thriving after redundancy

We've read a stack of posts these past 12-months. Some are helpful, some are interesting and some are fun. But some are important, and here's one of them.

by Jenny Procter

It’s a reality of working in the public sector – or in any other sector.  One minute you are striving to deliver fantastic communications, the next someone has decided that your post is to be made redundant.  It’s rubbish, but it’s not personal (honestly).  If this is the first time it’s happened to you, you are probably panicking.  After three redundancies in a 16 year career, I offer a few things that got me through...

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hard and fast in local government

Whilst most of us now have £zero budget for most of our communications activity, we can still learn lessons from campaigns which do.

by Julie Waddicor

Hard and fast. I’m not talking about your job or your boss (although I’m sure they’re both).  I’m talking about taking the lessons of the British Heart Foundation’s ‘Hands Only CPR: Hard and Fast’ campaign and using them in our comms.

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delivering a viral flu campaign... wash your hands!

Okay, so how to deliver comms messages over a range of channels? By singing. As well as a press release. And other things in an imaginative innovative campaign.

by Emily Turner

NHS Kent and Medway was looking for a new way to get across its flu campaign messages this winter when it discovered ThingLink – a free service that allows you to create interactive images with links to web pages, music, video, text and images.

The communications team wanted to support a traditional campaign of press releases, emails to stakeholders, posters and leaflets by using its social media channels to reach more people.

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if the residents' mag goes, what then?

Newsletters used to be a standard way the public sector used to let people know what was happening. But increasingly their days are starting to be numbered. But what next? As one organisation shows, the answer is likely to be digital.

by Lisa Green

The guillotine is hanging over our council magazine in circulation since 1992, and I'm waiting for it to fall.

When I heard our much treasured magazine was on the table as part of 'the spending cuts' I had two thoughts – first was a genuine concern about how we would communicate with our older residents if we didn’t have the magazine and the second was, bugger that’s part of my day job!

Our research has shown that the magazine’s readers are typically over 55 and we all know that there’s a strong relationship between how well informed residents feel about what their Council is doing, and their overall satisfaction with us. The magazine has been the principal vehicle through which we communicate with our residents for 21 years, it’ll be like saying goodbye to an old friend, but savings have to be made and if the blade falls, what then?

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channel shift: a future for public sector comms in 2013?

One of the challenges facing public sector comms is how to work out what you've done has been effective. Maybe, it's a case of using channel shift. Especially in the public sector which is changing almost by the day. 

by Dan Slee

It's always been tricky working out the impact of good communications.

Back in the day, you'd get a big ruler, a sheaf of cuttings and work out column inches.

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one challenge for changing comms

So, what happens when services are done by other people? Do you stop communicating? Actually, no. You keep at it. But the role of the corporate comms team will change.

by Emma Rodgers

Across the country, local government is all under the same strain – to save money and improve services. Some of the action taken has seen traditional salami slicing and others have taken a more radical approach.

And as a result more councils are deciding to commission services, moving away from traditional provision for obvious reasons.

In Staffordshire, we’ve put in place a new way of working - one which is focussed on commissioning the right service in the right place at the right time.

So what are the implications for communications?

Everyone knows higher resident satisfaction directly links to feeling informed. Knowing what services are on offer, what the council is doing for me and making sure you’re giving me value for money are the reasons quoted when residents say what helps them to feel informed.

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up for the cup - december's top posts

We were fortunate to land some great new posts in December - you may have missed some of them whilst you were christmas partying and dashing around shopping.

Some of these posts made our most read top five of the month. Some were from back in the day. But what came out top?

By Darren Caveney

Top of the pops was What If? by the always brilliant Helen Reynolds. It actually sits in our top 5 ‘Hall of Fame’ too. If you haven’t read it, take a look.

In at number two…

From our own stable, that Dan Slee with Why every organisation should have Trojan mice.

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why the NUJ is for pr people

Unions? Aren't they for factory workers? Well, actually no. Some say they've never been more revelant than today for people in public relations.

By Chris Morley

In my years in the regional media, one of the most common career paths is from mainstream newspapers or broadcasting to PR.

When this happens, those who were members of the NUJ often think the union will not be able to represent them in their new work or is not appropriate in some way as they no longer regard themselves as a journalist. This then leads them to resign from the union.

However, the real situation is quite a bit different. The NUJ does represent PR professionals (this is part of its constitution) and we welcome them into membership. In fact we have something like 2,000 members in this sector.

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12 of our posts you may well have missed from 2012

So, at the end of a magnificant year take a quick look at some of the comms2point0 posts you may have missed. Here's 12 you may have missed.

by Dan Slee

A New Year is almost upon us and time to crack open a bottle, celebrate, look back and look to the future. All at the same time.

In comms terms the year has been a turbulent year of change as many teams have been buffeted with cuts and the need to do more and different things.

It was the year when beyond all question it moved from not 'if' we do social media but 'how'.

We've tried in our small way to be a platform for good practice. We've also helped stage an event or two.

What will 2013 bring? Excitement. Innovation. Some challenges. The one thing is certain that it'll be a time to learn new skills.

There's been a few corkers posted over the past 12-months. Here are 12:

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tips on social media for local government

In some cases local government and social media don’t mix. Many councils haven’t been actively using Facebook and Twitter and that has to change. It can be a long and complicated process. Here are some tips to get you started.

by Maria Loupa 

Plan ahead

1. It is vital to understand that SM should form part of an overall comms plan

 A comms strategy should be already in place and social media will be integrated gradually into it.

You need to comprehend the mentality behind each channel; each organisation is completely different and tools need to be customised to its needs. You need to experiment and see what works; different tools might apply to particular campaigns.

1. You need to consider your social media involvement carefully; once you decide to go for it, you have to go all the way.

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closing for christmas and my festive media bucket list

Christmas is coming. It's a time to switch off, watch bad films, read good books... and write us a blog post?

by Dan Slee

Father Christmas would really like you to do four things this year. Eat. Drink. Be merry and knock out a 300 word guest post for comms2point0. Trust me. He really would.

Of course, he's too busy wrapping presents at the North Pole to tell you himself so he's left us to do it for him.

We'll be taking a break over the Christmas period. In a factory shut-down kind of way we're shutting up shop.

Closing on December 21 we'll be back with a kind of review of the year predictions arrangement on December 31. Okay with you?

But during that time we'll be taking an idle few minutes to stockpile a few things for the New Year. Which is where you can come in.

If you've read, agreed with or disagreed with anything we've written in 2012 then 'thank you'.

If you've worked in or around comms this past 12-months you may have something to write or share. An idea or a case study. You know that stuff about a digital footprint? Here's where you could make your own.

Drop us a line at Daniel.Slee1972@gmail.com or darrencaveney@gmail.com.

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a message for pr from leveson

Leveson has sent a siezmic shift through the media industry. But it has a message for PR and in particular places considering ditching the senior comms expert. 

by Ben Proctor

Remember the Leveson Inquiry? It was all over the broadsheets for months. Celebrities, journalists and politicians all trooped before the cameras to face the laconic counsel to the Inquiry and the owlish Lord Justice whose name was on the door. Now he’s reported and there’s a lot of stuff to wade through. Four volumes in fact.

The headlines have focused on the recommendations that there should be beefed up press regulation with a statutory underpinning. This is important stuff for democracy but perhaps isn’t of that much practical use to the public sector comms professional.

I have set aside a little time to pour over the venerable judge’s words. I do like to see the outcomes of the workings of a legal mind (actually a team of legal minds here). Like any decent lawyer he marshals facts to create a compelling and engaging argument. Even so it’s probably not worth putting Bring up the Bodies down in preference.

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death to the campaign

Campaigns. The idea is simple. You blitz people for a while and they'll change, won't they? Turns out not everyone in comms thinks that. 

by Jim Garrow

When I started this Your Audience is a Lie thing, I was hoping to parlay it into a nice little series. Unfortunately, before I could finish it with my bold prediction of what your jobs as government communicators will look like in a few years, one of the smartest and most dedicated people I know in health communications beat me to the punch. Alex Bornkessel, who runs an amazing MS charity with her family, called for death to the campaign this past weekend and I couldn’t agree more.

This idea that campaign-focused communications actively works against our goals of affecting real change (whether it be health-focused, preparedness-focused, or some other goal) in two different ways. First, it assumes that our audience is there, available, placid and interested, during the time we decide they should hear our messages. If they are otherwise ready to lose weight, or set up a communications plan, or change the batteries in their smoke detectors, except for some family crisis that happens during our predefined “campaign time,” then they don’t get the message that they need to change their behavior. (This is a HUGE reason I despise days, weeks and months that celebrate or raise awareness for something; what, tuberculosis doesn’t matter the other 364 days of the year?)

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up for the cup: november's top posts

It's that time again when we award the prestigious, shiny £1 comms2point0 cup for the month's most read post. It was a close, close call this month. But a winner we have...

by Darren Caveney

November saw in our landmark 200th post as well as some brilliant case studies on everything from social media best practice, strategic communications, industry surveys, life as a press officer and a whole lot more. But the most read posts came from the archive and one in particular holds a special place.

In at number one...

I'm delighted to say that last month's top post was a Google+ case study, which is a really interesting development. Thanks to Shane Dillon for teaching many of us a thing or two about this platform.

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a realtime campaign that blazed a trail

Campaigns when they work are focussed and effective. But they often struggle to tell the whole story. This one by a fire service successfully showed ongoing stories over a 96-hour period.

By Sarah Poole

A 96-HOUR-long live Bonfire stream which aimed to expose the real work of firefighters on their busiest night of the year also helped bolster crew who came under attack in their communities.

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