"You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."
Delivered on time, in December, right round Europe, a wiro-bound, notebook-style diary with plastic covers and *useful* information.
Astellas are ‘Changing tomorrow’ for their customers and patients.
We’re talking about a 2010 diary and it’s almost February.
Upstairs have been busy…
As the story circulates the media that Gordon Brown paid $40,000 for West Wing Writers to ‘tailor’ speeches for a US target audience, what is the contraversy? Well, in times of supposed thrift, and given Mr Brown’s personal reputation for counting pennies, it’s a large sum of money. To the consultants who were on Clinton’s team, it’s a few days work, though, surely…
Reading the coverage, it smacks of two other ‘disgusted in Tunbridge Wells’ themes:
1. Unease that Gordon doesn’t write this stuff himself.
2. Shame that no-one in the UK could come up with the goods.
Number 1 is plain naieve. Go back to Churchill for that sort of style and talent. Number 2, I can agree with. As I spend my days thinking about how to target communication to audiences as diverse as medical reps on the road in Berkshire, junior members of governments ooh anywhere and bored middle management waiting for lifts in Central London, surely someone, somewhere (not in Washington, not for $40,000) could have been trusted to come up with the goods? Targetting communication is one skill, so is writing speeches for an individual that you understand, know, work with. The words are coming up out of one person’s mouth, they need to sound like his, have some truth about them, he needs to own them…
For those of us who believe the West Wing is real, that Martin Sheen was President and that Presidential speeches turn the mood of a nation, we would like to think that Toby and Josh would make Gordon a star on the Hill.
The truth is, that now the ‘news’ is out, some consultants that we’ve never heard of have developed some words that will forever be perceived as lacking authenticity, over-crafted, a waste of money…and not Gordon’s own.
Not entirely accurate, in fact, the words are already forgotten.
While writing a guide to internal communication for one of our clients, the subject of communication planning had to be included. Conveying planning as exciting as briefing agencies or making podcasts proved a tall order. Inevitably, a manager is going to find writing a plan a lot less interesting than actually communicating, we thought.. but then that came to be the point. The communications plan is the first communication so make it simple, easy to follow, really clear to your audiences and present it with a flourish…of course.
If you would like a generic internal communication plan format, that really does make it easy, let us know. No-one ever said it was difficult, just that it tended to be a bit boring. Not anymore.
Big welcome to baby Mia AND to the two micro pigs now living in Sarah’s garden.
As the stories mount, the heads roll, the power shifts and we don’t believe a thing *anyone* says, what a great (terrifying) internal communication plan to have to consider…. How to engage MPs.
Organisations seem to be facing the same challenges at the same time in internal communication right now: is it best to talk about what you (top level management) have decided and know now – or wait – until concensus is reached on communication? Agremeent is being sought not just on what is said, but on how it’s said, when it’s said, how many times it’s said, who says it, what languages it’s said in..we could go on.
While this process escalates – and is repeated, probably – employees (not top level management) will have their own assumptions about what is happening, some will have already picked up on aspects of what is happening too. Theories about what is about to be done (to them, not with them or by them) will be discussed and engagement, productivity and time will inevitably be lost. Such delays – or perceived silences – often attack trust. And while internal communication is rightly at the top of the senior management agenda, this focus is not actually getting the job done.
Times have changed – the right people are discussing how to communicate and realising the importance of communication within the organisation. It’s just that in some cases, it’s not these people that are doing the communicating, they’re talking about doing it…
Working with City and Islington College on the publication of their Strategic Plan for the next three years proved an education. Did you know that C&I are the largest provider of undergraduates to universities in England and Wales, for example? But for those of us who often spend time in the corporate (under)world, one thing really hit home – it wasn’t just the staff that were really proud of their College but many of the students were too. If you see young people wearing their C&I red lanyards in North London, it’s the College they belong to.
This sense of pride in belonging feels in contrast to some corporate organisations struggling with employee morale, pride, enthusiasm and motivation. Perhaps there is more to be learnt from education….and those that provide it, particularly those with Beacon Status on the Holloway Road….
Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.
A people will sometimes step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.
Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we were meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.
Sheenagh Pugh, 1990
We recently worked on an editing job for a company based in Korea. Having written their social report in Korean, they wanted us to edit and proof-read the translation. The best thing about the job was how close Korea seemed throughout – to the extent that our client was in touch over email discussing some expression issues and our ability to discuss proved better than most face to face meetings. One interesting thing – how easy the word ‘plague’ is to mix up with ‘plaque’ as in ‘a plague of appreciation’ listed numerous times in the appendix…. We send all friends a plague of appreciation today….
