How to stop AI brainrot I've been playing a fun game in the last few weeks. It's called AI-Spy (yes, I do just make puns for my own amusement). It's my attempt to check myself before asking for AI's opinion or help on something. For loads of us, it might have become a bit too easy to do. Just like pulling our phone out to entertain ourselves when we have a few minutes to kill. But in a similar way to the phone reflex, knowing when it's good for you and when it's not is becoming one of the...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
How long are you really listening for? Are you listening at the back? No, are you REALLY listening? I bet we all think we're good listeners now. It feels a very 2026 skill. We like to think we're good at empathising, understanding and comforting. And who better at that than doctors - they must the best listeners, right? Well, one study, shared by Lauren Castle-Baker on our recent webinar, found that GPs overestimated the amount of time they spend listening by 700%. One minute rather than...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Is that your final answer? Why the hell were we playing Who Wants To Be A Millionaire at a comms conference? (It was Who Wants To Be A Social Media-naire, to be completely accurate, tenuous pun fans). We were digging into the lore of our host city, Nottingham, at the LGcomms Academy event to find out what makes it special and unique. We've done a bit of dissecting and discussing lore right here - there's a webinar you can watch back if you missed that. But what are the practical building...
2 months ago • 2 min read
The underrated art of acknowledgement My brother does nature conservation. No real reason for you to know or care about that, but he does. What I'd completely forgotten about was how a letter from Sir David Attenborough had played a large part in that, until he was recounting the story around the great man's 100th birthday celebrations a few weeks ago. When he was 12, Paul sent him a letter about reptiles he was rescuing near our house (our shared bedroom was always full of snakes and lizard...
4 months ago • 2 min read
They don't teach you that at college No matter what type of comms qualification or experience you have, some things you just can't train for. You may have either got along to the UnAwards Masterclass event in Birmingham (well done if you bagged a ticket) or been able to join the online webinar last week. And, as always, it was brilliant to hear the stories behind the award-winning work - how it was planned, created and executed. (By the way, one of the top comms hacks out there is the Comms...
4 months ago • 2 min read
Sell the benefits, not the features It's always there. Everyone knows it. But no-one says it. I've just finished a messaging refresh with a national charity. It covered a really important initiative for them, one they wanted employers to jump on board with. On the surface, there was nothing hugely wrong with what already existed. But then I put on the glasses of the intended audience, which always helps to reveal the most important factor - will they care? There was plenty in there about what...
5 months ago • 3 min read
Real people. Reel results Timing is everything, isn't it? I've been knee-deep in a social media review for a fire service this month, with brilliant comms data guru Alex Waddington. And having analysed their most successful posts, we found their top content featured real people - staff, volunteers, animals (always animals). Everyday hero content, as Alex terms it. Then dropped a brilliant study to explain why. Emplifi's recent research on Facebook Reels showed: Videos that include human...
5 months ago • 2 min read
Praise the lore - storytelling takes a new shape First I winced. By the end I was punching the air in agreement When this LinkedIn post went semi-viral last week, I was ready to jack it all in and retrain as a dentist (always fancied it for some reason). Death to Storytelling is not the sort of headline you need to see when much of your work revolves around the subject. But as with everything, times change and things evolve. Pretty Little Marketer (LinkedIn) Lore has become the new buzzword...
7 months ago • 2 min read
'Trusted voices on social media open closed doors' How's your campaign or project going? Feel like you're knocking on a brick wall? Maybe it's time to look at who's doing the knocking (not that sort, mucky mind). The Edelman Trust Barometer is a report that emerges at the start of each year to largely tell us we don't really trust politicians and billionaires - who knew? But beyond the headlines, there can be some interesting nuance and the headline above 👆 was one of the more interesting...
7 months ago • 2 min read
