Cut Through!

Who do people support and why? To answer that question we asked people to describe, in their own words, why they supported the companies they admire and what action they would be willing to take on their behalf. The key drivers of support were straightforward. But the drivers of opposition were different. And there were some other unexpected findings too. This is a public episode. If you would lik...

Saturday marks the 250th anniversary of the United States. There will be many essays written about Washington, Jefferson and Franklin. Communications leaders may learn more from Samuel Adams. I’ve had an interest in Adams since I worked in Washington DC back in 1997. The only half decent beer available at the time bore his name, and every bottle carried the insignia “Brewer. Patriot”. He was both...

SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound) is a poor starting point for setting communications objectives. It distracts people from asking the most important question of all: why are we communicating in the first place? So what does a smarter way of approaching communications objectives look like? A technique borrowed from Toyota may form part of the answer. This is a public...

Why did humans start to communicate? The obvious answer is: ‘to exchange information’. Yet this may not be why language was so important to our ancestors. And the real reason might tell us something we often forget when communicating today. Thinking about communication as a social act changes our view on what good communication looks like today. This is a public episode. If you would like to discu...

Can a Japanese secret to long life help you live past 100? Probably not. But it might help you to identify what kind of communications roles are going to give you energy, be worth periods of strain and be a good fit for your skills. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit simonbaugh.substack.com

“Germany calling. This is Germany calling.” Throughout the Second World War those words echoed through the static of Britain’s airwaves. The clipped tones of William Joyce, better known as Lord Haw-Haw, were broadcast daily from Nazi Germany with the aim of weakening Allied morale. But in a conflict today, would we spot enemy influence so easily? What do foreign influence operations look like in a...

People are REALLY ANGRY because Gemma Collins appeared in a social media clip for the Department for Education. " Bizarre ”, “ tone-deaf” , “ sickening ” and “ ridiculous ”, said the critics. Communications teams spend a great deal of time asking what they should say. They spend much less time asking who should say it. So what does this row reveal about the importance of the messenger? Is it worth...

If you’re not measuring communications, you don’t know it’s working. Yet our profession has an evaluation problem: we’re counting the wrong things for the wrong reasons. So what does good communications evaluation look like? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit simonbaugh.substack.com

Why would giving a train passenger a quiz question make them more likely to accept an excess fare? And what can that teach us about how to communicate bad news more effectively? Procedural justice is the ideas that the process - how decisions are made and how people are treated - is more important to public trust than the actual outcome. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this...

What can a traditional Chinese painting, an Austrian psychologist, and a Roman Emperor teach communications leaders about how to manage personal resilience? Recognising you have more power to choose your response to events than you might think can be a powerful and liberating insight that boosts personal resilience and performance. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with o...

Leaders generally want to communicate inside-to-out. They begin with the messages they want to tell people. Then wonder why nobody seems especially interested. A narrative is different. It is a carefully structured argument rooted in what your audience cares about. It helps people understand you and the world differently. Here's how to build one. This is a public episode. If you would like to disc...

At one level it's straightforward. We recently invented a technology that creates language at almost zero cost. We employ people who write for us. Therefore, the new technology will replace those workers. I have no doubt that AI is going to profoundly change communication roles. But replace us altogether? The more I work with AI the more I doubt this will be the case. At least, not for a while yet...

Writing created the modern world. But today do we overestimate the importance of writing and overuse it. It's worth remembering the limits of writing and the extraordinary power of speech. And it’s worth considering that in a world of abundant text, in-person persuasion may have become more valuable still. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get ac...

Measles is back. Not because we lack a vaccine, but because we lack immunity to misinformation. So how should we as communications leaders respond? We vaccinate against measles because prevention works better than cure. We should be applying the same logic to our information environment. Pre-bunking measurably improves people’s ability to spot misinformation and reduces their propensity to share i...

Where do Members of Parliament get their news? Which social media, news sites, and podcasts do they consume? And which AI tools do they use? A new report reveals all. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit simonbaugh.substack.com

Most communications teams do risk management in ways that suppress candour, reward optimism and miss the things that actually bring a project down. The pre-mortem takes a different approach. Instead of asking “ What could go wrong? ”, it asks: “ Imagine it is 12 months from today. The project has failed badly. Why? ” This small shift in framing has a big effect on the conversation. This is a publi...

The Harness Distrust strategy doesn’t see a lack of trust as a problem to solve, but a fuel to burn. For insurgents and challenger brands, tapping into grievance against the status quo is becoming the archetypal communications strategy. Rather than seeking to win over the establishment, they are promoting their own agenda by railing against it. Any challenger brand should be thinking about whether...

Is it the job of a communications professional to ‘ persuade ’ people, or is it to ‘ inform ’ people? In a low-trust environment, where even the appearance of self-interested persuasion can be counterproductive, this has become a false choice. When trust in politics, the media and business has declined rapidly, the winning strategy may be to be disarmingly, demonstrably and visibly trustworthy. Th...

Co-creating trust is not about convincing people you are right, but about giving them a seat at the table. The principle is simple. People are more likely to trust something they have helped to create, and they’re less likely to attack something shaped by their participation. Done well, it creates not just a more informed audience, but advocates who will defend, promote and trust your organisation...

The Borrow Trust strategy. If you want reach and credibility, then work with those who already have it. Build partnerships with credible voices who share your goals and values and command your audience’s attention and trust. The same media fragmentation that makes it difficult to cut through with traditional channels, has also created an opening: thousands of micro-communities with trusted messeng...

In this series, I’m looking at five ways organisations are responding to our changed information environment and modernising their communications operations to build trust. This first episode is the Delivery Playbook. It is a strategy built on the insight that in a world of abundant content and fragmented attention trust can be built, through local, relevant, and useful experiences. It is transfor...

When you aren’t trusted, even your best decisions won’t cut through. This episode looks at why trust matters, why it is eroding across government, business and media, and what the evidence tells us about how trust is built. It also sets up a harder question: how do you build trust when almost every feature of today’s information environment works against you? This is a public episode. If you would...

This episode looks at five practical AI actions communications leaders should focus on this year: How to understand what AI is saying about you, train an AI model, use AI for dialogue not output, scale AI tools successfully, and prepare for an AI deepfake crisis. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit simonbaugh.sub...

Dario Amodei is the CEO and founder of the AI company Anthropic. When I was in Government Communications we chose Anthropic’s Claude large language model as our AI tool of choice, partly because we felt Anthropic took AI safety and security seriously. So I was interested to read an essay Dario has just published on confronting AI safety and risks . And having done so I want to strongly recommend i...

In this, the last of my series on how our media and information environment has changed, I look at AI and what it means for the future of communications. Thanks for listening to Cut Through! please subscribe for free to receive new episodes and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit simonbaugh.subst...