Category Archives: communications

 

When I started as a press officer in local government I used to think that I needed to protect the good name of the council at all times… and then I met councillors. 

Now, I don’t mean this as disparagingly as this may sound. Let me explain.

Councillors are people who get elected to make decisions on behalf of their community. Some of them are great, some average and some poor. If you are poor there’s a strong chance you won’t get re-elected.

I had a moment of clarity a few years into that local government comms job. In short it was this: ‘I can give advice but if they want to ignore it that’s on them.’ 

It was a real transformational moment. So, when Councillors made poor decisions after advice that was on them. 

As a result of this moment of understanding, when live streaming meetings became a thing in local government I was intensely relaxed. ‘What if Councillor X speaks? I was asked. ‘He can come over as an idiot. And Councillor Y? She’s even worse.’ 

Well, maybe democracy is better served by seeing just how much of an idiot they are.

We have seen this before. ‘You do not have the authority, Jackie Weaver,’ roared a Handforth Parish Councillor in a viral internet clip. As we saw, poor behaviour can get called out.  

And so, we come to Warwickshire County Council. Or rather certain Warwickshire County Councillors at the January 25 children and young person’s scrutiny committee. The issue of the spiralling costs of special needs help in schools was brought up. 

As a country, we are better at diagnosing children and we have a better idea of what tools are needed. It’s just austerity has cut budgets to the bone so the help desperately needed isn’t readily available. Lockdown has also caused a tsunami of mental health problems for UK school children.  

The BBC have covered the news story of the out-of-touch Councillors here. Step forward Cllr Jeff Morgan who wondered if this was just children ‘behaving badly’.  Councillor Brian Hammersley wondered if there was ‘something in the water’ while Councillor Clare Golby noticed darkly when she went online that parents were ‘swapping notes on how to get their children diagnosed’ as if this was some kind of tax fraud. 

‘There must have been better ways of dealing with them back them,’ was another quote.

It’s worth remembering that back then people were put into asylums for life where they were mistreated. In Glasgow, children were put in Lennox Castle, built in 1830, where they were threatened, mistreated. They were left there for decades. The site only closed in 2002. There were scores of places like this.

As others have said, we didn’t see them when we were at school because they were often locked up elsewhere and out of sight. There’s always been special needs. 

As the parent of a child who has special needs my hand hit my forehead in despair. The laziness and reckless lack of curiosity here is reckless. For elected members who are making decisions it is dangerous bordering on malfeasance. It is causing real harm.

To answer those questions: No, it’s probably not. No, it definitely isn’t and yes, parents do swap notes to help them jump through hoops because the hoops are made deliberately difficult to put parents off. In the UK, the wait for an autism diagnosis is 10 months just to be seen. That’s the first meeting in a long process that takes years to complete. Without the diagnosis there is often little help and the child suffers. 

Other parents with children have also felt this with fury. On TikTok, a creator who is from the West Midlands but now lives in the US, launched a broadside:

Elsewhere, on the internet the reaction from parents was similarly marked.

Where this plays out 

In the olden days, this may have been a newspaper letters column. Today, it is Facebook groups for parents whose children with special needs online and in traditional media. 

It’s also TikTok and in large numbers. There is a community of parents with children with special needs who came to the fore during this story.

But it only gets taken seriously when it leaks through to the traditional media as it did here. BBC news picking this up made it a story. Other news organisations followed.

So, is this a reputational disaster for the council? 

This is where it gets interesting because it depends.

Having the three Councillors show their ignorance on it’s own is a great service to the community. The community can then act accordingly at the ballot box. Democracy dies in darkness, as the Washington Post says. 

If this stimulates a debate that shows the harm that kids are suffering then maybe some good will come out of it. 

I’m not going to go into a critique of what Warwickshire County Council does next. No shade to their comms team. It’s a hard enough job and they have some good people. 

The principles of crisis communications need to be the compass are here.

Most organisations set-up social media in and around 2010 and haven’t really gone back to look at what they’re doing since then. 

There’s been more change in the last 12-months than the last 12 years and now high time to polish how you are delivering your communications. 

Here’s 10 questions for you to reflect on 

1. X, formerly Twitter, has announced that its a video first platform. How are you fixed for this?

2. Facebook has crippled posts from a page with a link. What six ways can you combat this? 

3. Video accounts for half of all time spent on Facebook. How are you fixed with this?

4. Reels accounts for half of al, time spent on Instagram. How are you fixed with this?

5. In a crisis, people turn to traditional media. How can your team handle a media query?

6. Good comms planning is timeless and can make a huge difference. How is your comms planning skills?

7. What do you have in place to support staff who are dealing with online abuse every week?  

8. The first couple of seconds of a TikTok can make or break your content. How can you stop people scrolling?

9. How can you use WhatsApp Channels more effectively? 

10. How do you know when to engage online and when to monitor?  

Here’s some training I offer. 

ESSENTIAL COMMS SKILLS BOOSTER. This is the all rounder that looks at media landscape, comms planning and evaluation, creating content, new channels, Facebook groups, LinkedIn and dealing with online comment,. Criticism and abuse.

ESSENTIAL VIDEO SKILLS REBOOTED. This is the all rounder that gives you the basics for planning, shooting, editing and posting effective content.  

ESSENTIAL TIKTOK AND REELS. This looks at making effective content for these portrait-shaped video channels. 

ESSENTIAL MEDIA RELATIONS. This looks at how to pitch ideas to journalists as well as dealing with media queries.  

That’s the day-to-day tactics. I’ve also blogged 10 reasons why you should carry out a social media review. 

If I can help I’d love to chat. 

There’s been a real awakening of late that Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore. 

Social media is changing and evolving almost by the day.

But your to do list isn’t getting any shorter but the need for a social media review is getting more pressing. 

Here’s 10 questions for you to reflect on

1. There’s only so many hours in the day. Are you wasting time doing the wrong thing?
2. There has been more change in the last 12 months than the last 12 years. When was the last time you took a step back and took a hard look at what you do?
3. Twitter isn’t Twitter anymore. It’s reach is declining. How are you tackling that?
4. What’s your most important audience and what channels do they use now? 
5. Facebook groups are now the most important channels for people to find out what their council is doing. How many do you have in your area and how are you connecting with them? 
6. Would channels like TikTok, WhatsApp Channels or Mastodon reach your audiences?  
7. How are you now going to communicate in an emergency? 
8. Have you communicated confidently the changes to the rest of the organisation? 
9. How is your local media using social media?
10. What can AI do to me and for me and how can I understand what’s coming over the hill?  

Now, if you can ask all these questions and run your own review that’s fantastic. We are entering a cycle of likely political change and having some answers ready in relatively calmer times would be astute. All of those questions are ones to consider right now.

That’s the big strategic picture. I’ve also blogged 10 reasons why you should polish your training. 

If I can help I’d love to chat.

Here’s something public sector people need to know… X, formerly Twitter, has declared that it video first. 

Yes, that’s right. It’s focussing on promoting video as a way to engage with people. 

Whether the move will arrest the decline of the platform is an entirely different matter.

Let’s look at what we know. 

X, formerly Twitter made the announcement on a blog post that set out what it did in 2023 and where its going in 2024.  

Buried in the text is the all-important line…

• X is now a video-first platform, with people watching video in 8 out of 10 user sessions. 
• We launched a new surface: Immersive Video, which now has over 100 million daily users – more than half of whom are Gen Z, the fastest growing audience on X.
• We enabled long-form video uploads. In December alone, people watched 130 years’ worth of videos 30 minutes or longer.

X, formerly Twitter, blog post

Now, as an advocate of video as a driver of traffic, this has piqued my interest. 

But I’m not totally sold that this will change the platform for the better.

What this does mean, aside that I’m updating my training slides, is that video has become even more important as a wider communications tool. 

The platform are looking to give more space to video and have also revealed that video posts get ten times the engagement than ones with text.

The bottom line is that simply posting text and a link won’t cut it in 2024.

It’s not 2020 anymore and we’re not in Kansas.   

Here’s a reminder of some of what I do…

ESSENTIAL COMMS SKILLS BOOSTER 
ESSENTIAL VIDEO SKILLS REBOOTED.

I’m always interested to see the stats when I post something. If its a hands on practical thing for today people love it. Write something you need to know soon and people hesitate.

Mustafa Suleyman in ‘The Coming Wave’ talked about pessimism avoidance. In other words if it sounds big and scary people will avoid it.  

With that in mind, here’s a post you’ll find useful. I’d encourage you to read it and have a play around. 

The best ideas are human + AI 

Here’s the good news. Academic research has shown that the best ideas are not from sitting back and letting AI do all the work. It’s humans plus AI.

The full research can be found in the work of three researchers at the University of Pennsylvania ‘Prompting Diverse Ideas: Increasing AI Idea Variance.’  

How so humans plus AI? 

Well, the research showed the best ideas come from a human using then refining the questions they ask the AI tool.

THis means you can let out a sigh of relief. There is still a role for you.

In simple terms, the questions asked of AI tools like Chatr GPT are called ‘prompts’. It’s the prompts that generate the ideas. 

Am I allowed to get good at prompts?

The good news if you are working in the UK public sector is that the UK Government have set out a set of guidelines on how they expect people to use AI. They are unusually helpful. They’re especially helpful because they encourage people in the public sector to practice and learn. Just be careful not to be practising with personal idea or anything that can identify people. 

How can I get good at prompts?

You get good at prompts by practicing within UK Government’s safe parameters using a generative AI tool like Chat GPT, Google’s Bard, Microsoft’s Copilot or several other tools. 

There’s a lot out there on writing better prompts and I’m loath to link to a lot of it for you. 

What I can say is that Ethan Mollick, who is one of the co-authors to the academic research, has written a good piece on improving prompts that I suggest you take a look at. 

All I can say is that you know your patch well. Use the tools available and see what questions you can ask to see if the ideas come back with a bit more inspiration. 

The bottom line

The bottom line for me is that AI won’t replace a comms person but a comms person with AI skills will be replacing comms people with no skills. The same happened when social media emerged. Those that started to use it thrived and those that didn’t by and large have either left or can’t get another job.

As the legend goes, if the ravens ever leave the Tower of London the kingdom will fall.

Nine of the birds can be found living in the precincts of the castle their wings clipped against a sudden dash for freedom. 

Landmarks come and go. Just ask shipbuilders of the Clyde, the South Wales miners and East Midlands hand loom weavers. What looks permanent can fall. 

In the Black Country, an unexpected landmark has fallen. The Express & Star newspaper has left its 1.75 acre city centre Queen Street offices in Wolverhampton and moved remaining staff into smaller quarters in the nearby Mander centre.

Once, the Express & Star building dominated the city centre. The largest regional paper outside London the paper’s illuminated logo proudly displayed on the cityscape and on the Castle Street walkway that connected the sprawling site. You could peer through the windows and see the press halls power through the print run. It was a majestic sight.

In its pomp, the Express & Star sold more than 200,000 copies a day.

Its editor sent a reporter to Afghanistan when the Russians invaded in 1979. One surprised foreign correspondent in Kabul greeted him with the words “Express & Star? They’ll be sending Exchange and Mart next.”

But the Star was a collosus. It sent a reporter and photographer when the British Army went into Basra in 2003. A young Boris Johnson was sent on work experience to Queen Street as a favour between the family who owned it and Johnson’s father. . He failed to measure up sent back with a recommendation that he’d never make a reporter.

Until a few years ago, it sent a reporter to every council meeting.

Today the title sells barely 13,000 and has been sold by the family-run Midland News Association to the ailing National World chain. 

The sad thing is the Express & Star had a chance and it blew it. It was an early internet pioneer but a senior executive dismissed the rise of the web as ‘a fad like CB Radio.’

Even sadder were the friends who still worked in the Queen Street head office sharing sombre last thoughts on Facebook as the last shift there came to an end. I know some of them. They are good people. 

‘This is shit’ 

For me the sale of the building was mixed feelings. I worked in a district office so I only ever went to Queen Street to be bollocked. It’s newsroom ran through a culture of fear. A colleague who started in a district office remembered sending a story electronically and having it returned from a news editor with the words: ‘This is shit.’ 

After careful review he re-sent the story. 

‘Still shit,’ came the anonymous reply followed by a more personal dressing down over the internal phone. 

This sink or swim approach created two career paths. The first path saw people exit journalism with dreams shattered.

The second path created effective reporters who could dictate a front page lead in nine minutes from court, council or roadside car crash. No, sorry, not a car crash but a collision between vehicles. This legally neutral terms was used to avoid apportioning blame. Even writing the words makes me fear the inernal phone ringing.

As I think back, my finest hour there was also my darkest hour. The Lee Hughes trial at Coventry Crown Court saw me and a colleague file rolling copy for six days. Rolling copy? Dictating a fresh story practically every half hour for First edition, Staffs, Town, Dudley, Sandwell and finally the City edition. 

‘Miss anything and you are dead,’ was the inspiring message passed down the chain of command. 

Today, those editions have gone. There is one edition whose deadline is the day before with the paper printed somewhere in the North West.

For me, the sale of the Express & Star building is more than the sale of a building. It is the Berlin Wall falling. It is the symbolic end of that particular kind of journalism where every council meeting was covered, every court checked and the working man enjoyed his paper in his armchair at the end of a working day.  

The end and also the beginning 

The end of Queen Street makes me feel sad. But not half as sad as seeing the Express & Star district office I worked in close a few years back.

Black Lake in West Bromwich was the Express & Star print works. It built in the 1970s with 40-foot high print towers that would shake the building. The editorial office was open plan. When I first worked there there were 12 Express & Star reporters and three photographers. We would run through brick walls for Ken the chief reporter and Dave his deputy. It is the best office I ever worked in and ever will work in. 

The enemy? The enemy was always the editor in Queen Street not the rival Evening Mail. 

The future of news may be email 

Reach plc’s head Jim Mullen this month spoke of there being maybe five years of profitability left in print newspapers. 

What the future of local journalism may look like could be found in Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool. According to this model, the future isn’t print its daily emails and a paid for bonus email funded by subscribers. 

You can sign up for The Mill that covers Manchester here for free, The Post for Liverpool here, The Tribune for Sheffield here. There’s free news and a paid for element. Expect longer form posts with a handful of stories covered rather than everything the Express & Star used to do.

At the minute there are low thousands of paid subscribers. The danger is that local news becomes a minority pastime. But hey, at least its there.

One skill that’s transferrable

Those who worked on newspapers have one powerful skill in their back pocket that I’m convinced will be an asset in a future landscape scorched by the internet and AI.

The ability to tell a story is just as important today as it was when the presses rolled in Queen Street. Who, what, where, when, why and how, Kipling’s six good men who taught him all he knew, are even more powerful today than they were.

Someone who can come up with human stories with a human face is a powerful asset to have. That’s not any kind of sop to my former newsroom colleagues that’s a fact.

On it’s own that’s worth a front page lead and picking up a tray of cakes for the office from Firkins as I come back from court.

Picture: Rcsprinter123 used under a creative commons licence.

Who you feature in your content can have a MASSIVE impact on whether or not it will be a success.

We know this instinctively yet we pay very little attention to this in the actual delivery.

Often this is because of a long established framework that governs content and that has never been challenged. In local government when I workled there it was a) quote the cabinet member and b) quote the officer when the cabinet member isn’t around or doesn’t want to.

The impact of this is to have someone wholly unsuited fronting your communications.

I do remember listening to the local radio phone-in hearing an officer with the charisma of mud massacre what was a council reasonable position.

One way to give better advice is to site data.

The Edelman Trust Barometer has been published and it is the UK data that I turn to.

We trust ‘someone like me’ far more than the chief exec, government leaders or journalists

The screen shot from the Edelman Trust Barometer UK version shows 73 per cent trust scientists, 71 per cent someone like me, 59 per cent the company technical expert, 45 per cent non-hovernmental organisation representatives, 33 per cet the chief exec and government leaders and 31 per cent journalists.

In other words, we trust people who look like us.

So, if you are looking to reach new parents, use a new parent. If you are after members of the Polish community use a Pole.

It’ll take longer but it may just work.

UK Government has released a hugely document that sets a path for comms teams and others to use AI safely.

The Generative AI Framework for HM Government is 74-pages and published by the Central Digital and Central Data Office. It sets out exactly how you can and can’t use generative AI. On other words, tools like ChatGPT that create text, audio, video and images. 

What’s also striking is that there is a commitment to update the document as our collective understanding changes and evolves. That’s really good to see so it won’t stay preserved in aspic.

Here’s what they say.

The 10 principles of ten common principles to guide the safe, responsible and effective use of generative AI in government organisations

Principle 1: You know what generative AI is and what its limitations are

This encourages people to learn about AI to understand what you can do, can’t do and what the risks are. Generative tools are not accurate but are designed to be plausible. 

Principle 2: You use generative AI lawfully, ethically and responsibly

This puts a responsibility on you to act within the law whether that be copyright, data protection. It also makes the point about AI not replacing strategic decision making. 

The principle also should also use the AI regulation white paper’s fairness principle which states that AI systems should not undermine the legal rights of individuals and organisations. And that they should not discriminate against individuals or create unfair market outcomes.

Principle: Fairness

Definition and explanation

AI systems should not undermine the legal rights of individuals or organisations, discriminate unfairly against individuals or create unfair market outcomes. Actors involved in all stages of the AI life cycle should consider definitions of fairness that are appropriate to a system’s use, outcomes and the application of relevant law.

Fairness is a concept embedded across many areas of law and regulation, including equality and human rights, data protection, consumer and competition law, public and common law, and rules protecting vulnerable people.

Regulators may need to develop and publish descriptions and illustrations of fairness that apply to AI systems within their regulatory domain, and develop guidance that takes into account relevant law, regulation, technical standards, and assurance techniques.

Regulators will need to ensure that AI systems in their domain are designed, deployed and used considering such descriptions of fairness. Where concepts of fairness are relevant in a broad range of intersecting regulatory domains, we anticipate that developing joint guidance will be a priority for regulators.

A pro-innovation approach to AI regulation, UK Government, 2023

Principle 3: You know how to keep generative AI tools secure  

This talks about the importance of allowing AI tools to use the data you want it to and not give it free reign across areas where sensitive personal data is stored. This recommends checks to guard against malicious intent and are not leaking data.   

Principle 4: You have meaningful human control at the right stage

This talks about the need for humans in the process. Someone i needed to review the outputs to make sure they are producing as well as the tools and data that were fed into it in the first place. 

Principle 5: You understand how to manage the full generative AI lifecycle 

This looks at the importance of knowing what a number of terms are. Such as AI drift. This is the term that describes a loss in focus of the tool and deviation from the original purpose. It also covers hallucinations where fake newspaper stories or academic research, for example, can be conjured up to prove a point or argument.   

Principle 6: You use the right tool for the job

This looks at the importance of selecting the right tool for the job. It encourages the use of generative AI when it is the best place tool. In order to do this it implicitly encourages the user learn and experiment in safe spaces. How else would you know what the best tool is if you don’t know how to use them?

Principle 7: You are open and collaborative

This encourages people to work with other parts of Government who are experimenting in the field. 

Principle 8: You work with commercial colleagues from the start

This encourages working with people outside of Government to understand the limitations of generative AI tools. It shouldn’t just be people in Government playing into that decision making. 

Principle 9: You have the skills and expertise that you need to build and use generative AI

Using generative AI needs skills like the ability to ask a question – also known as a prompt. Prompt engineering – or polishing the questions asked is one such skill that’s needed. 

Principle 10: You use these principles alongside your organisation’s policies and have the right assurance in place

There needs to be governance of the AI process. You need to understand the risks and mitigate them early in the process.

Conclusion

UK Government has been keen to develop the UK as a place where AI innovation takes place. This document is a useful tool for it to be used responsibly and in a way that people inside and outside the organisation can be reassured by. 

The 10 principles are available as an anchor point for responsible AI use.

You can use them in the rest of the public sector but you’ll probably have to explain them. But what you can do is point to a trusted organisation as the basis for what you are doing.

Of course, if you’re not in the UK you’ll have to look at your own home government’s approach.

Trust is the absolute issue when it comes to adopting AI. There is suspicion of AI in the wider population and using tools that people don’t understand with no safeguards in place is not only reckless it is also career limiting. 

One dilemma does face me. People in the comms and PR community are not especially keen on AI. There is not the space and capacity for people to learn. There are no Google Fridays that allow self discovery and experimentation. With that in mind, learning under your own steam is to be encouraged no matter how difficult. 

People of all ages are now turning to the web for what’s going on in the area they live in, research has revealed.

Overall, 89 per cent are using the web to find out what’s going on in their area.

Facebook groups are the leading place for local government information on bin opening times, gritting, events and the other 1,200 services that local government offered in the Ofcom local news and information data release.  

The lovely people at Ofcom have released 36,000 lines of data in their local news and information release. For public sector communicators who deal with a local area this is solid gold.  

The good news is that nine out of 10 for all age demographics are interested in some kind of local news and information.

Times change 

Back when I was a lad, it was maybe the local paper or word of mouth where you’d find out what was happening locally. Those days have gone. Where people get information is now a far more complex picture. 

For public sector communicators, all this represents a mountain to climb. The good news is that the data can provide a route map up the north face. The Ofcom data provides a route to climb.

Sources of local news and information

First off, there’s a pile of useful data that maps the channels that each demographic uses.

What’s clear is that newspapers are losing the battle for local attention for local news even among older people. Print is declining out as a source of local news with around a fifth using that as a way to find things out.

Newspaper websites are marginally better and peak at 40 per cent with 45 to 54-year-olds.

Online is the preferred source for all demographics – even over 75s.

Sources of local information by age demographic and percentage

Channel	16-24	25-34	35-44	45-54	55-64	65-74	75+
Any online source	93	94	95	93	90	81	71
Social media	63	63	59	56	56	41	27
Print newspapers	17	18	19	22	25	27	21
Websites and apps of local newspapers	26	33	33	40	32	29	30
Messaging apps (WhatsApp, NextDoor)	14	19	23	21	26	28	28
Local magazines	10	9	12	12	15	26	34

Where people get local government data

In short, under 24s head to the BBC website for their local info with 36 per cent favouring this route and 21 per cent using search.

But it is local social media groups such as Facebook groups that dominates for 25 to 64-year-olds as the most important place to find local government info. Search plays a secondary role with TV being the local news source for over 65s.

Sources of local government information by age demographic and percentage

Channel	16-24	25-34	35-44	45-54	55-64	65-74	75+
Any radio	5	5	8	9	2	21	17
Local Facebook groups and other social media	19	50	23	26	32	26	13
BBC website	36	28	14	20	6	12	6
Search	21	23	9	18	15	14	15
Websites of newspapers	10	21	23	14	13	12	11
Messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Nextdoor	2	4	18	9	10	14	27
Email newsletters	6	3	8	11	12	16	21
Reach plc websites	8	13	3	8	1	5	4
TV	14	13	13	11	26	27	40
Free newspaper (printed)	5	1	3	9	8	9	10
Paid for newspaper (printed)	2	2	5	3	15	7	14

Eleswhere in the data there’s other useful insight.

What local news and information people are interested in

Of course the kind of things people will go for is going to be motivated by how old they are. I think we all instinctively know this without having see any data. Older people are more connected with their communities. Younger people less so. But they may want to know what they can do in the local area.

Younger people are least bothered by current affairs in theikr local area but the rate – 49 per cent – is maybe higher than I would have guessed. They are also more likely on 63 per cent to use social media to find it out.

Over 35 and two thirds are interested in local current affairs.

Interest in local news and information by age demographic and percentage

Channel	16-24	25-34	35-44	45-54	55-64	65-75	75+
Uses any online source	93	94	95	93	90	81	71
Local news and current affairs	49	56	65	67	73	72	74
Local events and what’s on	32	37	39	45	50	50	53
Local government info	20	38	32	38	41	43	53
Local life and community stories (history and nature)	17	22	22	28	34	28	41
Campaigns (crime, health, local issues)	16	21	20	18	25	22	26

I’m not aware of Ofcom producing local news data before. This is excellent to see. Often, data sets when dealing with news focus only on the national media which has limited value to many public sector people outside Whitehall.

Now to update training slides with this snapshot and other pearls.

It’s been 10 years since I went freelance and my aim wherever I’m working is always to do myself out of a job. 

I’ve failed at this. Or I’ve succeeded depending on how you look at it.

Let me explain. My aim when working with people is to pass on knowledge and advice and to fire their imagination get them thinking. I want them to do their job much better, to win awards and to get on in their career. I don’t want to do their job. See? That’s what I mean about working to do myself out of a job.

Over Christmas and New Year, looking back not just on the last 10 years but further I’ve reflected that I’ve always been fascinated by story telling.

When I was a reporter in the Black Country, I was fascinated at how I could use my skills to unearth a story. How a chat with a contact could throw new light or a trawl through an agenda could find a front page. When I moved to local government, I was fascinated at how the internet could transform the stories I was trying to tell. As a freelancer I continue to be intoxicated at how people can use those ingredients to tell stories that make a material difference.

I have a strapline on my logo ‘Future comms made easy’. I probably should do more with that. I spend a lot of time trying to understand communications, what’s changing and what’s evolving so you don’t have to.

One incident sticks in my mind from the past 10 years. I was being sent a £50 Amazon voucher from someone who had been on a workshop. “Thanks so much,” the message read. “I wouldn’t have got that promotion without what I learned in your workshop.” I couldn’t have been happier. I love seeing a bit of teaching that’s taken root that’s really made a difference. The credit is entirely with them.

It hasn’t all been plain sailing in that time. One direction I believed in early in that decade came to a stressful end. Better ones emerged. I read once how freelancers work 70 hours a week for themselves so they don’t have to work 38 hours for someone else. How true.

Since 2013, I’ve worked with 1,052 organisations from very large ones to the very small. Eighty per cent of those I’ve worked with have been in the public sector. Every single one has been faced with the same challenge. In short, communications has been evolving fast but the rest of the organisation doesn’t realise.

In that time I’ve worked closely with or trained people from:

293 local government organisations

211 NHS Trusts

175 private sector organisations

74 third sector organisations

73 central and devolved government organisations

62 housing bodies

40 further education colleges

37 membership organisations

26 police forces

25 Universities

24 fire and rescue services

9 national parks 

3 EU organisations

That also works out at 5,675 people I’ve trained in some way. If you’ve come to one of my sessions or if you’ve brought me in to help a very sincere ‘thank you’.  

Thank you also to Elaine who has looked after my invoices diligently and workshop delivery colleagues Steven, Sophie, Julia, Ben, Sarah and David. Thank you to David and Sarah for making the Public Sector Comms Headspace Facebook group fly. Thank you also to Nick for inspiration in the early days. Thank you to everyone who has volunteered to make 12 commscamps fly including Kate, Anne, Bridget, David, Emma, Josephine, Kate, Leanne, Sweyn, Eddie, Albert and Lucy.  

By way of thanks I’m giving away gratis 10 free training places to subscribers on my email. If you’re already on the email, thank you. If you’re not, now is the time to sign-up for it here by January 19.  I’ll select names at randdom from my subscriber list.

For a chance to win one of the training places sign-up for my weekly email here.  You can find about training I offer here.