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In recent months you may have noticed one or two LBC posts popping up in your Facebook feed – most probably featuring James O’Brien or Nick Ferrari, although there’s a good chance it may have been Nigel Farage or Katie Hopkins. Whoever your favourite LBC presenter is, we’ve been working really hard to ‘visualise’ radio, creating video formats that are captivating, thought-provoking and shareable. Some of these videos have reached over 20 million news feeds which I think, for

I recently attended the Westminster Media Forum in London and spoke about how we’re engaging younger audiences through Capital FM, PopBuzz and We The Unicorns. I only had ten minutes so it was quite a speedy tour, but here were my notes from the other excellent speakers that presented. Jon Watts from MTM London questioned the value of classifying audience groups as ‘millennial’ – the interests attributed to this group are so broad that any analysis of this segment begins to

Each year, Web Summit attracts digital enthusiasts from around the world, seeking networking opportunities and juicy thought-leader presentations. This year, however, there seemed to be very little of that, from a content maker perspective at least. The 2016 event in Lisbon was heavy over-subscribed (50,000 attendees was the number quoted) and there was a change in style from previous summits – relaxed sofa ‘chats’ with speakers over detailed analysis. When there was a formal

Some hastily scribbled thoughts following the recent US elections. What do US journalists (and perhaps all of us) need to do going forward? Don’t get too hung up on this whole echo chamber/filter bubble analogy. Although its been important to acknowledge the narcissistic nature of social media, we now need to be careful that these kind of convenient and simplistic metaphors don’t obscure the good work journalists are doing every day to ‘break on through’. When you start talki

I’m a big fan of Gamestorming  – creating really fun interactive sessions motivate participants to focus on a project objective. Using the element of play can be really useful in these instances, as so many of our meetings are dominated by distraction with people answering email on their devices and disengaged. Introducing novel exercises can really counter the monotony of established office routines. The ‘Pre Mortem’ The exercise I selected from the Gamestorming book was th

This week I attended another of Tom Hewitson ‘s excellent  Content Lab sessions, this time looking at how creative writing exercises can feed into content design. Although Content Strategy/Content Design/ContentMarketing are fairly new disciplines, it’s already fairly easy to follow ‘established’ methods which may not break any exciting new ground. I know that might be controversial so I’ll let that one hang for a while… Anyway, at the session we had the wonderful Jacqui Loft

One of the reasons I absolute love working for Global Radio is being involved in the amazing selection of events they put on each year. Whether it’s Capital’s Summertime Ball, Jingle Bell Ball or XFM’s Winter Wonderland – it’s always an exciting time of year as the company rallies round to deliver a brilliant experience for our audience. As a content person I particularly love these live events because, no matter how much you plan in advance, there are always challenges (and

The time has cometh. Here’s another roundup of my favourite links from the week covering digital strategy, social media and radio. Enjoy! 18 companies with brilliant digital strategies Nice overview here by Ben Davis. I’m particularly intrigued by ASOS placing their editorial content (i.e. non commercial content) on their homepage and still driving sales. Obviously, they are still promoting their top offers but they’ve recognised that the homepage can be used more for inspira

It’s 8am which means I’ve already been at work for a couple of hours swigging copious amounts of coffee and helping the digital team deliver Global’s new charity Make Some Noise . This a big day for Global as all our radio stations are coming together for one cause – which is to raise money for  disadvantaged children and young people across the UK. That means co-ordinating content across the brands and making sure we’re delivering the very best from radio – ultimately drivin

As always, this year’s Next Radio conference in London featured plenty of great speakers discussing the impact of digital on traditional radio business models and how they’ve used content to re-engage with their audience across multiple platforms. Global Radio, NPR Radio, BBC, CBC Music – these were just some of the brands that presented, but the most significant was the inclusion of Tom Loosemore from the GDS who discussed how an effective content strategy is not just about

I went to Journalism.co.uk’s  news:rewired  conference held at MSN in London on Wednesday (23 July) and here are my random notes from the event. 1. “Newspapers will outlive sites” This was by far the most provocative statement of the day, delivered by WSJ’s mobile Editor David Ho and beautifully crafted for a roomful of journalists. However, his statement was heavily qualified as he pointed out seven signs that has led to this change: News consumers are shifting to mobile. Mo

Last week we held the first of our Global Radio Producer sessions in London, discussing with Global Radio producers from around the UK, not only our digital plans for the year ahead, but also how to produce great content that can be easily shared across multiple platforms. It was an interesting couple of days as was a great opportunity for the digital teams to hear about the challenges and opportunities the radio teams face on a daily basis and how to make content work in tha