It’s easy, when you’re planning a communications strategy or project, to get caught up in the reams of material to read and the plans to be written. But there’s no substitute for leaving your desk and going to talk to people. By consulting your colleagues and audiences, you’ll feed ideas, perspectives, opinions and (if you’re […]
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As people whose business it is to communicate with impact and flair, we all have our favorite metaphors that we draw on repeatedly. Knitting, I must say, has never been one of mine. That said, I’ve found myself thinking that it’s the best way of describing one of the most important leadership functions that we […]
Do you feel that it’s difficult to explain—and take credit for—the contribution that your communications efforts make to the overall success of your organization? Sometimes it’s hard for communicators to take credit for big picture outcomes such as the number of new members recruited, rate of client satisfaction, revenue, or influence leading to a regulatory […]
So you’ve laid out a brilliant communications strategy, with clear goals, indices of success and messages—congratulations! Next, it’s time to move from the lofty levels of strategy down to the thickets of tactics. A tactical action plan is where the strategy all comes together, since it lays out the implementation schedule that will make your […]
Yesterday, I had the opportunity of participating in the Government of Canada’s Communicators’ Learning Summit in Ottawa, with sessions broadcast to regional communicators across Canada. My session was on the Top 10 Strategic Questions that I think every communicator should have in their back pocket. The gist of it was this: no one likes to look uninformed […]
It often amazes me to see that amid the oceans of material written about strategic communications planning, virtually nothing is said about how communications advisors operate on their ‘home turf’, in relation to senior management and colleagues in program or policy shops. It’s a peculiar omission, because the way in which you approach internal client […]
Everyday, you swim in your natural habitat. You see the same people, the same issues and the same old challenges. It can be helpful to pull back from that sameness and ask yourself the question: What am I not seeing? That simple question can trigger a profound shift. It has the power to unlock problem solving, […]
You’ve almost certainly received dozens of flyers or emails selling you on books, workshops and webinars on ‘How to Be Strategic’. The word is used so often that we’ve lost track of what it means. You might think it’s nothing but another bit of corporate-speak tossed around to make things sound fancier. But something real […]
It’s no fun being far out to sea with a hole in your boat. And there are few worse moments in the life of a communicator than realizing that the big communications strategy you’ve been struggling with for weeks is foundering because some basic things weren’t clarified at the start. Part of the team thought […]
It strikes me that there is an interesting parallel between being a strategic communicator… and being a chef. A chef is respected for his or her mastery of the craft. A chef is able to perform at a sophisticated and uniquely competent level because of a deep understanding of all aspects of the profession – […]
I am often asked about lessons from the trenches from my experience of bringing a technology product to market as a shift from a service-base consulting practice. Certainly, there are too many lessons learned to list here (!). However, I was recently interviewed by Canadian Women in Technology (CanWIT, on which I am privileged to […]
One of the easiest ways you can immediately enhance your strategic value as a communicator is to make a shift in the way you think about your function. Communicators generally are in the business of producing “stuff” – their focus is on the very real day-to-day challenges of writing press releases, developing key messages or […]
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