I came across an old YouTube clip this week and I’m so glad I did.
It’s called ‘leadership lessons from a lone dancing nut’.
It baffled me then entertained then enlightened me the first time I saw it 14-years ago.
TLDW: One of the most important things you can ever do is be the first person to support someone doing something good.
The clip is here.
Do watch.
To quote the narrative spoken by Derek Sivers who posted the video:
First of course, a leader needs the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous. But what he is doing is so simple it’s almost instructional. This is key. It must be easy to follow. Now here comes the first follower with a really crucial role. He shows everyone else how to follow. Notice how the leader embraces him as an equal so it’s not about the leader anymore it’s about THEM the plural. It takes guts to be the first follower. You stand out and you brave ridicule yourself. The first follower is an under-appreciated form of leadership. The first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader. If the leader is the flint the first follower is the spark.
Now here’s the second follower… this is the turning point. It’s proof the first has done well. Now, it’s not a lone nut and it’s not two nuts. Three is a crowd and a crowd is news. A movement must be public. Make sure outsiders see more than just the leader. Everyone needs to see followers because new followers emulate followers.
Now we’ve got momentum. This is the tipping point. Now we have a movement.
Leadership is really over-glorified… there is no movement without the first follower. When you see a lone nut doing something great, have the guts to be the first person to stand up and join in.’
When was the last time you supported a lone dancing nut?
Refreshingly, there is a new language of filmmaking that people are ravenously consuming.
Gone are the days when the public would wear a public information film where someone talking seemingly for hours.
The act of the scroll has democratised film consumption.
If you are not grabbing attention people will leave.
Here’s examples of films to inspire you.
There’s an array of approaches from the traditional to the quite bold.
Use this as a library of options.
When you see one out in the wild, save it. You never know when it’ll come in handy.
The voxpop
How: Send someone out with a microphone to speak to real people.
When: When you want your audience to see themselves reflected on the screen with some third party endorsement.
Example: South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue here talk about the peer pressure of jumping into open water while drunk. Four hundred people a year in the UK drown with 13 to 17-year-olds most at risk.This approach mimics the trend of influencers going out onto the street for some candid chats.
The lucky shot
How: Keep your wits about you to capture something special. There is no shot-list for this. Just quick thinking.
When: Sometimes golden things happen that can create softer content that has no call to action. Do you know what? That’s fine.
Example: The National Trust are a well-resourced comms team which does LinkedIn really well. This cute shot of a squirrel scampering was too good to miss. This will get views. That means your post necxt week will get more attention.
Multiple shots then voiceover to tell a story
How: Gather lots of different pieces of footage. Then add the voiceover laterwhen you know what the narrative is.
When: You know you have a story to tell but you don’t have an interviewee who can perform at the drop of a hat.
Example: London Ambulance Service took footage for a day-in-the-life of a paramedic. Quick edits and a voiceover make this work. Note the shots are GDPR-complaint too. So, you don’t see the vehicle collision, just the paramedic.
The interview illustrated by cutaways
How: There’s a sit-down interview to allow the interviewee to speak candidly without a script. This works well when the subject is personal or isn’t used to speaking on camera. You can then illustrate it with B-roll you can shoot. He talks about meeting patients? You see him meeting patients.
When: When you have a personal story.
Example: Here, NHS England interview a surgeon who has returned to work after a tree fell on him while he was out cycling. It’s a powerful story posted to LinkedIn underlined by the cutaways that move the story onwards with pace.
The scripted walk and talk
How: You write a script and then the subject delivers it line-by-line and shot-by-shot.
When: When you have a story that may need an injection of pace that comes with multiple shots. When your subject needs to get to the point without waffle.
Example: Oxford City Council are masters at this approach. Here, a fairly arcane subject is made engaging by a crisp script and being out and about. Say bye-bye to dull Councillor videos.
The meme
How: The CapCut app is brilliant at providing short memes that you can slot your own images or footage into.
When: When you need to post but you don’t have the footage. This works better on the more leftfield TikTok rather than the more conservative formats of LinkedIn or Reels.
Example: South Downs National Park use this Hollywood actor’s response as a basis for their clip on TikTok.
A POV (point of view)
How: Simply take out the phone and film yourself walking up that hill, through the town centre, across the bridge. Whatever you like.
When: When you need to show what you’ll get if you take that walk with a voiceover added later.
Example: In this influencer-shot video, a walk in the Lake District is shown. The scenery is the star.
The trend
How: One approach to filmmaking gets built upon and built upon.
When: The half-life of the trend is days and hours rather than weeks and months. This is about swiftness and originality not being the 95th.
Example: Turangi Fire and Rescue in New Zealand were not the only ones to parody this glamorous Bentley promotion. They mimic it shot-by-shot for comic effect.
The two shot
How: The vertical approach for video now allows to shots one above the other to make it visually more engaging.
When: When you maybe have a piece to camera and other supporting footage.
Example: Here. BBC News uses a piece to camera and supporting footage to illustrate it.
That’s nine approaches.
Many more are available.
What have you seen?
For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape.
What skills does today’s public sector comms team need? Here’s some ideas to get you thinking for 2026.
When I first moved from journalism to the public sector 20 years ago the focus was the press office. After all, this was how people often consumed news and information locally.
But as print has faded and newsrooms have declined the importance of local titles has diminished. Yet, in a crisis they still play a fundamental role.
Today’s 2026 team needs to have a far broader set of skills.
There are core skills and then there are specialisms.
Here’s something based on data, best practice and insight. There is almost no way that an individual can know all these skills. So relax. But there are some core that skills that everyone should know.
The aim of this is to inform discussion.
Where are you?
Where is your team?
How can you get there?
Core skills
STRATEGIC:
Know your organisation’s priorities and how the team aims to deliver them |
Be able to understand the complicated big picture and translate them into plain English |
Know how your governing document – such as its constitution – shapes and limits the output of the communications team |
Know where and how the team is politically restricted from political activity outside of work |
GENERALIST CORE SKILLS:
Know your audience and help others to know theirs |
Know the age and cultural demographics of your area |
Know which channel is the most effective for all demographics be this print, social, web, radio, podcast or TV |
Know how to create content effectively in print, web and socials |
Know how and what to evaluate with the service area you work with |
Know how to write a comms plan with the input of others |
Know how to plan, shoot, edit and post effective vertical and landscape video |
Know how to choose the best person or people to front your content and explain your decision with insight |
Know that social media is social and is a two-way platform |
Know how the algorithms change on the key platforms |
Know how to speak human |
Know how to educate the client |
Know how to be a diplomat and know the big and small ‘p’ political awareness |
Know how to speak truth to power |
Know how to tell stories |
Know how to add emotion |
Know how to interpret data |
Know how to respond in an emergency |
Know how to communicate with head and heart and when to do them |
Know and understand jargon but translate it into plain English |
Know GDPR |
Know copyright law with images, video, text and generative AI content |
Know the basics of RIPA |
Know the HSE legislation |
Know how to create accessible content |
Know brand guidelines and when they are applicable |
Know when to engage and when not to online |
Know UK Government guidance on AI |
Know your own organisation’s AI policy |
Know that it is never wise to upload data to a Large Language Model unless it is cleared for publication |
Know GCS guidelines for safe use of generative platforms |
Know how and when to safely create words, images and video using AI |
Know your social media house rules and when to enforce them |
Know the importance of internet comms to an organisation |
PERSONAL SKILLS:
Know how to work as a team and as an individual |
Know how to work with a service area |
Know how to work with empathy |
ETHICS:
Know your own professional standards and those expected by your organisation |
Know how your organisation’s constitution or founding legislation affects your job |
SPECIALIST SKILLS
WORDS:
Know how to write good content in print, social and web |
Know how to write a marketing email subject line and improve open rates and click throughs |
IMAGES:
Know how to take and edit pictures |
Know how to commission freelance photography |
Know how to use and update an image library with metadata |
PRINT:
Know how to work with designers within deadlines |
MARKETING:
Know when and where to deploy marketing and when not to |
WEB:
Know how to edit and create a webpage |
Know basic current principles of SEO and what metadata is |
Known how to embed shareable content |
AUDIO:
Know when and how to create a podcast |
Know how to pitch to a podcast |
Know how to send an audio file to a reporter that can be re-used in a bulletin |
Know the effective length of a soundbite and how to shape it |
VIDEO:
Know how to brief a videographer |
Know how to work with and create brand guidelines online |
COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT:
Know how to find and connect with influencers |
Know when and how to engage with people in their own online spaces |
Know how to build and maintain an online community |
MEDIA RELATIONS:
Know how to log and take a media query |
Know how to deal with a media query and its sign-off |
Know how to build relationships with reporters |
Know the reach of each news outlet that covers your area |
Know how to use web tools to capture coverage |
Know how to disseminate coverage within the organisation without risk of copyright infringement |
Know how to select a news, stock or library image for a media release |
Know how to make a complaint |
SOCIAL MEDIA:
Know how social media and customer services work |
Know how to search social media for groups |
Know how to create thought leadership content |
Know how to deal with comment, criticism and abuse and plan to deal with issues on a future campaign or issue |
OPEN DATA:
Know what open data is and what obligations your organisation has |
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:
Know how to safely use large language models to generate ideas and content |
Know how to build a GPT to automate tasks safely |
Know how to write prompts that get the most out of AI tools |
Know how to identify fake images and video |
INTERNAL COMMS:
Know face-to-face, intranet, social and print channels and which is most effective for each task |
For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape.
Buckle up, everyone but it looks as though the days of posting links to Facebook for free may be numbered.
In the early days of social media, the idea of adding a link to drive traffic was the cornerstone of many strategies.
But in a series of developments Meta is exploring radical restrictions on pages’ ability to post links.
I’ll set out what they may mean in this post.
Links are bad
Firstly, links. I’ve been highlighting the folly of posting links for some time. Algorithms hate them. It is far more effective to tell the story on the platform.
Indeed, the most recent Meta data release on what makes up people’s timelines underlines the folly of the practice. Links now make up just 1.9 per cent of people’s timelines. That’s roughly the same percentage chance you have of winning a prize buying a National Lottery ticket.
Feeling lucky?
Here’s the data:
While this data shows the tactical pointlessness of posting links on Facebook there are noises that it may soon be physically impossible to do.
It’s unclear how exactly this may take shape in the future. It may or may not affect adding a link to the comments as per the current algorithm-dodging technique. Some reports say this turns the link comments to plain text.
All this has been seen as a nudge for pages to become Meta Verified.
Meta Verified costs between £14.99 and around £300 for the top tier. This status gives pages some protection against impersonation as well as access to customer service for common issues.
Given how hard it is to contact Facebook on matters there’s an argument to say this could potentially pay for itself.
Meta Verify for Business also allows the ability to add links in a very restricted way to Reels. The Meta Verify for Business price list is here. Such status would cover Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram all in one.
Those who invest big money on Facebook ads and the like are somewhat troubled by this. It means they are pitching their ad to a smaller pool. But most public sector Facebook accounts don’t really have large ad spends. So, that particular element won’t affect them.
Back in the olden days, the Christmas Radio Times used to be the absolute oracle on what to watch over the festive period.
It was published with a suitably seasonal cover and would give all the listings for all the channels.
On Christmas Day in 1982,if you wanted to watch the Two Ronnies Christmas show you’d need to be watching BBC1 at 7.30pm. If someone wanted to see ‘The World of James Joyce’ on BBC2 they’d need to record it on VHS.
There’s a copy of a Christmas edition of the Radio Times on ebay currently listed at £57. No wonder. Nostalgia is costly.
This Christmas, traditional channels,recorded their lowest year ever. The highest ranking programme pulled in just 4.3 million viewers for the Strictly Christmas Special. In comparison, the Morcambe & Wise Special in 1977 reached 28.8 million viewers.
What you think about social media may be nostalgia.
Here are seven things that don’t apply anymore.
Social media is not now for friends and family
Social media is a way of filling spare time and follow celebrities. It is not about keeping up with friends and sharing opinions. The data absolutely shows this.
TikTok was the first to blow a hole in this approach. It deliberately chose content for you to see based on your interests not your followers. Others have followed.
For example, Facebook’s algorithm which was once just friends, family and brands is now made up of a third ‘unconnected’ updates. These updates are from accounts, groups and pages you are not following but you may find interesting depending on how you engage with content.
What you can do: Look beyond your followers and look to improve the quality of your overall content.
Your X follower numbers are now irrelevant
Back in the day, comms teams used to report the follower numbers as a metric. An account with 50,000 followers was good going.
In the old days, if you opened-up your device at 10.20am and scrolled you’d see the most recent tweets. Then, that got changed to follow Facebook’s algorithmically selected updates.
A few days ago X published their most recent algorithm which had a few surprises. More emphasis has now been placed on the ‘For You’ page. In short, this means that tweets will be algorithmically selected for you as you open your divice may not be from people you are following.
What you can do: This is a further argument to pivot away from X.
Instagram used to be a place for curated and polished images. It’s now a place for video. Fifty per cent of time spent on then platform is spent watching video. Not admiring people’s breakfasts.
On X the more you tweet now the less people will see
Not only that, but the more you tweet the less people will see your content. Why? Because X wants to avoid overloading tweets from one or two accounts.
X used to have a central place in an emergency. One organisation would post realtime updates and others would point to it. This approach has been undermined.
On its own this doesn’t mean posting to X in a crisis is wrong. As Merseyside Police showed after the Liverpool trophy parade car striking pedestrians others will share and amplify it.
Social media isn’t now about driving traffic anymore
If it ever was, social media in 2026 is about rewarding content that users have to stay on the platform to see or watch. All the main platforms punish those who try and take people to the press release on the website. Or any content on the website, to be honest.
LinkedIn has a premium level that gives users a reach advantage. Facebook has introduced an optional £3.99 charge to dodge ads. X for some time has had levels of payment rewarded with reach.
Free access to the big town square is long gone.
For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape.
A couple of times a year I’ll slip in at the back at journalism conferences. It’s the most valuable learning I’ll do all year.
I used to be a journo back in the day. But I don’t go to reminisce or trade war stories. I go to learn what the future of public sector communications should look like. I use the word ‘should’ deliberately rather than will.
AI summaries have had an impact. Bread and butter content, such as listings or lifestyle, is better produced by AI. So news titles are moving away from it.
The great and the good are using their own channels or sympathetic content creators. The need to only speak to a journalist is a long time gone.
News titles are identifying what they can do better. Human stories, investigations and on-the-ground reporting will see more focus.
People are consuming more news from creators rather than titles. We don’t wait for the 9’O’Clock news. We may see what a news commentator is saying.
There will be less ‘service journalism.’ These are listings or advice to solve everyday problems.
There will be more focus on original reporting and on-the-ground investigations has value. Here. the human beats AI.
There will be more video. YouTube is the particular focus with TikTok and Instagram following.
There will be less focus on Facebook. As it becomes harder to generate link clicks this is not a surprise.
There has been no amazing breakthrough with AI. Jobs have not been created or lost as a result of tools.
Traffic from search is down and will continue to fall. That’ll be AI summaries.
What the public sector can learn from the report
We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto. I keep saying there is more change in the last 12-months than the last 12-years. It’s still true.
Media relations remains important. The skills of the old-style press offiocer are still needed.
More video. I run courses that show comms teams to plan, shoot, edit and post video. Of course, I’m going top highlight this. But with titles focusssing more on video the bright media officer would be well served to add video to the text of the press release and the image. These may well be B-roll footage the journo can re-work.
Facebook. Two thirds of the UK use Facebook and two thirds of them use Facebook groups. The platform retains a central position in the conversation. It is harder to produce clicks, sure, but that shouldn’t be a central driver of a public sector comms team.
Content. As media titles have identified routine announcements as being their bread and butter stop expecting them to cover routine announcements. If they must be covered, use you own channels.
The webteam. The whole issue of AIn summaries cannibalising traffic should be a canary in the mine for the web team. I await with interest what the public sector’s response will be. Remember SEO? The web team need to be looking at AEO – answer engine optimisation.
Fascinating, isn’t it?
For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape.
Well, it’s been quite a week for AI in the public sector.
First, West Midlands Police admitted a controversial decision to ban visiting supporters of an Israeli football team was in part based on an AI hallucination.
Second, a map published to show railway investment in the northern of England bore no relation to geography and thought to be riven with AI hallucination.
As we know, a hallucination is an AI result which has been entirely made-up by AI.
No doubt, there will be an investigation where lessons to learn are available.
All this leads me to a timely analysis of my AI public sector tracker survey which I published last week in the Essential Public Sector Comms Playbook 2026.
It’s timely to go through that data and reach some conclusions.
The public sector is using AI but not always fessing up to it
In the survey I carried out in Autumn 2025, 80 per cent of public sector communicators say they are using AI either daily or weekly. Yet, little more than half of this figure – 44 per cent – work where there is an organisation-wide policy. Not only that, one in 10 have a comms team AI policy.
All this represents a stunning safety gap.
Using AI without guard rails means you can produce content that is flawed. Trust is in short supply at the moment and the sure way of burning through a chunk of it is to do something that people are not aware or in support of. Like, for example, using AI without being transparent.
With an AI policy you can build in safeguards and oversight.
Without it, it’s a free-for-all.
If I was ahead of comms in the public sector I’d by lying awake at night about this.
Not only that, but organisations are concealing how they use AI. In the survey, 45 per cent don’t admit to using it. Less than 10 per cent of public sector comms mark each piece of content that has involved AI in the creation.
All this is understandable. Telling people you are using AI may lead to criticism and awkward questions. A good media relations advisor would say that it’s wiser to choose the time and place to have that conversation rather than have it uncovered through an FOI request or some such like.
AI in the public sector is about ideas not images or video
It’s clear that the public sector is remarkably consistent in the way it uses AI.
Using AI for idea generation is used by 84 per cent of people. That’s an increase of eight per cent on the previous survey three months earlier.
Using AI for press releases is the second most single popular use with 39 per cent. That’s a rise of two per cent compared to the previous poll.
Image generation is the third most popular use with 20 per cent a decline of three per cent. Webpage creation (13 per cent) is fourth highest with editing video fifth (nine per cent). Creating audio accounts for just four per cent. That’s a fall of two petr cent.
The survey was carried out in Autumn 2025 with more than 320 people taking part.
What to do
The one thing not to do is ban the use of AI outright as a matter of principle. But I would be holding fire somewhat until you had a policy in place. This needs to be a set of principles on how this will be used.
As a first step, a Blue Peter knowledge of AI is needed by everyone in the comms team as a minimum. Beyond that, a policy that helps shape your approach would be essential.
For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape.
This is the one that’s the overview. It tackles the media landscape in 2026 and who is consuming what and where. It also looks at comms planning and evaluation.
There are six sessions to the workshop delivered over a number of weeks.
They start:
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“Dan’s training gave our team a really good overview of the current digital comms and media landscape.” – Caroline Rowe, Head of Communications and Engagement, NHS North Central London Integrated Care Board.
This gives you the basics to understand AI and how to use it safely in a public sector context.
There are five sessions delivered over a number of weeks.
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“I wanted to get on and use AI – but didn’t know where to start. Actually, I did know where to start, I was just waiting for Dan’s course to come along and then book up quickly.” – Will Conaghan, communications manager Stafford Borough Council and Cannock Chase District Council.
This gives you tips, strategies and confidence to pitch to a journalist and deal with media queries.
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“Dan’s courses are awesome – they’ve been vital in helping keep the knowledge and skills of me, and those of my teams, up-to-date and relevant for the job we need to do.” – Bridget Aherne, head of comms, Bury Council.
Picture credit: Alamy.
Drop me a line for a chat, for more information or to book.
Here it is. The Essential 2026 Playbook for Public Sector Comms written with you in mind.
It is a 23-page document with a snapshot of useful data and approaches for key challenges we are all facing.
There are things that can help shape your work today and I hope it does.
It’s the download that I would have wanted if I was still working in the public sector. I hope you find it handy even if you are in a neighbouring sector. It’s also a taster for the training I offer.
In it…
Social media stats for the UK.
Original research on what public sector content works for TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.
A helpful new flow chart for how to deal with comment, criticism and abuse online (yes, because sometimes people shout).
What good looks like for public sector content.
What an AI policy looks like.
Insight and analysis from the benchmark AI survey to see how you and your team compares.
Every week I’ll read dozens of sources and also go through piles of data to improve the training and advice I offer. Every week I’m reshaping and updating. I thought it would be a canny idea to share some of that insight.
Some of it is drawn from obscure Ofcom datasets. Some of it is from original research I’ve carried out.
I hope you find this useful and an entry point to the training I offer. The download is the tip of the iceberg.
Why that look in particular?
The future’s a bit scary at times, isn’t it?
In this download I’ve gone back to the 1970s and 1980s with old pictures. In particular, duotone. That’s the cover images that are black and orange. I wanted something familiar and reassuring rather than futuristic. The school textbooks I remember were often like this.
