The city of Leeds is a cradle of learning with an established reputation as one of the leading university cities in the UK. So it was a perfect location to kick off the first of our UnAwards Winners Masterclasses.
By Darren Caveney
Read morethe periodic table of internal communication
The periodic table was created in 1869 to bring together all the known chemical elements under one roof enabling them to be studied, discussed and understood. Russian chemist Dimitri Mendeleev also predicted the discovery of other elements, and he purposely left spaces open for them.
We’ve recently worked with Chuck Gose, Corporate Communications VP, speaker & host of the internal comms podcast, ICology to replicate this original idea for internal communicators. And with hundreds of downloads from comms pros worldwide, it’s already proving to be very popular…
The Idea
The idea was to create a table of terms that would bring together all the elements of internal communication under one roof. We split the table across seven categories: Strategy, Objectives, Themes, Audiences, Formats, Channels and Metrics and populated each category with a number of common comms terms. From there, we’ve built the Periodic Table of Internal Communication, which you can download here.
A cracking response
The feedback so far has been fantastic. We’ve been overwhelmed with the positive responses…
what a cop show teaches us about comms
As communicators we are surrounded by learning opportunities. But can we learn about comms from a TV show? One communicator thinks so.
Now I love film and tv. I mean love. Mrs C, in our early days of ‘courting’, once made the mistake of asking me what my favourite film was. 20 minutes later I had drawn up a top 50 for her. I was pleased with my work, she should have realised right then that she was dating an anorak.
But TV can be just as special as film. By TV I don’t mean most of the dirge that gets thrown our way in the name of entertainment. No, I mean the seriously good stuff – The Wire, The West Wing, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad. I’ve seen them all.
learning, learning, always learning
I was lucky enough to be asked to talk to a group of final year PR students at Manchester Metropolitan University recently about PR careers in the public sector.
I was invited by Sarah Williams, senior PR lecturer at the University, and it was great to see the excellent work she and her colleagues are delivering to prepare the next batch of comms and PR folk for the world of paid employment.
Of course, it took me straight back to starting out in my own career, full of that heady, excited anticipation of where a sparkly new career may take me – somewhere glamorous, working for an exciting brand and maybe travelling around the world and back in the process.
