Distinctive Dispatch #9: Better comms for people, places and work

Navigating the fog ahead of 2024; supporting #FuturePRoof's guide to AI in PR; responding to your views on comms; questions on a four-day working week.

Thanks for reading the Distinctive Dispatch. We hope you find it useful. If there are any comms-related matters you’d like us to explore in future newsletters, drop us an email or let us know in the chat.

Peeking past the fog to a positive 2024

After a year filled with challenges and achievements, December offers a chance to take a breath. It's a perfect time to reflect, reconnect and recharge before 2024 unfolds.

Wherever you are in the journey towards the ‘year-end charge’, I’d wager that 2023 was interesting (to put it mildly). We hear regularly that it’s posed plenty of challenges. We’ve also been inspired by how teams continued to deliver in the face of pressure.

In reflecting, I share our predictions for 2023, written almost a year ago. We said then that a general election wouldn’t happen this year, that providing housing would be more challenging and that AI would bring forward new ways of working. We stay close to these developments. Our newsletter has shared examples of this throughout the year, including our insights on AI in this edition.  

We’re grateful also for the thoughts shared with us about your 2023 and how communications can best support your work.

What you’re telling us

We took time recently to seek people’s views about their challenges. We’re also surveying built environment professionals for their thoughts. The survey is live at the time of writing, but early feedback points to clear themes:

• Lack of clarity from government, which impedes investment and local decisions. This is likely to continue until the general election.

• Although we aren’t in the recession that many predicted, the economy is flatlining.  

• Progress to net zero and responding to the climate emergency is slowing.

• Everyone is knackered.

This feeds a sense of grind and - at its most intense - fuels mistrust. It’s striking how often communications, transparency and confusion come up in stories and conversations about responses to these issues.

I was at a city-wide gathering with 300 others in Bristol last week, discussing how we can enable a fairer shift – or ‘just transition’ – to a cleaner, sustainable future. When asked about barriers, communication came up as prominently as resources. Too often, communication either happens too late (if it happens at all) or is shrouded in mystery and turns people off.

Our successful work has shown us that clear communication is key to achieving great results that transforms communities in the face of the fog.

Good comms builds clients’ reputations over years, creating an asset which supports them when times are tough. It provides human clarity, rather than meaningless guff, on issues that matter to stakeholders. It strives for the right approach, not the approach that looks right.

These are key ingredients for building credibility and trust that helps organisations face 2024 confidently, whatever changes lie ahead.

Celebrating the wins

In grappling with change, it’s easy to miss the progress made every day amidst the uncertainty and bumps along the path.

Whether you are reshaping your team or coordinating a city-scale ‘just transition’, those efforts played a role in creating a better future for someone in 2023. Take a moment to celebrate that.

Whatever happens next year, we can be certain of change. We’re up for helping clients and partners face it confidently.

Thanks, and here’s to the future

In the spirit celebrating the wins, we look back on our first full year, during which we addressed big challenges and achieved tremendous results.

These include:

• Telling the story of Gloucester city centre’s £200m transformation to businesses, politicians and potential tenants.

• Championing our region as a destination for investment in its nuclear industry.

• Rebranding one of the affordable housing sector’s most well-respected businesses.

• Helping organisations reshape and plan for the future.

Huge thanks go to all our clients who showed confidence in our team. We’re similarly grateful to those who gave time and advice over coffee or a virtual chat. I learned something from every conversation. And heartfelt appreciation to everyone who signed up for this newsletter. It’s been a useful space to share thoughts, and we’re pleased to have kept it going throughout the year and see sign-ups steadily grow. We don’t take any of your support for granted.

Distinctive enters 2024 with a growing team, in a new office and working from desks in Bristol, Somerset and Exeter. This flexible approach wouldn’t have happened a few years ago. It shows how change and challenge can create new opportunities.

It’s important that we find time to recognise this through the fog.

Have a wonderful, restful Christmas. If we can be of any help to you, please drop us a line.

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Distinctive supports #FutureProof guide on AI  

Congratulations to Stephen Waddington for publishing an important and timely collection of insights from PR professionals on AI can support communications work.

The 120-page document containing came together over three months. It was an experience to watch it happen at such pace. The end result is bang up to date with 21 contributions on large language models, productivity tools and media relations platforms.

I was delighted to contribute a chapter on ChatGPT, which summarises the tool’s capabilities for those working in PR.

The book is available on Amazon for Kindle and in print. Check out Stephen’s Substack for more details.

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Calling built environment professionals

As mentioned in our main piece, we’re focusing on the built environment sector’s challenges and priorities as we continue to shape our services.

We have a survey with six quick survey questions, which we hope will improve our ability to assist the sector.   

The questions take about a minute to answer, and you don't need to share your email with us.

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Things we’ve read

Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less - Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Unpopular opinion: rest is not the opposite of work. In a society where burnout is common and productivity is king, this is a refreshing and well-researched review of how, ironically, actively working less can mean you generate and create more. Backed by science and the work/rest patterns of hugely successful scientists, musicians, authors and other influential leaders in their field, this book essentially provides the evidence behind the notion that ‘the best ideas come in the shower’.

Read by: Jasmine Gordon

England’s nature chief calls for building on green belt to solve housing crisis: It happens so rarely that it's refreshing to hear prominent people speak about developing the homes we need where we need them without pointing to easy answers. Natural England Chair and former Friends of the Earth director Tony Jupiter tells The Guardian in this piece that focusing on 'binary choices' pitting building homes against the natural environment fails to rise to the challenge.  

Things we’ve heard

Opinions by Roxane Gay (audiobook): Opinions are everywhere we turn. Amazon reviews, Reddit forums and social media posts. Sometimes they are all too easy to find, many may argue. But opinions play an important role in our modern society. On the one hand, they expose us to a greater range of thought, similar to and different to our own. On the other, they can offer a sense of reassurance and community to reveal that you are not alone in your thinking. Roxane Gay is a seasoned opinion piece writer, professor and Marvel’s first black woman lead writer for Black Panther: World of Wakanda. In Opinions, she shares her position as a commentator and advocate for many social topics, including race, gender and the complexities of modern society.

Shared by: Jasmine Gordon

Things we’ve said

How Bristol Creative Industries members are using AI – Dan Martin: Thanks to Bristol Creative Industries for featuring our views on opportunities and challenges AI presents. Plenty of useful insights from the city’s marcomms leaders in this piece.

Thoughts on a ministerial sacking – PR Week: Views shared following Suella Braverman’s sacking as Home Secretary were quoted in a PR Week round-up of industry professionals’ comments. It highlights what most comms people will understand: ignoring the boss’ comments and pressing ahead regardless will leave you isolated if things blow up.

Five questions for teams considering a four-day week: The tepid debate about office work resurfaced when the government ‘clamped down’ on local authorities considering four-day working week. Leaving aside the fact that only one council had considered it at the time of writing, this blog touches on questions for teams considering this option. It also highlights some great thinking from others who write about this area.  

See you again on the first Friday in December. If you’d like to share or discuss anything before the next edition, please leave a comment or drop us a line.