10 things comms should do after an incident

January 15, 2016 Darren Caveney

As public authorities work to get flood-affected communities back to normal they will be reviewing what went well and what could have gone better. Here are top ten tips for an effective review.

by Ben Proctor

1. Do an after incident review.

In the midst of an emergency or even while trying to get everything back to normal everyone will be very committed to capturing the learning. As soon as normality kicks in and managers start demanding the full attention of the beleaguered comms team it can be really hard to get people to sit down and think through the incident. It’s important to do it though.

big numbers on council websites: a guide for comms folk

November 7, 2015 Darren Caveney

A major piece of insight on council websites has been published by Ben Proctor of the Likeaword Consultancy. The numbers are impressive... more than 10 visits for every man, woman and child in the UK. But what do they mean for local government comms people? Isn't that just the web teams job? Actually, no. We asked Ben to interpret.

by Ben Proctor

The report in question which you can read here is an analysis of some key data points about visits to local authority websites in Great Britain. I asked every council for a small number of figures about visits to their websites and drawn some conclusions as a result.

It’s not all about the websites (except it is)

I am very aware that comms these days isn’t about getting hits on your website. It’s about digital engagement, community development, Instagram and SnapChat.

don't turn an emergency into a crisis

September 21, 2015 Darren Caveney

If you are public sector there's a strong chance you'll be involved in emergency communications. It could be anything from a protest march to a terrorist incident. It's a fascinating part of the job. But isn't that crisis comms? Well, actually no...

by Ben Proctor

I tell people that I work in emergency communications and, to be honest, most of them suddenly find they have an urgent appointment.

The vast majority of those that are too slow to make a convincing excuse will almost immediately say

“So, you work in crisis comms do you?” and I will almost certainly say

“Yes” because I don’t want them to leave and, really, what does it matter?

Actually I think it matters quite a lot.

Head of Comms: JD 2.0

April 14, 2013 Darren Caveney

Every job in the public sector requires a job description and a person specification. Many of them, it appears, hark back to a time before social media existed and when we still used fax machines.

by Darren Caveney

Job descriptions. You can’t live with them, you can’t live without them.

They quite regularly fail to portray the real flavour of what we do these days. In a fast-changing world they are, to a degree, quite flawed as a concept but we still need them in local government, not least to determine what salaries we get paid for our roles.