BIG DIGITAL: Digital comms is much, much bigger than comms

I heard something this week… then read something that chimed with it.

At the Association of Police Communicators event in Grantham I bumped into someone I hadn’t seen for a while After exchanging pleasantries, I asked what was keeping them busy.

A conversation that challenged

“Actually, I’m wondering about taking digital out of communications altogether. Because it should really be in other parts of the business too.”

They then spoke about the £70,000 they’d saved someone else through a digital process.

There’s a good point there. But take digital comms out of comms? It’s good to be challenged.

There’s certainly no point in having a lovely piece of digital communications on a wider process that’s a bit rubbish. Or for comms people to sit in a room and never talk to anyone or be involved with anything.

A paragraph that chimes

Then I read this from the digitally talented Sarah Lay who left her local government job recently.

For you see all communications and communicators should now be digital – they should be equipped with the skills and knowledge to work to the demands of digital, often as the primary channel. But digital is not purely communications – it is also customer service, it is IT and technology, it is behaviour and analytics, it is marketing and product / service development.

It’s that thing again.

Don’t just communicate for the sake of it. Work out why you are communicating then measure it. That way you can look finance in the eye.

Definitely developing new skills.