#uknewscamp: an event for the news

November 2, 2015 Darren Caveney

If you are half-way interested in news and how the internet is changing the way people are consuming it you'll like this free London unconference.

by Lizzy Bell

Remember the first time you saw TV news that used pictures from people’s phones? Or when everyone decided that paywall would kill The Times in a year?

News has come a long way since the noughties. News organisations have completely transformed the way they work and the content they produce. Are we still playing catch-up in the public sector?

Come to #uknewscamp on 12 November at the National Audit Office in London, and talk about digital news, social, video, bloggers, campaigns…whatever you fancy.

is the future of comms unequal?

October 29, 2015 Darren Caveney

Look around at comms teams and there is an imbalance. The senior people are men. The team are overwhelmingly female. That surely means the people at the top will be female in future, surely?

by Julie Waddicor

As many of my colleagues have blogged and tweeted, the first session of the LGCommunications ‘Future Leaders’ programme took place a couple of weeks ago. It is a fantastic programme that I am hugely honoured to be a student of. It’s the kind of opportunity that money would struggle to buy: the bringing together of a group of peers (and the other people on the course are both hugely impressive and talented, so I better up my game), the allocation of a mentor and the opportunity to talk to people like Alex Aiken (Executive Director for Government Communications) and Christian Cubitt (Deputy Spokeperson to the Prime Minister), who frankly have other, fairly pressing calls upon their time.

If you ever have the chance to take part, I would urge you to do so wholeheartedly.

lessons learned and future leaders

October 27, 2015 Darren Caveney

There's been a lively debate on the learnings that heads of comms can offer. Public sector communications teams are changing. They have to. Reduced budgets, devolution, more partnership working, these are just a few of the changes that are now facts of life. So what will it take to lead a communications team in the future, and how can previous learning help? One man looks back at his own experience and forward to what future leaders might need.

by Simon Hope

Working as a head/director of communications is a rewarding, interesting, frustrating, exciting, annoying, varied, and worthwhile experience. So what have I learned during my own career, and which elements will be most important in the future? Here are some of the important ones, with a few others thrown in.

the real reason why you should enter the UnAwards

October 25, 2015 Darren Caveney

There are several reasons for us running the UnAwards 15. Celebrating the work and efforts of colleagues across comms, PR, marketing and digital is right up there amongst them, of course.

But for me it runs a little deeper than that.

By Darren Caveney

We run the UnAwards to support and – in our own way - fly a flag for folks across the UK and beyond who are working in difficult circumstances and still delivering day after day. To sing for the unsung, to recognise the unrecognised.

I hear – and I hear it way too often, I’m afraid – of some less than great behaviours by some organisations and the way they are treating staff. To a degree this is to be expected with the enormous and ongoing cuts to the public sector – with 350k people leaving local government alone in the past five years there is unprecedented change taking place.

But this doesn’t excuse shoddy behaviour.

Lack of recognition has been a theme in much of the staff survey feedback I have seen over the years too. Sometimes your achievements will be appreciated by others, sometimes they’ll not be. That’s a fact of comms life, as it is in life.

And for me, part of the UnAwards is flying back into face of this and celebrating what you do and do well. We’ve been at, and are, at your coalface so we know.

So the real reason that you should enter the UnAwards is to celebrate you.

talking business – are you missing out on great stories about local growth?

October 19, 2015 Darren Caveney

A question:

Encouraging local growth: who is responsible for 56% of the sole contacts your council has with its business customers?

Answer

Your regulatory teams.

by Darren Caveney

If you didn’t know this, you could be overlooking a great opportunity to engage with your business customers.

And you could be missing an important narrative about how your authority is working for economic growth and local prosperity – a story your council leaders dearly want to tell.

Are you clear how your regulator colleagues can give businesses the confidence to grow by helping them comply with the law?

What are regulators talking to your business customers about?

And what are your business customers saying to them?

For an already stretched communications team you might be wondering what you can do to make the most of this opportunity and why this should be a priority.

Here’s where to start: You are invited to attend an all-new workshop in Coventry on 10 November at the three-day LGcomms/Government Communications Service Academy.

the future of local government comms leadership is... female

October 18, 2015 Darren Caveney

The Future Leaders programme run each year by LGcomms is a fantastic initiative. Each year it offers a dozen or so comms managers and officers the chance to join a development programme aimed at bringing forward our next wave of comms leaders, heads and directors. This year’s intake has one thing in common: They are all women.

By Darren Caveney

I have been mentoring comms managers in the UK for several years now and always enjoy the process - meeting new people, sharing ideas, jointly tackling issues and hoping to impart a smidge of what I have learned after 20 years in the game.

So I was very pleased when I was again asked to speak at the launch of this year’s Future Leaders programme in London last week and be a mentor once more.

What struck me instantly the moment I arrived in Hackney Town Hall was that I was the only man in the room.

know someone brilliant? nominate them and make their day

October 12, 2015 Darren Caveney

We know that a common complaint from comms folk, and others for that matter, is a lack of recognition for their work.

Whether it’s a brilliant campaign, managing communications through a crisis or just turning up every day of the year and being the best you can be it’s not a lot to ask to get the odd ‘well done’ or ‘thank you’.

But it doesn’t happen often enough and that is the ultimate reason behind the comms2point UnAwards 15. To shine a light on the colleagues proudly flying comms flags across the sectors.

by Darren Caveney

Now there’s only one thing better than being shortlisted for an award and that’s being nominated by someone else for an award. It’s a special thing. It means you’ve caught someone’s eye, demanded their attention or impressed them with your creativity, doggedness, enthusiasm and skills.

Know someone like that? Then why not nominate them in the UnAwards 15.

All you need to do is complete this dead easy entry form here.

an epic twitter chat – what we learned from #idealcommsteam

October 12, 2015 Darren Caveney

We thought it would be interesting to begin hosting a couple of Twitter Chats each month on key challenges facing the community. We kicked off with this great session on the 'ideal comms team' - it sparked a flurry of tweets and over 1.1million potential Twitter impacts.

by Ben Capper

You can always count on the comms2point0 to pitch in with ideas and thoughts when you ask them.

Last Wednesday's #IdealCommsTeam lunchtime Twitter chat was a true example of this.

The expertise, the experiences (good and bad), the challenges and the triumphs came thick and fast during a cracking hour of discussion in response to my comms2point0 post on the Ideal Comms Team last week.

Just as a reminder, there were a few key rules to the questions we asked during the conversation:

10 gems to take home from #psdigital

October 12, 2015 Darren Caveney

An event for public sector comms people was staged in Cardiff. There was a lorry load of learning. Here's a snapshot from one of the organisers.

by Will Barker

Last week in Cardiff saw the culmination of a good few months of work for Kate Hammond (@GlamHamm) and myself (@willdotbarker) – yes Will and Kate and no, not that Will and Kate – at our #PSdigital conference that we’d set out to organise on behalf of 1000 Lives Improvement and Public Health Wales.

Cool, but what exactly was #PSdigital?

We’re glad you asked (I’d recommend taking a look at the hashtag or this Storify if you have five minutes, which you probably do as you’re reading this blog).

read all about it - a story from before the smartphone

October 7, 2015 Darren Caveney

There's a generation of people now who have never bought a newspaper. Ever. And even for those of us who have it's more an occasional, old skool treat for a train trip or a day sat away from screens. So it's good to be reminded of the sway they once had, and, in some areas, still do...

by GUEST EDITOR Will Mapplebeck

My first job in journalism was with the Westmorland Gazette in Kendal in the Lake District.

God, I was bored. I sometimes joke that I was there for almost three years and absolutely nothing happened.

There was one murder.

It was my week off and I missed it.

New Labour was elected, Princess Diana died, the IRA blew up half of Manchester city centre. There was a palpable sense that Britain could be on the cusp of big change.

But not in Kendal or its picturesque patch which still resembled what George Orwell was talking about when he described 'old maids cycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist'.

your new 3-person comms team. who makes the cut?

October 6, 2015 Darren Caveney

Very rarely in life do you get to choose a brand new comms team from absolute scratch. You normally inherit folk and work with what you've got. But what if you had a blank sheet and the chance to choose. Who would make the cut?

by GUEST EDITOR Ben Capper

Let’s just say you were creating a Comms team totally from scratch.

Let’s also say it can only include three people.

Sure, you could always buy in a bit of agency time here and there, but that’s essentially your lot.

Who makes the cut? Who doesn’t? Why so?

Would this be the same as it would have been five years, or even a year ago?

How do we future-proof ourselves? What experience, and what attitudes would you want to see?

is ave really dead in pr measurement?

October 5, 2015 Darren Caveney

Measurement and evaluation. Fundamental to any effective piece of communications activity, project or campaign. Of course, there are lots of ways in which to do it these days. But should the much derided AVEs be consigned to the bin in the corner forever, or do they have a small part to play after all?

By Nicky Speed

Put your hand in the bucket those who know that the CIPR will disqualify you if you enter one of their awards and include ad value equivalency (AVE) as a measure of success? No, not something I was acutely aware of either - until I attended an event on managing major events and some of the key speakers used the dreaded AVE word!

Now I’m not saying for one minute that we hurtle back to the days when this was pretty much the only performance indicator we used for PR. But should we discount it completely when sometimes it’s the only language that some of our boards, trustees or stakeholders understand?

PR measurement has become a bone of contention in the communications sector. For many industries, services can be measured and return on investment can be easily quantified. This is not the case in our world and I know that many of us are struggling to get to grips with evaluating our work and showing our worth.

a message from cipr presidential candidate Jason MacKenzie

September 29, 2015 Darren Caveney

The CIPR is a membership body for public relations in the UK. It is a major voice for the profession. In the race for the Presidency of the organisation Andy Green takes on Jason MacKenzie. We carry a message from both Andy and Jason.

by Jason MacKenzie

The PR industry remains at a critical juncture. Many people still don’t understand or appreciate the value we create for organisations.

The CIPR’s mandate to unite practitioners in the drive to professionalism is vital. We’re on the right track. Now is not the time to zig-zag or to go off on a tangent.

There are three specific areas I will concentrate on, if I’m elected president.

a message from cipr presidential candidate andy green

September 29, 2015 Darren Caveney

The CIPR is a membership body for public relations in the UK. It is a major voice for the profession. In the race for the Presidency of the organisation Andy Green takes on Jason McKenzie. We carry a message from both Andy and Jason.

by Andy Green

Public sector comms faces massive challenges in this age of austerity.

Digital transformation continues. We are working in an increasingly networked society where old models of command and control are now no longer valid.

A context of ever rising expectations starkly contrasts with a reality of less resource.

We face the task of ensuring CEO’s understand the value of public relations.

An effective CIPR means you don’t fight these battles alone. A CIPR that increases your resilience. A CIPR that leads the way in redefining a ‘New School PR’ that helps you prove your worth.

I’m going to put a plaque in CIPR HQ reception saying: ‘We are a members led organization’.