telling the story of srebrenica - offline and online

Some communications tasks are straight forward. Others need careful handling. So, how do you communicate the memory of an event whose darkness musn't be forgotten?

by Tony Moran

Humanity has lived through the darkest of times, but few events have stained our collective soul more than the Srebrenica genocide. Over 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were systematically murdered in July 1995 during the Balkans conflict – just because of who they were.

The UN described Srebrenica as ‘the worst crime on European soil since the Second World War’.

Lessons learned from the genocide demonstrate how hatred and intolerance can flourish if left unchallenged - even in a country such as Bosnia and Herzegovina where people of different faiths had lived peacefully together for many years, yet an integrated society disintegrated.

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why your communications strategy might fail without text messaging

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.

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launching the UK government's comms plan

There are launches and there are launches. The launch of the UK Government's Communications Plan is worth a look. The Government Communications Service has set some high standards in recent years and how they go about their business should be of interest to everyone involved in the field.

by Alex Aiken

This is our communications plan for the year ahead. It sets out the main campaigns that are designed to help deliver the priorities of the Government and the ways by which we are going to improve our professional practice.

The Government’s One Nation narrative provides a clear focus for our work, providing the framework for Government policies and programmes to help working people, spread opportunity, bring our country together and secure Britain’s place in the world. There will be major campaigns to improve public health, get young people into apprenticeships, encourage the right to buy, recruit to our armed forces and explain pension provision. In total this plan contains 77 communication campaigns, from encouraging blood donation to reducing tax avoidance.

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are you getting the social balance right?

Plan and research, by all means. But don't overdo the hard sell in social channels. It's about earning the right to sell.

by Dan Slee

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for comms planning and having a purpose.

If the aim is to do something then it makes sense to have your comms pointing at that.

The only thing is that social media isn't like that. It's social. So, a stream of call-to-action updates just won't work. It's as social as a stream of flyers being pushed through your letterbox.

So, what's the answer?

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tips for fitting social learning into a busy day

How on earth do you cope with a crisis like horse meat on top of an already busy working week and stay on top of social media to boot?

by Jamie Baker

Busy, busy, busy..... everyone, everywhere these days are extra busy. Work, family, and life in general needs so much...well...time! And following the dawn of the digital age there is even less time these days to be across absolutely everything that's out there.

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seven ways to survive as a freelance

Fed-up of working for an organisation? Fancy setting-up on your own? Before you do take a look at these pearls of wisdom achieved the hard way by someone who has spent four years as a freelancer.

by Dave Thackeray

With four years under my belt spent failing as a business owner, I feel amply qualified to share with you the experiences of a freelancer.

It’s not that all freelancers have an aptitude for failure - far from it. Yet perversely, what with there being so much good in failing repeatedly as a gateway to success, it’s hardly a badge of negativity being in the glass half-empty camp.

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every start has an end...

What the closing ceremony to London2012 reminds us of when it comes to delivering good communications.

by Darren Caveney

So after all of the well publicised, pre-event LOCOG branding silliness, London 2012 appears to have been a huge success on and off the track for both Team GB and GB PLC alike.

The opening ceremony was inspiring, and gave us all a timely shot of pride-busting steroids. Gone from our news channels was all of the doom and gloom of financial meltdown, unemployment woe, high street declines, Euro crises and other bad news gems our TV stations churn out one after depressing other.

One of the greatest successes of London2012, for me, has been the opportunity to kick into touch 'Daily Mail's Britain.' To forget, for a short time at least, that things aren't quite as a bad as some folk want GB portrayed

But would the closing ceremony fall flat and end on a bit of a low note our 16-day temporary detachment from reality?

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passing the coronation street ad break test

by Dan Slee

Sometimes a simple idea pings around in your head and nags away.

One such was mentioned at Shropcamp in June held at Harper Adams Agricultural College amongst the summer fields.

'How do we make it really easy for people to take part in the decisions local government make?,' the idea runs.

Don’t think for a second you needed to be a local government anorak to get this. A patchwork of small Town Hall decisions affect your everyday lives every day. Schools, roads, libraries, leisure, parks and 695 other things. They’re all local government.

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comms new year’s resolutions

by Darren Caveney

New year’s resolutions…  I’m sure that I read somewhere over Christmas that 86% of us don’t stick to them.  So, the choice is pretty simple: either don’t make any, or only embrace those which are do-able and will make a real difference.

Career resolutions are just as important as the obligatory ones about health kicks, weight loss and being better with money.

But will we all stick to them? Er, well, approximately 14% of us will, then.

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looking for social media guidelines?

by Darren Caveney

do you want to create a simple, straightforward set of social media guidelines?

do you want to ensure you 'engage', 'explore', 'discover' ... and still 'conform'?

don't want to write war and peace?

how about a set of social media guidelines in less than 140 characters?

sound good?

here you go then.

map yourself a comms plan

by Darren Caveney

if you're looking to create a simple straightforward comms plan, then you might find this comms planning pack a useful starting point.

using a mind mapping technique, this pack walks you through the key planning stages.

the end result being a great outline comms plan guaranteed to get your project off on the right foot.

photo credit

why blogging is good for business

As a (very) small business with an even smaller marketing budget one of my main priorities - after working on my product range and branding - was to start developing a strong online business identity. 

My first step was the development of an ecommerce website.  Somewhere to showcase and sell my products.  Somewhere to act as an anchor to my social media presence and my online and offline pr activity.

Having worked on big budget corporate websites for many years, I very much wanted to create a site that communicated as much about the personality behind the brand as it did sell. 

I also wanted the site to feel as carefully handcrafted as my products.  In short, I wanted my fingerprints to be all over it!

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what we need is a comms plan

by Darren Caveney

If i had a pound for every time i’ve heard that line. 

Well written, well executed comms plans are an essential part of the business toolkit.

They aren't magical documents which can, purely by their existence, guarantee business success.

Whether you need to communicate good news or bad, ensuring the business is telling a consistent and well thought out story can make the difference between success and failure.

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