When 2 worlds colide

The trouble with starting a new job is finding your feet and who to talk to. In areas where you are less familiar you are more reliant on the information you can glean from others, and to which you must have faith that they’re telling you everything.

The trouble is you don’t know what you don’t know, and therefore don’t know what questions to ask of whom.

The first functioning day in the new job was to start a list of people to talk to over the coming weeks, then try to persuade them that its worth their while talking to me. I’ve started to set up the beginnings of a project plan, listed all the people that I’ve so far been advised to talk to, then attempt to book time in their diaries over the next 2 weeks. Its important to get in early to determine who I’m going to need to interact with regularly, and who I only need to check in with from time to time.

I’ve got a call booked with our Exec to make sure that we’re all expecting the same things and to put some solid definition around the project. I’ve got my Prince2 manual at the ready and have already set up a high level project plan.

I apply a project planning style to most things in my life, particularly around #bellringing as there’s so much going on sometimes its difficult to keep track of it.

Also interrelated are some guidance in PR writing around knowing the audience, hooking interest of those you want to engage with by writing an attractive headline, using words that are relatable, using action words that motivate them to want to talk to you, spell out the benefits of getting them to talk to you, telling the story of what the objective is then ending with a call to action, in this case persuading investment in service development.

Who knew the two worlds were so similar?