Why did you choose to pursue a role in communications? For example, has it always been your passion or was it pure happenstance?
I became a newspaper journalist straight from school, having always wanted to be a writer. I enjoyed that work, but after seven or eight years knew I didn't want to spend my whole working life as a reporter. I enjoyed more of the campaign type work aimed at behaviour change - profiling foster carers to encourage more people to do it; highlighting the impact of bullying and the pupils working in schools to tackle it; increasing blood donor sign-ups. I realised communications would give me more opportunities to focus on those kind of projects.
What personal skills or attributes do you think are most important in the communications sphere? Why these skills/attributes in particular?
Understanding that the audience is the most important thing and being self-motivated to learn, develop and improve your skills. I've worked with brilliant communications professionals who have all the qualifications and ones who have come from different backgrounds including finance, admin and customer service. The common factor is their enthusiasm to learn and experiment with how we communicate and to always keep the audience experience at the centre.
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 biggest challenge is getting the opportunity to be involved at an early enough stage to have an influence. Too often communications teams are contacted at the point where we need to tell people something, so we're seen as the 'sending out stuff' team. Proving that we can give better results when we're asked to help achieve an outcome, rather than just put out a news release or post a story on our intranet, is a challenge. It’s also where things can get really interesting.
What one thing would make your working life easier?
The ability to download information into people’s heads. Reaching audiences in the right place at the right time is the biggest challenge. I’ve been in many frustrating conversations with people unhappy that they didn’t know about an event or an offer and after listing all of the places that the information was shared they admit that they don’t engage with any of those channels and can’t offer suggestions of where they would have seen it.
How is the role of communications perceived in your organisation?
Communications is seen as having a very important role, but there’s still much to be done to make sure we’re focusing on the things the organisation needs from their communications function.
What do you think the secret of success is when working in communications?
Remaining calm. It helps no one if we panic too. Whether it’s a real-life crisis or a manufactured one the communications team should be the place senior people in an organisation know they can turn to for clear and calm advice. Often just asking the right questions and reframing the situation can turn a crisis into a manageable issue.
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?
Outcomes. Start by asking what you want people to see, think and do as a result of the communications, and then report back to show what the target audience is doing differently as a result.
Looking into your crystal ball, what do you think will be the next big thing in communications?
Not a new thing, but a re-discovery. I think that as cookie tracking changes and we continue to see social media move out of public conversations to more private group ones we’ll see a stepping back of the ‘follow the click’ mentality into remembering that communications is all about conversations between human beings, and that there’s nothing more powerful to do that than with stories.
