This episode developed over on LinkedIn, when Ally and Asif discovered a shared love of the tomes: Lost Connections and Stolen Focus, both written by Johann Hari. We know Asif loves a printed book! These books interrogate the impact of digitalisation and social media on our lives, and our ability to focus and make deep and meaningful connections. With a radical new way of thinking about depression and anxiety, what does this mean for marketers, and how can we use these lessons to build relationships with our stakeholders?

Ally Cook is an experienced and confident content creator, copywriter and communicator, with a demonstrable track record of working across print and digital publications to deliver strategic results. When Ally worked for the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), she managed the content & engagement team, she was responsible for delivering a content strategy that met the needs of the CIM’s 25,000+ members and the wider marketing community. She is now the Community Content Manager at WeAre8.

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Resources

Johann Hari - Lost Connections

Johann Hari - Stolen Focus 

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Fancy getting in the hot seat and sharing your CommsHero wisdom? Contact Asif Choudry

 You’ll find this podcast on Spotify, Apple and on our website www.commshero.com. Please leave a rating and review.

 This episode is sponsored by Blink. The world's first enterprise app designed exclusively for frontline workers. 

 Tickets are now available for #CommsHero week, 19-23 September. The week-long virtual event with over 35 sessions live streamed and available on demand for a year. Great value at £180 and you can find out more HERE.

In this podcast, like typical Yorkshire folk, we make the most of BOGOF, with not one, but two guests from Yorkshire Housing.
Our guests  this episode are:

Hannah Jowett MCIPR is Head of Communications and Brand at Yorkshire Housing. She’s passionate about building comms teams where people can thrive and bring their ideas and creativity to life. 

 Nick Atkin is a highly successful Chief Executive with a track record of leading organisations through transformational change and driving performance improvement, with a focus on maximising the untapped potential from businesses and people. Confident and energetic, the inspirational leader embraces technology to deliver customer centric innovative working practices and solutions.

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Fancy getting in the hot seat and sharing your CommsHero wisdom? Contact Asif Choudry

 You’ll find this podcast on Spotify, Apple and on our websitewww.commshero.com. Please leave a rating and review.

 This episode is sponsored by Blink. The world's first enterprise app designed exclusively for frontline workers. 

 Tickets are now available for #CommsHero week, 19-23 September. The week-long virtual event with over 35 sessions live streamed and available on demand for a year. Great value at £180 and you can find out more HERE.

Michelle Okwudiafor leads internal communication and engagement at Total Energies. A member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, she holds a master’s degree in International Development from the University of Turin (ILO training centre) and a bachelor’s degree in Law from the University of London.  

 In this episode, she interrogates the events that have led to 2022 being described by many as ‘the year of the employee’. From the pandemic, to global racial protests, and the Great Resignation amongst others, these events have fertilised the ground for companies to begin to focus on the issues that matter most to the workforce. Issues including flexibility, improved employee experience, trust in leadership, diversity, and inclusion are high on the priority list of employees. Companies that fail to focus on their employees may be at the losing end of the table. But given this shift in power, what does an inclusive workplace look like and how can we as communicators help to drive the inclusion agenda in companies?

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 Fancy getting in the hot seat and sharing your CommsHero wisdom? Contact Asif Choudry

 You’ll find this podcast on Spotify, Apple and on our websitewww.commshero.com. Please leave a rating and review.

 This episode is sponsored by Blink. The world's first enterprise app designed exclusively for frontline workers. 

From dusty relics to post-modern pieces, our next guest works at the intersection where past meets present and future. Lisa Middleton is Head of Marketing and Brand at National Museums Liverpool, having joined the organisation in 2015.

In this episode, Lisa explores what it is like to be in arts marketing. Museum comms is more than exhibitions, and encompasses vast collections, amazing venues, and commercial offers such as shops and cafés. Don’t be surprised to see a Bridezilla on your next visit; museums also hold events, including weddings! Learning and participation activities are also a huge part of the museum proposition, which means knowing your audience and being agile is an essential part of the role.

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Fancy getting in the hot seat and sharing your CommsHero wisdom? Contact Asif Choudry

You’ll find this podcast on Spotify, Apple and on our websitewww.commshero.com. Please leave a rating and review.

Mentoring is one of the most underrated keys to nourishing one’s growth. For any young professional trying to enter the industry, a mentor can help open a number of doors they may not have known existed which can be even more crucial to people from underrepresented backgrounds.

 Our next guest in the podcast took part in a leadership mentoring programme for underrepresented women in the PR industry that she says ‘changed her life’. Shalini Gupta decided to pay it forward and has since been mentoring underrepresented PR graduates. She is passionate about helping develop the next generation of communicators and young leaders in the industry to help them fulfil their true potential.

In this episode Shalini is joined by one of her first mentees, burgeoning #CommsHero Ilyana Rajwani, an internal comms intern in the financial sector, to discuss all things mentoring: learnings; the importance of having diverse role models and how by bridging the gap early in the lives of underrepresented young professionals, it can really help them spread their wings and take flight.

Fancy getting in the hot seat and sharing your CommsHero wisdom? Contact Asif Choudry

 You’ll find this podcast on Spotify, Apple and on our website www.commshero.com. Please leave a rating and review.

 This episode is sponsored by Blink. The world's first enterprise app designed exclusively for frontline workers. 

So deeply entrenched in #CommsHero is our next guest, it is hard to believe that he isn’t on the Resource payroll! Having held roles in business associations, renewable energy, and higher education, Ed Thomas is now in the housing sector, leading all communications and marketing strategy and campaigns at The Wrekin Housing Group, a social housing and care provider that drives social value and makes a difference to people’s lives across Shropshire and Staffordshire.

 A storyteller, trust builder, reputation manager, communicator and marketer – he is also dyslexic.

 With ever increasing understanding of dyslexia, the traditional views are being dismissed. Dyslexic brains excel in critical thinking, emotional intelligence, creativity and communication, skills amongst the most in demand by employers for the 21st century workplace. In this episode Ed tells us about his journey with dyslexia and how he capitalises on his dyslexic superpowers. Cape optional, though he never leaves the house without his.

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Fancy getting in the hot seat and sharing your CommsHero wisdom? Contact Asif Choudry

You’ll find this podcast on Spotify, Apple and on our websitewww.commshero.com. Please leave a rating and review.

This episode is sponsored by Blink. The world's first enterprise app designed exclusively for frontline workers.

In this episode, founder of Horizon Comms Dan Holden, talks about how when it comes to conferences and events, we still have a gap in representation even though the comms community is full of diverse voices. Having posted on LinkedIn after declining an event invitation due to a lack of representation on the speaker panel, it was clear from the supporting comments there is a need for us to be challenging event organisers to change. Where does this change start and what role can we play as individuals and organisations?

Social media:

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Fancy getting in the hot seat and sharing your CommsHero wisdom? Contact Asif Choudry

 You’ll find this podcast on Spotify, Apple and on our websitewww.commshero.com. Please leave a rating and review.

 This episode is sponsored by Blink. The world's first enterprise app designed exclusively for frontline workers. 

Our second guest of the season is seasoned #CommsHero, Stu Kaley, Associate Director of Customer Experience (CX) and Operations at The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM).  

With a career that began in music retail and took him to London, Stu developed a passion for everything customer and operational customer-focus. He then moved into the food industry and worked on multi-brand (owned and franchised) customer experience strategy across the UK and Europe, developing his love of CX even further. 

He joined Asif - a CIM member since 1997 (wait…that can’t be right!) - to talk about changes afoot at The Chartered Institute of Marketing.

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 Fancy getting in the hot seat and sharing your CommsHero wisdom? Contact Asif Choudry

 You’ll find this podcast on Spotify, Apple and on our website www.commshero.com. Please leave a rating and review.

 This episode is sponsored by Blink. The world's first enterprise app designed exclusively for frontline workers. 

We kick off this season of the podcast with a #CommsHero speaker who has built her own legion of fans dubbed The Crown Jules. Jules Loveland (MCIPR) is currently a Communications Manager in the not-for-profit sector, with over 20 years experience in media and comms. A passionate advocate of the role of emotional intelligence in communications, Jules started her career in video production before segueing into website project management, allowing her to hone her writing skills for digital alongside developing her abilities in marketing & PR, leadership development and project management. Marrying strategy with storytelling, she is a content Queen, maximising digital outputs. 

 If Jules’ name sounds familiar, it’s likely you heard her session on mental health in the industry at CommsHero. No surprise then that​ Jules is also a trained mediator, and was previously a counsellor, with specialisms in trauma and conflict resolution.

 Jules sat down with our very own Asif Choudry to talk emotional intelligence, why it should be a priority for leaders, and the difference it makes to organisations, teams and communication. Does the term soft skills belie the importance of emotional intelligence? Is it another comms buzzword?

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To join The Crown Jules, contact Carly Cook. Disclaimer: cool CommsHero-style merch not yet available.

You’ll find this podcast on Spotify, Apple and on our websitewww.commshero.com. Please leave a rating and review.

This episode is sponsored by Blink. The world's first enterprise app designed exclusively for frontline workers. 

We Are Resource and CIPR’s live event ‘Who Runs the World’ gathered together five of the most respected names in the communications industry – former CIPR presidents Sarah Waddington CBE, Emma Leech, Jenni Field and Mandy Pearse and current President Rachel Roberts for a discussion about their experiences and advice to fellow communications professionals.

With collective experience in both agency and in-house and across the private, public and charity sectors we chatted about everything from what they were most proud of, to what they would do differently if they had their time again! Our panel answered questions relating to the important matters for our industry such as being truly inclusive and diverse and representing our stakeholders.