All posts by Sebastian

Go live blogging with your internal comms

Talking to your employees


Most decent news sites run a live blog on the biggest news stories of the day. Some will have more than one running at any one time, depending on how busy the news agenda is. Today, for example, the BBC website is running as many as four live blogs on the big stories of the day and another in the sports section focused on the Paralympics 2024 (go GB!)

Live blogs are a brilliant way of pulling together all the threads of a moving story and conveying to the reader that they’re getting the most up to date coverage of a big news event. Readers can drop in to the coverage at multiple points depending on their interest, and there is a feeling of energy and momentum around the coverage that lifts live blogs above the conventionally filed static news story.

So, if a live blog works so well for external news sites, why don’t more businesses use them as part of their internal communications?

Add some dynamism to internal communications
With the move to a hybrid working environment for many businesses, effective internal communication has taken on a critical role as the glue that holds many organisations together in the absence of more regular person-to-person contact. And live blogging can add a dynamic edge to an internal communications approach as the place an employee can go to at anytime of the day to immerse themselves in what is going on around the business.

Where is the CEO today?
Content in a live blog can range from the momentous to the minutiae: which office is the CEO visiting today? Perhaps an employee is presenting at a big industry conference. Maybe a long-termer is reaching a significant milestone and deserves a shout out. Or does a new arrival need to be announced? Perhaps it’s a big business win; an office revamp; someone attending a big industry event; a great presentation that deserves to be shared more widely…Pictures are great too and there should always be the option for people to interact and comment on content.

A compelling read
The point is a live blog can create an interesting and compelling read where people in the business feel a part of what is going on around the organisation, creating the all-important engagement that static news on the intranet does not always generate.

The hitch of course is a good live blog cannot operate by itself; it needs communications resource to curate it and contributors to send in the news and snippets that can feed the blog and keep it alive. For larger organisations, existing communications people could take turns to share the responsibility. But if a business doesn’t think it has the resources to maintain a daily live blog, why not use it as the go-to comms tool for big internal events like annual results, other earnings announcements, big structural changes?

Too often, the news feed in a company intranet feels flat and like yesterday’s news (which, most of the time, it literally is). A live blog brings more immediacy, can attract a greater readership, bring people together, and drive engagement. Oh, and it can be a lot of fun too…

Maybe it’s time for your business to start live blogging?

Keep it real: authenticity makes for great communication

Communicating in a crisis, Content marketing, Talking to your employees

What characterises someone as a good communicator? Being ‘authentic’ is usually hailed as a key attribute; someone who says it how it is, who doesn’t hide behind pre-scripted sound bites, who answers the question (and without jargon) but, most importantly, is clearly themselves. People respond well to an authentic leader, whether it’s a politician or a business leader, and feel they can have a genuine connection with that individual.

But for some reason, being the authentic version of ourselves is quite hard. Watching a debate for the UK general election last week involving six leaders and deputy leaders of the UK’s political parties, each politician had 30 seconds at the end to give their pitch to the electorate. For some inexplicable reason, most chose to read from an autocue. The result? Stilted, monotoned, expressionless statements that had me thinking more about their presentation style than the content of what they had to say.

Why would a skilled politician and speaker need an autocue to give the type of speech that they have probably already given hundreds of times? All it served to do was to strip them of their authenticity; that very thing makes them the person they are and why people like – or dislike – them.

Strip away the stuff that hides the real you
It had me thinking that the best example of an authentic communicator is probably your five-year-old self. You weren’t afraid to say what you thought of something; weren’t afraid to admit you didn’t know; and weren’t shy of saying what it is you liked and didn’t like. Of course, your five-year-old self had no filter, so I am not suggesting reverting to toddler tantrums, but I am saying that leaders whether they are politicians, CEOs, or anyone with a message to give, should strip away the communications tools that cloak and stifle authenticity.

Bin the autocue
That means binning the autocue; the over-scripted corporate videos; the company intranet piece written and polished by someone else; and the impenetrable corporate jargon that you’d never use outside the office. And maybe doing more of the things that are authentic to you. It’ll make your communications better, and your message will be more likely to land.

Green hushing

Content marketing, Sustainability, Talking to your customers, Uncategorized

I recently came across the phrase ‘green hushing’. Green washing yes, but ‘green hushing’?

For those uninitiated, like me, it is apparently the practice of businesses keeping quiet about their sustainability efforts for fear of facing a backlash from commentators – anyone from clients, to influencers, the media, politicians or even their own employees – who might disagree with the organisation’s sustainability strategy.

Or it might also be that businesses don’t want to invite increased scrutiny on other, less wholesome areas of their business and perversely, trigger allegations of green washing. It’s a bit like believing that people living in glasshouses – or greenhouses in this instance – shouldn’t throw stones for fear of what might come flying back in return.

In many respects, you can’t blame a business for actively wanting to play down its green credentials given the gaping reputational traps lurking out there. And the regulators are on the case too when it comes to green washing. For example the Financial Conduct Authority has proposed “an anti-greenwashing rule in the ESG Sourcebook to help ensure that sustainability-related claims made by all authorised firms about their products and services are fair, clear, and not misleading, and consistent with the sustainability profile of the product or service.”

A green tick for your organisation’s sustainability approach?

Be real
So, should you or shouldn’t you promote that sustainability initiative? The communications conundrum reminds me of that nice old phrase, “You can’t do right for doing wrong”. But I think the answer is easy: the best communications always come from a place of authenticity.

Businesses should not be afraid to communicate what it is they stand for and what they’re doing to meet their sustainability objectives just because they fear possible negative publicity provided of course, that the communication is an authentic representation of what the business is trying to achieve from a sustainability perspective.

Five broadcast interview fails

Talking to your customers, Working with the media

No one says doing a broadcast interview is easy. Sweaty and stressful come to mind. But there are some obvious fails that I hear regularly that can be easily eradicated. And in the run up to the general election we’re not short of lots of material.

Of course, the obvious one is making no attempt to answer or even acknowledge the question – the cardinal sin beloved of politicians. There are lots of techniques to handle the questions you don’t want, but none of those techniques involve simply ignoring it.

But for this post, I’m looking at some of the more irritating smaller habits I’ve seen creep in to interviews that, in my book anyway, should have no place in a good interview and are very easy to banish before they hit the airwaves.

These are my top five broadcast fails:

  1. Thanking the interviewer for inviting you onto their programme
    Why thank them? You’re doing the programme a favour by sharing your expertise (and you’re not being paid for it either) so don’t adopt a feeling that you owe them something.
  2. Asking the interviewer ‘how are you?’
    It’s a waste of time and sounds insincere. Most of the time the interviewer won’t respond anyway because they’re too busy working on their opening question.
  3. Using the interviewer’s name
    It always sounds too pally – “Well, Jonathan, it’s like this…” – and frankly insincere. The even bigger offenders are the ones who keep using the interviewer’s name throughout the interview.
  4. “That’s a great question”
    Again, sounds insincere and is almost invariably untrue. In fact, this is a bad habit in any Q&A format where some people preface every reply by praising the question.
  5. Starting a reply with “So”
    It just sounds so

Boldly go and break the law*

Content marketing, Talking to your customers, Talking to your employees, Writing

No, I’m not suggesting you go out and rob the local bank, or even (and I’m talking to men here attending industry conferences or going to sporting events) wear red trousers – that really is unforgivable – I’m talking about many of the arcane laws of grammar and punctuation.

Who says for instance that you can’t start a sentence with a conjunction? “But we were taught never to do that,” I hear you scream. And, why shouldn’t you use one word sentences? Don’t believe everything. They. Tell. You.

 

image of 1 planeEnd with a preposition? That’s the stuff we want more of.

It can be fun to deliberately break the rules of grammar and punctuation to emphasise a point, add a bit of spice to your writing, or just to simply get a reaction. That said, you have to know you’re breaking the rules otherwise how do you know you’re breaking the rules? Where’s the fun in that?

So boldly go to split infinity, stick it to the punctuation pedants and grammar geeks and don’t be afraid to break those laws. Having said that, dangle your modifier and I’ll be coming for you…

*Any grammar and punctuation mistakes within this post are purely intentional (even the ones that aren’t).