You owe it to yourself and your team to enter the UnAwards16, It's free and easy to do and you have plenty of time to do it. So no excuses, right?
By Darren Caveney
Each year the UnAwards has a theme – and this year, our third UnAwards, the theme is team work and collaboration.
Whether you’re a team of one relying upon other colleagues, a medium-sized team who’s taken some financial hits and trying to keep pace, or a large team with big expectation on your heads, it all comes down to great team work and really effective collaboration.
Along with great planning, good use of research, brilliant execution, measured outcomes, and big slabs of creativity, it’s team work and collaboration that is going to make your comms, pr, marketing and digital work fly high.
We know so many of you are doing great things and this is your chance to showcase yours, and your team’s, best work.
Some reasons why you ‘might’ not enter
I’m in the very fortunate position that I get to see first-hand the work which comms professionals across the UK are delivering. I’m constantly impressed by the hard work, professionalism and creativity which keep organisational wheels turning.
But I spotted a couple of people I know who didn’t enter in 2015. I pondered on why this may have beenthen I- but thought “stuff the pondering, why not just ask them?”.
The reason they gave wasn’t the reason I expected…
I expected them to say they hadn’t had time. But what some of them said was that they didn’t think their work last year was award-entry standard. This made me feel a bit sad to be honest, but I thought about this and suspected that their work HAD been good enough. The issue was one of confidence.
It’s really important to feel confident in your work. But if you’re in a team which has taken quite an internal beating it’s completely understandable that confidence gets knocked. The UnAwards are an opportunity to redress the balance – remind yourself that you do good things, work which makes a difference.
It’s a truism that will never go away and it’s that no one else is likely to shout about you and your work. You need to do it yourself. Nobody likes a show-off but putting your work forward to compete with the rest is a really good way to tackle this issue. I've seen it work, first-hand and many times.
There has literally never been a more important time to shout about your work than right now, especially for those facing another round of annual cuts to budgets and teams and morale in some teams in need of a small boost.
Yes, I know you’re busy. Everyone is. But the people who get on - and get noticed - manage their time so that they give themselves an hour to nail a really strong award entry, You owe it to yourself and your teams.
The world won’t end if you take a little bit of time to submit an entry. If you don’t crow about your best work for sure no-one else will.
So enter the UnAwards16 and let our judges decide whose work stands out.
OK, I’m in – how do I enter
Simple. You simply complete a short word document and you email it to us. That's it.
Take a look here for everything you need.
There are 18 categories to choose from so absolutely something for everyone.
And this year we have three all-new categories - best social media account, best young communicator and best ethical comms or behaviour.
Make the next thing you do, right now, putting an hour in your diary asap to get the ball rolling with a brilliant entry or two.
Darren Caveney is creator of comms2point0 and organiser of the UnAwards
Come along to the big day on 1 December - it's the coolest comms event of the year and you'll have the chance to meet and connect with some new colleagues from around the UK.
You can book your tickets here.
If you’ve forgotten how epic the UnAwards15 were, or you’ve not been involved in them before, here’s a neat, short video...