survey: creative comms is alive

Can you help? Would you like to win a free afternoon of brainstorming thanks to a creative agency? You would? Brilliant! Have a read of this and fill in the survey.  

by Alan Oram

We’ve got a cunning plan. We’re creating a valuable, practical tool to help internal comms folk find smart and effective ways to get organisations across the land working more creatively by sharing top tips, key trends, practical advice and cracking ideas… And we’d like a little help from our friends to cross the finish line.

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fear is viral: the plague pr pitfall

The most terrifying thing about pestilence is its power to terrify. In reputational terms, any plague has a mighty PR punch that far exceeds the reach of the disease itself – and often brings out the worst in people. That demands responsibility on the part of PR professionals.

By GUEST EDITOR Alan Taman

Case in point: ebola. A haemorrhagic fever with no vaccine or cure. Meaning if left untreated victims will rapidly dehydrate and die through organ failure, shedding the virus in their body fluids as they do so. Which will infect new victims through any mucous membrane or broken skin. But not, thankfully, via airborne droplets, as in flu, or via parasites, as with bubonic plague (which could also spread via droplets; ‘Atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down’ – grim, some nursery rhymes).

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it's time to fightback... I'm not scared

A discussion took place on Twitter shaped by predictions of worse to come for local government. But should we be downcast? Or fight back? Here the director of comms at the LGA urges for the fightback.

by David Holdstock

Local government is doing some remarkable things. If any major business continued to deliver services against a budget reduction of 40 per cent it would be rightly lauded as heroic. 

Well, that’s exactly what local government has done. 

At the same time, our reputation remains high and we are trusted by our residents to do the right thing. However, the scale of the financial challenges often means that we, in local government, are never able to pause for a moment to reflect on the scale of our achievements.

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up for the cup: july's most popular links

Here it is. The most coveted award in PR blogging. The post of the month cup worked out by which is the most read post on our site.

by Dan Slee 

April is the cruelest month, TS Elliot once wrote, because it breeds hope. He never was one for the gag that would leave them in stitches. July, however, was a bumper month on comms2point0.

Not only did the sun shine endlessly, apart from when we had the comms2point0 planning session watching the cricket, but there was a ripe crop of sun bronzed blogs that made us stop, think and look both ways.

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news gathering in the digital age from a journalist's perspective

We know the media landscape is changing. But what's the perspective of the journalist? Here's a valuable insight.

by Sally Northeast

Things have changed since I trained as a journalist. A lot. But for some people I think there's still this rather quaint view that the local newspaper's reporters are merrily tottering off to their patches to gather news for tomorrow's publication.

Not so! While I suspect this may be a more prevalent view in rural areas than cities and major towns, it certainly exists. I was aware that some of our councillors and officers needed an update on how the modern newsroom operates and the growing role social media plays in our world.

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why you need to challenge like a three-year-old

So, we know we need to be the grit in the oyster and challenge otherwise we're just a shorthand typist. But how can we go about doing it so we can communicate better?

I’ve blogged about the need to be the grit in the oyster in comms and PR and to the need challenge.

That scheme the chief executive has? It’s going to fail and you need to diplomatically warn them.

That elected member who demands a press release? It’s down to you to tell them that won’t work.

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podcast, blog & video: how to do frontline social media: Morgan Bowers

Often we'll go out from comms2point0 and we'll train people. Often we talk about Morgan Bowers who is brilliant at using social media to communicate about what she does. She's a countryside ranger and she does the job superbly. 

by Dan Slee

With social media dedicated frontline people can brilliantly provide a human face to champion the work an organisation is doing.

Morgan Bowers, Walsall Council’s senior countryside ranger, is a pioneer of this approach and has worked to innovate around how people outside the comms team in the public sector can do to really connect with people.

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5 challenges for students' union comms

Were you a student? You may remember a blizzard of flyers and posters from ther Students' Union. But in a changing landscape where 95 per cent have smartphones one comms person tells of the challenges she faces. 

by Jo Walters

Students’ unions which are also known as guilds or associations are democratic student-led organisations based in every UK university and many further education colleges.

Students are automatically members of their students’ union - unless they chose to opt out - and unions provide a mixtures of services and opportunities for their members.

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comms people: be bold, be the bit of grit in the oyster

One piece of advice keeps coming back again and again... and that's as a comms person to sometimes say 'that's a really bad idea' to senior people.  

by Dan Slee 

If there is one piece of advice I came to late in my career that I value in my career it is this... the role of comms is sometimes to be the bit of grit in the oyster.

It was Paul Willis of Leeds Metropolitan University who I first hear use the phrase.

Really?

What the heck does this mean?

My take on it is that sometimes, the role of the comms person is to politely stand your ground and to challenge and to point out where things won’t work.

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signs of health: ill or good?

How are you today? In good health? Health is massively important, to everyone. And communications is a vital if relatively recent professional function in the NHS. So why is it that it is often misunderstood, ignored or mistreated?

By Alan Taman

There are many PRs whose employers or clients misunderstand what PR is. The role of the PR then includes education about the realities of the profession and the process. But it is ironic that, to most health professionals, the communications function as it relates to public relations is something they are unfamiliar with.

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even newspaper editors are ditching the press release

 If there's one thing that guarantees debate it's the future of the press release question. Thing is, while PR people are talking newspaper people have started to quietly turn away from it.

by Eddie Coates-Madden

I missed the apparently now annual @commscamp dust up over the Press Release this year. 

I may have inadvertently started it and run away last year, and I think I was supposed to kick off a brawl about it at an LGComms fringe event last year too, but sort of declined. Sort of. 

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think digital: 10 principles

Increasingly, we're hearing the word 'digital' being bandied about. But what in practice do comms teams need to know? And how should they be thinking differently? 

by Dave Briggs

At various events and in various meetings lately, I have found myself saying the same things.

It’s all about thinking digital, and not just doing digital. It’s acknowledging that the real benefits of digital ways of doing things lie not just in the tools we use, but how we use them, and the attitude we bring to our work.

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5 things a management blog should do and not do

Frontline teams and officers have been using social media as a way to connect with people direct. But how about senior people? There's a growing trend that this can work too.

by Dan Slee

There's been a few reasons but of late I've been paying more attention than usual to blogs maintained by senior people.

Who are senior people? I'd say chief executives, senior officers and maybe even a serving officer in the Britrish Army.

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self-publishing tips by a dj turned comms pro

In the olden days you had to type a manuscript and send it round. Not any longer. You can self-publish. But how hard is it? Pretty straight forward as this comms professional shows.

by Andy Holmes

Let’s talk well-trodden paths.

Actor turned singer?

Player turned manager?

How about journalist turned PR turned author?

If I’m the only one, I’m a Dutchman, but perhaps my story will inspire those who have always wanted to write a book?

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using snapchat in charity comms

Snapchat is a growing social media platform beloved of young people. Snapchats are pictures with a line of text and are meant to be disposable. But how can PR and comms use it?

Snapchat, here today…gone in 10 seconds?

I recently wrote this article for @GuardianVoluntary about how charities can make use Snapchat to their advantage, alongside some of the things to look out for.

The article came about because of an opportunity we took when WalesOnline announced they had started using Snapchat. They have been developing Newsroom 3.1, and as part of that they are experimenting with the Snapchat app.

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