Role
Communications and PR
How quickly do you find out that somebody has written something about you that needs an answer? In this role speed and caution pull in opposite directions - and what usually decides is how much of what you need to know you already have prepared.
Intro call
Four questions we would start with
How quickly do you find out about a publication concerning the company?
If it is from a press round-up the next day, the first hours - the ones in which anything can still be corrected - have already passed.
Who notices first that a topic is starting to spread?
Usually somebody outside the communications team: a salesperson whose client asked a question, or someone on the board who saw it on LinkedIn. That is a bad moment to be finding out.
What happens when a journalist calls with a question for today?
If the answer needs sign-off from three people, you will make it or you will not - and that does not depend on you, it depends on their calendars.
Where does what the company said publicly last year end up?
If it is nowhere, then the next time the same topic comes up you answer from memory - and that is where the inconsistencies come from that somebody later lines up side by side.
We take over the listening and the preparation, you keep the position
Media monitoring, collecting context and preparing factual material can be taken off the desk. The wording of a position and the decision whether to speak at all stay with a person.
- A statement on a difficult matter is written by a person. - Without exception. The system supplies the facts, the history of what has been said and the context of the publication - not a ready-made statement.
- Monitoring has to tell a mention from a matter. - Otherwise the team stops reading the alerts after two weeks, and then monitoring is worse than none.
- The archive of statements is a working tool. - Before answering you can see what the company has said on the topic before - and that is the simplest way not to contradict yourselves.
Scope
What can be taken off communications work
Nineteen example tasks. Each one has a human approval point. Below is a selection, and the scope we fit to your process.
Monitoring
- Listening for mentions of the company, the brands and board members
- Judging whether a mention is a matter or a statistic (decision: the specialist)
- An alert when interest in a topic rises unusually
- Monitoring publications about competitors and about the industry
- A summary of which media write about you most often and in what context
Preparing a statement
- Collecting the facts and figures for a statement, with the source marked
- Checking what the company has said on the topic before
- A starting draft of a statement in routine matters (edited and approved by: the specialist)
- The list of people who have to review it before publication
- Versions of a statement for different audiences (approved by: the specialist)
Material for the media
- Current company notes, figures, biographies
- A set of photographs and material to download
- The history of contacts with a journalist and the topics they asked about
- A reminder about unanswered enquiries with a deadline
Positions and the archive
- A register of difficult questions together with the agreed positions
- A reminder about positions that need updating
- An archive of statements with the date, the channel and the context
- Detecting a divergence between a position and a new statement
- Material for a review of media presence (conclusions: the specialist)
A day's work
Today
- You learn about a publication from a press round-up or from somebody in the company
- At a journalist's question you hunt for figures through email and decks
- You are not sure what the company said about the same thing a year ago
- The positions on difficult questions exist in people's heads, not on paper
- The same company note circulates in several versions
- You assemble the media presence review by hand before the board meeting
With AI assistance
- A publication reaches you within hours rather than the next day
- The facts and figures for a statement are waiting, with the source given
- You can see what the company said before you say something new
- The positions are written down and have a review date
- The material for the media has one current version
- The media review is ready, you add the conclusions
- Time to respond
you answer within the window where it still changes something
a publication reaches the team within hours of appearing
- Consistent positions
the company says the same thing whoever is speaking
the positions are written down rather than agreed afresh each time
- Ready for a difficult question
a question that catches you out happens less often
the register of difficult questions grows with every situation
- Memory of what was said
you do not contradict what you said before
the archive is at hand while you are writing, not after publication
We start with the archive, not with monitoring.
- Step 1
We collect what you have already said
Statements, press releases and interviews from recent years in one searchable place. Uncomfortable, because the material is scattered - and that is exactly why it is needed.
- Step 2
Positions on difficult questions
We write down what today exists only verbally. The list comes from questions that were actually asked, not from imagining what someone might ask.
- Step 3
Monitoring with a threshold
Only now. Started without the earlier steps it produces alerts there is nothing to answer with.
- Step 4
Material and reviews
One version of the company note, material to download, the review of media presence.
Common questions
Questions that come up at the first meeting
Is this not a prelude to cuts in the communications team?
PR teams are rarely overgrown - they are usually too small for the number of topics they ought to be running. What is taken off the desk is assembling material, monitoring and preparing background, not the writing and not the decision about what we say. The same team runs more topics and less often drops the ones there simply is no day for.
Does this fall under the AI Act?
Communications work is not a high-risk use, but it is the one role here where the labelling obligation can genuinely apply. It also covers text published in order to inform the public about matters of public interest - and a press release is sometimes exactly that. The solution is simple and follows from the craft: the starting draft is edited and put out under a person's name, so it is not generated content within the meaning of the provision.
Still have a question that is not here? Book a call
Next step
When did you last answer the media on the same day the question came?
We will show you what a communications team's work looks like when the facts, the history of statements and the positions are at hand while you are writing.