Why did you choose to pursue a role in communications? For example,has it always been your passion or was it pure happenstance?
Mixture of both - It was work experience week at school, and I did not know what I wanted to do, unlike most of my friends who had definite plans.
The last available placement on offer was a week work experience at Kent County Council in their public relations department. I loved it - really enjoyed the variety and the fact that each day, each hour was different. The experience gave me much needed motivation to think about what I wanted to do next and I then secured a place at Bournemouth University to do a BA(Hons) in Public Relations.
What personal skills or attributes do you think are most important in the communications sphere? Why these skills/attributes in particular?
I used to think emotional resilience was the most important personal skill as communications is a field where you can get a lot of knockbacks but now I think more broadly there is a real skill in being able to get on with people and understand the challenges that people face in their different roles. In a previous role I worked with social care managers and it was really important to be able to empathise with the challenges they faced in order to support their work.
What sort of challenges do you face in your role? Is there a particular challenge that you experienced in the past that stood out?
The main challenge in my role is that I am the stand-alone communications lead for the whole team (Campaign to End Loneliness) and we are a very small team of 4 people. This means that I need to be both operational and strategic in the way I lead and manage communications. It can be really challenging to get the head space in order to be more strategic when in the eye of the storm!
What one thing would make your working life easier?
My dream would be one free tool which both plans and evaluates social media, monitors and evaluates media coverage as well as enables the design and evaluation of newsletters. And has a super supportive, responsive helpdesk!
How is the role of communications perceived in your organisation?
I think I am really lucky and perhaps it is because we are such a small team but communications is very much valued but also that different kind of creative thinking that is associated with communications work which can be really helpful on other projects.
What do you think the secret of success is when working in communications?
Three secrets here!
Firstly I think you have to be curious in how things are presented to the world - through whatever channels - the press, on websites, social media. And maintain this curiosity throughout your career.
Secondly particularly in communications it is important to be pragmatic and move on and try something else when things aren’t working. We all know about elaborate, technically brilliant complex campaigns which haven’t delivered on the actual objectives.
Finally, you have to be authentic. All the people I really rate in communications are authentic about who they are and what they can deliver for a client or an organisation. And that authenticity brings clarity about purpose.
At React & Share, we’re obsessed with helping our clients measure and report their efforts - what measurements do you think comms teams should be presenting to internal stakeholders?
Thanks to the new Leadership Communications course run by Socially Mobile that I am currently studying, I was lucky enough to hear a lecture from Richard Bagnall (Chairman of AMEC) which was absolutely brilliant. And has really invigorated my interest in this area. Obviously all measurements need to be outcome-driven and directly connect to the overall business/organisational strategic aim. Sometimes we as comms people get lost in the shiny dashboard and need to remember to explain what the data actually means for internal stakeholders. So while social media metrics are good, we need to link them specifically to individual communications objectives arising from the overall business strategy. Let's always try and answer the ‘So What?’ comment.
Looking into your crystal ball, what do you think will be the next big thing in communications?
The next big thing in communication needs to be more focus on recruiting and retaining talented communicators from a more diverse range of backgrounds. And I think this is beginning to happen, not quickly for some of us but things are changing. We need to be more open about the barriers some really talented people in our profession continue to face in terms of career progression.
There is fantastic work out there - I am particularly aware of the brilliant BME PROs network, the Socially Mobile course already mentioned. The Women in PR group has recently done some great work on shining a light on what happens when women reach 45 in PR (particularly interesting to me!).
