Monday, July 23, 2012 let's play comms veteran i-spy
If you are a press officer, marketing person or work in communications the chances are you've had the same conversations if you work in Timperley or Timbuktoo. Now with this easy to follow checklist you can see how much of a comms veteran you are.
By Dan Slee
When I was a kid there were these books called I-Spy books.
They were designed to encourage people to turn into obsessives on a whole range of subjects.
Smart parents would deploy them to their children to turn long distance journeys, trips to the zoo and country walks into learning opportunities.
For every lion, tiger or monkey you spotted you could fill in the self-certificated entry.
"But mum," I used to say "of course I saw a lion on my way back from David Fradley's house," I would say.
Never once did I complete one. Not ever.
This got me thinking into all those things you'd ever heard as a comms person. Surely, I'm not unique, I thought. Maybe others have been asked to "get CNN down here" too.
Of course, I've made that up. I've never been asked to get CNN. Shifarli the BBC Midlands Today weather girl but the cable news giant never.
So here is your very own quiz game and check list. Not I-Spy as in these times of LOCOG brand policing but a kind of We-Spy.
Simply make a mental check list of all these things you've ever heard and register your score.
Checklist
"Budget? No, there's no budget."
"What we really need is a comms plan."
"We spent the budget on an insert into a newspaper. Why? (INSERT NAME) was doing it too."
"What we really need is a new logo."
"What we really need is a new logo designed by children."
"This is happening later on this morning. I know we've only given you an hour's notice but can't you get the telly and the radio down?"
"It's alright, (INSERT NAME'S) nephew was given a really expensive camera for Christmas so they can do the pictures."
"There is nothing you can't tell me about writing a press release. My grandfather was an English teacher."
"That's all very well but what (INSERT NAME) really wants are back of bus ads."
"Yes, but we've always had back of bus ads."
"I want this on the front of the (INSERT PUBLICATION HERE)."
"Yes, I know that but (INSERT NAME) reads it."
"Yes, but don't you see? (INSERT NAME) really, really wants it."
"Social media is neither social nor media."
"Why would we need to use social media?"
"Why would we need a photographer?"
"We need a press conference arranging by 9am and we need to have the world's media parked right outside (INSERT LOCATION)."
Feel free to add your own favourite quote that makes your heart sing with joy in the comments box below...
Dan Slee is co-founder of Comms2point0. He also blogs here.
Reader Comments (6)
* Why hasn't a press photographer turned up? You did tell them the portfolio holder for culturally and economically sustainable developmentability would be cutting a ribbon, didn't you?
* I'll approve the press release if you cap up (INSERT LONG LIST OF WORDS WHICH REALLY DON'T NEED CAPPING UP).
* What we really need is some pens, logo bugs and stress balls.
Get the Post-It notes!
"I'll write the policy and send it to comms for you to dumb it down" (yes, of *course* - really, all we're doing by making sense of your impenetrable waffle and breaking your paragraph-long sentence into something resembling readily understood English is 'dumbing it down'...)
and
"I know you don't like it but all 16 sponsors must be named in the release."
"I'll write it and you just fix up the commas and stuff."
grrrrrrrrr
"oh no, we don't want to say that we're closing it, we never mention closure"
Comms person "but this is a consultation on closure"
"well yes, but we don't want to actually SAY that"
"What you've got to remember is that most people in this organisation know who they're talking to and aren't interested in anyone else"