what has soft power taught me about campaigns?

Sometimes it's not the direct things that wins people over. It can be the BBC. Or Bollywood. As a talented comms officer from Tunisia who worked for the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office reveals.

by Kacem Jlidi

Picture this: a 16 year old boy from Morocco going to the hairdresser to get a 'David Beckham' haircut or doodling all sorts of tattoo shapes on his textbook while in class.

Imagine this South African 48 year old lady spending her evenings binge-watching Bollywood movies and gasping at the sight of her favourite Indian actor’s dancing.     

Wouldn’t you agree that those are basic examples of successful brand engagement – ones that went beyond geographical limits? 

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if staff are our greatest asset why don't we show it?

Staff: Our greatest asset? Don't tell us, show us.

By Darren Caveney

In a recent conversation about intranets and internal communications I fessed up on a theory I have developed.

Staff intranets, we know, are generally unengaging resources, crammed with slabs of info but offering very little in the way of interaction or honest, two-way conversation.

But my theory is that this has very little to do with the intranet sites themselves – they’re just a symptom of a much larger organisational and cultural problem which is that too many organisations – when push comes to shove – don’t truly value their staff. There, I've said it.

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#ournhs24 – learning from commscamp15

CommsCamp has been the source of many an idea and plan. But one vision, for a new NHS comms initiative, was sparked before-hand and road-tested at the event for communicators instead. Good thinking.

by Amanda Nash

I’ve never felt so naked in a room full of hundreds of strangers. I don’t want to put women off pitching at conferences, in fact Emma Rodgers’ blog inspired me to get up off my seat.

But the reality is, you’re up front alone, with just your idea for a session and a microphone in hand. It could be a great idea, if could be a really bad one. At the point when you see everyone out front staring at you expectantly, that’s the moment you think it’s probably the latter … but it’s too late. You have 30 seconds to sell it.

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awards and that loving feeling

A smidge of recognition can spark all sorts of positive vibes into a team. So why do we so rarely do it?

By Darren Caveney

Last week I was fortunate to attend the UK Public Sector Communications Awards and together with a rather brilliant bunch of colleagues pick up an award. It was a reminder of how an award nomination or win can provide a welcome and invigorating dose of feel good factor. A little bit of that loving feeling, even to folks who have been involved in the industry for a long, long time.

I stopped entering awards a few years back for a number of reasons. You don’t need award judges to tell you when you’ve delivered good work, in the same way that you don’t always need a kick up the backside when you know you’ve made a mistake at work. You instinctively know these things and learn from them. But sometimes you work on a project that you know is so good it needs to be shouted about so that your colleagues can receive 15 deserved minutes in the spotlight.

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branding: a simple truth

There are professional lessons all around us, literally on tap every day if you look hard enough - even on a trip to the seaside.

By Darren Caveney

I love ice cream. I’ve tried them all. Compared and contrasted and, in my own head at least, decided which are the best.

The Italians are masters of ice cream. But the best of the lot is a British brand.

What adds to their appeal is the masterly way in which this product is branded. So simple, so clean, so stylish and with echoes of its past. It perfectly complements the product. And that’s the trick with branding.

The company is called Hockings, and it you’re a visitor to North Devon you may have sampled their fine good. That’s not a typo either – it's ‘good’, singular. Because this product is so good it comes in only one flavour – vanilla.

It’s been made in Appledore by the same family since 1936 and their small fleet of branded vans has been travelling the North Devonian coastline selling their vanilla-only product to locals and visitors alike for nearly 80 years.

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video tells the story of drama at sea

Video footage of good work far out at sea is helping to tell the story of the RNLI. 

by Mike Rawlins

I volunteer as a Lifeboat Press Officer (LPO) for the RNLI at Macduff in Aberdeenshire where we have the only lifeboat in the RNLI that comes with its own truck and crane for launching, if that ever comes up in a pub quiz, you’ll ace it.

I have to say I have no affinity with the sea or seafaring blood in me, as far as I am aware. I’m from Manchester so the closest we ever got to the sea was the Manchester Ship Canal or Blackpool beach in summer. There was an incident with the pedalos at Weston Super-Mare in 1974 but that’s best forgotten.

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dealing with the death of a colleague - help is at hand

Kathy Stacey is Head of Corporate Communications at Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service and Bridget Aherne is Head of Corporate Communications and Admin at Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service. They are Chair and Vice Chair of FirePRO and here they tell us about how they developed a toolkit for fire and rescue communicators in case the worst should happen…

by Bridget Aherne and Kathy Stacey

The death of a colleague is unthinkable and the idea that someone we work with could lose their life at work is just awful – but that terrible possibility is one that we in the emergency services must face.

Deaths in the line of duty are, thankfully, rare but each and every single one is a devastating event that has an enormous impact on family, colleagues, organisations and all those connected to the person or people involved.

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“i want a simpler life. so what i need is… a new intranet”

You’ve heard about the internet of things. Well how about the intranet of things?

by Darren Caveney

Since returning from a week’s holiday, most of which was spent offline, I have developed a strong urge to declutter and strip back life as much as possible.  As with everyone else who has ever had a break from the laptops, tablets and the plethora of online distractions that can over-fill our lives, I felt very slightly liberated by the experience.

This ‘lighter’, simpler way to live then expanded into other areas of my life. Clothes not worn for six-months have been sent off to the charity shop, the garage has been cleared, rubbish has been emptied from drawers, paper sent off to be recycled. It feels good.

So now I am turning my attentions to work.

How and where could I simplify, reduce, and better organise with slicker thinking and fewer distractions? Apps, platforms, sites, tools. On and on and on it goes and in truth I’m not sure how much all of it is really necessary and enriching my life or my professional time. So I am stripping back.

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can britain's best kept secret teach us about open collaboration?

Knowledge Hub is the leading public sector forum to discuss and share ideas.
But what can they learn from the Second World War codebreaking operation at
Bletchley Park? Quite a bit it seems.

by Liz Copeland

During the Second World War Bletchley Park was Britain’s best kept secret and home to an incredible list of codebreaking and game-changing
achievements that, it is said, shortened the length of the war by two years.
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why knowing your people pays off

Continuing our spotlight on internal communications, one senior communications professional shares six key tips aimed at better knowing your colleagues...

by Emma Rodgers

The tide is turning and communicating with employees is now being placed more front and centre than ever before. And while in my view, we’re still not able to shed that perception of internal communications as the Cinderella service, the case continues to be proven for why it’s critical that everyone who works in your organisation is clear on how they contribute (see here and here).

As comms2point recently launched their dedicated internal comms resource, I thought it would be timely to contribute some thoughts, particularly on one of the areas which I think can so often be underrated, yet can prove so important for successful internal communications.

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what’s your best work?

Wow, 20-years. 20 years working in the comms and marketing industry. That’s a good time to reflect on the best bits of work you’ve ever delivered.

By Darren Caveney

Yesterday I had the opportunity to present some day job work to a panel of awards judges. And it got me thinking about what I thought had been my best work ever. The projects which I’d enjoyed most, had delivered the best results, or just given a sense of satisfaction and achievement.

A few sprang to mind...

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why you should go to bluelightcamp

 

An annual free event that has grown to be an essential event for public sector comms people who may be involved with emergencies of any description.

by Ben Proctor 

comms2point0 sits at the heart of a fantastic community of people who want to make communications better, want to innovate with digital tools and want to drive change in organisations, especially public sector organisations.

We need that community to turn that energy and focus to emergency situations. Organisations are already doing great work to communicate with the public in emergencies but we can do more and one thing we know is: emergencies are always different.

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seven things you always wanted to know about the general election but were afraid to ask

You may have heard, there's an election on. Since we're into the closing stages, comms2point0's resident political nerd Will Mapplebeck does some myth-busting and fact-finding about the big day.

by GUEST EDITOR Will Mapplebeck

What are we likely to wake up with on 8th of May?

It's probably coalition time again, but this time it may take more than two to tango. Labour and Conservatives may get between 270 and 290 seats each so it's likely to take a number of parties to get over the magic mark of around 326 which gives you a majority even though, in practice, you'll probably need fewer seats to function as a Government. Remember, just because if either Conservative or Labour get the largest number of seats, that doesn't necessarily mean that they will go on to form a Government.

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why internal comms needs more love

Over the past five-years, through comms2point0, we’ve had a unique and rather privileged opportunity to watch the world of communications evolve.

We’ve seen first-hand how digital has become the dominant area of growth for many organisations.

We've also watched as internal comms has failed to keep pace. And for some it is languishing.

by Darren Caveney

This view is backed up by our own research and anecdotally through chats with comms colleagues across the UK.  Internal communications is regularly cited as the area of communications causing most concern.

Of course, this isn’t true of all organisations but it does appear to be the case for many.

How does your organisation measure up?

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whatsapp for elections

A few years ago it was considered revolutionary to use Facebook to tell people election results and now its expected. Now it is experimenting with messaging app WhatsApp that is the latest frontier for one intrepid council.

by Geoff Coleman

At the risk of incurring your wrath, can I mention the election? I know, I know... we're all probably getting a little fed-up with what feels like the longest campaign in history. Personally I'm taking the opportunity to experiment.

I work at Birmingham City Council and in recent years we've gradually built-up our election coverage and the combination of web updates, tweets, videos and more always attracts a decent audience.

My boss Janet Priestley is always encouraging us to experiment with new platforms and channels and recently challenged me to build on our previous election coverage. So this year we're sharing voter information, candidate lists results and other election news via mobile messaging service WhatsApp.

In part this was inspired by Shropshire Council's experiment with WhatsApp late last year.

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comms room 101 - part 3

Just as the original Rocky film sparked multiple follow-up movies, Emma Rodgers' Comms Room 101 post continues to inspire new posts...

by Amanda Nash

When Darren asked me to create a Comms Room 101 part 3, I ducked out at first. After all, Comms Room parts 1 and 2 are hard to follow.

There’s many better minds than mine in the wonderful world of comms and surely an aggregated list of people’s asks and tips would be much better than mine alone, right?

And, believe it or not, I don’t really like taking the proverbial out of those who come with to us what we may consider ‘silly’ requests, but that’s a bit harsh. Surely it’s part of our job as communications professionals to offer advice and guidance.

But we do all have our pet hates and it is just a little a bit tempting to share them. I just couldn’t do it without adding a more positive, what to do in response, tip. So here’s five of the things that cause me a wry smile inside and what I do about them…

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