MCOM Live 2016: Bringing MCOM to life

About MCOM Live

The first ever MCOM Live event series took place across the country this spring, with over 300 delegates attending four events in London, Bristol and Leeds. Its aim was to bring the Modern Communications Operating Model (MCOM) to life, taking the report from theory to working practice with a variety of workshops.

Who is this report for?

If you weren’t able to attend MCOM Live or want to look back on the day, this report provides a snapshot of how leaders across the profession are starting to actively apply the report to their work, and how they’re equipping their teams to do the same.

“We’ve already started using MCOM principles in my marketing team, and I think MCOM is really positive – it fulfils the need for a multidisciplinary team with all skills.”

– BIS communicator, Bristol

You can find the presentations from the sessions on this page of the GCS website.

Reading this report

Select the MCOM theme you’d like to know more about from the grid below to go straight to its section of the report, where you’ll find all the sessions around that theme. Right-click on the theme’s title and select ‘open hyperlink’.

Strategic Communications

Planning

Media, Campaigns and

Digital

Internal Communications

Stakeholder Engagement

Diversity and Inclusion

Effective Leadership

Strategic Communications PlanningPlanning, horizon-scanning and evaluation – to listen, to target and to assess activity.

Insight and Horizon Scanning

Presenters:

London: Michael Warren (DWP), Elayne Philips (Cabinet Office), Bryony Taylor (DWP), Matt Walmsley (Public Health England),

Bristol: Elayne Philips and Martin Friar (Health and Safety Executive) Leeds: Martin Friar

This session focused on horizon scanning and insight as the foundation of strategic communications planning.

Horizon scanning is a core element of MCOM, but many people don’t know what it means or how to set about doing it. As Elayne put it:

“Horizon scanning is the systematic examination of information, with the aim of anticipating future events, long-term trends and risks relevant to our work as communicators.”

Bryony emphasised that information sources are already all around us – from published national statistics to the No. 10 Grid. She encouraged delegates to think about how they could access and use the horizon scanning information their organisation already gathers, and who in their organisation could benefit from it.

Martin also looked at insight, saying that looking at an audience’s environment and preconceptions helps you to understand how best to target them. Like Bryony, he stressed that good sources of insight are often close to home – in fact, “one of the biggest sources of insight is our people.”

Participants agreed, one commenting that “using colleagues and sharing information is vital to expanding our knowledge.”

Bryony also asked colleagues to think about the reporting style they would use to present their findings, and the need to tailor this to different audiences. She showed the delegates an

example line graph that tracked audience perception trends, forecasting how these would change over a six-month period.

Insight is a concept most GCS members will already be highly familiar with, but its importance can’t be underestimated. Matt explained how insight has helped his team structure their communications work.

“We organise ourselves around the consumer – our teams are split up into different life stages, because that’s how consumers see health.”

He explained Public Health England’s approach to segmenting audiences according to their health environment – which shifts as they move through different stages of their live, from ‘starting well’ as a baby, to ‘living well’ as an adult, to ‘ageing well’ in later life.

He added that insight has shown audiences don’t tend to think about health in terms of a certain disease, but instead associate health risks or benefits with changes in their lives – so Public Health England targets its campaigns at specific stages of life, such as having a child. The recent ‘One You’ campaign is a good example of this, with its focused approach to the specific lifestyle-related health issues facing middle-aged people.

Evaluation and Objective Setting

Presenters:

London: Ian Theo and Paul Njoku (Cabinet Office) Bristol: Paul Njoku Leeds: Paul Njoku

This session looked at the abiding perception in some organisations that there is not enough time for evaluation.

“Evaluation becomes an afterthought, as people are so focussed on the product or activity.”

In fact, building evaluation in from the very beginning makes it much simpler – people often struggle with evaluating an activity because they haven’t pinned down objectives at the outset.

“Keeping evaluation in mind from the very start helps to refine objectives, and that makes evaluating everything at the end much easier.”

Paul and Ian talked about some of the resources available to colleagues who

are facing challenges in evaluating their communications.

These range from RepTrak, to the Evaluation Framework – a handy, integrated booklet providing a step-by-step guide to the evaluation process – to Evaluation Surgeries, a chance to discuss problems with experts on a one-to-one basis.

Paul also introduced the Evaluation Council, made up of public and private sector experts in the field. They are used as a sounding board for evaluation measures, helping to make them robust ahead of delivery and discussing learnings afterwards.

Paul and Ian also encouraged colleagues to provide case studies of their evaluation challenges for the GCS website, so that government communicators across the profession can learn from their experiences.

Media, Campaigns and DigitalTo deliver integrated content to tightly defined audiences.

World Class Campaigns

Presenters:

London: Tricia Quiller-Croasdell and David Watson (No. 10 Campaigns) Bristol: David Watson Leeds: David Watson

This session promised to teach delegates three key things about world-class campaigns – the framework to use, the skills you need, and the mindset you need:

“No.1 – the framework. OASIS is the one we use and we feel works best.

No. 2 – the skillset. There’s no one skillset for campaigning; what you really need is an ability and willingness to learn.

No. 3 – the mindset. You should have a genuine curiosity about

the world works, and be able to think both in terms of the big picture and small details. You also need to have resilience, and an optimistic, positive outlook on your campaign and what it aims to achieve really helps with this.”

Tricia and David talked about campaigns they thought had potential to be world-class – such as Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), a charity campaign on male suicide prevention and men’s mental health that’s expanded from social media into the analogue world.

It has a simple but powerful message of tackling cultural norms that keep men from seeking help (‘Keeping Men Alive by Talking’), and its materials are highly adaptable – its #ManDictionary social media and poster campaigns let members of the public create their own definitions of what it means to be a man, and challenge stereotypes of maleness.

Tricia brought up a campaign she felt was already world-class – Honda’s ‘Hate Something, Change Something’, which plays on people’s dislike of noisy, dirty diesel engines to promote the car company’s ‘dream’ of creating better ones.

It’s not obvious from the slogan or much of its dreamlike cartoon imagery that this is about diesel engines, but it’s a catchy, highly visual campaign able to adapt to and capture the attention of audiences around the world.

“It shows you don’t always need to go for the obvious – think about how you could go about presenting a policy in an unusual way.”

Delegates then discussed campaigns and brand moments that had caught their attention.

“What does a campaign do that makes it register with you? What about them can register with a wider global audience, not just those in the UK?”

They came up with a whole range of world-class campaigns that had left an impression on them, by charities, government and private companies:

“Innocent Smoothies have the whole package – a premium price, a good product, a good look, and a good social media strategy. They’re very flexible but have a clear idea of their vision – so they can hijack news events very smoothly, but each thing they do fits with all the other parts.”

Another delegate suggested Change For Life – “its Morph-like characters appeal to both parents and children” – and another THINK!, with its “simple core messaging that it’s committed to over a long period of time.”

“It’s interesting to see where things can go organically – the team behind This Girl Can targeted only women to start off with, but with data soon discovered a huge male secondary audience of supportive fathers, husbands, partners, sons and brothers who really got behind and helped to spread their message.”

To round off the session, the delegates talked about where government may not be the most effective world-class campaigner – in some areas, such as fracking, it’s more productive for government to step out of the picture and allow more trusted voices to take things forward.

Digital Content

Presenters:

London: Ailsa Brown and Tom Bland (No. 10 Digital) Bristol: Ailsa Brown and Tom Bland Leeds: Tom Bland (No.10 Digital) and Gillian Hudson (DWP)

This session gave some practical tips on creating effective and engaging digital content, from only taking photographs for Twitter in landscape format to ensuring a subject’s face is the brightest thing in the frame when filming.

For instance, Ailsa had this tip on accessible content:

“Using captions is becoming standard – more and more people watch videos on mobile, so can’t always have the sound on.

With captions, they’re still able to watch the video and get everything they need from it.”

They also shared useful tools with the audience – such as Noun Project for sourcing free images and icons, and Piktochart for creating quotepics and infographics.

Ailsa encouraged delegates to think outside of pure policy messaging, ‘piggybacking’ content onto existing trends or world events.

They also encouraged their audience to think about tailoring content to each channel the use – GIFs work well on Twitter, for instance, but not on Facebook. Video content is popular – new video-based apps such as Periscope and Snapchat have sprung up, and Facebook’s algorithm prioritises video content – but should always be brief and concise, as Tom explained:

“You need to get key messages across quickly, as you’re lucky to get 50% of your audience hanging about for longer than 30 seconds – try and chop longer videos down into sections.”

Ailsa, Tom and Gillian highlighted the creative potential of devices we already use every day.

Smartphones are at the fingertips of most media officers, and are simple to use – the audience had a go at taking pictures of each other on their own smartphones.

These devices can be used to produce a wide range of excellent content – such as the award-winning short film Dancers of New York City, shot entirely on an iPhone 6 by photographer Tristan Pope.E

Internal CommunicationsTo engage staff, working in partnership with leaders, to help deliver the organisation’s priorities and support organisational and cultural change.

Engaging and Influencing Teams Better

Presenters:

London: Michelle Cupples (BIS), Jean Ward (Home Office), Graham Leftwich (HMRC)

Bristol: Russell Grossman (Office of Rail and Road) Leeds: Michelle Cupples (BIS) and Susan Alderton (HMRC)

The session focussed on the importance of building productive relationships with teams: “if you invest time in your people, you’ll see the benefits in motivated and engaged staff.”

It started off with a roleplay video: two managers mimicked different behaviours in a range of workplace situations, from giving a presentation to having a difficult conversation about a failing project.

Delegates were then asked how they would describe the managers’ behaviour. In one

scenario they were “saying the right words, but showing a lack of sincerity”; in another, they were “jolly and friendly, but too casual with no direction.”

The presenters suggested that a “warm and competent” communication style is the most effective in engaging and influencing staff.

A good example of this was shown in the video, where a manager started a difficult conversation in a sensitive yet professional way – saying that he would first state where he saw a project was going wrong, and then give his colleague an opportunity to talk about where he thought the problems were.

Delegates were then asked to get into pairs with someone they hadn’t met before, and get started on a listening exercise.

Each person had to talk about themselves – who they are and what they’re like as a person – without mentioning what job they did. Their partner would have to listen closely, in order to then give them feedback on how they had presented themselves, what they did well and where they could improve – whether that was speaking more slowly, or making more eye contact.

“Learning how to listen to your team as a leader is just as important as learning how to pitch an idea to them.”

The session then got ready for the next exercise – either practising listening or pitching a vision.

For the listening exercise, the room was split into talkers and listeners – the talkers would talk about something important in their lives, and the listeners would have to listen and comment on what they’d heard.

“It’s interesting how much the listeners ignored without meaning to! It’s much easier to talk than to listen.”

“When someone felt listened to, I was surprised to clearly see the changes in their body language, eye contact, openness and enthusiasm.”

For the pitching exercise, each delegate described their vision for their team to a partner, who then assessed how engaged and motivated they felt by that person’s ideas and how they presented them.

“My partner pitched her vision for her brand new internal communications team. She was so clear about what she had planned

for them going forward, but was also so passionate about it and engaged by it herself that she soon convinced me – I was tempted to join her team myself!”

Stakeholder EngagementBuilding partnerships with third parties to share content, to listen effectively and to grow support, reputation and understanding.

Presenters

London: Helen Mason (DfT), Max Curtis (DfT), Sarah Jennings (DWP) Bristol: Matt Goodman (UK Space Agency) Leeds: Dave Edwards (DWP)

Strategic Stakeholder Engagement

The session stressed the importance of building a “strong but simple story” – one that can be reduced down to just 3 key things if necessary.

Dave said that stories “are a great way to cut through the complexity of many subjects and make an emotional link with your stakeholders.”

Because of that emotional link, stories are also easier for audiences to recall than other forms of content. Any stakeholder

content should be tailored to the group it’s targeting, and the channels they prefer.

Dave advised his audience to really listen to stakeholders – “it’s the best way to inform your strategy” – whether they agree with your policy or not. “We need to talk to and understand opponents as well as supporters.”

Max emphasised the importance of evaluation in stakeholder engagement work – “it gives us meaningful data to act on and make decisions from”. Helen talked about how DfT does this on a practical basis:

“Every time a DfT campaign hits a milestone, we produce a dashboard covering how this was achieved and how effective it was against baseline data from previous activities.”

Max said communicators across the profession need to work together in stakeholder engagement – additionally, policy colleagues frequently undertake similar work, and could learn from communications best practice.

“We’re often talking to the same people, so we need to identify commonalities between our stakeholders.”

Matt talked about how the UK Space Agency has worked with different partners, the challenges they faced in doing so, and how they put together a campaign that both the agency and partners could benefit from.

The top tips he gave were:

“1. Understand your audience.

2. Create a story or narrative, and make it resonate with your partners.

3. Give partners the ability to shape their involvement from the outset.”

Diversity and Inclusion

Diversity and Inclusion

Presenters

London: Kathleen Rawlinson (HMRC), Lucy Milmo (DfID), Leonie Austin (NHSBT) Bristol: Rosie Borland (Cabinet Office), Nicky Jackson (GCS Local Campaigns) Leeds: Leonie Austin

This session, hosted by Leonie Austin from NHSBT, Kathleen Rawlinson from HMRC, and Lucy Milmo from DFID, encouraged delegates to consider how diversity and inclusion could help both them as individuals and their teams to do their jobs as communicators.

Diversity and inclusion means more than the characteristics we might initially think of, such as socio-economic background, ethnicity, gender or sexuality – although all those areas are really important in themselves.

For instance, it can also cover working preferences, and bringing your ‘whole self’ to work – which means benefiting from elements of your identity which make you who you are, even I you don’t usually think of them as part of your ‘work persona.’

In London, Kathleen gave herself as an example:

“Let’s talk about what makes us diverse. I’ve worked in lots of different areas – banking, racial equality, the Olympics, and now tax! And I try and bring the resilience I’ve gained from training for a half marathon into work.”

Delegates split into pairs to talk about their own diversity, diversity in their own teams and ways to be more inclusive, and then fed back on these to the group.

“Difference is something good, a way to challenge perceptions and assumptions,” said one delegate in London.

“It’s always refreshing to have someone come in from outside the Civil Service, who can give us a fresh perspective,” commented a colleague.

“It’s important to treat people as individuals, and not assume they share the same views because they come from similar backgrounds,” added another.

One attendee from an ALB commented on the need to have people from a range of backgrounds to work on strategic campaigns, colleagues who understand the communities government needs to connect with – for instance, in encouraging more BME citizens to register as blood or organ donors.

The group discussed practical means of making GCS a more diverse and inclusive employer, and challenges they had encountered in their day-to-day work.

In London, the discussion ranged from breaking down barriers to career progression for underrepresented groups by instituting diverse selection panels and shortlists; to simplifying application forms and making recruitment processes shorter and less bureaucratic; to enabling more secondments and job swaps to give people a more diverse experience of government.

In Bristol, the group suggested that regional breakdowns of internal diversity statistics would be really useful, so communicators can see just how accurately they represent the people they serve in the regions they work in.

The groups acknowledged the difficulty of having time to think about and act on diversity and inclusion, but agreed that it was essential to a positive and effective working environment:

“It’s easy to go straight to business because resources are stretched, but you need to take time to talk to your team, to understand their backgrounds…and make sure everyone feels heard.”

Effective Leadership

Presenters

London: Jacqueline Williamson (Cabinet Office), Simon Wren (Home Office) Bristol: Mark Funnell (DEFRA) Leeds: Gary Hughes (NHSBT)

Leadership

This session looks at what makes effective leadership, something essential to bringing MCOM to life – influencing and guiding team members to buy into new ways of working. Mark and Gary opened the session by asking what participants to reflect on what leadership involves, what they consider good leadership to be, and what they wanted leaders to do differently.

Jacqueline said:

“There are some things only leaders can do – deciding what business you’re in; balancing the present and the future; and shaping values and standards.”

In Bristol, a delegate from ONS gave a recent example of what they felt to be good leadership:

“We were posting a blog entry that included a message from our leadership. Our director personally came down to check it over with us, and thanked the team for their help – a personal approach which really boosted morale.”

Other qualities of a good leader identified by participants included being an active listener, having a clear vision to inspire others, recognising good work, and maintaining a profile beyond the team both internally (to influence internal customers) and externally (outside the organisations).

In defining what poor leadership looks like, the delegates chose lack of visibility and no authenticity – precisely the opposite of the present, genuine approach taken at ONS.

Jacqueline and Simon asked the delegates to think about what some of the challenges for leadership are, especially in taking MCOM forward - getting teams to engage with new ways of doing things.

“The challenges for us as MCOM Leaders? Managing teams remotely, convincing people who don’t welcome change, and trusting our own leadership styles.”

In Leeds, participants picked up on other challenges too – such as convincing colleagues outside of communications

The session closed by looking at some actions the audience could take to develop their leadership skills – such as joining the GCS mentoring scheme, which offers 100 places a year, and the summer programme of Leadership Roadshows.