Collaboration for digital good
By Angela Bensemann, Director Halo Communications
Getting things done on time and on budget is a real stumbling block for many of our clients. They’ve got lots of ideas to improve their comms and marketing activities and to work smarter and to use technology to gain efficiencies. But they don’t know where to start and they get distracted by their core business – be that delivering a great service to a community, keeping their clients happy, and/or turning a handy profit.
Over the years Halo Communications has become as much about project management as it has about our communications advice and implementation expertise.
That’s because getting things done seems to be a bit of a lost art. It’s also because communications needs have become more diverse. Clients want websites, they want photography, they need a video, they want regular blogs, they have manuals to layout, they want to roll out their branding on all manner of mediums, they want a dynamic social media presence, and the list goes on. Pulling all these aspects together can be a bit like herding cats and that’s where the project management aspect comes into play.
But this is of course a very transferable skill and can also be used for achieving business goals and running promotions, events and as it turns out – a Digital Boost programme.
Digital Boost – helping local businesses
When Iona from Grow My Business approached me to partner with her to deliver the national Digital Boost programme to a cohort of local businesses I jumped at the chance.
Digital Boost is part of the New Zealand government’s audacious plan to have the most digitally engaged small business sector in the world. Designed in partnership with industry experts and small businesses the Digital Boost programme gives small business owners access to a variety of resources to help them build knowledge, skills, confidence, and trust in digital business tools, and help them adopt those tools within their own business models.
And this is where the collaboration comes in. No digital slouch myself – I’ll be the first to admit there’s still room for (significant) improvement, or should I say growth! And while Iona has the digital/tech nous in spades – she needed someone to project manage the whole shebang – after-all it is a 9-12-month programme with a comprehensive list of deliverables!
“I was excited about the digital boost facilitation but wouldn’t have even considered doing it without Angela. She is an awesome project manager, who has saved my butt on many an occasion!”
Iona Elwood-Smith, Grow My Business
Working together we’ve played to each other’s strengths and pulled together a comprehensive and exciting programme to help our business cohort achieve their digital goals. For us it’s all about helping them to grow their businesses, grow their confidence and get digitally savvy. And the way to do this is bit by bit – it’s like anything if you want to achieve that goal you just have to chunk it down and put the steps in place.
And the secret to a successful collaboration – Trust. We’ve worked together before – we know that we can rely on one another, and we know that collaborating is simply more fun!
