In my experience, comms people are generally bad at two things – measuring what they do and telling people how great they are. It’s not on purpose. We always have the best of intentions. You might even do it every…
Have you started your EA communications strategy?
Updated for 2021! AGGGGHHHH not enterprise bargaining in the public service. Those of us who were part of the last bargaining round cannot believe it’s almost been three years. I know some departments have yet to finalise their agreements but…
Strategy sins and channel challenges
Is “the media” an audience or a channel? How do you target “the general public”? And other strategic communications challenges. If you work in communications, it is easy to be lazy when writing a communications strategy or plan. You get…
Back to basics: My lessons from working with the Cook Islands Government
Over the past few months, I have been doing some work with the Cook Islands Government. Working on the community consultation for the national economic strategy was a fantastic experience. I don’t often share details about the projects I am…
The importance of having a communications plan
Watch my interview with Amplify about the importance of having a communications plan. I have been working with a lot of smaller organisations recently. A consistent theme is that they don’t have the capacity or capability in-house to write a…
Taking clients with you on your comms journey
Ever wondered why people don’t really care about your communication strategy? You spend weeks perfecting it. Getting just the right tone, great messaging, creating detailed environmental scan. You send it off to the business area or client and…silence. No one…
Communications planning – the key to not getting lost
Let’s say you’re on holiday and you are trying to get to a museum. You know the name of it but not what it looks like, or what street it is on. You don’t know what is inside or whether…
Time to celebrate
How many Christmas parties have you been to already? One too many? While they can be a bit awkward or tedious, they are a nice opportunity to take time out with your colleagues and celebrate the year that was. What…
Making evaluation easy
November is measurement month #aemcmm. Measurement month is a global campaign by the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communications (AEMC) that highlights the value of measurement in communications. A few months ago I wrote about the importance of…
Why old school strategy is the answer to social media woes
I have spent a lot of time over the last few weeks looking at a client’s social media content. They just want it to be easier and better. It is something a lot of organisations are trying to achieve. I…