Insights into more effective communications and knowledge translation
For more than a decade, I’ve worked closely with academics, mostly in the health space. I’ve worked on grants, communications, and knowledge translation. I’ve reviewed hundreds of funding applications. I’ve consulted with academics making decisions about the best language and avenues to disseminate their research. I’ve managed speaker series and organized forums.
And over this time, I’ve been able to gain some important insights. In today’s post, I’ll share one of these insights.
Researchers are told to engage in knowledge translation; in some cases it is a requirement of their funding. But most are not given the information they need to adequately plan and budget for knowledge translation activities.
How much does it cost to hire a graphic designer? And what should you expect from their services?
How far in advance should you plan and promote a community event?
Should you set up a social media channel? Why?
What audience actually needs to know about your research?
How much time is enough time for your event? And who should be invited?
These are important questions, and should ideally be explored as early as possible, so that your team is set up for success.
Likewise, once it’s time to deliver on your communications and KT, bringing in an expert can help you to have the best outcomes from your efforts. Your research is grounded in evidence; your communications and KT efforts should be too. So what are my recommendations?
Start with why! Simon Sinek was on to something. Starting with the purpose of your communications and KT work, and continuing to ask why until you get to the core, will help to ensure your efforts are truly addressing the problem you’re trying to solve.
Talk to an expert. Maybe your institution offers support in this area. Maybe you can hire someone externally. This could include anything from a one-hour discovery session to help you get started, or a comprehensive contract from brainstorming to implementation.
Where possible, collaborate! I’ll address this more in a future post, but working together with research, community, and other partners will help your communications and KT efforts to go farther and to be more effective.
Do less. It’s tempting to try to do it all. But I promise that narrowing your focus and doing it well will be more effective than a scattershot approach that leaves you scrambling.
Regardless of where you’re at in your journey, Good Fruit Consulting can help. Ready to talk? Book a 30-minute introductory call to see how we can help.
What is “fractional” anyways?
I thought you’d never ask. Fractional, is basically a fancy way of saying “part-time”. It’s often used in the context of leadership roles, where you only want to purchase a “fraction” of the FTE for a senior advisor to join your team.
When speaking with other communications leaders, I was seeing the same pattern over and over again. A small team decides it’s time to make their first communications hire (yay!). They want the strategic leadership lens from a seasoned communications professional, so decide to hire the most senior person they can afford to join their team. But of course, along with the strategy, someone needs to do the day-to-day work: fixing presentation decks, writing and designing social media posts, running events, and gathering stories for the newsletter and website. And at the end of the day, all of that “strategic” time actually gets eaten up by execution. The small team is paying a high salary, for a senior person to execute junior tasks. Both the communications hire, and the leader who hired them, feel frustrated. No-one wins.
The reality is that communications roles, like many others, are increasing in complexity every day. Tasks that used to be taken on by whole teams, are now falling to one person. Time is tight and budgets are tighter.
This is where fractional strategic communications comes in.
With a fractional hire, you can have a full-time junior communications staffer, and bring in a senior professional part of the time to offer guidance, strategic leadership, and mentorship to your team. You get the strategic lens that you need to make your communications go further, and your staff member working on communications execution gets the space and guidance they need to feel accomplished in their role. Everyone wins.
If you’re interested in having a conversation about what a fractional strategic communications hire could offer your team, Good Fruit is here to listen.