAwards which are the best thing I’ve ever been involved with and now in their 11th year. The opportunity to help fly a flag for the best work and best people in our industry is an honour.
And the wondrous Comms Unplugged – a comms retreat in a field in beautiful Dorset with my pals Sally Northeast and Georgia Turner. What an experience. I genuinely believe they led the way for recognising and improving mental health and wellbeing in our industry and we faced down some barriers in making this happen.
Next month I’ll be celebrating 11 years of running my own consultancy and that has been an absolute blast and I have loved it always. Thank you to everyone who has given me the opportunity to work them and their teams. Keep on doing it – I still have kids to feed!
But the biggest highlight from my 30 years are the many friends I have made from the comms industry. Some are proper friends for life and we share so much more than just work. I’m grateful to them all for the support, fun and friendship.
What next? Well unfortunately it won’t be another 30 years. But I’m not going away any time soon. I still have much to do, much to learn, and much to achieve.
Hardest game in the world? Course it isn’t. It’s been a brilliant and beautiful ride.
Darren Caveney is creator and owner of comms2point0 and creative communicators ltd and organiser of the UnAwards.
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