internal communication

Weeknote 2025/40

/ Sharon O'Dea / Leave a comment
Autumnal Amsterdam. Photo: Sharon O’Dea

Some weeks feel like a hinge — the quiet click between what was and what comes next. This was one of them. Projects paused, others reignited, the to-do list reshuffled yet again. A reminder that most progress doesn’t look like momentum; it looks like waiting, adjusting, packing, planning.

Autumn’s fully arrived in Amsterdam, ushered in by the season’s first storm, Amy. All wind, rain, and sideways bikes. Bleak, but bracing. There’s a certain kind of forward motion in the colder air: the sense that the year’s winding down, and it’s time to get things finished, filed, or flung into motion before winter properly settles in.

The trees along the canals have started to turn, the light’s gone soft and golden, and the air smells faintly of woodsmoke and deadlines. It feels like the season for tying up loose ends — wrapping edits, clearing decks, and sketching out what’s next.

For me, that’s Japan. It’s suddenly just days away: a shift in season, continent, and perspective all at once. The perfect point, perhaps, to pause and take stock before the next chapter properly begins.

This week at work

A quieter one, though not without its twists. Two proposals we’d been hopeful about got knocked back — not lost to anyone else, just shelved as client plans shifted. Always frustrating when work evaporates for reasons outside your control, but that’s consulting life: sometimes you’re sprinting to meet a deadline, sometimes you’re rearranging the post-its and waiting for the next wave to break.

Happily, another project that wasn’t due to start until next year has come roaring back into view, so the pendulum swings both ways. If there’s a lesson in all this, it’s that flexibility isn’t just a virtue in this job — it’s survival.

Between that and chipping away at edits for the book (slowly, steadily, like a glacier), I’ve been getting ready for the Japan trip; finalising logistics, lining up interviews, and reaching out to people I’ll be speaking with while I’m there. It’s shaping up to be a fascinating few weeks of research, conversations, and new perspectives — and, hopefully, a bit of inspiration to carry back home.

Also this week

I went to a Science & Cocktails talk at Paradiso on the emergence of a post-growth society, given by Derk Loorbach. It was one of those evenings that quietly rewire your brain a little.

He spoke about how societies evolve not through steady progress but through short, chaotic bursts — moments when old systems destabilise and new ones start to take shape. The idea of “transitions” was framed as both inevitable and hopeful: collapse as transformation, not just destruction.

There were plenty of sharp takeaways: that our economy’s dependence on perpetual growth is fundamentally unsustainable; that our obsession with technological “fixes” is often an implementation illusion masking the need for deeper change; and that the real barrier is not resources or technology, but imagination — we’ve forgotten how to picture alternatives to extractive growth.

The phrase that stuck with me most: “Transition is a more hopeful form of collapse.” A useful lens, perhaps, not just for climate policy but for any complex system — from organisations to the digital workplace.

Also, I can confirm that lectures are vastly improved when preceded by smoky cocktails and a funk band.

Consuming

📺 Watching

With less than a week to go until I head to Nagasaki, I thought I’d give Silence — Martin Scorsese’s 2016 film about the Christian missionaries who came to Japan in the 17th century — a go. That was an error.

It’s a punishingly joyless three hours of mud, martyrdom, and men staring meaningfully into the middle distance while being slowly crushed by the weight of their own faith (and, occasionally, actual rocks). It’s beautifully shot, of course (Scorsese can’t help himself) but it’s the cinematic equivalent of flagellation: grim, ponderous, and utterly devoid of warmth or light.

By the end I wasn’t enlightened; I just wanted someone, anyone, to shout, “Cut! Enough suffering, lads!” I suspect the real silence here was my will to live slipping quietly away.

If the goal was to get me in the mood for Japan, it failed spectacularly — though it did make me grateful for central heating, antibiotics, and the fact that nobody’s currently boiling Christians in Nagasaki Bay.

📚 Reading

After listening to a podcast about the Levellers — the 17th-century political movement, not the 90s crusty band — I picked up Blood in the Machine by Brian Merchant. It traces the parallels between the early industrial revolts of the Luddites and today’s tech-driven upheavals, arguing that resistance to automation isn’t anti-progress but a fight for dignity and agency.

I’m about a third of the way through and impressed so far. It’s well-researched, surprisingly pacey, and full of eerie echoes: the concentration of power, the myth of innovation as inherently good, the way workers’ rights get trampled in the name of efficiency. You could swap the textile mills for data centres and the rhetoric would barely need editing.

It’s one of those books that makes you glance uneasily at your laptop and wonder which side of history you’re really on.

🎧 Listening

On Thursday my bestie and I caught the sold-out final show of Little Simz at AFAS — the North London rapper, actor, and all-round force of nature. She was magnetic: precise, powerful, utterly in command, with a crowd that sang every word back in adoration.

But the week’s real soundtrack belonged to Taylor Swift, whose much-anticipated new album dropped on Friday. I devoured it immediately. Unconvinced at first, but by the time of writing it had properly lodged itself under my skin — the kind of slow-burner that keeps revealing new layers every listen.

Saturday morning saw me at a special “Swiftie Saturday” spin class — 66 of us belting along on stationary bikes like a pop-powered peloton — and by evening I was at the cinema for the album launch film. Immersion therapy, basically.

It’s not a cult. It’s a group of like-minded individuals engaging in synchronised cardio and light emotional processing.

Connections

I had the pleasure of catching up with Amsterdam-Canadian communicator Cassie Jorgensen this week. We chatted about the challenges of building a professional network as a blow-in from another country and the merits of agency vs in-house.

Travel

Six days till Japan (and two of those involve a side-quest to Paris). Packing lists are being honed, chargers located, adapters counted, and contingency plans made in case the airline decides my suitcase needs a longer layover than I do.

This trip has come around quickly, but it feels like the right moment for it: the book nearing its final stretch, work shifting gears, the season turning. If this week’s talk on transitions had a message, it’s that change rarely happens neatly — it’s messy, unpredictable, often inconvenient — but also full of possibility if you keep your eyes open.

I’ll be spending the first week between Nagasaki and the Goto Islands, talking to people about how work, technology, and community are evolving in Japan — a country that’s long been living the future the rest of us are only now stumbling towards.

More on that next week, from the other side of the world.

This week in photos

Two musicians performing on stage with keyboards, illuminated by purple lighting, and an abstract background projection.
A narrow Amsterdam street lined with traditional buildings, featuring a rainbow flag hanging on the left and the tower of a church visible in the background, under a cloudy sky.
A serene view of a canal in Amsterdam during autumn, with trees displaying yellow leaves and reflections seen on the water's surface.
A person with shoulder-length brown hair, wearing a white shirt with black polka dots, smiles slightly while posing in a well-lit indoor setting.
A cozy café scene with a glass of red drink on a wooden table, silver headphones nearby, and a rose in a vase beside the window showing passing pedestrians and buildings outside.
A person holding a large bouquet of flowers, wearing a black jacket and red shirt, with a red bag slung over their shoulder. They are reflected in a shop window on a street in Amsterdam.
A digital clock and a round clock displayed on a dark screen in a cinema, with a countdown of two seconds remaining before the Taylor Swift film begins.
A promotional card for 'The Life of a Showgirl' album release ride, displayed on a wooden stand, with cycling shoes visible in the background.
A group of individuals participating in a spin class, surrounded by red lighting, with one person taking a selfie in the foreground.

Weeknote 2025/39

/ Sharon O'Dea / Leave a comment
A scenic view of a canal in Amsterdam, featuring trees with autumn foliage, a clock tower in the background, and boats floating on the water.
Autumn in Amsterdam. Photo: Sharon O’Dea

Some weeks are about routine, others about momentum. This one was about spotting opportunities and grabbing them before they slip past.

As Seneca put it: “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” I’ve never been much for masterplans — my career has been more patchwork than roadmap — but I’ve learned that when the right thing comes along, you say yes and work the rest out later.

And while there’s a bigger adventure brewing in the background, the week itself had plenty to get stuck into closer to home.

This week at work

The book keeps marching forward, as has the season. Amsterdam has taken a sudden autumnal turn, the light thinner, the mornings chillier. The shift feels like a metaphor: the year heading into its final quarter just as the book does. Another week, another chunk wrangled into something that (hopefully) resembles prose. This time I’ve been working on the chapters that shift from platforms to messy and unpredictable people, which means wrestling both with frameworks and with the practical realities of how organisations actually operate. Let’s just say it’s one thing to cite the Barcelona Principles, it’s another to translate them into something a harried comms team can actually use on a Tuesday afternoon.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about multilingual content. European Day of Languages was a neat reminder that we default far too often to the assumption that “everyone speaks English.” They don’t, and even when they do, it’s rarely the language of the heart. For intranets and employee comms that aspire to feel genuinely inclusive, that means more than slapping machine translation on your news pages—it means designing governance, content types, and workflows that respect linguistic diversity from the outset. I’ve blogged about that here.

Back from holiday I’ve also thrown myself back into Statement, focusing on the narrative and comms. The app’s core idea — authenticity through verified transactions — is resonating, but the story around it needs to land as strongly as the product itself. So I’ve been sharpening the positioning, and working out how to talk about Statement in a way that’s both clear and compelling.

Towards the end of the week I virtually sat down with Jack Aspden from The Company You Keep to talk about my career.  Which will never not be funny to me, as (as I wrote about in Week 28) I’ve been working for over a quarter of a century and am still to have anything close to a plan. My career is less a trajectory and more a Jackson Pollock spray-painted across a life. A series of (occasionally good) decisions and some sheer dumb luck. We spoke for over an hour, a conversation that felt more like a session with a therapist at times. I wish him the best of luck editing that into something resembling useful career advice. As Helen Keller said, “Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing at all.”

Finally, proposals. We have a couple on the go, in that place where we kick them back and forth between us and the client until the shape of the project feels right. This where I get excited about the work itself and slightly queasy about the potential workload if they all land at once. It’s the consultant’s eternal dilemma: complain about the pipeline being too quiet, then panic when it starts filling.

Also this fortnight

Remember back in Weeknote 38 when I said I had some big news? Here it is: I’m off to Japan.

Starting next month I’ll spend a few weeks living and working there as part of a digital nomads programme with the Prefecture of Nagasaki. It’s a proper experiment in how regions can attract and support place-independent workers — and for me, a live case study in the future of work.

Japan is already grappling with challenges others are only just waking up to: ageing populations, shrinking talent pools, automation, AI, and the redesign of work for wellbeing and productivity. Those forces shape our comms, processes and platforms — the digital workplace is just a mirror of that reality, and the reflection is shifting fast.

I’ll be based mainly in Nagasaki (with some time on the Ghibli-esque Goto Islands) before wrapping up in Tokyo. I’ll keep client work ticking along (just seven hours in the future), while also writing, researching, and learning from innovators, business leaders and fellow nomads.

The future of work is being written everywhere. For a few weeks, my chapter will be from Japan.

If you know of anyone doing interesting things in the comms, collaboration or future of work space in Japan or the broader APAC region, I’d be grateful for an intro.

Consuming

👩🏻‍💻 Internetting

Unusually for this section, a podcast. WB40 is a long-running show about tech, but what makes it special is the community around it: regular listeners who are collaborative, generous, and always up for sharing advice.

This week’s episode features my friend — and occasional Lithos Partners associate — Lisa Riemers, talking about her new book Accessible Communications. I was lucky enough to get an advance copy, and I love how she and her co-author Matisse Hamel-Nelis not only make the case for accessibility in comms, but show how achievable it can be.

Listen in… and then go and buy the book.

📺 Watching

I dipped into Alice in Borderland on Netflix, partly to whet my appetite for all things Japan. It started off promising — stylish, intriguing, Tokyo-as-character — but it veered into Squid Game territory faster than I expected. Not sure yet if I’m hooked or just mildly traumatised.

📚 Reading

Somehow didn’t have much of a book mojo this week.

🎧 Listening

Bret McKenzie’s new album turned out to be an unexpected treat. Best known as one half of Flight of the Conchords, he’s gone solo here with something warmer and more musically layered. I put it on out of curiosity and ended up staying for the melodies — witty, yes, but also surprisingly tender. Proof there’s more to him than business time.

Travel

Nothing at all this week, and ngl I’m delighted about that.

This week in photos

A busy art gallery exhibition featuring a diverse group of people engaging with artwork displayed on the walls, with a focus on a central table where attendees are interacting.
A man in a light suit riding a bicycle carrying his bride in a white dress, adorned with flowers and bells along a tree-lined street in Amsterdam during autumn.
A cyclist riding in Amsterdam while pulling a wheeled suitcase. The street is lined with bicycles and storefronts, showcasing the urban landscape.
A hand holding a coffee cup with a logo that reads 'SCREAMING BEANS COFFEE ROASTERS' in a street with colourful buildings in Amsterdam.
An indoor exercise class taking place in a large, ornate space with stained glass windows and dramatic lighting. Participants are on yoga mats, some in poses, while others interact with the instructor.
A view of a canal in Amsterdam surrounded by trees displaying autumn colors, with a boat docked along the bank and buildings in the background.
A scenic view of a gazebo surrounded by trees and a calm pond, with lily pads floating on the water's surface under a clear blue sky.

Weeknote 2025/38

/ Sharon O'Dea / 1 Comment
Group of five hikers posing triumphantly at the summit, with rugged mountains and a clear blue sky in the background.
My pals and I at the peak of the Valbonë-Theth Pass in Albania, this week

Bumper two-week note: I spent ten of the last fourteen days adventuring around the Balkans. So this one’s light on work and heavy on holidays. I’m not apologising.

Two themes stuck with me: who shows up, and what happens when they do. At the IABC summit Mike Klein dropped the line “the world is run by the people who show up” (sometimes credited to Ben Franklin, who probably didn’t say it but would’ve if he’d had LinkedIn).

Then in Albania I learned how a tiny communist party basically turned up, seized power, and held the country in a half-century headlock. Proof, if you needed it, that history isn’t written by the best ideas; it’s written by the people who managed to get a room booked and never gave back the keys.

In politics, as in comms, it’s never the smartest who win. Just the ones who had the audacity to pull up a chair and refuse to sod off.

This week at work

Book progress continues: three new chapters in draft. People, on the skills and roles that actually make digital comms work. Content, the stuff employees actually come for, and what shapes their real user experience. And Communities, why they’re not fluffy side projects but strategic assets in the comms mix.

I drafted mine in a bar in Tirana while Jon hammered his out in a Bristol home office. Then we swapped, edited, iterated. That’s our system: one of us gets words down, the other makes them better, and the time zones/weird schedules do the heavy lifting.

Back from holiday, I went straight into the IABC Strategic Communication Leadership Summit. Blissfully free of the usual death-by-panel (aka “three senior leaders carefully saying nothing for 45 minutes”) or the kind of platform case study where a vendor insists their intranet launch was “seamless” and everyone claps politely while knowing full well it wasn’t.

Instead: an unconference. Fifty comms leaders from 30+ countries, fifteen sessions, zero sponsor pitches, and actual conversations about the real stuff — strategy, frontline and middle managers, the impact of AI, the future of the profession. I even left with a notebook full of scrawls that might translate into something useful, rather than the usual bingo card of buzzwords. If I can read my own writing, that is.

The big theme: Leadership in comms isn’t about craft or channels. It’s about showing up, making space, and keeping the profession credible, vibrant and tied to business goals.

Huge thanks to Mike, Natasha, Ruxana and Monique for pulling it together. I left buzzing with ideas — and reminded that this job is at its best when we stop presenting at each other and start working with each other.

Also this fortnight

But for most of the past two weeks I’ve been blissfully offline, on a proper adventure in Balkans. Some people spend two weeks horizontal on a beach. But  apparently my idea of a holiday is “exhaust yourself in three different countries, climb a mountain, then fly straight to a strategy summit.”

Kosovo first. Europe’s newest country, where Tony Blair is such a national hero that people have named their children after him. (Yes, Tonibler is an actual given name. No, I didn’t meet a little Gordonbrown.)

Colorful large letters spelling 'NEWBORN' in a public square in Pristina, Kosovo, with a blue sky and buildings in the background.
A panoramic view of a city in Kosovo, showcasing modern buildings, green park areas, and clear blue skies.
Interior view of a modern building featuring a geometric skylight and circular patterned flooring, with a person standing in the center.

A stop in the capital Pristina, with its monuments to Mother Teresa and Madeline Albright. Prizren was next: Ottoman bridges, minarets, mountain views — basically Türkiye on decaf.

A view of a traditional architectural structure featuring a dome and minaret, surrounded by trees and a courtyard with a fountain.
A person sitting on a stone bridge overlooking a river in the historic town of Prizren, Kosovo, with a mosque and scenic hills in the background.

Then North Macedonia: home of the Cyrillic alphabet, Alexander the Great, and views so good they should come with subtitles. That also makes it my 86th country. I promised myself that’s the last new one this year, but let’s be honest: my willpower is about as strong as Balkan WiFi.

A historical church with a red-tiled roof situated near a calm lake, surrounded by greenery and mountains in the background.
A historic stone church with a conical red tile roof, surrounded by neatly trimmed green hedges and trees, under a bright blue sky.
A scenic view of a calm lake (Lake Ohrid, North Macedonia) surrounded by green trees and a distant mountainous landscape under a partly cloudy sky.

Speaking of which, Tirana. Bunkers, boho bars, bonkers architecture. The whole vibe reminded me of backpacking in South America in my 20s — nothing works how you expect, yet everything somehow does. Bring patience. And raki.

A vibrant restaurant interior featuring colorful decor, eclectic artwork on the walls, and neon signs. Patrons are seated at tables, enjoying their meals and drinks in a lively atmosphere.
A blend of modern and traditional architecture, featuring a mosque with a tall minaret alongside contemporary buildings under a clear blue sky.
Aerial view of Tirana, Albania at sunset, showcasing a mix of modern and traditional architecture, surrounded by green hills.
A panoramic view of a city at sunset, showcasing tall buildings and lighted streets, with a mountain range in the background.
Interior view of a dome featuring multiple framed portraits arranged in a radial pattern, illuminated by lights, with a central skylight at the top.

Then things got really good: a farm on the edge of Lake Koman, a place as beautiful as any I’ve ever seen, accessible only by boat, where we swam, kayaked, ate food that had been growing approximately five minutes earlier, and slept under a million stars. Basically an Instagram advert for “disconnecting” that, for once, was actually worth it.

And then: the Valbonë–Theth trail. 16km, 1100m of climb, endless switchbacks. My lungs and thighs staged a coup about halfway up, but the views shut them right up. There’s something oddly satisfying about doing hard things — like hiking a mountain or checking your inbox after a week offline.

Person standing on a rocky outcrop, arms raised in triumph, overlooking a mountainous landscape on a sunny day.
A hiker trekking on a rocky mountain trail surrounded by lush greenery and distant snow-capped peaks under a clear blue sky.
A panoramic view of a mountainous landscape featuring steep peaks, lush greenery, and a winding river in the valley below, under a clear blue sky.

And then, as if to prove I have range: Tirana airport, shorts and hiking boots still on, headed straight to a Brussels for the conference. From mountains to meeting rooms in 72 hours. Wouldn’t have it any other way.

Consuming

👩🏻‍💻 Internetting

CIPR’s new report An Age-Old Problem confirms what most of us already knew but the industry prefers to pretend isn’t happening: PR has an ageism problem. If you’re young, you’re “too green to lead”; if you’re older, you’re “out of touch”. The sweet spot, apparently, is being exactly 32, fluent in TikTok dances and miraculously free of childcare or eldercare responsibilities.

The report calls for common-sense fixes: make age part of DEI, stop sneering at colleagues across generations, build careers that don’t fall off a cliff at 40, and measure progress instead of writing another report about it in five years’ time. Reverse mentoring even gets a mention (because god forbid we admit that both a 23-year-old and a 57-year-old might know useful things at the same time).

In short: if comms wants to be taken seriously as a profession, it needs to stop treating people’s date of birth as more important than their talent. Otherwise, the only thing ageing gracefully in this industry will be the clichés.

📺 Watching

Didn’t turn a TV on for two weeks. Turns out the world keeps spinning (and the scenery’s better).

📚 Reading

Finished The Albanians: A Modern History while trundling around the country. I like to read the history of wherever I land, and in this case it was much-needed: I knew shamefully little about Albania beyond bunkers and Enver Hoxha. The book filled in the blanks — a crash course in how a small, beautiful country endured decades of isolation and is still shaking off the aftershocks at speed. Makes wandering its chaotic, charming present-day streets feel a lot less baffling.

And yes: turns out there’s more to Albania than Taken 2 and handing out pity points at Eurovision.

🎧 Listening

Nothing in particular — except discovering that Boney M’s Ma Baker is bizarrely popular in Albania. No idea why, but it seemed to follow me everywhere. Answers on a postcard (or a disco beat) please.

Connections

The IABC event was basically a high-end school reunion: catching up with old comms friends and finally confirming that the people I’ve known online for years do, in fact, have legs.

Also managed a Breakfast App meet-up with Rita, an academic visiting from California (proof that occasionally the internet serves up something more useful than ads for AI tools). And Brussels gave me the bonus of a catch-up with Anthony and Jane Zacharewski — because apparently I can’t set foot in a European capital without turning it into a networking opportunity.

Travel

Made it home yesterday and, for a fleeting few hours, thought I might actually have no travel booked for the rest of the year. Cute idea. Obviously didn’t last. Now there’s something very exciting in the diary… but you’ll have to wait for Weeknote 39 for the reveal. Consider this the cliffhanger no one asked for

This week in photos

A historic stone bridge with two people walking on it, set against a backdrop of traditional houses and a mosque with a minaret, under a partly cloudy sky in a picturesque Balkan town.
Serene view of a lake surrounded by lush greenery and colorful autumn leaves, featuring two small boats docked near the shore.
An abandoned room with peeling walls, broken tiles, and overgrown plants, illuminated by natural light coming through the windows.
A hiking signpost with various trail directions and distances, surrounded by green pine trees under a clear blue sky.
A stone structure rising from a rocky base, framed by green leaves and against a backdrop of cloudy sky.
Speaker presenting at a conference, gesturing with one hand and holding a microphone. Behind them, a digital screen displays a collaborative brainstorming tool with sticky notes and questions.
A group of five people taking a selfie outdoors with a mountainous landscape in the background, surrounded by trees.

Weeknote 2025/36

/ Sharon O'Dea / Leave a comment
Panoramic view of a lush green valley - the Les roches Tuilière et Sanadoire - surrounded by rocky cliffs under a partly cloudy sky.
Les roches Tuilière et Sanadoire. Photo by me.

This week I travelled to the Auvergne to scatter my grandmother’s ashes, close to the village where she was born more than a century ago.

In her last years she painted from memory a scene of her childhood: a forest road, two great rocks, then suddenly a clearing — the valley opening up below. “It was a wonderful sight I would always remember,” she wrote.

On Friday I stood in that same spot, saw the same view she carried with her for a lifetime, and laid her to rest in the ground she loved. A return, of sorts, to her beginnings.

Nan’s life stretched far beyond that valley. She lived through occupation in Paris, celebrated its liberation in a shower of tricolores, trained as one of the few women engineers of her generation, raised a family in a new country, and never stopped campaigning for the values she believed in: liberty, equality, fraternity.

But she was also the woman who knitted us jumpers, made extraordinary birthday cakes, and whose cooking remains unmatched. She juggled logic and creativity — designing a trigonometry-inspired cushion one day, writing poetry the next.

Being back in the volcanic hills where she was born, I kept coming back to this thought: our origins matter. The places we start from, the people who shape us, the values we inherit. Even if we take a different path, we carry those beginnings with us.

That theme ran through the rest of my week too. A conversation with Cathryn, who was a formative influence on me as a teenager. And then my gym instructor, during a Sanctum class — which, if you’ve not had the dubious pleasure, is essentially a wellness cult disguised as a workout. Picture a candlelit room full of beautiful people in Lululemon, bouncing in silent-disco headphones to pounding techno, somewhere between burpees and interpretive dance. It’s like Berghain meets a yoga retreat, only designed to be an Instagrammable Experience.

In the middle of this fever dream, the instructor delivered his pep talk about looking back at who you were five years ago. Normally I’d have rolled my eyes so hard I’d need medical attention. But, landing as it did at peak pre-menstrual sensitivity, I found myself ugly-crying into my wireless headphones while influencers around me humped the ether like it was a path to enlightenment. A spiritual awakening via techno squats.

And I couldn’t help but wonder what my Nan (practical, principled, sharp as a tack) would have made of it all. Probably a raised eyebrow, then a wry laugh at the strange, circuitous ways we find meaning.

So that’s this week’s reflection: on beginnings, origins, returns — and remembering to be proud of the journey as much as the destination.

This week at work

After a quiet summer, the inbox has suddenly remembered we exist. A flurry of new business signals came through, so this week was largely about shaping proposals. One’s already had a tentative yes — the best kind of feedback — and I’m looking forward to getting started. The others are out in the world now, hopefully working their magic.

On the book front, Jonathan and I made good progress on the next two chapters: one on the people and skills needed for digital comms at work, the other on content. We’re finding our co-writing rhythm — passing drafts back and forth, layering in ideas, editing each other’s words until we’re not quite sure who wrote what. It’s satisfying, collaborative, and occasionally a little disorienting.

But even as the chapters take shape, I can hear the sound of deadlines approaching fast, like distant thunder that’s getting louder every day.

Also this week

I climbed up the Dek van de Stad, a temporary platform built on top of the Nieuwe Kerk. The views were spectacular — a chance to look down on Dam Square and Amsterdam’s rooftops from a height you don’t normally get. Equal parts breathtaking and mildly vertigo-inducing.

Aerial view of Dam Square in Amsterdam, showcasing a busy plaza with numerous people, surrounded by historic buildings under a cloudy sky.
A sign stating a disclaimer about a restoration project, indicating that it has no relation to Taturo Atzu's work titled 'The Garden Which is the Nearest to God.' The sign is set against a backdrop of scaffolding and a brick wall. I have no idea why this sign exists.
I… have questions about this sign
A panoramic view of Amsterdam featuring a mix of historical and modern architecture, with rooftops, trees, and cloudy skies in the background.


And then straight back down to earth (and into chaos) at Paradiso, where I saw Kneecap. Security was tight, the crowd was raucous, and it’s still mad to me that less than two years ago I saw them in what was basically the upstairs of a pub. Now they’ve got a sold-out Paradiso bouncing in unison, two nights in a row. The rise has been meteoric, the energy relentless — right through to the crowd singalong to Come Out Ye Black And Tans after they went off stage.

Consuming

👩🏻‍💻 Internetting

News this week that the UK Department for Business and Trade’s three-month trial of Microsoft Copilot found… no real productivity boost. Emails and meeting summaries sped up a bit, but anything more complex actually slowed people down or spat out lower-quality work. So much for the hype cycle.

Does that reflect a lack of proper strategy and training, or just cold, hard reality? Probably both. In my experience, some people and roles naturally click with AI tools while others flounder when left to get on with it. Curiosity, persistence, confidence — and the time to experiment — all matter. Without those, adoption lags.

There’s clearly a lot we need to do to help people level up with AI at work. But I can’t say I was surprised. My own encounters with Copilot have been… underwhelming. Let’s just say it’s not yet living up to the billing of “revolutionary productivity tool” — more “expensive intern who occasionally remembers to attach the file.”

📺 Watching

Marking 50 years since its release, we re-watched Jaws. Still the ultimate advert for staying on dry land. Half a century on, the special effects remain gloriously ropey, the mayor still deserves a prison sentence for crimes against public safety, and John Williams’ two-note score is still the best thing ever written about imminent death by fish.

It’s amazing how Jaws manages to be both a tense thriller and a camp comedy, depending entirely on how rubbery the shark looks in a given scene. And yet it still works: a masterclass in making you terrified of something that looks like it escaped from a theme park gift shop. Just the thing I need before a holiday that involves boats.

📚 Reading

Continued with The Albanians: A Modern History, but have only got as far as the Ottoman Empire. Hoping to nudge my knowledge closer to the 20th century by the time I get there.

🎧 Listening

Driving around with my brother this week introduced me to Cheekface, an LA indie trio who specialise in anxious brain dumps set to catchy riffs. Imagine Lou Reed or Jonathan Richman talk-singing about late capitalism, social awkwardness and existential dread.

They’re smart, deadpan and gloriously uncool, with songs that turn modern malaise into shout-along anthems. Start with I Only Say I’m Sorry When I’m Wrong Now or Listen to Your Heart. If you like those, welcome to the cult of Cheekface.

Coverage

My Red Hot Opinion Department was working overtime this week.

For Strategic, I looked at the noticeable chill in corporate culture — how empathy has slipped off the agenda, and what that means for leaders trying to engage their people when the mood music is getting distinctly frostier.

And over at Unleash, I turned a jaw-droppingly bad comms experience into something more useful: practical advice on governance, sequencing, and the role internal comms can play in making difficult moments a little less painful.

Connections

Earlier in the week I had a long Teams chat with Cathryn Atkinson, who led the youth journalism project I was involved in as a teenager (which I mentioned back in Weeknote 33 — and which prompted this catch-up). The last time I saw her she had a baby strapped to her in a harness; that baby is now in his late 20s and about to get married. Safe to say we had plenty to catch up on.

I also met with Cai Kjaer, CEO of Swoop Analytics, who was in Amsterdam for meetings. We talked about the looming launch of their Information Overload Calculator, the Viva Engage Benchmarking Report, and the uncomfortable truth that while tech platforms — and now AI — make it easier than ever to publish, people’s bandwidth hasn’t magically expanded to cope. My line on this: internal comms needs to focus on orchestrating flows and making sure messages land safely. Hyper-personalisation will be key, but that comes with its own challenges.

A smiling woman and man posing for a selfie on a staircase with stained glass windows in the background.

Travel

I’m off on an adventure tomorrow — Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia, all firsts for me and all a little off the usual tourist trail.

Next weekend I’ll be hiking in the gloriously named Accursed Mountains (because why not tempt fate on holiday?), and there’ll be a few boats involved too. Which, having just re-watched Jaws, feels like impeccable planning. So there won’t be a Weeknote 37 — unless I’m writing it from the belly of a shark.

This week in photos

A dimly lit yoga class taking place in a grand, circular room with an ornate organ. Participants are scattered on yoga mats, using wireless headphones and surrounded by glowing candles.
A person with sunglasses posing next to a stone sign indicating an altitude of 1415 meters.
A scenic view from a rocky outcrop overlooking a lush green valley and distant mountains under a partly cloudy sky.
A historic stone tower of a castle set against a clear blue sky, with some greenery at the base.
A panoramic view of a lush green valley surrounded by rolling hills, under a bright blue sky with fluffy white clouds.
A lively Kneecap concert crowd with enthusiastic fans dancing and raising their hands, illuminated by stage lights.
View of a canal in Amsterdam with houseboats lining the banks and a clock tower in the background under a clear blue sky.
A person taking a selfie reflected in a shop window, wearing a white shirt and denim shorts, with a bag slung over their shoulder.

Weeknote 2025/35

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A tranquil view of a canal in Amsterdam, lined with trees and colorful buildings, reflecting in the water under a clear blue sky.
A last blast of summer in the city. Photo by me.

Six years ago tomorrow I packed up my London life into two suitcases and moved to Amsterdam.

In previous years I’ve marked the date by listing lessons: how to get lost (a lot), how to start again, how to build a life from scratch armed with nothing but Google Maps, a bicycle with no brakes, and one magic Dutch ID number that unlocks everything from taxes to library books.

But this year feels different. This year, I feel settled.

I’ve found my gang. I’ve got my groove.

It took a while to get here. The pandemic didn’t help. Two years suspended, the streets quiet, friendships impossible to spark. Loneliness isn’t dramatic; it just seeps in, until you look up and realise the only stranger you’ve spoken to in weeks is the cashier at Albert Heijn. Add the Dutch weather and the joy of navigating Belastingdienst paperwork, and it sometimes felt like a long audition for a very niche endurance sport.

And then, gradually, things shifted. The map filled in with people and places. Now there’s the crew I go to gigs with, shouting lyrics into the night. Local WhatsApp groups that point me to the freshest dahlias or the new season herring hitting the kraam. Gym buddies who somehow make turning up at 8am almost fun. The barista who knows my order before I open my mouth. Dining companions who linger long after the plates are cleared, conversations spiralling into politics and philosophy. A neighbour with my spare keys and another who’ll lend me a sander. Friends who water the plants when I’m away, sending sheepish updates about the ones that didn’t make it. The impromptu neighbourhood borrel that starts with “just one drink” and ends, inevitably, with bikes wobbled home in the rain. The late-night ping of a meme, answered instantly with another. And a friend who says, simply, “Pop by on your way home — I’ll put the kettle on.”

Small things, maybe. But they’re the everyday glue of belonging; the tiny threads that weave a city around you until it feels like home. Things I never really had in London, but here I’ve somehow found.

It turns out that moving countries isn’t really about geography. It’s about patience and persistence, and the slow magic of weaving yourself into the fabric of a place. Until one day you look up and realise the unfamiliar city has become familiar. The strange has become ordinary. And you somehow quietly belong.

I came here with two suitcases. What I’ve gained is a home, and a community.

This week at work

A productive stretch on the book front: we submitted three new chapters, and resubmitted another three we’d reworked to make the flow more logical. Feels good to see the pile growing and the structure sharpening up.

Tiny green shoots are popping up online too — the book quietly sprouting on pre-order pages for the exceptionally keen. A strange but thrilling sight: proof it’s starting to become real.

At work, the same theme of belonging surfaced in conversations with a client about how they use Viva to build connection, and what to do when those bonds fray. It struck me that the process is the same: digital spaces can be where colleagues find their gang and their rhythm. Because belonging at work isn’t really about tools or systems. It’s about that moment when you realise you’re part of something bigger.

Otherwise it’s been a deliberately quiet spell before the next project kicks off. We’ve used the breathing space to wrangle business admin and finally give our website some overdue attention.

Over at Statement, it’s been live for a week now. We’ve got a steadily growing number of people signing up, using it, and (crucially) giving us feedback. The team have been busy fixing things behind the scenes, while I’ve been working on comms to answer questions about how it all works. Early days, but exciting ones.

Also this week

The carillon of the Westerkerk, just across from my house, played a concert of Amsterdam-themed songs on Friday. I’d like to think it was for me personally, but I suppose it’s possible it’s in honour of the city’s 750th birthday. Either way, I was treated to a very Dutch soundtrack, including a rousing rendition of Tulips From Amsterdam. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Tulips From Amsterdam played on the carillon of the Westertoren, filmed from my front window.

Consuming

👩🏻‍💻 Internetting

This week I was struck by Emma Parnell’s piece on living abroad and returning home.  She writes beautifully about the dislocation of overseas life — how it’s not always the big things that unsettle you, but the small absences, like the sound of owls in the morning. And about how moving back, supposedly the “easy” part, can feel just as alien: friendships moved on, milestones missed, the nagging sense you’ve fallen behind.

What I loved most was the ending. Ten years on, she’s not only rooted again but surrounded by people she loves — proof that the feeling of “home” is less about geography and more about connection.

It resonates with my own experience of moving abroad (and back, and abroad again): that moving countries isn’t only about the logistics of visas and flat-hunting, but about patience, persistence, and the slow work of building community until one day you realise you belong. You’re home.

📺 Watching

I finally made it to Amsterdam’s oldest cinema, The Movies, and watched The Roses. Essentially a British remix of the 80s American classic The War of the Roses, but with upgraded swearing. Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman play a couple whose marriage unravels in increasingly petty and chaotic ways. I love both actors, the narrative was charming, and Colman’s wardrobe was iconic.

It’s not winning any prizes, but as a stylish way to pass a couple of hours it does the job. Come for Colman’s shirts, stay for the creative insults. A solid 6/10.

📚 Reading

I’ve just started The Albanians: A Modern History ahead of my holiday there in a couple of weeks. Albania’s a country I know embarrassingly little about, so it’s time to learn my Enver Hoxhas from my Mother Teresas. Looking forward to seeing how what I read on the page stacks up against what I find on the ground.

🎧 Listening

Been on a CMAT tip this week. Big choruses, sharp lyrics, country-pop with a wink. The kind of soundtrack that makes late-summer evenings feel like they’ve got a bit of eyeliner and a sense of humour.

Travel

Off to the Auvergne later this week. Volcanoes, valleys, villages, and the chance to dust off my GCSE-level French.

This week in photos

A group of people practicing yoga in a beautifully decorated church, wearing headphones with blue lights, creating a serene atmosphere.
A cozy Amsterdam canal-side bar illuminated at dusk, with people seated outside and a tree nearby.
Close-up of a hand showing metallic silver nail polish with a red bike in the background on a cobblestone path.
A person wearing sunglasses holds a large bouquet of colorful flowers wrapped in brown paper, standing in front of a reflective window.
A glass of beer sits on a table in a café with a view of a bustling Amsterdam street behind it. People are seen cycling and walking in the background, revealing the lively atmosphere of the city.
A person sitting cross-legged on a mat in a bright room, holding a phone in front of them. The background features large windows and a dark wooden wall.
A scenic view of an Amsterdam canal with boats and people enjoying the waterfront, featuring a tall tower in the background against a clear blue sky.
A bowl containing two oysters, a lemon wedge, a small bowl of red dipping sauce with diced onions, and two small round items, alongside a glass of mint-infused beverage.
Person taking a mirror selfie in a gym setting, wearing a black workout outfit, with a colorful background.

Internal Comms Teacamp 2 – Evaluation

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For this second Internal Comms Teacamp we settled on the thorny topic of evaluation. With budgets being squeezed, we’re all under increasing pressure to demostrate the value of what we do, so this was a popular subject and we all had plenty to say.

With the summer holidays in full swing this was a smaller group than the first time around, but included a mix of internal communications professionals from the public, private and voluntary sectors keen to share ideas on the challenges we all face in our line of work.

Camilla West from Royal Bank of Scotland kicked things off with a short presentation on the work she’s doing to develop measurable KPIs for internal comms which link to wider business objectives. This turned out to be a common theme in the ensuing discussion; how we move away from simplistic measurement of click-throughs and measuring outputs towards a more meaningful evaluation of the impact comms has on achieving outcomes for the business.

The discussion moved on to KPIs. We all need to report our performance regularly to our management boards, but all too often this focuses on outputs (such as numbers of intranet visits) rather than outcomes (such as numbers staff who signed up to a training course). The difficulty we all seem to have is demonstrating what impact comms had on any single outcome; generally success or otherwise is determined by a number of organisational functions and variables, of which communications is just one.

While staff surveys can be useful in measuring staff engagement and objective satisfaction with communications channels, they’re far from a perfect means of measuring the performance of an organisation’s communications function. The group strongly felt these were often given far more attention than they deserve, so surveys should be followed up with additional research such as focus groups to gain a better understanding of communications effectiveness and identify points of failure.

This led nicely on to a discussion about the extent to which internal comms can be responsible for organisational objectives around staff engagement and morale. Many public sector organisations are noticing a dip in engagement scores at the moment, which is unsurprising given the headcount reductions and budget cuts so many are going through. This means that even where communications is working well, it performs badly in surveys as staff are cheesed off for myriad reasons beyond the control of comms.

Everyone in attendance emphasised the need to evaluate the effectiveness of campaigns and specific communications activities as well as employee satisfaction with communications. This needs to be an honest review of what works and what didn’t work as well, rather than simply trumpeting success stories.

In summary, it’s clear that evaluation is essential, but it’s not easy. Different methods of evaluation will be needed for different activities, and we need to combine this with regular reporting on our own performance to demonstrate the value of internal communications spend –  linked to financial performance where possible.

The next Internal Comms Teacamp will be on 21 September from 4pm-6pm. We’ll be discussing Internal Comms and Hard to Reach Audiences, so I’ll be talking about the work I’ve been doing to bring intranet content to smartphones and iPads for Members of Parliament. For more information contact me and I’ll add you to our email list.

Not sure what Internal Comms Teacamp is? Here’s an introductory blogpost.

Internal communications teacamp

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Contrary to popular belief, webbies aren’t always glued to their screens and hidden away in dank basements. They love to get out and about and network with their peers.

It all began with UKGovCamp, a one-day event for public sector digital types. These events – now in their third year – have no set agenda; people come with their ideas and problems and pitch sessions to the other attendees. The agenda is cobbled together on the day using post-it notes and flipchart paper. The result is an unconference far more interesting, informative and relevant than any event you’ve ever paid big bucks to attend.

This span off into Teacamp, the monthly informal get-together of Whitehall digital communicators and social media specialists. Each month 20 to 30 Whitehall webbies meet at a cafe in Westminster to share ideas, solve problems, learn something new and drink some tea. Usually someone volunteers to do a ten-minute talk on something cool they’re doing, or to gather feedback on a specific topic or project, and then it opens up to the group to ask questions, say what they think or seek solutions to their own work challenges.

It’s a fantastic model for professional networking and knowledge-sharing. One which it would be a shame to resign to the digital sector alone. If there’s one thing Internal Communicators are good at, it’s nicking good ideas from elsewhere and applying them in our own work contexts.

So with that in mind, myself and two other internal communicators are plotting the very first Internal Comms Teacamp.

We’re inviting internal communications specialists to come along to share ideas, natter about comms, and drink some tea.  It’s open to anyone who works in employee communications, not just digital types, from the public and private sectors.

We’re kicking off at Apostrophe in Market Place (near Oxford Circus) from 4-6pm on May 25th. Come along! Or give me a shout via the Contact Me form or on Twitter if you want to know more.

Silly season

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We’re all familiar with the concept of silly season in the media. With the World Cup well and truly over, politicians on recess, schools on holiday and the courts shut for a few weeks, the papers are left scratching around for something to fill what the Germans call sommerloch – the summer [news] hole.

And so, too for internal communicators. With so many colleagues away, decisions aren’t being made and there’s a dearth of campaigns, updates or announcements. This means publications are unfilled and intranet pages reek of last week.

But while the papers have an endless supply of celebrity trivia and the annual parade of attractive a-level students picking up their results, corporate communicators have no such luxury. So how do we deal with slow news days?

Catch up with old news. With some space and time to spare, have a look back at the past few months and think about projects or initiatives which didn’t get as much attention as they deserved at the time. Are there any updates? Can you report on progress? You might earn a few brownie points by giving them some publicity now.

Recognition. Hertzberg’s work on motivation found a significant proportion of people are motivated to work because of the recognition they get for it. With budgets tightening and under-inflation payrises talked about for many, now’s the time to focus on those non-financial rewards and motivations. By taking the opportunity to recognise the hard work our colleagues have been putting in, we can better motivate them to say, stay and strive.

Admit defeat. Silly season is an international phenomenon – one familiar in offices around the globe. With so many colleagues – especially those with children – away, making significant changes or announcements is always going to prove difficult; any important communications made now might be missed by those colleagues who are away.

Why not take some time to focus on some housekeeping tasks, to make sure your intranet is running smoothly, ready to hit the ground running in September (I’m tidying up our A-Z, which is proving more interesting than it sounds!)

How do you deal with slow news days on your intranet? Does it even bother you? Post your comments.

Organisational communication 2020

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This was the 50th meeting of the London Communicators and Engagement Group, an informal monthly meetup of (mostly internal) communicators. After 50 meetings you’d think organiser Matt O’Neill would be out of topics to cover – but you’d be wrong.

This time, Matt invited David Galipeau (from eighty20.org /United Nations/Academia) to deliver a mini exposition into the future of communications. In a futuristic spirit he delivered his talk – on where he sees communications of the future heading – using a Skype video link from Geneva.

David Galipeau off Red Dwarf

In practice, this gave him the disjoined, disbodied appearance of Holly from Red Dwarf. But it worked surprisingly well – so that’s another nail in the coffin for international business travel, perhaps.

As Matt said in his introduction to the event, communicators are focussing on how we can use social media tools to improve organisational communication now and in the immediate future. But are the implications for the future? ‘Is this just the start of an emerging pattern that will fundamentally change the way organisations talk internally and externally?’ asked Matt.

He’d also suggested we take a look at some of Galipeau’s work ahead of the event. Alas, I was in a rush, and when I took a look at this, I thought ‘arrgh!’ and closed my browser tab.

Galipeau’s talk was almost as difficult to digest. I know he’s an academic, but I suspect I was one of the more geeky communicators in the room, and still quite a lot of what he said went right over my head. I’m not sure whether those who weren’t digital natives really knew what he was talking about for much of the time.

For example, Galipeau talked about the implementation of IPV6. For the lay reader – that’s most of you, I suspect – our IP addresses are currently based on IPV4, but we are fast running out of numbers. IPV6, Adrian Short told me via the Twitter back channel, will give us gives 6.5 x 1023 addresses for every square metre on Earth.

The arrival IPV6 will enable an ‘Internet of Things’ in which everything down to your slippers will have its own IP address. Your TV will speak to your fridge, and your supermarket trolley to your bank.

This, he contended, means the interweb is entering a new and much darker phase, quite different to the hippy free-for-all we’ve come to know. The internet is already slowing down thanks to tens of thousands of DOS attacks taking place daily. This, he said, is an early sign totalitarian nutjobs are engaged in cyber attacks and counter hacks, and the threat of industrial and political espionage is growing.

He gave groups that protested against Scientology as an example of this – yet didn’t really elaborate what was new about this threat other than giving people the ability to self-organise.

What was odd about the talk was that the speaker achieved the rare feat of going right over people’s heads while at the same time getting some real basics completely wrong. For instance, he talked about ‘crowdsourcing’, giving the example of “bringing people together to all dance in the station at the same time”.

This isn’t crowdsourcing, it’s flashmobbing. Crowdsourcing means drawing on the wisdom of the crowd in order to inform your own decision-making. It has a purpose, and increasingly it has real value for individuals and corporations. It can be as simple as putting a shout out on Twitter to gather some lazy reasearch, or as complex as wiki-style policy formation.

Simply framing it in terms of simply bringing people together for no discernable purpose really undermined Galipeau’s credibility, and this was reflected in the Twitter stream.

Galipeau went on to argue strongly what organisations are becoming more centralised, and in particular decision-making is becoming more centralised within organisations. But as he didn’t elaborate on why he believed this to be so, or what evidence pointed in this direction, I wasn’t convinced (particualrly as it doesn’t chime with what so many of us internal communicators are working towards).

I was glad, then, of the surprise appearance of engagement guru John Smythe. His excellent book – CEO: Chief Engagement Officer – focuses on how organisations can deliver increased engagement, and improved productivity, by opening up and moving towards a culture of co-creation.

When Smythe asked the speaker to give examples of research that proved the opposite, Galipeau muttered something about unpublished research commissioned by the US military, which didn’t convince me at all.

I am far more convinced by Smythe’s thesis than Galipeau’s, not least because the latter appears to run contrary to so much of what I see going on in government and business. There are already countless examples of companies successfully democratising decision making both with employees and customers.

Smythe has challenged Galipeau to a debate on this, which he very grudgingly accepted. I really hope this happens.

My objections to Galipeau’s thesis are, I admit, partly emotional. He presented a remarkably gloomy vision of the future, in which the individual is powerless and the corporate centre is an omniscient Orwellian beast.

Nonetheless, it provided an interesting counterbalance to the the highly positive future envisaged by theorists like Clay Shirky and Charles Leadbeater. Shirky, as I’ve blogged about before, sketches out future in which technology enables public participation on a scale never before seen. He says that ‘for the first time, we have the tools to make group action truly a reality. And they’re going to change our whole world.’

So there’s a concensus that techology will radically change our relationship with organisations and the state. For me, at least, the balance of evidence would suggest Smythe and Shirky’s culture of co-creation is on the rise.

If Galipeau’s talk got you reaching for the anti-depressants, check out Us Now, a film project about the power of mass collaboration, government and the internet. It’s a rather more cheerful view of the digital future.