The IoIC Live conference brought communicators together from disparate specialisations. Steve Doswell says there is more that unites than divides the industry

 
When IoIC staged its annual conference – this year called simply IoIC Live – in Brighton at the start of May, it invited representatives from its two main peer organisations to speak. Commercial madness or collaborative wisdom? Imagine a conventional profit-making business giving a platform to key commercial rivals.In IoIC’s case, though, the purpose was clear. We wanted to bring to our audience some fresh thinking, delivered in engaging ways. I think we succeeded and the feedback supports that claim. It so happened that two of the speakers play leading roles with IABC and CIPR respectively. We made a virtue of that fact and drew the audience’s attention to it.

For a long time – certainly for longer than the three years in which I’ve played my present role – I’ve felt that the communication sector can gain a lot from a more visible form of collaboration between its leading professional bodies. From an external perspective, our sector probably looks fragmented. The distinctness of our respective offers probably isn’t that obvious to someone coming fresh into corporate communication. To the extent that perception becomes reality, we who lead the professional bodies need to note that and respond. It isn’t enough merely to craft formulae of words that chalk around the supposed boundaries of our individual territories and signal how different we are to each other.

There are differences – sometimes of creed, sometimes of outlook, often of style, occasionally of substance. Beyond these points of distinction, though, I would argue that there is much more that unites us. Above all, I believe, is a common belief in the need to set standards of practice and to provide the means by which practitioners test themselves against these standards. It’s partly about helping professional communicators raise their game, and also about playing a role in establishing accepted rules for the game.

Another point that IoIC highlighted in Brighton was that none of our speakers had paid to be on the stage. We’d selected and approached them on the merits of what they had to share with our audience. I’m sure many people reading this have squirmed in irritation at being ‘sold to’ from a conference platform. I certainly have

and for me it undermines the credentials of an event that claims to be for professional development. Of course IoIC has sponsors. We are grateful for their support, too, and we duly flagged their involvement. Several of their employees took part in IoIC Live and from my observation they contributed a lot to the discussion as delegates and their comments often resonated with those around them. But they did this as fellow professionals and not by dint of a prior commercial undertaking. As such, they had the same right to speak and to be heard as any other Brighton delegate, no more but no less. Others may disagree but this has to be the right approach for a non-commercial professional body, I think.

It’s noteworthy that the public sector has produced two major forces for positive change. But if the first of these, the Engage for Success movement, has been a relatively slow-burn process that has steadily gained in momentum since Macleod and Clarke’s groundbreaking report, then the second has the look and pace of a revolution. Alex Aiken’s arrival at the helm of civil service communication has spurred the internal communication community to change – and fast. Professionalisation and common high standards of practice are at the heart of this. It has implications for all IC practitioners, on whichever side of the public/private sector wall we work. The professional bodies should also take note. At IoIC we certainly are. 

Steve Doswell is chief executive of the IoIC