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Media conferences made a bit of a come-back during COVID-19. We’ve all become very used to seeing them, even to the point where people who have nothing to do with media relations can start to spot nuances in the way they are organised and run. What makes them work well? Here’s our top tips!

For all the challenges that it posed, the COVID-19 crisis has proven to be an extraordinary accelerator of change. In recent weeks, we’ve seen a common theme emerging with the businesses we work with: organisations are desiring something different; there cannot be a return to ‘business as usual’, because the usual of their pre COVID-19 operations has shifted.

Let’s face it, a great motivating message is easy when things are going well, or when an end goal is in sight. The early stages of COVID-19 were unique – with no immediately visible end to the journey, it was important to keep people motivated as they headed off into an uncertain future. While it was straightforward to motivate people to head home to keep them safe and healthy, keeping them motivated once the reality of remote working and not being able to visit friends, family and colleagues really set in was a greater challenge.

The upheaval of recent events has shone a spotlight on what works – and what really doesn’t – for most businesses when it comes to meetings. Meetings are either the curse or cure for much of our working life. A great meeting moves things forward, addresses and resolves issues and can leave people energised and excited.

The leadership actions and decision-making of Australian business owners and executives during COVID-19 will become fodder for MBA and other students for years to come. We are still close enough to the action that there hasn’t been enough time for reflection, and we’re still all playing catchup on an intense couple of months as we get our businesses back to more normal conditions.

The in-studio interview has, like much of the Australian economy, gone into hibernation. It has been replaced by videoconferencing facilitated by a plethora of technologies. Viewers of news and current affairs may well have noted the transition to people dialling to the studio from their laptop at home – it’s the new normal.

When it comes to communicating more effectively at work, it’s best to strip back to the basics – here are five things to consider to strengthen your office communications style.

What are the hallmarks of a crisis? It’s an important distinction to make because how you manage communication in a crisis is very different to the day-to-day.

You know your executives are in dire need of some media training. If a crisis blew up, your gravest fear is that they are forced to go in front of a camera screw it up. Or worse still they go AWOL, leaving you to front the cameras.

Perth, like so many cities around the world is going through a media transformation.

Increasingly, CEOs and Chairs are the face of a business. They will thrive or die by their business’s reputation. Think about how many heads rolled at the Banking Royal Commission.

Brands need to constantly evolve. Change is a necessary part of life as we adjust to new market conditions, political environments and societal expectations.

Identifying risks to your organisation is important but in an increasingly complicated world, the biggest risk to your company might seem to come out of left field.

Burning oil rigs, devastating plane crashes or industrial accidents tend to be the types of things that spring to mind when crisis management is mentioned.

Communicating your ideas is a critical part of your job. In today’s workplace the focus is on collaboration, which can make some people, particularly introverts, particularly uncomfortable.

By its very nature a crisis tends to come out of the blue, but that does not mean a similar situation cannot be anticipated in advance.

It’s arguably the greatest paradigm shift of the digital age: while there’s more access to information than ever before and media sources abound, it’s easy to feel starved of reliable news.

Australia is one of about a dozen democracies globally that enforces compulsory voting, a loose collection of nations that makes up about 5 per cent of the UN and includes Belgium, Nauru and Ecuador amongst its number.

CFO stealing funds? CEO bullying? COO awarding himself contracts? CMO posting inappropriately on social media?

Someone told me recently that it was 20 years ago since we first started texting. (It would seem that all great things in communications started in 1999.)

The outdated nature of Advertising Value Equivalents (AVE) as a measurement for PR success has been discussed and debated for many years.

What were we doing in 1999? We were leasing a small office in City West, buying some second hand desks and setting up three brightly coloured iMacs. In March we opened the doors of Clarity and started a 20 year journey that we’ll be celebrating with you throughout 2019.

As communicators, we are often tasked with the challenge of selling a new management program, a culture change or supporting executives to pursue new business.

Wesfarmers has won an AIRA Award (Australasian Investor Relations Association) for “Best Use of Technology for Investor Communications by an Australasian Company”.

By its very nature a crisis tends to come out of the blue, but that does not mean a similar situation cannot be anticipated in advance.

I recently spoke at the HR Summit with Lizzie Moyle, a senior change management consultant, about change fatigue that workforces across Australia are facing.

Like all industries the property sector is facing a rapidly changing marketing environment where the traditional methods of encouraging a consumer response are losing their impact.

This week we saw the Tasmanian Government land in hot water over its’ proposed social media policy for public servants.

We know that Facebook advertising has progressed far enough to deliver us real, tangible results when it comes to sales.

There is a conundrum that plagues designers regularly, and we need to get it off our chest.

A name says a lot about you. But can it determine your success or failure?

In a modern age where words are shared globally in mere seconds, six out of 10 Australians now actively use Facebook for work and pleasure and one in five love a good scroll through Instagram.

When is a problem an issue, and when it is a crisis? Often these terms are used loosely and interchangeably.