we'll begin um good afternoon everybody and welcome to evcom's um latest webinar it's our first after the summer break we allowed ourselves a month off um so this is the first one of the new season uh the we are discussing uh inside internal cons this afternoon and we have a great panel um we will be uh facilitated by rebecca leonard from the sql group and the uh panel itself is made up of julie sanders also from the sander singular not plural sander from the sql group as well um nas sadri from merchant cantos and jane says from shell before we begin if i could just uh let you know how we're going to work this there is the q a option so if anybody does have any questions as we go along if you could just put them into the q a section we will monitor those and if appropriate we will try and get them answered in the moment but otherwise we will leave them to the end um and we'll go through them at that point we will anticipate uh finishing at about quarter to five we may run over by a few minutes but we do try and stick to the time um and there there isn't an opportunity unfortunately in this system to to ask questions directly so so you are required to use the q a function could i also just flag at this point because i know we have some regular listeners people who come back to uh many of our uh our webinars the webinar that we have set up for next week the um to office or not to office has been postponed due to the recent announcements of suggesting people work from home we didn't think it was quite the right time for that one so we'll push that one back a bit um but without further ado we'll get on to the to today's subject and i'll hand you over to rebecca who will then introduce to the rest of the panel in a bit more detail so rebecca over to you thank you thank you claire yeah hi and welcome everyone um as claire mentioned i'm becky i'm going to be facilitating the chat for the next uh 30 40 minutes or so but yeah please do let us know if you have any questions in the box and i will uh get around to sharing them with the rest of the panel so yeah we're going to start by just doing a really quick introduction to everyone and i will kick off so as i mentioned i'm becky leonard and i'm the insight and content manager at sql group sql group is an employee experience agency usually based in london but at the moment based all over the place for the considerable future by the sounds of it and as part of our insight team i support on our strategic work from communication audits to planning and also work on our content so writing for internal campaigns and publications so jane do you want to introduce yourself sure thanks becky and i'm jane says i've got a slightly ludicrous job title which is global discipline lead for film at shell what that actually means is i suppose essentially head of film if you like within our main creative department at shell um my background is actually as a documentary filmmaker i've enjoyed a long and lovely career as a documentary filmmaker um and got into branded content a little bit as a maternity plan actually some years ago and then eventually decided that that is what i would like to pursue specifically rising to the challenge of getting my head around short form social media content rather than much longer form content which is the kind of thing i was used to making and as part of my role in shell we work with a multitude of different uh trusted suppliers around the world to make content for us um but we also set up two years ago our own shell in-house film team the content engine um which is doing very nicely so yeah that's me great thank you and now would you like to introduce yourself sure hi everyone um i'm nas i work at merchant cantos as part of our employee engagement team and really sort of putting together teams to work on integrated campaigns across using a combination usually of film design and digital as well previous to that also at merchant canto also worked for a number of years as a senior film producer making corporate films and ceo interviews um and in a former life before that i worked in television journalism great thank you and last but not least julie hi there i'm um julie i work with becky at sql i'm a senior producer for film and content and i also sit on our operations and strategic thinking teams um to get a sort of overview because we work in quite an integrated way um across film design editorial um strategy to um to give a sort of full picture when it comes to employee engagement and i think some of the things we'll be talking about later which is that line between um internal comms and what's needed there and sometimes when there's a crossover and and we'll also do the occasional film that works for more than one audience um like some of the others i was um in broadcasting before moving into more corporate and branded communications and then through working as a producer director on bbc one city hospital for a little while i somehow ended up in health films and then set up a film unit within a charity which i did for five years before moving on to sql so it's kind of interesting to have all that experience and then to put that towards working with lots of different companies to get their messages across oh thank you everyone um so to get us started um it's safe to say that um i mean goes without saying that it's been a weird few months a weird year and we've seen the working world change um possibly forever with huge amounts of people working from home other people dealing with new health and safety restrictions at their site their clinic their school no matter where they might be working some people trying to juggle work with caring for kids who've been home schooled so how does internal comms fit into this new maybe weird world of work why is it important now could you maybe start us off talking a bit about the importance of internal comms particularly during this kind of strange new world sure i mean i think we've seen internal calms generally move up the agenda within corporations anyway and being seen as sort of a central part of achieving business success and i think employee engagement internal calms no matter what you you label it as um has become increasingly important and then when when everything happened with covid and lockdown then you saw that why that communication was needed now that everyone was split out working in different um sites and places and at home it became even more important so those companies that had good communication systems processes plans in place they were able to react as you know faster more efficiently and sort of get on top of it and other people were on the back foot and had to do a lot of catching up to do um but communications became essential so even companies that weren't doing regular communications suddenly had to get used to doing regular ceo updates on what are we doing about lockdown um so it's almost shifted up in the agenda um over the last six months but i think there's been a trend towards it becoming more important anyway brilliant and jane would you agree is that something that you've seen at shell has it been moving up the agenda because of covert postcovid i think um i think at shell it probably has come up the agenda a little perhaps not as much as it ought to um i think there's still an attitude that internal communication certainly from a film perspective of the poorer cousin um and we don't often see the same sorts of budgets associated with internal communications as we do external communications and equally we also see less production values for internal comms and there's an acceptance about that whereas personally from a professional film perspective you know my team would love to see much nicer production values and more importance placed on that so there are there are loads of different methods of communication um but i think you know we would certainly like to see more improvement yet yeah i mean that's an interesting point isn't it i'm thinking about kind of the value organization's place on internal communication and the budget that they put towards it julie working as we do in an agency have you seen kind of any difference in terms of that are you finding that people are wanting to invest more in internal films as well as external um there's a bit of a difference i think depending on the client as well and there's um you know there's businesses where they have actually been going throughout the lockdown and so we've had some discussion we've got um one business where actually the businesses is funerals and they've been really busy throughout and they wanted to kind of communicate what was actually going on with the factory they have where they actually make coffins and we had some discussion about whether this should be done remotely and whereas a lot of our clients have been quite happy to film themselves and send something in that actually wouldn't be as good quality as it would in in other times when you'd actually send a crew they were quite happy with that and this company were kind of like kind of along the lines of well we've been going in and we're still doing our jobs why can't they come to us and film us why should we have to worry about filming ourselves and getting shots of things when there's someone we're doing it why shouldn't they so in those circumstances it's been a bit different and we have been able to go in whereas there's companies like i said that are doing things um everyone from home perhaps in global locations and for them it's been really important to communicate and people do want to see the ceo and you can't necessarily get to them they've been learning to to film their own clips um and doing that and it's also film not as standalone but as part of of more regular comms um getting people to to be a bit more involved and using that to kind of get engagement so encouraging people to um maybe send in in um comments or send in their own clips as part of it so that they can see each other and have that engagement absolutely so i think as i just meant to know this this this kind of more siloed working world that we're seeing that so many people are working differently from how they used to um they're probably even more geographically dispersed it's trying to keep that kind of cohesive sense of community and culture in an organization is even more important and arguably even more difficult to keep people connected to that sense of purpose and their place in the bigger picture do you think that um internal communication and particularly video within that mix can have a hand in helping create those connections and and getting those kind of two-way interactions um i mean jane do you have any um experience of that michelle has that been happening i think i think the key to getting that right is probably having episodic predictable amounts of um internal comms by video going out i think if you think about it as a regular news update or you know but regular items that people come to rely that you know every second friday at 2 p.m they know there's going to be another installation i think if you can get something like that going then people are more likely to participate and i think the key is getting that participation and making people feel like they can access maybe not the ceo but you know going up the ranks yeah in order to you know to have those kind of conversations and i think that's a really great thing to do we do see some of that at shell it's not half as regular i think as it as it should be but i think particularly during this difficult period episodic content is what we should be aiming for and what we should be advising brands to embrace okay great and in terms of um you mentioned in terms of getting participation in video is that something um any of you have seen have you found that um people are more willing to get involved with video or turn it into a more two-way um piece of communication because obviously traditionally it might be a talking head just kind of pushed out are there ways that we can put video into that two-way channel and make it a bit more of a of a community thing julie you were nodding a bit there yeah and i was just going to say there's been some really nice things that that we've been able to do that have been able to make people feel that they're part of a workplace community um particularly earlier on in in lockdown when people were feeling a bit isolated um sending in views from their desk which people have been able to we've been able to then put together um whether it's been a photo montage that we've done with a bit of animation or meals and things like that that people have cooked just to kind of be able to view what some other people have been doing and maybe see yourself in there and i think that's really helped people come together and got them a bit involved as well and by putting those out regularly you do um build that sense of belonging to something and not just being kind of separate people all over the place yeah right definitely you see a lot of um requests or advice to do um like webcasts and live events and virtual events and and that that's both obviously for external but also for internal it's actually worked quite well and um some businesses that weren't used to doing that regularly for internal audiences have been doing that um and it's worked quite well but i think with having the films um whether it's films animations photo montage it's how you package it up as a whole and sort of producing the experience from start to finish and by that it's not just that one hour where you have the webinar it's from the moment you send out the invite of why are we having this session who's going to be there you know producing that carefully so everyone knows why am i turning up for 60 minutes what's going to happen um and really spending some time to to plan that out and to think about the content that goes into that 60 minutes rather than just having you know 60 minutes death by powerpoint presentation everyone's working from home i mean there's just no way that's going to work um so really thinking about it and you know using examples so that's what and that's where i think film can work really nicely and well in in sort of short short bit a variation of film and then you can mix it up with those powerpoint presentations and it and it works much more effectively um so there's quite a lot of that um that we've seen working really well and people are launching you know strat new strategies new visions purpose values really big themes mechanism and it's working really well brilliant so you mentioned there about obviously video integrating well in that kind of town hall presentation environment are there any other areas of internal communication that you think it can be integrated really well into or any examples you've seen um during um lockdown or before where things that wouldn't traditionally have been done via film or video in internal communication but have been done that way in a different way have you seen that at all um well actually when when lockdown first happened there were lots of just uh we did a campaign just around ms teams were right because literally because they were using the technology but no one actually they just thought it was a normal you know teleconference type of platform and people so almost that was an education about what's the point and what you can do with ms teams what can you do with yammer um and and these sort of new ways of working um animations short animations short films about the there were new ways of working um have seemed to be quite popular um but but i think as we mentioned sometimes people who weren't putting leaders or managers weren't doing regular film updates or video updates now they are um so it's forcing everyone to um to get more engaged with with film brilliant and julie jane are there any other examples that you might have of areas of internal communication where videos can make quite a big impact or can integrate with another channel um we've we've seen quite a lot of people wanting animations i think to get their important information across where perhaps it might have been a film previously a filmed film with interviews and things like that one of the things that we're able to do is perhaps use animation archive footage and people's voices to get their messages across when we can't actually get out to film them in person um to um and also podcasts i think as well are being asked for a bit more because those are things that you can do without actually being there in the room with somebody um i think we might talk a bit later about um the use of user generated content and that's something that um has gone up hugely things that we would have made with somebody in person and put that together and we're looking at ways that we can work with our clients to get the best out of that user-generated content whether it's a bit of pre-production and working with them to make sure they film it properly and often when people don't really want to because they've come used to become used to just filming their own things and putting it out to get the best from it by perhaps by putting it within a frame or using some design or animation around it to make it very clear that um you know it doesn't look how it might once have looked um because it's not been done in that way but we've put it in a frame that shows a computer screen or a mobile phone and you can see it playing within that and it it puts it into context so so those are the kind of things that we're doing great yeah i mean um continuing on that that theme of user generated content as you said it's with social distancing and lockdowns it means that it's something that we're having we're seeing a lot more of and people are embracing more and more um i think have you found i mean jane you mentioned you have an in-house video team have you found that people you're asking people more to submit their own content and then you're using it how have you been dealing with that yeah there's been there's been an awful lot more of that and some of it really quite ambitious as well um when when lockdown happened well just before lockdown happened um one of our agencies was in the middle of a two-day studio shoot green screen studio shoot and on day two now on day one i beg upon the medic turned up and started getting covered symptoms so he had been on set the day before with the crew on their prep day in the studio so we had to pull the shoe immediately send everybody home for two weeks of quarantine so that gave us a conundrum because we had a film and i mean eventually doing the shooting for it so a big rethink um sadly we had to pull that one from the agency because it became clear the only way to do that would be by ugc um so instead we relied on colleagues all over the world to film excerpts um of themselves um which were pre-scripted and it was a huge effort i think we're getting more slick at doing it now because that's something that's coming up a lot for us yeah um one of the more ambitious films that we're working on at the moment that uses that method is actually the decommissioning of an oil platform a couple of hundred miles off the scottish coast in the middle of the north sea so we were all geared up ready to film that when lockdown happened um so we found a engineer who would be on board while the activity was taking place and the team very carefully worked out what the scenes would be the different people that would need to be interviewed the different shots that we would need worked with him to ensure that he was capable of understanding what we needed and gave him a shot list and you know a really kind of well-guided you know list if you like and as much help as we could give him um yeah he's he came back with some great material it's not what you would have got if you sent a three-man crew of course it's not but it's certainly enough to make some compelling content so yeah we're pretty we're pretty brave with that um it's really time consuming you know it's really time consuming to do that to get it right and i think also when you're doing that you need to warn the people that you're that are shooting for you about the fact that you are going to need to ask them to do some pickups because then they're never going to get everything right first time but we're employing that method very regularly at the moment and it gives a different you know it it's a very honest very authentic way of making content yeah it feels quite fresh and you know honest so that that that theme of authenticity is something that we're hearing a lot about and i mean a couple of you have mentioned about how you know we've started to get more regular updates from video updates from leaders and you might they might be you know filming it or doing a kind of teams call from their living room and you might see their child or their dog in the background and it's trying to kind of humanize people are you finding that employees are responding to more user-generated content are they are they liking it more no change i mean now have you have you had any experience at your organization with user-generated videos or not yeah i mean you know some some some organizations were doing usage using news at ugc uh before lockdown and so they've continued some are still new to it people are getting more used to it but i think um as as jane said i mean the pre-production of ugc often people think oh ugc must be the answer to every challenge every comms challenge oh i know we'll do ugc it's cheap it's cheerful it's easy um and it and it's not um it's not it's not always the easiest or the best solution but it's become a bit of a bit of a trend i guess um and i think with with other things generally around internal communications we've got to go back to what are you trying to achieve with this piece of communications and whereas with external this is all perfectly always thought out there's plans you look at audience segmentation outcomes etc with internal it's like oh we've got to get this piece of information or strategy or whatever out there i know ugc um and and as as jane said in that example i mean it still requires to do it well to reach that level of quality requires a lot of work often you've got to send back the footage anyway the first time because it's not um it's not good enough so while people are getting more used to it i think there is a danger that it all starts looking the same and it it becomes a bit vanilla it's um and we've got to be careful of that and use it wisely use it in the right way and it can be powerful and work well but sometimes that you know maybe the the answer is just an email um it doesn't have to be ugc so i think we it's still it still needs to be worked out but um but yeah it's working well and people are generally getting used to filming themselves even um and where four people might have been more reluctant to do that now we're seeing more engagement on both sides great so julie sorry did you have a point to make that yeah no i was just going to say i um agree with nazim that people don't often realize the work that is involved with um with that user generated content and that often it's a bit of a false economy because it's the time that it takes up in post-production often to put it right if it hasn't been set up properly in the first place kind of um can be a lot more than than had you been able to shoot it although obviously you're not always able to um but i think the other thing to say with the these um kind of different ideas and trends and little video clips sent in and user generated is film um when it comes to internal comms it's only ever a small part and probably with all comms um it's the same thing but it's never the only way to get that message across and people like to get their information in different ways um and different people learn things in different ways so um some for someone it might totally bring a message to life to see it in the form of a film or an animation um but it has to be alongside those other cons the the longer article on an intranet that puts all the information in place um the email and and all those other things that go with it okay great so i mean kind of touching on what all three of you said there is there kind of would you say there's um an ideal time or type of content or type of message to use a video does it really depend on the audience do you ever do you have any kind of guidance that you put in place when deciding what kind of medium you should use for um getting an internal communication message out there um i think as julie said i mean if it's that combination that often works the best because um usually with internal audiences people people love that audience as one one group you know everyone they're just they're just staff you know however many thousands of people there may or may not be um and i think um but actually the reality is is that there's generational differences there's differently um levels of seniority but also just some people don't you know some people are factory based and don't have access where are they going to watch this film that you're making um or you know they don't even have access to these intranet so you need that multiple touch points um film is one touch point and it works well um but you often need all the other touch points as well because it's often not the case where one filled one film or anything one one poster is able to capture everything you want to capture in that communication so it's that multiple layers of communication um it will help you get the outcome that that that you want um so it needs to work in combination and also consistent with all your other assets often what you see is people do a film about the same topic and then another random poster gets put up somewhere else and then an email goes out and no one actually realizes in the organization that these three things are all related to the same topic um there's not that consistency in the look and feel or or anything so it just it you just end up confusing people even more great so i think that also links um in with um talking about that consistency and aligning everything what about the distinction between internal communication and external communication so increasingly i mean i've probably been hearing it over the last five years or so that the lines are blurring between the two and you know there's transferable skills transferable messages um have you found that to be the case um jane i'll start with you have you found that internal and external lines of blurring and particularly when it comes to video i think they probably are and i think it's it's a good thing as well i mean the way that it's easy to think about it is a piece of external film will generally work for an internal audience and we don't always think about it the other way around and i think you've got to be cautious with that because an internal film may well end up in front of an external audience whether you mean for it to or not um which is where my argument for keeping production values really high comes in and i think sometimes we overlook the external benefit of having good internal cons so when you've got you know 90 000 people in the company you can have 90 000 ambassadors for that company if you get your internal comments right so if you're making quality films with great messaging things that make in employees feel proud to be a part of an organization then you're winning externally as well and there are some areas i mean shell is difficult we're a oil and gas company traditionally um and it's not exactly the most popular area of business and in some territories it's particularly difficult in the uk and the netherlands shell takes a regular bashing less so in the states but in in india where we have a lot of um employees they will actively promote anything that they can to do with their job and it works as a fantastic recruitment tool as well in those areas so i think yeah there's a there's definitely much more crossover than there used to be which should be embraced brilliant so yeah julie is that something that you're seeing um yes um but i think and i think there are cases when there's crossover but i think what's really important is um that it's about the message that when it might be that a film will be made and it's internal and then an external team want it and can use it but i think what's really important is the message because sometimes it's a slightly different message and people will want to use something internally externally but it does need tweaking a bit to get the right message across so there's one example recently we had a client come to us for an internal film and then it emerged that they had a client working on external comms who wanted something very similar and then when we spoke to them it turned out it was similar but it wasn't quite the same thing and it's actually ended up being three different films two of which were quite similar and could have the same filming day and one of which was totally different and needed to be done in a very different way um so it can be tweaked afterwards it was great that we were able to have that conversation before anything was filmed so that we could get exactly what they wanted because sometimes it's trying to put something that's um you know a square round peg into a square hole a square peg into a round hole whichever it is it's not it doesn't always quite fit so it's better if you can have those conversations beforehand and then perhaps you can have those different versions in mind when you're actually planning it okay great thank you um so yeah at the beginning of the our chat we were talking about um kind of the increased um awareness of internal communications and hopefully the increase in its and its value to organizations or the way they perceive the value of it sorry um do you think that this is something that's going to be maintained um post code 19 whatever that may be um or do you think there's a danger then it might start to to drop down the agenda again um nas do you have any thoughts about that um i'm fairly hopeful it will stay um i think it has to because i think jane mentioned earlier about having that there's a sort of expectation that has been set here um so those businesses that are doing regular comms now this is setting a new level of expectation and and the worst thing will be for that to then drop off all of a sudden um i mean it seems like the world situation isn't going to change anytime soon so while yes there are constraints on budgets and you know businesses are going through a really difficult time so the communications and the responses need to be flexible and understanding of that you know um job losses reduced budget there's all of that going on but i think that's that's going to mean the need for more internal communications not less but of course you know sensitivity to whatever budgets for example so i don't think it's going to completely drop off i think hopefully and sort of it will push to push up standards a little bit um but it's it's still going to be a challenge um probably against external comps um in the long run but hopefully things are um there's a new expectation for things to be of a higher quality and a higher standard great thank you jane would you agree i do agree yeah i think perhaps what what we have i almost didn't said but what we might see is that the money assigned to external coms is less i think as people get used to ugc um and see that that's working effectively i think there'll probably be a squeeze on budgets um but let's see i mean people you know they're watching netflix more than ever they're watching great shows all the time they're enjoying really good quality content and that goes uh external and internal people you know we are all viewers of brilliant content all the time so you know we should have a certain expectation of the production values and obviously budget and production value do go hand in hand so i very much hope that budgets are not depressed terribly both for internal and external it would be nice as as companies recover to start seeing that climbing again and getting back to the kind of content that we would all prefer to make great thank you and so i mean you mentioned there about everybody consuming great content all the time and that is something obviously as we've been in um locked down and and continued since then as people work from home that we are finding more people like we are now are sitting in front of a screen we might be using teams we might be using skype um we might be at home um watching um netflix or or prime do you think that there's a danger that people could start to feel a bit overwhelmed by the amount of video content they're facing or do you think that it's actually something that people are just going to welcome and appreciate more is there an issue of noise there i think it's um i think it's finding the right content there is a there is a danger that there can be too much there and that it can be too long i think um probably people are getting a bit fed up with everything being online now and um having to have meetings over zoom rather than in person and that kind of thing and just having to look at a screen for such a long time to take in information but um so i think companies need to think really carefully about where it is needed and where it really can make a difference and where it is worth actually investing some money in doing it properly um so i mentioned earlier about um the film we've been able to go to um a factory where they actually make coffins where they've had a huge upsurge in production um during the pandemic and so we were because they were there working anyway and thought we might as well go there in person and do the filming properly we were able to make a really lovely film that actually brought that to life and showed what went on there and what happened as a result was i think on their intranet it was the most popular film that they'd ever had in terms of engagement and people around the country who were working within funeral homes who were having to order the coffins from this factory had never seen it in person had never seen what actually happened there and so it was really relevant to them and even in in normal times they probably wouldn't be taking all the people from all their different branches on visits to actually go and see it so for something like that you can see why it's worth making the investment and and for other things it probably still will be um ugc and lots of zoom meetings and and yeah it is a lot to to wade through so it's something that needs to be carefully thought about and planned so that it's not too much yeah so are there any um are there any brands out there that you know that are doing internal videos or communication in general are there any kind of best in practice uh people that you've seen um and are inspired by out there raise your hand if you've seen any um i think we've got lots of clients who've who've got it and are doing doing really well in terms of um you know engagement and working out what's needed and i think everyone's um sort of i think nas mentioned earlier that some companies were doing it already and and those are the ones that have you know been able to hit the ground running and others are learning but i think um it's been a big learning curve and lots of people are doing some really good stuff internally to engage their people great um we've got a question in the chatbot so i'll just go to that so nina asks in a a normal world younger generations are potentially more concerned with the values of the company they are working for um and there are arguably equally important for internal as well as external comms um so um in terms of uh esg values um so and brand values so arguably that's likely to lead to more internal comms and higher production values um what does the panel think about that um yeah i mean we're definitely seeing um quite a lot of uh requests and um demand for communication around values communications around purpose um both i think that's related to esg being uh as mentioned an important theme but um also because of uh lockdown and what's happening everything is i guess changing um and these things are becoming important so definitely purpose and brand and it's not just you know whereas esg you know people have been seeing it traditionally for investors and for external audiences now as as mentioned it's it's just as important internally and working together with those teams and actually within within businesses the esg team and the coms team and the sg team and maybe hr or internal are working closer together because of that reason um and com sometimes is bringing these groups that never spoke to each other together because you know the sg team weren't speaking to uh the values of the purpose team that may have been within hr for example um and comms is where they can come together and work together um and and as we've been saying it can be both an external and an internal piece of communication brilliant thank you um so julie this is a question for you um how on how and when were you able to achieve filming access uh for the coffin film uh given the covert 19 uh measures what were the key challenges in achieving that oh yes so um i think it was just as restrictions were starting to ease and it was kind of um the point where you can go to your place of work if you if you have to um so obviously risk assessment wise um we had to be very careful we still put in place um social distancing on the shoot and they had social distancing in place in the factory um so we were staying two meters from each other at that time because it was still two meters before they moved it to one meter um wearing wearing masks when we were inside um we um we used instead of clip-on mics that we would usually use we were using um you know mic on a on a stand that we that we placed um using a monitor um so as not to have to stand um you know doing interviews it was a bit tricky and not standing too close to the cameraman so yeah there were more challenges than usual even um with booking accommodation for the shoot um because most hotels and things were closed i managed to find um a cottage and i think our rmd was joking with me that you know you're gonna find the eight bedroom place with a pool and it didn't have a pool but i did end up having to get an eight bedroom place for just two of us which enabled this and it was actually the only place that was available i was quite honestly i haven't done this on purpose it was the only place um where it was possible to do it so yeah there are a lot more challenges um than there would be normally and it's making sure it's risk assessed and that we are very careful right with the people you were interviewing just as a follow-up for that did you have to um kind of prep them before that hand and check that they were okay with with going ahead with uh with being interviewed in that kind of way um so we've done a few shoots um where we've been able to it wasn't just the one in in the coffin factory but i think all of them have been places where the people are still working so some of them have been key workers so they've been there throughout the pandemic or they'd already gone back but it's no different to how we would normally set up a shoot in the i'd always speak to the people beforehand anyway so that they know exactly what to expect and we've got an idea about what their answers are likely to be to the question so that we can plan our shooting scripts properly and that kind of thing so yeah we'd always carefully plan it but i think it was probably more important that we did speak to all those people in advance and and make sure that everyone knew what was going to be happening and was comfortable with it oh claire you're on mute sorry i can see your mouth moving sorry i was busy kicking on the wrong icon so uh yes there was i thinking i was quite on top of it and i was not um sorry so i'm just leaping in at this point because we have uh we're approaching our um closing time on this um so i just wanted to um actually before we go there's another question in here you might want to answer that um the traditional assumption is that internal comms content is boring how much pressure do you get from clients to come up with something exciting or engaging dreaded word and what do you find satisfies them do you find a lot of your internal content that succeeds takes influences from social media eg instagram tick tock or can it stay more high brown than that there's a lot in that question anyone got any sort of rapid fire answers i can do a couple of rapid fire answers from a shell perspective very candidly um our problem is not pressure to come up with something engaging and exciting our pressure is normally the other way around people come to us with a very bland idea of what their internal communication should be so we're always the ones that are pressing for something that is more engaging and exciting and when we win you know it's it it makes a massive impact and it works really well so yeah we're we're working in the reverse direction um taking influence from social media i would say a little seeing a bit more fun different styles coming into internal cons now a little bit not not massively and certainly probably most of what happens internally is still quite high brown from a purely from a shell perspective um yeah i would say i agree on that one that um not necessarily that it has to be very boring but that people will come to us and it's not about create something necessarily that's great and creative and amazing but this is a message that we really want to get across and i think it's then our job to make it interesting and to come up with some ideas and you know they might not be expecting it but i think we need to surprise them a bit and you know perhaps come up with a proposal that might not just have one idea which is the basic idea but maybe give them an option b and c so they might be able to try something outside of the box that they weren't thinking of and that we can make it a bit more exciting they don't always want to but at least we can we can try there's anything to add yeah i think um just the basics of communications right good stories finding the finding interesting stories good storytelling still wins over um and in internal communications that's just as important and as you said an element of surprise and creativity but you know it all goes back to good stories and helping people find those good stories means that the content will be good and will speak for itself absolutely right um thank you very much um i would just add that if any of you have any uh resources or links to ideas and suggestions that you'd be happy to share uh with epcon members do let us know because we put that all on our website we attached to the article that amelia writes following this event you know and it just makes it more of a you know a thought piece that people can refer back to