The post Adding your voice to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability to make a difference to the lives of people with disability appeared first on Agility Communications.
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When a Royal Commission is set up to explore, expose and make recommendations on grave injustices, I believe, that where we have useful information or experience, we are required to do what we can to make that information available.
In April 2019, a Royal Commission into violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disability was announced. Although Australia seems to have an inordinate number of royal commissions, this one was close to my heart.
I started my working life as a nurse working with people with intellectual disability. This was in the bad old days of institutionalisation. They were perhaps the darkest days of my life, and I only worked there. There were many extremes. Extremes of violence, cruelty, abuse, and neglect.
Very few, if any, extremes of kindness, humanity or dignity.
I left there as soon as my three-year training was complete and joined a fledgling deinstitutionalisation movement to call for a more humane form of care for our citizens with disability.
A casual glance shows a huge change. Institutions, many of which were built in the 1800s were closed down with many people who had been living in incredibly archaic conditions moving into homes in the suburbs. However, although the address may have changed, the conditions did not always change with it.
More than a decade after leaving nursing and all that institutionalisation represented, I was one of the two inaugural workers at the Disability Discrimination Legal Service. A heady time – human rights, discrimination legislation, hope, optimism and excitement for the future.
Many positive and important changes did happen. But what I found was that although many more people with disability were living in the community; unfairness was still a major focus of their lives.
Decades later again and there has been significant change, but as the Royal Commission demonstrates, we still have a long way to go.
I have consulted to many disability organisations, both service providers and advocacy organisations; Joining them in despair at times.
My consultancy focuses on communication strategies that help you to shape your message, make a difference for the organisation and their stakeholders.
If you need help to create and deliver a submission to the Royal Commission, Agility Communications and Connections can help in one of the following ways:
- Reviewing your submission before It is submitted
- Helping you to collect data for your submission, including focus groups with staff and clients
- Writing a submission on your behalf
If you are keen to develop your own submission, there are heaps of resources and support on the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability website.
Let me know if I can help you to end discrimination.
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]]>The post Engage media ‘Gimmick does not have to be a dirty word! appeared first on Agility Communications.
]]>That all changed a few weeks ago when I had a bad riding accident and couldn’t do much but sit quietly for a while. I ended up watching a lot of Netflix, and due to my pain levels could not cope with anything more taxing mentally than reality TV.
Still I got sick of them pretty quickly and kept moving from one show to another. It was Fashion Fund that struck a chord and led me down memory lane.
Fashion Fund is a competition where ten designers get to work with the biggest names in the business in the hope of becoming the Fund Designer of the Year – an award that comes with $400,000 and a one-year mentorship with some of fashions biggest luminaries.
The bit that interested me was in the first episode. Applicants had to make their pitch to be in the competition. 200 applications were whittled down to 50 and then to ten.
I loved some of the pitches. They were delivered to the Fashion Fund building and distributed amongst the Judges. They were not there to make their pitch personally – their application had to do that for them.
The ones shown on TV, (which mostly comprised of the ten successful applicants) were sophisticated, beautiful and told a story.
They had to capture the judges’ attention and imagination.
The concept reminded me of the pre-digital days of the media release, where, depending on the pitch we sent the media something, (such as a gimmick) to
In the case of my work, which was often more about advocacy than product, finding something witty or clever that would help to tell our story helped enormously. I clearly remember a women’s health campaign where a colleague rolled up the releases and inserted them into speculums and delivered them to media and to members of parliament.
Businesses still do this today, the fashion industry in particular, and often via digital tools. Episode one took me back to the days of tangible three dimensional products that could be picked up, put down and moved around.
Think about including something that will surprise your media outlet, blogger, influencer in your next pitch and if you have access to Netflix, I recommend watching the first episode for examples of beautiful products that tell a story and set out to impress and influence.
I did a quick google for modern examples of tangible ‘things’ to go to media and here are a few finds:
Wunderman’s UK office created a range of tree decorations made from tampons and sent out to clients, influencers and media. When the gift was shared on social media tagging the agency, they pledged a box of period products to charity Bloody Good Period.
A
You can probably imagine various situations where a witty and relevant t shirt slogan might grab attention from the media – just make sure that it is relevant to the campaign.
This mystery box is a great example of including a few small inexpensive products that tell a great story of a neighbourhood, but could easily include items to tell a broad range of stories.
If you want to learn how to create a digital media kit go to our online marketing course Agile Communities – heaps of short courses for the Marketing and PR Manager practitioner.
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]]>The post Drop the Jargon and deliver engaging communications appeared first on Agility Communications.
]]>It’s Drop the Jargon day today! Most of us know that we should leave jargon out of our communications, but not all of us can do it.
Why not use this day to ensure that your future communications are jargon free and engaging?
Business communicators should be, (but aren’t always), experienced at producing information in plain English. Even if we get it right in writing, we need to be sure that all of our communications are clear.
Generally, when we write we stop and reflect and re-read, when we speak, we may not do this.
When we speak to our colleagues, jargon can be inevitable, a shorthand understood by our profession. But it is a real communications problem when it is used to communicate with the public.
Why should we avoid jargon?
- When we keep our language clear and simple we increase readability which results in greater engagement.
- At a time when we have more access to information than ever before, our audiences will quickly move on if the communications are not clear.
- In a digital world, we do not share unnecessarily complicated information
- The media will not pick up your news that is full of jargon
And perhaps the best reason of all – Do not write to be understood. Write so that you cannot possibly be misunderstood.
How can we avoid jargon?
- Stay conscious of, and tailor your communications to, your audience(s).
- Only use the specialised terms where there is not an every-day alternative and you know that the audience will understand the term
- Don’t try to show off using big words
- Do not use a jargon term where perfectly ordinary terms will be just as effective.
- Use simple language that tells a story
- Use examples and anecdotes
Contact us if you want some help with your writing to keep it interesting and understandable,
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]]>The post The NDIS outcomes in your organisation are probably not often reflected in the news appeared first on Agility Communications.
]]>IT was at a time when employment services were often in the news. Scandals of embezzlement, cheating the system, organizations making millions while job seekers kept on seeking.
And a time when RTO’s were in the news. Scandal, cheating, dishonest practise, tricking or bribing vulnerable people to sign up for courses that they had no real interest in or ability for.
Regardless of how impeccable the organisation you worked for was, the sector was disgraced and no-one cared if your experience was different.
I have been thinking about this the last few weeks, where judging by the news NDIS, (National Disability Insurance Scheme) is on the nose. Confusion, long waiting lists, people missing out or getting less assistance on the NDIS plan than they received previously.
I can imagine the impact of this on people with disability and their families and carers. In fact, I don’t need to imagine, a bit of time spent on news sites, social sites and forums shows a great deal of distress and anger.
Of course, there are many good stories as well, but they don’t often get past the ‘noise’.
What has exercised my thinking recently is the impact on staff in disability organisations, doing their best in a new system that is either finding its feet or flawed.
I imagine people who have faced frustration and heart break, but also jubilation and excitement, who perhaps celebrated with clients/consumers only to get home to news that is deflating.
How do you help staff to keep up their morale when their positive experiences of working in the NDIS environment never makes the news?
Here are some tips on communicating with staff that might help:
Encourage managers to celebrate all ‘wins’ in their team
Be clear on expectations around results
Be available for debrief
Be willing to take on appeals where necessary
Be clear about what could be done differently in this new environment
Amplify the successes
Recognise frustration
Create positive stories and use them to explain the organisation position
Tell your staff how much you appreciate their efforts
Communicate the above to all staff in all communication forums:
Newsletters, Intranets, meetings, emails….
In other words, make sure that your employees are able to do the best for their clients in a difficult environment and that in the workplace they feel valued, listened to and understood. We need the NDIS to work and the more effective we are in service provision the better off all people connected to the system will be – Particularly people with disability.
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]]>The post Does the Not-For-Profit Marketer need to be a Legal Eagle? appeared first on Agility Communications.
]]>Not long ago I had an opportunity to create a video on legal issues for marketers, particularly those marketers who work in the not-for-profit sector, not because the rules are different, but because the resources are different.
When we are working with little or no budget, small teams (if we are lucky enough to have a team), a huge workload and massive responsibilities, we are more likely to cut corners, hope for the best or work on gut instinct rather than known legalities.
Along comes the knowledgeable and legal savvy David Puls from BECOMING/CHANGE, next came a video and given a number of flaws, a move to a podcast. Please have a listen.
There are clearly many more topics, we would love to hear what other issues you would like us to cover.
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]]>The post Managing Business or Community Group Social Media Accounts – is there a difference? appeared first on Agility Communications.
]]>Recently I was preparing two social media workshops, one for business and one for community groups. That got me thinking about where the differences were. There is lots of common ground between managing business and managing social media accounts – but what are the differences? A few thoughts are below (with heaps of generalisations).
Goals
Goals might be quite similar between the two, although how they go about reaching them, may differ. Both business and community groups could have goals to:
· Engage stakeholders
· Raise awareness
· Raise money
· Event attendance
· Give news
To name a few.
Engagement
Some community groups may find engagement with their online community slightly easier than businesses. Many groups will have strong relationships with members. And because they have at least one common interest, the group is already engaged to some degree. The tricky part is to keep this engagement growing.
Resources
Everyone is short on resources, but many community groups will be REALLY short on resources:
HubSpot did a survey with nonprofit organisations and found that:
· Most nonprofits do not have a documented social media strategy.
· Responsibility typically falls to only one employee/member.
· Tracking the social media accounts of donors within a donor database is a rare practice.
· More than half of non-profits spend 2 hours or less per week on social media marketing (whereas half of for-profit businesses spend at least 6 hours per week).
Reporting/measurement
When you have limited resources, it is essential to know what is and isn’t working. HubSpot found that about half of nonprofits measure their social activities, which is about twice as good as the average for-profit businesses. (This is an incredible statistic).
Dealing with risks
Creating policies and then training personnel in the policy and in using the channels are essential for all social media managers, regardless of whether they are paid.
My experience with community groups is that this is often, but not always, a weakness. There is a skill to writing a policy and a policy is not useful unless everyone it affects knows and understands it (including members who are not involved in managing your channels. In many cases, this will include your members. Make sure that they know what is and isn’t OK.
What can you do?
· Resource the people responsible for social media – Make sure that you have enough people to do the work and take on the monitoring responsibility. Make sure they are fed club news, scores etc. so that they can keep accounts current and interesting.
· Create a meaningful written social media policy and plan with calendar which outlines strategies, goals and tactics – Make sure people are assigned responsibilities and have the skills to be accountable.
· Mix up your content – Don’t just talk about your group, ask questions, find information from other sources that will be of interest to your group, lots of images, video, cartoons…..
We have pretty much ventured into territory that everyone who manages a social media account should be thinking about. If you need help with your business or community strategy, please contact us.
We have resources that might help you, email us for a copy of:
Social media audit guide
Social media content guide
Policy infograph
Find some help with policies here
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]]>The post What I have learned about Personal Branding – a personal experience appeared first on Agility Communications.
]]>I recently wrote a series of short blogs on creating my personal brand. The stimulus for that was a magnificent photo shoot with Juanita Broderick. The links to each post are below, along with an infographic that I created on the process.
Post One My Experience of Personal Branding – the first in a series
Post Two Finding My Personal Brand – part 2 in a series
Post Three My Personal Brand – The Next Level – part three in a series
Post Four Upping the Public part of the Personal Brand – Part 4 in a series
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]]>The post Upping the Public part of the Personal Brand – Part 4 in a series appeared first on Agility Communications.
]]>My decision to be photographed by Juanita required me to think about my physicality – how I appeared and how I was seen and assessed.
Not something I hadn’t thought about, but not something that I had seriously considered doing anything about. Authentic is very important both to me and to my clients. With me, what you see is what you get. Outdoors woman madly in love with animals, any animals, but particularly my pigs, horses, cows and of course Issy.
But all the same on a stinking hot day I arrived at Juanita’s studio, suitcases and business props such as my banner in tow.
First part of the transformation was hair and makeup. I loved every moment of this experience and wished that it was a skill I possessed, although even if it was, it is more likely that I would be found mucking out the pig’s yards than adjusting my makeup.
Several changes of clothes and we are off.
Given some of the anxiety that I felt, I think that it is worthwhile to mention some of the things that helped me on this journey and on this day:
Trust – I was putting myself in the hands of an expert, actually two experts, a hair and makeup expert and a stunning photographer, they were going to do their best with me and if it all went pear shaped I didn’t have to use the photos. But I trusted that they would be great and they were much better than great.
Trust that Juanita wasn’t worrying about how she could possibly get a good shot.
Prepare – Juanita suggested that I bring some business props – no brainer, but I would not have thought of it. I brought my banner, an easel that I sometimes use in workshops and pens, laptop etc. I am so glad that I did. Fantastic, immediately useable shots.
Plan – I spent time thinking about what I brought to my work and therefore to the work of my clients and what I wanted the photos to portray:
I have a wealth of experience and learned wisdom
My communications’ background helps me to plan and deliver engaging strategies
I have empathy for older business owners – many have a fear of this changing world of technology, I can help them to come to grips with it painlessly
Quick to come up with solutions
Transparent values and ethics
Sense of humour
Clothes – I brought every piece of clothing that I liked, I didn’t expect to use them all and I did not, but as the artistic director, Juanita chose with my input and she made great decisions.
If you would like to refresh your personal brand and want some new photos, you cannot go wrong. The photos, I hope, speak for themselves. Contact us for help with your strategy
Meet Juanita at Broderick Photography:
https://www.facebook.com/broderickphotography.com.au/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/juanita-broderick-9aa856100/
https://www.instagram.com/broderickphotography/?hl=en
The next post will be about important strategies in developing your personal brand.
Juanita Broderick brought out the cheeky, the zany and the professionals in this photo shoot of Noelene Gration
The post Upping the Public part of the Personal Brand – Part 4 in a series appeared first on Agility Communications.
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