Category: News

Awards are great, but the proof is in the outcomes 

We’re chuffed this afternoon here at DTW towers. We’ve been shortlisted for 3 CIPR Pride awards for our work (we find out in December if we have actually won).

One shortlist for media relations work with local authorities across the north east region on a road safety campaign, one for social media work for an Easter campaign with the Law Society (England and Wales), and one for the very grand title of Outstanding Consultancy, which is particularly nice as it really recognises everyone’s contribution. 

Awards are great – when you win. I’ve been at great evenings where we’ve won, less great evenings where we’ve come an honourable second or third, and also done the hard yards sitting round the table as a judge on more than one occasion (yes, judges do take it seriously, no it isn’t all fixed, and yes it is hard work).

To me though, whether or not we win none, one, two or three awards in December, the value of our work comes back to one thing. Delivering outcomes that make a difference for our clients. Solving our clients’ problems is what makes us tick and what gets us paid.

Communications, marketing and PR is undergoing a revolution that those who don’t work in the industry (and quite a few who do) find it very difficult to grasp. But one thing doesn’t change – delivering results is what is valued.

Thanks for reading

Chris

PS – In terms of the CIPR I should declare an interest, in that I’m on its national Council for the CIPR – which has nothing to do with judging shortlists for regional awards!

PPS – if you are reading this and feeling grumpy because you didn’t get shortlisted ask yourself three things:

1)       Was it really award-winning work? If not, don’t enter it next time

2)       How well did you answer the exam questions? Judges like entries that actually address the criteria

3)       What did your work achieve – that is the golden nugget that will make the difference between winning, being shortlisted and feeling grumpy

The LGA and the CIPR’s Local Public Services Group put on a cracking event looking at devolution and communications in Newcastle today

That depends. How proactive have you been in identifying and engaging with the people and communities who care about the area where you are looking to developing new infrastructure.

Most people and communities lack the opportunity, time, energy and enthusiasm to engage in a lot of debate – and low levels of participation and engagement inhibit the growth of knowledge and understanding in this area. Ultimately, that does you little favour, whether you are building energy from waste facilities, proposing new wind turbines or upgrading transport infrastructure.

Reaching the quiet and busy majority can be vital – because objectors will always be loud and noisy – as is their right. They will be passionate and emotional, well connected and maybe even right, at least about some issues.

So, in order to enable communities to take an active and meaningful role in developments, line with the government’s localism principles, thinking that everything is all quiet is not necessarily a good thing.

Engagement needs to be accessible and inclusive – developers and planners need to use tactics that reach out to all sectors of the community, ensuring you hear from beyond the loudest voices and ‘usual suspects’.

That means using a multi-channel approach to engagement – one size doesn’t fit all. Making the extra effort to engage with all stakeholders will show your desire to involve them in the development of the plans – what you get out reflects what you put in.

For example, we think there is a huge role to play for video, animation and other rich content snippets through local media, project websites, social media channels and in direct engagement to help bring the science or technical fact narrative to life and produce a compelling and clear case to encourage communities and stakeholders to support the process.

So, I’d suggest you stop presuming that no news is good news. It may mean a nasty surprise is just round the corner, and forewarned is forearmed.

Energy. Yep – we all need it.

Green energy. Even better.

Energy infrastructure in the filed behind your back garden? Oh, hang on, most people not so keen.

OK then, you must be up for paying higher bills to cover the increasing costs it would mean to replace pylons with underground pipes etc.? Er, what – my gas bill is too high already – I need the cost to come down not go up.

That’s it in a nutshell really. We all want cheaper energy, we’d quite like to save the planet, but we don’t want to spoil our view. Can’t you do it somewhere else please.

The national conversation around the energy industry – and by that I mean everything from nuclear to energy from waste to wind power, needs to acknowledge and address these issues. Not easy.

At a community level, the challenge is the same, only more acute, because the ‘not in my back yard’ issue is raised every time by people who feel very passionately about their area.

So how does community relations and communications activity ‘on the ground’ start to win the public acceptability argument at a local level. Easier said than done, but here’s three building blocks to get us started.

1. Bloody hard work – if you think this can be done with a couple of press releases and a twitter account then forget it. Company representatives have got to put in the hard yards on the ground in community venues and with local influencers and residents to help them understand the issues, engage them so they can help provide the solutions and involve them on an ongoing basis.
2. Try listening as well as talking – a consultation should mean just that – a listening exercise that can actually influence and impact upon plans and delivery. Otherwise, all you are doing is telling people stuff, which is better than sitting in the corner and pretending it’s not happening, but isn’t listening and isn’t consultation.
3. Pictures, video, animation and plain English please. If your mum or Dad or 12-year-old can’t understand what you are talking about you have lost the battle already. Jargon is great when you are talking internally but utterly meaningless to most people, so take the time to make what you say and how you say it meaningful to people.

There’s plenty more but a list of 27 points would start to lose impact pretty soon. That’s important too mind – you need layers of information to keep things accessible.

The energy issue isn’t going away any time soon. Neither are the communications challenges. Hopefully the government will do its bit and engage with the big picture so developers and operators have a more informed audience and a helpful context to engage with individuals and communities at a local level.

Health sector communications has never been under more pressure. We say it every year – and it’s true every year.

Budget squeezes, the context of junior doctors on strike and at odds with the Health Secretary and the need to put that well worn phrase of ‘doing more with less’ into practice mean that health sector communicators have a challenging time.

But still, most of the British public hugely value the NHS and the support it delivers to all of our families.

And, anyway, you might argue (I hope not, given you are reading this, but you might), why does the NHS need all these PR people and spin doctors – it should be employing more doctors and nurses and making people better not wasting time telling people how good it is.

Fair enough in some ways. I don’t think any of our team has ever participated in or performed a life-saving six-hour surgery. That is truly incredible and awe-inspiring stuff. But, what we do, and what thousands of NHS comms staff around the country do is playing its part in saving lives.

Engaging the public on healthcare issues or to help signpost them to the best healthcare provider to meet their needs doesn’t just happen by magic.

Health comms is important. It can be hard work and challenging but it can really be life and death stuff. That is why we’re slightly chuffed to have been listed on the NHS North of England’s Commercial Procurement Collaborative’s multi-disciplinary framework to provide comms and other services to the NHS.

There’s some good company to keep as well – the North of England CSU and Deloittes are two of the other providers listed on the framework.

So, next time you see a clever and creative health care campaign or initaitive that grabs your attention, just tip your metaphorical hat to the comms team or agency that helped create it – they do their bit when it comes to saving lives too.

You know that your next Ofsted inspection is due in a couple of months.

The staff are stressed, it’s a critical time for influencing potential children and parents from next year’s possible intake, and you know that the trend from Ofsted inspections is for schools and colleges to drop one if not two grades.

Sound familiar? It is – you’re not alone.

Over the past couple of years we’ve worked with a number of schools and colleges who have found themselves in this position and have had to put in a lot of work to maintain pupil enrolment numbers and maintain their reputation in very challenging circumstances.

The best thing to do of course, is to persuade those wonderful Ofsted inspectors that you still deserve that Outstanding or Good rating. But that doesn’t always happen, and in those circumstances schools and colleges need to be pro-active in engaging with pupils, parents and other key stakeholders to keep them informed and provide reassurance.

As a starter for ten, here’s a few lessons worth remembering that we’ve fine-tuned along the way.

• Try and adopt a ‘no surprises’ strategy with senior stakeholders – in the vast majority of cases local councillors, MPs and other prominent community figures will want to work with local educational institutions if they can see that the leadership team is working to address the issues it needs to tackle. What they really appreciate though, is a personal briefing from the head or the principal. That communication channel should always be open anyway, but if it isn’t, pick up the phone and share what you can at the right time before it comes public. That way you are more than likely to win respect and support at the time you need it.
• Acknowledge the challenges, but shout about your successes – it rarely does any good launching an all guns blazing assault on Ofsted (they’re going to be back again soon), so a bit of humility and a focus instead on what you are doing to improve things is very important. That doesn’t mean you just roll over and give up however. Your high achieving students, successful community partners and proud parents will be valuable allies and can be very powerful advocates for your cause.
• Be open and accessible – whether that is informal drop-in sessions for students at lunchtimes, parents in the evening or by sharing personal contact details and inviting feedback and questions is absolutely critical. Going into a bunker and adopting a siege mentality won’t work at a time like this, however much you feel like doing it. Brief your team and put yourself and your best and most engaging staff members ‘out there’ to answer questions. It will be worth it.
• Get digitally savvy – if the school is great but your website and social media feed is still stuck in the early 1990s, that isn’t a great first impression for people who have no other experiences of the school or college, and that is critical at a time like this.
• Make a plan – logistics, timing and sequencing are important for getting the message out there for maximum impact. Make sure you don’t fall foul of Ofsted’s rules and at the same time think about how the announcement might impact on your next Open Evening or Parents event and prepare accordingly.

So, if your next inspection is in two months and you haven’t started planning the communications around the results, now is the time to get busy (even busier, sorry).

PS – the picture at the top of the post isn’t one from our design studio by the way – congrats to the pupils at Hill Top Infant School in Essex who celebrated their outstanding Ofsted grade by creating this lovely picture.

*** Don’t forget to turn up your sound when watching! ***

We have really enjoyed working with you in 2015 and look forward to catching up with you again in 2016.

Thankyou for helping us do what we love. Have a fantastic Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year.