Keeping on track

The past week and a bit has whizzed by! Sarah and Aurore appear to have settled in well and we’ve been busy forming our team and I’ve been bringing them up to speed. We went to the London Transport Museum to conduct some research for a project we’re working on which is taking place early next year.

The museum is a fascinating place to learn the history of transport and get a glimpse into future plans for London. I think it also helps put the work of individual train operating companies into perspective and to understand how it all fits together.

I’ve been finalising the latest issue of our employee magazine having decided to redesign it and think it’s shaping up well. I’m trying to include articles based on direct feedback from employees over the past few weeks and will be interested to hear their feedback when it comes out. I had a one-to-one with our MD and showed him the draft. He liked the fact it is now written in one tone of voice rather than submitted articles in a variety of styles, which it was before I joined. I agree writing in one voice rather than many is important and believe that’s the correct way forward for this channel.

Over the past few days I’ve met new and old faces. I met up socially with employees from my previous company, it was good to catch up and get updated on what’s happening in their lives. Today I went to the New Brand Tribalism day in London that I mentioned a few weeks ago.

I didn’t know what to expect from today but have come away with lots of ideas and met some fantastic people who I will stay in touch with. Speakers included people from Diesel, Burger King, Orange and Iceland. They spoke about their brands and the way they engage their employees through developing a “tribe culture”. Truly interesting ideas and plenty of good advice to mull over.

During lunch I really enjoyed meeting Joanna Geary, who is the Web Development Editor, Business, at The Times. We discovered lots of shared beliefs between us around communication and journalism and for me the value in events such as today is not only what you learn but the contacts you make. I have a feeling we will be meeting up again very soon to finish what we started and am looking forward to it. I also met some rail industry comms people which is always useful and know we will keep in touch too… think I need to buy another business card holder!