Martin Hilditch, editor-in-chief, Inside Housing

• Setting strategic priorities for engagement
• Identifying top targets and outlining what the ‘asks’ for government or politicians are
• Creating active roles for each member of the team
• Getting the feedback mechanisms right
• Integrating PR into the whole comms mix: digital and events

Panel sponsor: Built Environment Communications Group

Rebecca Goodhand, communications and marketing manager, Community Housing Cymru
Hel Reynolds, founder and director, Comms Creatives
Max Curtis, director of public affairs, Metropolitan Thames Valley

Jennifer Riddell-Carpenter, director, BECG

Jo Field, founder and managing director, JFG Communications

Proving the value and impact of communications is central to our survival as a function so it is worth looking in detail at why it is so important to measure the right things.

• Meaningful measurement: outcomes vs outputs
• Golden rules of measurement
• What does success look like?
• Utilising data and communicating it to influence upwards

Andrew Marcus, head of communications, Museum of London
David Holdstock, director of communications, Local Government Association

· Innovative internal communications trends to inspire
· Key digital trends, tools and tech to transform
· Perfecting your channel mix to maximise engagement and interaction
· Tools to measure success and prove the strategic role of internal comms
· Equip, empower and engage senior management to modernise top-down communications and encourage authentic two-way dialogue

Mark Woods, head of communications, Trivallis
Julia Graham, change communications specialist, Great Places Housing Group
Carl Holloway, director of communications, Great Places Housing Group

Michelle Smith, associate director, communications and engagement, Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group, NHS

· Developing a crisis communications plan from spokespeople and messaging through to protocols and resources
· Dealing with the potential to confuse people with information overload
· Lessons learned: timely responding, what information to release, facts not spin
· Telling residents stories – how the political landscape has changed from being focused on delivery to people

Angie Scott, head of strategy, communications and external relations, Plymouth Community Homes

Meet the organisations who have been through a merger and come out the other side. What have other people learnt from a comms perspective? What’s been successful across these areas of work?What lessons have been learned?

• leadership
• culture
• branding
• values and behaviours
• collaborative working practices
• making sure that we have the wellbeing of our comms team at the forefront when faced with significant change

Mario Ambrosi, director of communications and marketing, Anchor Hanover
Carlene Leonard, assistant director: communications, marketing and public affairs, Radian Group
Kate Jeffreys, director of communications, Notting Hill Genesis

• Recruiting and training your team right and gearing all of your processes around content
• How to set up your organisation so you can gather stories and content from your colleagues
• How to use good content across multiple platforms and measure how effective this is
• Getting content you will use again and again

Steve Hayes, head of communications, Citizen

• What do brand and culture mean to you?
• How do you create a culture that lives it values?
• How do you get commitment to its purpose?
• Build a brand from the inside out

Jo Marsh, director, Winster Marsh, associate, Jane Wentworth Associates

• What’s the story? Why should I care?
• Riding the trends while staying authentic

• Storytelling to engage the audience
• Q&A session

Peter Apps, deputy editor, Inside Housing

• Why stories are so important
• How they work and how not to mess them up
• How attention is changing in the digital age and what that means for anyone creating content
• Honing your storytelling muscle – top tips and lessons learned

Matt Locke, director and founder, Storythings, chair, The Audience Agency, ex-head, Innovation Team, BBC, ex-head, Education and Multi- Platform Teams, Channel 4