top tips for success in the UnAwards 2015

September 25, 2015 Darren Caveney

We know many of you are working on your entries and nominations for the UnAwards 2015. We thought it would be useful to share some top tips on giving you the best shot at success this year.

By Darren Caveney

You have six weeks to work on your entries. Sounds plenty of time doesn't it? But the deadline will be here before you know it.

We’ve all left award entries until the last minute in the past due to other competing work demands. But is that what your best work this year deserves? No, course not.

So use the time wisely and have a think about which of the 15 categories are a best fit with the activity and projects you are most proud of. Grab a coffee, sit somewhere quiet for 10 minutes with a pencil and a piece of paper and begin sketching out your ideas or a small mind map for your entry. Focus on the best way to make it stand out from the crowd.

10 years of being a head of comms and what do I have to show for it?

September 23, 2015 Darren Caveney

10 years in communications is a long time. 10 years being a head of comms is a really long time. Lessons are a plenty so here’s a post which attempts to capture the key ones.

By Darren Caveney

Well here’s the thing. I woke up this morning and for the first time in 10-years I am not a head of comms. This is a good thing because it means I have moved on to an exciting new phase of my career.

It’s an obvious time to reflect. Has 10 years of being a head of comms made me a better comms professional? And would I recommend the role to someone else? Here’s my take on it, my top tips and answers to these two simple questions.

I have had some fantastic opportunities. Worked with some brilliant colleagues. Won over a dozen industry awards with them and learned way more than you could ever capture in a single post. I have also sat in some dreary meetings. Had to argue the case for comms, over and over and over and over, and crossed swords with some quite unpleasant people. The rough with the smooth. You know the score.

measuring experience and engagement with intranets

September 23, 2015 Darren Caveney

The Intranet Now event is on the horizon. It's an excellent event that seeks to celebate and showcase some of the best work in the field. As one of its organisers says, user experience is of growing importance.

by Wedge Black and Brian Lamb

The clearest indicator of a successful intranet is that people can use it to get things done: finding a person; booking time off; checking a part number; reading the latest news. Can they do these things? How easily? What percentage of people trying to do them are successful? To discover these success indicators, you have to do some form of usability testing.

The ‘user experience’ is of growing importance as the workplace becomes more and more the digital workplace.

don't turn an emergency into a crisis

September 21, 2015 Darren Caveney

If you are public sector there's a strong chance you'll be involved in emergency communications. It could be anything from a protest march to a terrorist incident. It's a fascinating part of the job. But isn't that crisis comms? Well, actually no...

by Ben Proctor

I tell people that I work in emergency communications and, to be honest, most of them suddenly find they have an urgent appointment.

The vast majority of those that are too slow to make a convincing excuse will almost immediately say

“So, you work in crisis comms do you?” and I will almost certainly say

“Yes” because I don’t want them to leave and, really, what does it matter?

Actually I think it matters quite a lot.

the UnAwards are open

September 17, 2015 Darren Caveney

The comms2point0 UnAwards 2015 are now officially open. How can you enter? how can you nominate and how can you attend them? Here’s the lowdown…

By Darren Caveney

So you’ve delivered some great work this year which has made a difference. And you might just feel like it deserves a little smidge of recognition. Well you’re in luck because the comms2point0 UnAwards have arrived giving you the opportunity to show off your best work.

It might be a social media initiative which delivered amazing returns or it might be a shiny new website which has made your online business purr. How about a campaign which has made a difference to your residents, patients or customers. Or a good old fashioned piece of great storytelling.

Whatever you’ve created this year there’s almost certainly a category amongst the 15 in this year’s UnAwards .

the UnAwards are back

September 9, 2015 Darren Caveney

Following their huge success and popularity in 2014, the comms2point0 UnAwards return on 3 December 2015, even bigger and better than last year but still remaining true to their original ethos.

By Darren Caveney

The UnAwards are our opportunity to showcase great work and celebrate a hugely creative and dedicated community.

Why ‘UnAwards’, you ask? Well they’re a deliberate alternative to the £300-a-pop, black tie, swanky London hotel event awards machine which exists in our industry.

That’s not a slight on these events – if you have been to one of them, and won an award in the process, you’ll have felt pretty good about the whole thing.

But for many the cost has become prohibitive. This is making the awards landscape a bit, well, ‘exclusive’.

That’s not how we like to do things. We’re more Sundance Film Festival than Oscars Ceremony.

The UnAwards are accessible to the entire comms, pr, marketing and digital community and, importantly, will recognise the contributions of colleagues across the sectors for their creative endeavours over the past 12-months.

Cwrdd mewn cae

September 7, 2015 Darren Caveney

Mae ymwneud, gwrando a siarad yn sgiliau cyfathrebu allweddol. I Gomisiynydd y Gymraeg mae hyn yn golygu sefyll mewn cae - yn llythrennol. Yn ein herthygl ddwyieithog cyntaf rydym yn edrych ar sut beth yw ymwneud i sefydliad ble mae diwylliant yn elfen allweddol.

Gwyn Williams

Dwi’n siŵr ‘sa ni gyd yn cytuno mae’r ffordd orau o “ymwneud” yw i ni, y cyfathrebwyr, fynd ar y bobl yn hytrach na fel arall.

Dyna pam mae Comisiynydd y Gymraeg yn mynychu tri o ddigwyddiadau mawr Cymru, gan roi’r cyfle i dros hanner miliwn o bobl alw heibio i ddweud “helo”, i gwyno, i wneud sylw, i awgrymu, mynnu, holi a pob ffurf ar eiriau arall sy’n bosib mewn sgwrs.

engaging in a different field... literally

September 7, 2015 Darren Caveney

Engaging, listening and talking is a key comms skill. For the Welsh Language CommissionER this involves standing in a field - literally. In our first bilingual post we look at what engagement looks like for an organisation where cultural is a key element.

by Gwyn Williams

I’m sure we’d all agree that for effective “engagement” to happen it is much better for us, the communicators, to go to our target audience, rather than the other way round.

That’s why the Welsh Language Commissioner attends three large annual events in Wales giving over half a million people the opportunity to stop by her stand, to say “hello”, complain, suggest, demand, propose, enquire, insist and every other word that the thesaurus can come up with!

how to give the smaller people a bigger voice

September 2, 2015 Darren Caveney

Know your stuff. Know who covers your patch then get to know them. It's an approach that's as old as the hills but one that continues to bear fruit if done with skill.

by Russ Cockburn

It’s interesting to view how much the economic pendulum has swung since the global recession of 2009.

Back then a large part of the media’s agenda was sewn up with the big boys, the car producers, aerospace giants and the financial powerhouses would regularly adorn the pages of the nationals and the airtime of our major broadcasters.

Stories from SMEs - small, medium enterprises - did get covered, don’t get me wrong. However, more often than not they were neatly packaged away in their own special enterprise section and very rarely did they make it into mainstream news.

why your communications strategy might fail without text messaging

August 27, 2015 Darren Caveney

Govdelivery's annual UK Public Sector Communications Conference has become an essential part of the September calender. Why? It delivers good content. You can learn more about this year's line-up here. We take a look at one of the key speakers on the role of text messaging in comms.

By Michelle Lee

Look around in a public setting. You will notice more people hunched over a mobile device to communicate or access information than ever before. More than 35 million UK residents own a mobile phone and they’re accessing their devices for an average of 3 hours and 16 minutes each day – the equivalent of almost a full day per week.

Mobile, as a marketing channel, can no longer be ignored in order to succeed in today’s world – especially in public sector communications. Accessibility, convenience, clarity, and universality make mobile an essential channel to communicate with the public.

other influences make you a better communicator

August 25, 2015 Darren Caveney

Every now and then we have a guest editor. They pick five links, write a post and pick a tune and we post them to Twitter. We also ask for a random fact about them that not many people know. Today's guest editor? She was in a team that finished 2nd in the Irish Dancing World Championships in 1995.

by Bridget Aherne

Drawing on other influences is a vital part of being an effective communications practitioner whatever level you work at and that was the thought process behind the random fact I shared today.

Public relations does not exist just to serve itself – it helps businesses perform at their absolute best whether that’s to sell toys or fight fires – so it’s important to soak up other sources of information to understand organisations and those they need to communicate with.

A good place to start is with what’s around us, what culture we’re from, who family members are and, perhaps, what hobbies we’ve been exposed to.

making video to kill the radio star

August 24, 2015 Darren Caveney

Making videos doesn't have to be an epic production as one communications officer discovered on one of our courses.

by Rob McCleary

My memories of making videos at University mainly involved me falling asleep in editing rooms whilst my colleagues did all the work. I always had more of an aptitude (and face) for radio so when I decided to get into video making for my council’s social media page I hopped on a train and headed to the comms2point0 video course only armed with my trusty iphone 4 and a sandwich.

The day long course started off with introductions from Steve from the Film Café whose CV includes working on Dr Who and Torchwood. Our first icebreaker task was, in pairs, to go out onto the distractingly pretty corridors of the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry and film each other talking about what we wanted to get out of the day.

the weird and wonderful watching habits of the comms and digital community

August 16, 2015 Darren Caveney

The Twitter community is one of the greatest research resources in the world. If you need to know something, just ask Twitter. The results never cease to amaze.

by Darren Caveney

I have watched a lot of TV in my life. And I mean a lot. I don’t mean the middle of the road twaddle that gets served up in the name of entertainment and puts me off ever checking the TV listings. No, what I mean are the real quality TV shows whose watching via ‘boxsets’ has become a bona fide pastime.

I have seen all of the classics. But now I am adrift and in need of something new to get into.

So I was after some recommendations and what better way than to ask the rather marvellous comms2point0 followers to chip in. And boy did you respond, with over 40 suggestions emerging.

And if you also fancy checking out something new this is a pretty great list from which to choose.

So what did we learn?

Well we learned that Paul Masterman’s favourite shows are Bullseye and Nogin the Nog. Well, “you can’t beat a bit of bully”.

Seeing the Brummie classic, Crossroads, on the list was a tad unexpected.