This week, 100-odd communications and stakeholder engagement professionals from across the NDA group met in Manchester.
Scarily, it’s about five years since that group last met up, and in that time lots has changed. The group has consolidated into four operating companies – Sellafield Ltd, Nuclear Waste Services (LLWR and RWM), Nuclear Restoration Services (Magnox and Dounreay) and Nuclear Transport Services (INS and DRS), alongside the NDA corporate centre.
It was great to get everyone together in one room, knowing we’re all united by an overarching mission, in a somewhat specialist sector.
As you’d expect, I jotted down a few points I wanted to share. Well, I am a content creator, and a listicle is my friend.
Share and collaborate
The overriding message from the event was that we need to work together more. While teams at individual sites might be small, across the group we have huge range of talent and experience.
We need to take advantage of this to deliver the best we can do.
There are lots of different ways we can do so – some of which we already do and some we must explore.
Ideas ranged from the formal (secondments, working groups, more regular events and a collaboration platform) to the simpler to arrange (a group-wide org chart, conversations with colleagues from other group companies).
While everyone supported the idea, we had less discussion around how we’ll all make it happen. One for the next event.
Having the courage of our convictions
Working in the nuclear sector is brilliant. We do some amazing work and we’re addressing huge, gnarly problems for the country. But it’s not without its challenges.
We must tell our story in a way that’s engaging and accessible. We have to do this while steering clear of issues or past failures, which might result in negative publicity.
This means that we tend to amplify our successes, but don’t necessarily share the failures that came before. The result is a story that is less rounded, or even lacks credibility.
We need to find a way of being more honest about our failings and setbacks, so we’re giving people the full story. To do this, we have to convince our owners and other stakeholders of its importance. And if we could manage to quantify or evidence the value of this, then even better.
It’s a big ask.
We don’t have all the answers
Linked to the above, one of the most interesting snippets I took away from the event was an anecdote from some graduates who visited the site. They felt disillusioned when they left. The picture they’d been given was of an organisation that had addressed the biggest technological challenges it faced.
Anyone who knows the nuclear sector, will know this is far from the case.
It’s too late to stop the AI train…
Professor Anne Gregory was a welcome guest speaker. She spoke to us about AI.
You could write a thesis on AI – in fact Anne probably has. Thankfully, you can summarise her key point quite easily – AI is here to stay and we need to use it.
If you’re not sure how it works, or find it a daunting subject, now is the time to learn – it’s a valuable tool in your armoury. Now is also the time to try things that might not work. Mistakes are accepted, so fail fast and move on.
…but know its strengths and weaknesses
We heard that there are countless tools and applications to complete increasingly complex pieces of work. But it’s important to recognise the pitfalls. AI doesn’t understand context and can’t current offer reasoning abilities. The output won’t be perfect.
If you know this in advance, you can use these tools to produce engaging copy, plans, images, videos and more.
Remember though, these should be used as a draft for adapting, rather than finished content.
One of the biggest advantages of AI is that it can give you the gift of time. The trick for communications professionals is to use this in the most effective way. After all, it’s taking away our ‘comfort blanket’ of content generation, and leaving us the time for more ‘nebulous’, strategic tasks.
What’s next
For me, it’s really simple. I want to connect with my group colleagues more often, and I will try out more AI tools, to find the ones that work for me.
For those who are interested, you can find an AI version of this blog, produced using similar headers to those above as prompts, here.
The only man in the room 