22 things I learned at #UKComm17

The eighth annual Granicus UK Public Sector Communications Conference (#UKComm17) took place with more than 800 people registered and hundreds tuning in online for the livestream or attending in person. Here’s a pile of good learning documented by Dan Slee of comms2point0 who compered the event with colleague Darren Caveney.

A good event will make you think a little differently and open up a door to new things.

Such was the case with the eighth annual Granicus event in London in the fabulous RIBA building in Marylebone.

Here are some things I learned:

1.  The average income target for a comms team is £75k.

2.  Less than 20 per cent of comms teams have an income target.

3.  You need to spend a couple of hours with the ICO download HERE to help you get your head around the changes of GDPR.

4.  GDPR isn’t scary. Ignorance of it can make it scary.

5.  Having Council generated £18k through ad space in their email bulletins to 160k subscribers.

6.  You can tell people anything so long as you are straight.

7.  We need to think more about helping comms people after a traumatic event.

8.  Give leaders the advice they need not the advice they want.

9.  Digital transformation isn’t sticking web lipstick onto an analogue pig.

10.  Ask yourself the question: ‘What have you done to change people’s lives today.’

11.  Blank verse is an acceptable way to present.

12.  ‘Get me a tweet,’ is the new ‘get me a leaflet.’

13.  Rebel Uncut are good at live streaming. They were at the first one too.

14.  You need to react when the rules are thrown out of the window.

15.  There are many myths about GDPR. Some of them have been exploded.

16.  After a Big Thing have a comms debrief then plug what you’ve learned into the wider learning.

17.  If you tweet the Met Office asking how the weather is doing in a certain place they’ll tweet you back.

18.  The Met Office have become very good at storytelling with their weather data.

19.  Always when I write a list of things I learned I think of more after I’ve hit the publish button.

20.  Foster relationships in peacetime so you can rely on them in a crisis.

21.  Just because it is an emergency doesn’t make it a crisis.

22.  The white paper on income targets is really magnificent. Income Targets: Comms Entrepreneurs, Income Warriors and Three Paths Forward. You can download it here.

Dan Slee co-founded comms2point0. He co-compered at the UK Public Sector Communications conference.

Check out more recap blogs and the presentations from #UKComm17 here.