Friday 2 May marked one year since launching All Things IC consultancy, after a decade of working in internal communication in-house.
I registered the business on 31 January 2013. It’s been a fantastic 12 months and I’ve had the pleasure of working with brilliant clients, forming new professional relationships and shaping and evolving my business.
I love working in internal communication because of the variety of the work we do as comms pros, and seeing the real difference effective communication makes.
On 2 May I was at the Institute of Internal Communication conference in Brighton, UK. I’ll be blogging my thoughts on it this week, but in the meantime, do see the Storify I created to collate all the Tweets, pics, Vines and links.
So what have I been up to in year one? I’ve been:
– advising on organisational change strategies
– devising and delivering comprehensive IC audits, surveys and focus groups
– hosting ‘lunch and learn’ sessions on social media for employees
– advising on social intranet adoption and decision-making
– guest speaking at comms team building days
– creating change communication plans
– benchmarking internal communication
– coaching line managers
– conducting in-house social media training
– creating social media policies.
Memorable moments include talking with tiger and monkey keepers at London Zoo while conducting an internal communication audit, training frontline railway employees in using social media at Heathrow Express, speaking at Google on employee social networking and being a guest speaker on the first Internal Communication Management masters course run at Kingston University, London.
To mark this business milestone I bought artwork by the super talented Hugh MacLeod @gapingvoid.
It arrived a couple of days ago (the purple one) and I was delighted to discover he sent me a bonus one for free, which ties in beautifully with my choice.
Thank you very much Hugh!
You may recognise his artwork if you’ve read Brian Solis’ book What’s the Future of Business?: Changing the Way Businesses Create Experiences.
It says: “I don’t need to be rich. I need to be inspired” and the second one says “As long as you feel inspired, your life is being well spent.”
That is a crucial part of my business ethos, and I’ve got lots of plans up my sleeve for year two and beyond.
Thank you for continuing to interact with All Things IC. I hope you have a good week,
Rachel
Further reading on my blog:
Looking ahead to #thefuturestory event on 7 May – with 25% off for my blog readers
Listen to my latest internal comms podcast
Employee advocacy goes under the microscope
Glossary of internal communication.
How to conduct an internal communication audit
How to communicate a strategic plan
How to write an internal communication strategy.
Post author: Rachel Miller.