Written by Kevin Ivers, originally published on the Newsweaver blog on December 8, 2016.
What are the issues facing Internal Communications Specialists? How are others in IC going about their jobs and what are the challenges they see ahead for their industry?
People who set a benchmark for other ambitious internal communicators aiming to establish themselves and their function as key strategic supports for their organizations’ goals.
First up is Matt Scott who works as a Digital Channels Specialist for Centrica, owners of British Gas and Bord Gáis Energy.
Q. What was the career path that led you to working in internal communications?
My degree is in journalism so I’ve always envisaged a career that entailed communicating a message, be it online, in a newspaper or in an internal email. I started working in London and found myself going down a marketing path, picking up a variety of digital skills along the way. I then moved to British Gas into another marketing role before I was able to secure my current role in the digital services team which sits within IC.
Q. What was the most rewarding or effective internal communications campaign/initiative that you worked on in your career?
Every year we have two financial results emails that go out, and due to their sensitive nature there are always really late nights and even earlier mornings. The number of business owned by Centrica and the subsequent various platforms/IS systems mean communicating videos, files and intranet content to them all is a huge challenge, but with the help of Newsweaver we get it done every year.
Q. What department do you report to in your organization?
HR
Q. What do you see as the biggest challenge in the industry?
Moving from an old school comms mentality to embracing digital channels and solutions.
Q. In your opinion, what changes do you envisage happening in internal communications over the next five years?
As with many other job roles or functions, I can see one-stop tools coming to the fore. Platforms that do everything in one place, rather than having to move between software to complete tasks and source data.
Q. What channel is currently the most effective for internal communications in your organization?
Email.
Although personally, I’m constantly surprised at the power of social. We have Yammer for example, and what previously would have taken 10+ emails to track down the right person now takes one post in the correct group.
Q If you could change one thing about your job/industry, what would it be?
The perception that we “just send emails”.
Q. What sources do you look to for best practice content?
We form quite a lot of our own best practices through trial and error and analysis of data.
Q. Do you think that IC is adequately valued in your organization or in companies generally?
When we’re able to show powerful data, then we most certainly are valued but there are occasions when more time could be devoted to IC planning by companies.
Q. What is your favorite feature of the Newsweaver product/tool and why?
The custom fields. We recently discovered we can use the custom fields along with the content macro to send personalized O365 upgrade emails to thousands of subscribers, saving hours (if not days) of work for our IS team.
Quick Fire Questions (One Word Answers)
Best Holiday? San Francisco
Person you’d most like to meet? David Beckham
Facebook or Twitter? Twitter
Favorite TV Series? The Royle Family
A song you will never get sick of hearing? Doesn’t exist.
Superpower you would like to have? Flight.
City Living or Country Living? Country living.
Iphone or Android? Iphone
Finally, If you could sum Newsweaver up in one word, what would it be? Saviour
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