this is local comms – for local people

February 8, 2015 Darren Caveney

Some people and things in life just punch way above their weight. Orkney Islands are one. They never ceases to amaze with their greatness - like the Spartans of the comms world. Here's another example to show why...

by Kirsty Groundwater

Coming from a remote island community you get used to the good humoured “League of Gentlemen” comparisons – this is a local shop, for local people and all that. But from a local government communications perspective, how much truth is there in that kind of statement? Is local best?

In late 2013, local councils across the UK were in the midst of encouraging their residents to nominate their community heroes to be ‘baton bearers’ for the Commonwealth Games Queen’s Baton Relay. It was a challenge, not least in Orkney where Orcadians, although renowned for their immense community spirit and pride, are notoriously reticent to put themselves in the limelight. This coupled with a tendency towards a laid-back last-minute attitude to these processes led to a worried phone call from the Glasgow 2014 relay team concerned over the lack of nominations coming in from Orkney.

A well-meaning PR bod from the relay team ‘doon sooth’ suggested that perhaps they could send us a nice picture of Clyde, the Games mascot, standing (over 300 miles away) next to the Clyde in Glasgow for distribution to our local media.

Thanks, but no thanks.

january sale: slashing creative comms costs

January 26, 2015 Darren Caveney

January can be such a long month. You may have been paid early in December. You may still be waiting to get paid for January. But it needn't all be bleak. And not being flush needn't be a block to creativity. Far from it.

by Caroline Roodhouse

Being paid early in December is great isn’t it?

It’s less great when you reach around about now. It’s late January, it’s been nearly a month, we spent a fortune on Christmas and for some people it’s still a few days until payday.

Managing budgets is a way of life at home - just as it is at work too.

As enthusiastic communicators who want to do the very best in our roles at all times, a lack of resources can be pretty frustrating. When the pressure’s on to find exciting, cutting edge ways to get our messages across, encouraging, inspiring and influencing our colleagues to ensure business objectives are delivered, the Finance Gods say ‘no chance’.

the power of integration

January 25, 2015 Darren Caveney

Communications planning for the Nottingham University fire where more than 60 firefighters spent the weekend battling a huge blaze started 10 months in advance.

By Bridget Aherne

That's not a glib, insensitive or plain wacky statement but a genuine sentiment that is testament to the hard work of the Corporate Communications team and all staff in the organisation in changing its approach to engaging with the communities they serve.

Of course, we didn't plan for a fire to devastate a £20m iconic building or for our firefighters and officers to spend three days working tirelessly and professionally to stop the fire from spreading to other buildings and put it out - but we have been planning how we will inform people and discuss matters properly with them when the worst does happen.

using targeted tv advertising

January 22, 2015 Darren Caveney

Foster carers are hard to recruit. It's a demanding but rewarding job. Each one can save an authority thousands of pounds. But how to find them? One forward-thinking council has turned to targeted TV ads.

by Anushka Desai

We had been looking for innovative ways to recruit more foster carers, so when Sky TV approached us to use their new targeted advertising system we had to give it a go.

Like many authorities we are struggling to recruit more carers for teenagers. We currently have around 430 children in care in Buckinghamshire, with the majority being of teenage age. Currently over 50% of our children are placed outside of the county, as we don’t have enough in-house foster carers.

#thisgirlcan: a real women campaign that helps get women into sport

January 21, 2015 Darren Caveney

When Sport England launched a campaign 'This Girl Can' aimed at women some loved it. Some hated it. But what do comms people think? We asked a volleyballing head of comms.

by Emma Rodgers

A new Sport England campaign called ‘This girl can’ was launched last week. The campaign claims to be the first of its kind to feature all shapes, sizes and sporting abilities that sweat and jiggle as they exercise.

As Sport England sets out “It seeks to tell the real story of women who exercise and play sport by using images that are the complete opposite of the idealised and stylised images of women we are now used to seeing.”

When Dan asked me if I’d write a blog post on it, I was more than happy to. As a woman who has always exercised or played sport, I was keen to really have a think about what it meant to me both as a comms professional and as an individual who is far from the stick thin woman that is often portrayed doing sport in the media. I’d also watched the video, which has had over 6 million views online already, as it had been shared by many of my female friends on social media before I even knew it was part of a specific campaign. If you haven’t seen the advert yet, you can check it out here.

creativity in internal comms survey - the results have landed

January 20, 2015 Darren Caveney

What makes creativity tick in the field of internal comms? Fab agency Alive With Ideas decided to ask a few questions to see. They produced a survey and there's a stack of learning in it. The survey results have been collated and there’s a nice juicy report available for your enjoyment.

by Caroline Roodhouse

Not that many moons ago, we sent our global survey out into the stratosphere, to investigate the levels of creativity in the big wide world of internal comms. With over 160 respondents offering their unique insight into creativity in their organisation, we gathered a magnitude of constructive comments to share with you.

As well as private sector and multinational organisations, we received responses from internal communicators in local government, government departments, NHS, police, fire and housing. Seasoned comms pros, sharing their thoughts, opinions and advice about how they see creativity in the workplace and how they would like it to be encouraged.

what skills do you need for a career in pr?

January 9, 2015 Darren Caveney

Thinking of moving into a career in PR? Here are some tips from a master.

by Sarah Stimson

Whenever I recruit graduates for the Taylor Bennett Foundation it is always at the front of my mind that at the end of the ten weeks of PR training we expect our alumni to embark on careers in the industry, so there are certain raw ingredients I'm always on the lookout for. PR employers tell us that these are the basic skills they’re looking for in entry-level hires.

Likeability

This is difficult to quantify but it’s still really important. Keep in mind that your colleagues will spend more time with you than with their own families so it's important that you're easy to get along with. This includes being enthusiastic, willing and keen to learn. A positive attitude goes a long way to making you easy to hire. Whiners are never popular and the ability to build good relationships is really vital.

tips for using images on linkedin better

January 6, 2015 Darren Caveney

LinkedIn is getting more useful and more popular. Indeed we have a comms2point0 company page here. Here's a few thoughts on how images can work best on your profile to make yourself eyecatching to a potential recruiter. There's the head and shoulders, sure. But what about the cover image?

by John Fox

Most people are using the cover photo facility provided by Facebook and Twitter to personalise their profiles, but how many are using the same facility available on Linked In, and is the image appropriate?

the psn hack: why sony needed to do crisis comms better

December 29, 2014 Darren Caveney

Christmas and New Year 2014 will be remembered for many things. Presents. Mince pies. And in many households a battle with a non-loading hacked Playstation Network with minimal information. Here's what one comms person had to say.

by Julie Waddicor

“Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, the men-folk were moaning, starting to complain and grouse.”

Late on Christmas Eve and into Christmas Day Sony’s Playstation Network (PSN) suffered a catastrophic failure. The online service which enables people from all corners of the globe to play against each other on a variety of games was suddenly unavailable due to an attack by a hackers’ collective known as the Lizard Squad.

content marketing and comms people

December 22, 2014 Darren Caveney

What is content marketing? Does it have a place amongst the comms mix? Actually, yes, says one campaigns delivery manager.

by Soraya Mitchell

‘Content is king’ so say a lot of people without really knowing who first said it. Bill Gates apparently, so very prescient of him.

To prove the point there is now a whole movement dedicated to the noble pursuit of ‘content marketing’, which has spawned America’s Content Marketing Institute and the UK’s Content Marketing Association.

#backclimateaction twitter campaign was bigger than christmas

December 14, 2014 Darren Caveney

Rear Admirals and a reach of 100 million was the staggering reach of a UK government department's Twitter campaign that called on popular support.

By Ewan Bennie

Working at the Department from Energy and Climate Change - or DECC - has offered up some unusual experiences, but teaching two former Rear Admirals how to tweet – after a ten hour stint on Twitter with four colleagues in a windowless cell-like room – was perhaps the most surreal.

ridiculous workplace rules are stifling creativity

December 14, 2014 Darren Caveney

No beards or stubble!

No hats! (…even in the winter)

Drink only from tiny little cups!

A blanket ban on biscuits ☹

by Caroline Roodhouse

We were intrigued by this recent article from The Telegraph all about weird workplace rules. And it seems there really is no shortage of examples!

We’ve started to get quite concerned that, whilst being so utterly bonkers they had us in stitches, these ridiculous rules could actually be stifling creativity at work. You see, unnecessary bureaucracy and redundant red tape cause major frustration for employees.

winning at the unawards

December 12, 2014 Darren Caveney

The inaugural comms2point0 UnAwards were a brilliant opportunity to showcase and celebrate the outstanding comms and digital work which takes place up and down the UK. And whilst you are all winners to us, here is the official winners roll of honour...

by Darren Caveney

Following an inbox-busting 202 entries from 150 organisations, our team of external, independent judges and comms industry experts had a fight on their hands to select the winners, But select they did.

And of course you played your part too in the public vote, which saw us receive almost 2,000 votes.

Social media was simply buzzing with UnAwards chat - in just seven days on Twitter the UnAwards reached 489k accounts with over 2.5m opportunities to see. Just statistcial outputs, of course, but impressive nonetheless.

Here's an UnAwards Storify courtesy of Emma Rodgers.

Huge thanks to everyone who played a part and supported the Unawards. We're keen to get your views on whether we should run them again in 2015 so do get in touch.

Here's the full list of winners:

grab yourself an ultimate unawards ticket

December 5, 2014 Darren Caveney

So you've seen the build-up, you've entered the unawards and you've even voted in one of the four public vote categories. Now you could have a chance of being at the first ever comms2point0 UnAwards, taking place next week.

By Emma Rodgers

It sees the culmination of hours of hard work, by both us and all the entrants and has seen some cracking stats so far...

the comms2point0 unawards: the story so far

November 28, 2014 Darren Caveney

The inaugural comms2point0 UnAwards take place in December in Birmingham. Here's a quick update on the story so far, and details of how you can get involved...

by Darren Caveney

First off, we wanted to repeat our huge and genuine thank you to everyone who has shown interest, entered awards, talked so positively and shared the love for the inaugural comms2point0 UnAwards.

We are very, very grateful.

As a result, it means that you have created the most popular comms industry awards in the UK this year*