This October, the Political Communication Summit will bring together practitioners, agencies and organisations from across Europe in Vienna.

I attended the Political Tech Summit in Berlin in January, run by the same team, and found it genuinely valuable - strong people, useful conversations and a sense of where the field is heading. Tickets are now available.

However the main reason I am sharing this message is that the summit is currently open to sponsors. For brands and service providers working in political communication, public affairs, technology, media or research, it is a good opportunity to get in front of a highly relevant European audience.

If you want me to link you up with the organisers for sponsorship opportunities, contact me here: tom@moylan.eu

I have no financial interest in promoting the event. I simply think the field benefits from more spaces like this and hope to see both a strong crowd and strong partners supporting it.

Best,

Tom

We’re currently developing approaches in the space around security and defence, legitimacy and public consent. If these are questions you’re working through too, get in touch!

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European defence policy has shifted decisively. EU Member State defence spending reached €381 billion in 2025 rising 11% on the previous year. New procurement frameworks, industrial capacity investments and moves towards greater strategic autonomy are reshaping what European security actually means in practice. Inside the policy world, the direction feels settled.

Beyond it, the picture is more complicated.

Public support exists for this shift. Eurobarometer data shows that more than 80% of EU citizens support a common security and defence policy, while 69% support increased EU defence spending. This looks like a solid foundation for the policy shift now underway. However, looking more closely it’s unclear if this foundation is a stable one.

An ECFR poll of 19,500 adults across 15 countries found that people in major economies including France, Italy, Spain and the UK do not favour increased defence spending, despite broadly supporting the idea of European defence cooperation.

The gap between supporting “European defence” in principle and accepting the concrete cost of it is exactly where the consensus begins to fragment. Threat perception varies sharply across the Union. Security and defence is a top priority for over half of Estonians, and for one in five Italians.

Support for defence in principle does not reliably translate into support for defence in practice, particularly when practice means trade-offs - higher public expenditure, fiscal pressure, or competition with other priorities that citizens experience more immediately. Security ranks high among public priorities, but it does not dominate them. Cost of living pressures remain at the top of the agenda for many Europeans. Economic concerns sit alongside security concerns and won’t be overridden.

Trust in the EU institutions that are driving this shift sits at around 50 percent. That is a workable foundation, but not a deep one. It also varies significantly by country, by age, and by how citizens assess whether those institutions have delivered for them. Where that assessment is sceptical, the case for sustained defence investment has to work harder.

The instinct in institutional circles is to treat this as an information deficit. If people understood the threat more clearly, support would follow. But most Europeans do understand that the world has become more dangerous. Russia’s war in Ukraine, US reliability, Chinese competition - these are not abstract risks.

Europe’s political leadership increasingly assumes that this understanding alone will sustain public support for rearmament. But while rearmament without legitimacy is politically survivable in a crisis, it is much harder to sustain over a decade.

Defence spending is not being received on neutral ground. It is being filtered through a decade of stagnant living standards, uneven recovery from successive crises, and a persistent sense that costs are not shared fairly. That is why the gap between policy momentum and public alignment is not primarily a communication problem in the narrow sense - and why narrowly communicative solutions will not close it.

Germany increasingly illustrates this tension. As Chancellor Friedrich Merz told his own party that the welfare state as currently configured can no longer be financed, and that defence budgets need to move toward 3.5% of GDP by 2029, the question of what gets cut in order to pay for security is becoming the central political question.

None of this undermines the necessity of the policy direction. It does mean that necessity alone will not secure the political consent that sustained defence investment requires. That consent depends on whether citizens feel that the costs are being distributed fairly, that the institutions asking for their support are competent and trustworthy, and that the case being made to them is honest about trade-offs rather than evasive about them.

Some countries have spent decades building those conditions. Most have not, and the policy shift is moving faster than the social and political alignment that would make it durable.

If Europe is to sustain this shift over time, it needs to invest in the conditions that make it politically viable. That includes a more explicit and honest public conversation about trade-offs, what is being protected and how costs will be shared. It also requires a different approach to policy communication.

Not in the sense of more messaging or more campaigns, but in the sense of starting from the reality of public sentiment rather than assumptions about it. The question is not only how to explain defence policy, but how to connect it to the lived experience of citizens who are already managing competing pressures and priorities.

Bridging that gap is a practical communications challenge. It requires understanding how security arguments are constructed, how they land with audiences who are already managing competing pressures, and how institutional messaging either builds or erodes the legitimacy it depends on. It sits at the intersection of policy, politics and narrative.

Europe cannot build a wartime security posture on peacetime political assumptions. If governments fail to build legitimacy alongside capability, the real bottleneck for European defence may ultimately not be production capacity, but political consent.

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Hi everyone,

I wanted to extend a quick invite to those of you who are Brussels-based!

The Moylan Communications team is running a session on the policy communication trends that will be shaping the EU bubble in 2026.

• Date: Monday 26 January

• Time: 18h30 doors / 19h00 start

• Location: The Nine, Rue Archimède 69, 1000 Bruxelles

Please register to ensure you get a spot: REGISTER HERE

We’d be glad to see you there.

Best,

Tom + Moylan Communications Team

As is tradition for this time of year, I want to share the policy communications trends I’ll be watching most closely in 2026. They’re not predictions in the sense of “this is coming”. They’re already visible if you work closely enough to the day-to-day reality of institutional, advocacy and public affairs communications.

As ever, I’m interested in hearing what others are seeing from their corner of the EU communications world. Feel free to message me and let me know what you think!

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1. Social media distribution now follows interest, not authority

Social platforms increasingly function as “discovery engines”, surfacing content based on inferred interests rather than who users follow. TikTok’s For You Page uses an interest graph to prioritise videos users may enjoy regardless of follower count, while Meta has built similar recommendation logic into Facebook’s and Instagram’s feeds.

For EU policy communicators, this marks a structural shift. Visibility is now shaped less by institutional authority and more by how content is classified, tested and recommended mid-scroll. Policy messages are now often encountered incidentally, outside a trusted institutional context.

That raises the bar on clarity and relevance. Understanding distribution logic is no longer a purely technical concern — it directly affects whether policy communication is seen at all. We now need to ask some practical questions earlier in the process - how will this be discovered, by whom and in what context?

2. Audience first, channels second

Audience profiling in EU policy communications is becoming more of a priority. Broad categories still exist, but they are increasingly complemented by a clearer understanding of who actually needs to be reached, why and how.

This year, conversations with Rowan Emslie sharpened my thinking on the specific, unusual and entirely knowable nature of EU policy audiences. They are discoverable, surveyable and focus-groupable. We can learn about their goals, constraints and preferred ways of consuming information. At the same time, working with Aitza Burgess-Reynolds highlighted more practical ways of uncovering this insight — through qualitative signals, behavioural patterns and subtle testing rather than rigid segmentation alone.

For several years, I have been tracking platform fragmentation as a big feature of the information environment. As this accelerates, audience understanding is less of an input and more the understanding that everything else is built on. It is also what enables meaningful community building — moving beyond one-off messaging towards sustained, relevant engagement with the same small but critical groups over time.

3. Credibility over certainty

In a low-trust information environment, projecting certainty at all costs is increasingly counterproductive. Policy audiences — particularly in Brussels — are highly attuned to spin, oversimplification and overly controlled narratives.

In 2025, criticism around the Commission’s presentation of the post-2027 EU budget was a good example of this in action. The backlash focused less on the proposal itself than on perceptions of opacity and the sense that uncertainty was being smoothed over rather than acknowledged under Ursula von der Leyen’s leadership.

What audiences appeared to be asking for was not less ambition, but more candour and clearer signals. Naming what is known, what is contested and what remains unresolved increasingly functions as a credibility signal in EU policy communications.

4. Not just the message, but the messenger

Another shift is the renewed importance of who explains policy. In previous years, I’ve written about the growing role of micro- and nano-influencers in policy communications. What’s emerging now is a natural extension of that logic.

Audiences increasingly trust recognisable humans more than anonymous institutional voices, particularly on complex or contentious files. Officials, experts, analysts and negotiators bring a form of legitimacy that logos alone no longer guarantee.

In practice, this often shows up as structured employee advocacy: not everyone saying everything, but the right people speaking clearly and consistently. A noticeable middle ground is emerging between grey institutional comms and influencer theatrics — expert-led, personality-aware communication that feels human without being performative.

5. Video earns attention through explanation

Video isn’t new. What’s changing is how platforms — especially LinkedIn — evaluate it. Recent LinkedIn guidance and algorithm updates increasingly prioritise video relevance, watch time and meaningful engagement over volume.

In policy communications, simply “showing up” with video no longer works. Visual content earns attention when it helps audiences understand something faster or more clearly than text — whether that’s a short explainer or a focused piece of context.

This pushes us to think like editors, not producers. The useful question is no longer whether we want a video, but how video adds explanatory value.

6. Physical presence as policy signal

Alongside continued digital evolution, the value of being in the room is returning. This is particularly true for the EU policy bubble, where audiences are limited and highly networked.

In-person events, workshops and roundtables are not mass-reach tools. They function as credibility signals and content opportunities in themselves. In a small, repetitive ecosystem, showing up consistently and creating tangible moments communicates seriousness and anchors digital visibility with narratives that would otherwise feel abstract.

In many ways, the work of the agency BUMP — combining high-quality production with a physical presence at Place Luxembourg — represents a natural conclusion of this trend.

7. Traditional media as a credibility layer

This isn’t new, but it continues to harden. Traditional media remains important in policy communications, but it no longer functions as a primary reach channel. For many organisations, getting policy issues onto traditional media agendas requires a disproportionate amount of time and effort — while policy content is increasingly encountered first via social platforms, video or direct sharing.

In this context, its role has become more specific. The 2025 Reuters Institute Digital News Report shows continued growth in social and video news consumption alongside declining engagement with TV, print and news websites. However, trusted outlets remain a reference point (with geographic variability in trust levels) where audiences go to verify information, anchoring narratives that then circulate elsewhere.

The implication is not that media relations matters less, but that it needs to be approached differently. It becomes a question of judgement and timing rather than volume. Selective engagement and clear briefing matter more than persistent pitching.

8. Human judgement, AI support

AI is increasingly embedded in many policy communications workflows — monitoring, synthesis, drafting support, formatting and analysis. That’s a trend already underway and that will continue to gather steam.

What’s interesting is not the technology itself, but the audience reaction. People want to know when AI is being used — 2025 Ipsos AI Monitor shows that people expect disclosure of AI use and some agencies have included disclosure as part of their AI policies. Trust remains higher when communication feels clearly edited, curated and accountable. Human judgement is becoming visible again, precisely because AI is everywhere.

The organisations that benefit most from AI are the ones that use it to support human work — and can convincingly demonstrate the humanity of their work.

Taken together, these trends point to the fact that in 2026 effective EU policy communications is about choosing better. Not doing more with less, but doing better with less is how Moylan Communications will be approaching our work with clients in 2026. If this reflects the challenges you’re navigating, feel free to get in touch — I’d be glad to compare notes.

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PoliVue, a project that I’m a part of and have shared some details on before, is running an AI roundtable series bringing together public affairs professionals, sector by sector, for closed and candid discussions on how AI is likely to impact their work in the short and medium term.

Places are limited. If you are interested in participating, you can apply through the form linked here. The sessions are designed to be practical, forward-looking and grounded in the real challenges facing different sectors.

We just did our first with a group of people in tech and digital. We learned a lot and had a delicious lunch.

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If you’re working in EU public affairs and want to know more, reach out to our colleague Nadia to set up a demo: nadia@polivue.eu

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If you work in Brussels (or with Brussels) you know the game. It’s a relentless pace of policy change, political noise, and information overload. You spend your time not just advocating, but also wrestling with PDF documents, tracking amendments, and copying-pasting text from the European Parliament website.

This operational drag isn’t just inefficient. It’s a strategic obstacle. You hire people with two Masters degrees and who speak three languages, yet a significant part of their day is spent on tasks a machine could handle.

I believe this era is ending. Looking ahead to the coming year in the EU bubble, AI is no longer a tool for an abstract “future”, it’s a disruptive force of the present.

The question is not if AI will change public affairs, but how you will adapt to the three fundamental shifts it is already creating.

1. The Productivity Overhaul

The most immediate change AI delivers is radical efficiency.

Think about the process of monitoring a legislative file. It involves:

• Scanning news across multiple languages.

• Reading amendments from different committees.

• Comparing trilogue documents.

• Summarising the latest political dynamics for a board brief.

For years, the only way to manage this was through sheer human force. You mobilised teams to manually track, read, and summarise. But this approach is fundamentally limited and costly.

We built PoliVue to automate this entire process.

Our platform is purpose-built to read, track, and analyse EU legislation and media faster and more accurately than any human could. It instantly cuts through the noise and presents you with the latest operative text, a concise summary, and the stakeholders at play.

This isn’t about replacing people; it’s about redeploying their talent. We free up your most skilled strategists and policy experts from the operational grind so they can focus on their two highest-value activities: thinking and influencing. That is the real power of an AI assistant.

2. The Speed Advantage

In policy, speed is strategy. Knowing a critical detail two hours earlier than your competitor can make the difference between shaping a debate and merely reacting to it.

The challenge is that Brussels often feels like an information vortex, disconnected from the real-time political and media landscape across the continent. Issues are born and gain momentum outside the bubble, then arrive on your desk as a fully formed crisis.

PoliVue is designed to shrink that distance. We provide real-time, deep-dive monitoring of legislative changes, official positions, and media coverage across all member states, not just the capital.

• Faster Alerts. Get instantaneous notifications - not just daily digests - on key media mentions and legislative developments that impact your work.

• Deep Context. The AI surfaces a link, analyses the political weight and relevance of the information, and ultimately helps tell you why it matters to your file.

This superior speed ensures you are no longer waiting for information to arrive via established channels. You are alerted to emerging issues as they surface, allowing you to engage in the debate and shape the policy narrative before it solidifies.

3. The Democratisation of Intelligence

Historically, the quality and scale of policy intelligence you could access were a function of your budget.

Only the largest firms and associations could afford the significant resources required for:

• Large-scale media monitoring across every EU language and publication

• Dedicated teams for comprehensive, minute-by-minute legislative tracking

• Building and maintaining a massive stakeholder database

In short, the big guys bought scale through mobilisation. They had a fundamental informational advantage over smaller organisations, NGOs, SMEs and national bodies with limited budgets.

AI removes this barrier. PoliVue provides the same level of intelligence and tracking capability that was once exclusive to the largest players, but at a fraction of the cost.

For the first time, a small trade association, a national policy office, or a boutique consultancy can access world-class legislative, media and stakeholder tracking on a flat-fee, scalable platform.

This isn’t just good for competition; it’s essential for policy health. It means better debates, more diverse voices, and better-informed outcomes for the EU. We are making sure that quality information is a commodity, not a privilege.

What PoliVue can do for you

PoliVue is a comprehensive platform, built by policy insiders, for policy insiders. It delivers on these three disruptive shifts by focusing on utility:

• Legislative Tracking. Never miss an amendment. Our AI tracks every step of a file, from the Commission proposal to the final Parliament vote. We provide clear, plain-language summaries and instant comparisons between document versions.

• Stakeholder Mapping. Quickly identify, vet, and connect with the most relevant people. Our database helps you map the full political ecosystem - MEPs, Commission advisors and soon expanding into the transparency register - based on their stated positions, roles and activity.

• Media and Document Analysis. Our multi-lingual analysis constantly monitors thousands of sources. Instead of dumping links, we present a synthesis of key narratives and provide deep summarisation of complexity.

Get in touch with our team for a short demonstration of the platform and to discuss how we can integrate PoliVue into your daily workflow: nadia@polivue.eu

On 3 November, Moylan Communications will be hosting a free session to explore some of these themes - you can sign up here! And we’ll also be running an informal “drop-in clinic” before and after for anyone who wants to discuss their own challenges and compare notes on how to tackle them.

In the meantime, as we’ve been sitting down with some clients to discuss their plans for 2026, I thought it would be nice to share a few reflections on what we’ve been doing, seeing and learning along the way.

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Comms and policy alignment

For many organisations, communications and policy still run in parallel. The most effective teams treat communication as part of the policy process, not the layer that follows it. Now’s the time to check whether your communication goals still serve your policy priorities.

We often start with a strategic blueprint - a short, focused process to clarify why, where and how you communicate. It combines a review of positioning and priorities with a synthesis of key focus areas, producing a clear map that links communication directly to strategy - a bridge between intent and action.

We used this approach recently with an NGO and leadership network to connect their advocacy and funding goals through a clearer communication structure and consistent messaging.

Strengthening community

If alignment brings clarity, community brings endurance. In policy and advocacy, visibility isn’t enough - you need connection. But community means different things to different teams. For some, it’s a network of practitioners or alumni. For others, a small circle of partners or funders who shape direction and lend credibility.

When we develop community strategies, we start by mapping who’s already around an organisation and how those relationships work. The goal isn’t just to grow your network, but to deepen it and understand the value you offer - and receive - in return.

This year we worked with a corporate public affairs team, who assessed their most valuable connections weren’t at big conferences but in smaller, theme-led gatherings. This reflection and a clear community development plan makes their events feel more focused, more human and more valuable.

Knowing your audience

Everyone says they’re audience-driven. Few truly are. The end of the year is a good time to test that claim.

Revisiting your audiences often reveals gaps you didn’t know were there. Even a simple mapping exercise can show where assumptions have crept in - about who you’re speaking to or what they care about. We sometimes build on that with interviews or surveys, helping teams start the new year with a clearer, evidence-based view of who matters most and how to reach them.

A recent review with an institutional client showed that their main communication challenge wasn’t a lack of understanding, but internal alignment - different teams were defining and approaching audiences differently. Creating a shared framework made collaboration smoother, messaging clearer and campaigns more consistent.

Rethinking content

This is the point in the year when many teams realise their content has become fragmented. Too many formats, too few results. The problem isn’t usually output - it’s direction.

A content strategy sprint can bring focus. Start by identifying what content actually advances your policy or organisational objectives. Then ask things like: What’s working for you? What’s not working? What platforms are worth your time? What formats are sustainable?

Good content strategy isn’t about producing more - it’s about saying less, with more intent. We worked with a think tank this year whose content had become scattered. A short review helped them refocus on two core narratives, streamline their calendar around high-priority items and establish a clearer rhythm across public channels - with niche reports finding more purposeful, better-suited homes.

Reviewing operations

Comms and strategies only work if the operations behind them do. Now is a good time to do a quick comms ops reflection - a short internal audits of tools, workflows and collaboration models.

These reviews don’t need to be exhaustive. The goal is to spot bottlenecks, clarify responsibilities and decide where to invest or simplify. Even small tweaks - a shared briefing template, a cleaner feedback loop or a clearer content calendar - can make a big difference to pace and morale.

Two good places to start: look at the mix of platforms you’re using and identify where you can streamline, and review a key approval process that’s been clogging things up.

Measuring what matters

Come January, a lot of us will be knee-deep in annual reviews - and wishing we had a clearer framework for evaluating our 2025 work, and the year ahead, more meaningfully. The truth is, that framework needs to be built now.

A light-touch evaluation plan doesn’t require dashboards or data overload. Start by defining what success looks like - visibility, engagement, influence - and benchmarking where you are today. Identify what data already exists, where you need new inputs and how often you’ll review. Quarterly check-ins work best when they feed directly into planning and content decisions.

The point isn’t reporting for reporting’s sake. It’s about meaningful reflection and ideally learning fast enough to adapt while it still matters.

Building capacity

A solid strategy is nothing without solid implementation - and it helps if your team feels confident delivering the work. Capacity building isn’t training for training’s sake - it’s targeted skill-building that makes your strategy work in practice.

Whether it’s messaging, writing, thought leadership, community building or evaluation, well-timed workshops give teams the shared language and confidence to implement effectively.

While many wait for the new year to start learning, that’s time lost. Take stock now - reflect on where your team’s strengths lie, what’s been holding you back and what new skills could unlock momentum before 2026 even begins.

Let’s compare notes

The end of the year isn’t just a time to wrap up projects. It’s an opportunity to reset - to clarify priorities, align teams and build the structures that make good communication inevitable rather than accidental.

If you’re planning to use the last weeks of 2025 to set the tone for 2026, I’d love to hear what you’re focusing on. Come to our event on Monday the 3 November - and even if you can’t make it, feel free to drop me a line, share what’s on your mind and let’s compare notes: tom@moylan.eu.

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Most briefs ask for linear, prescriptive strategies designed to unfold neatly over several years. But that’s not how communication environments work. We operate in volatile, unpredictable contexts. We have to respond to pandemics, disasters and attacks, seize unexpected opportunities, jump on trends - and sometimes land a punch on a clumsy opponent.

Often I find myself using the idea of antifragility to explain this. Taken from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book of the same name, it’s the idea of designing systems that get stronger through stress, volatility and disruption. They’re not just resilient - they need to be tested and challenged to improve. They’re built to be broken, so they can rebuild themselves better.

Fragile, robust, antifragile

It’s worth drawing a clear line between these three. Fragile strategies are rigid: they rely on a single channel or message and crack under stress. Robust ones hold steady when tested, but they don’t get any better - they survive, they don’t evolve.

Antifragile strategies go further. They treat volatility as fuel, learning from shocks and growing stronger with each encounter. They don’t just endure the unexpected - they use it to improve. In unpredictable environments, that’s what sets them apart.

Think of muscles that grow by tearing and repairing under strain, or immune systems that become more effective after exposure to pathogens. In an organisational context, the best start-ups are antifragile - evolving rapidly through trial, error and feedback, and getting stronger with every setback.

Oatly offers a useful communications example. Rather than treating its brand as a constraint, it treats it as an enabler - a tool to push boundaries, experiment and evolve. By rejecting rigid brand rules, encouraging internal debate and treating criticism as feedback, Oatly shows how communication can thrive by embracing volatility instead of trying to control it. Their “Stop Plant-Based Censorship” campaign invited backlash and confrontation, using it to sharpen their message and shift the debate.

In this post, I lay out a few qualities I think every communication strategy should have if it’s going to embrace antifragility.

Set the direction, not the map

A strategy’s job is to orient you, not to dictate every step. There is a nice line in the film Lincoln that captures it well: “A compass… it’ll point you true north from where you’re standing, but it’s got no advice about the swamps, deserts and chasms that you’ll encounter along the way.”

Too many strategies try to be maps - detailed, linear plans that become liabilities in volatile environments. What organisations really need is a compass: a clear sense of direction rooted in purpose, tone and audience priorities, but flexible enough to navigate detours and seize opportunities.

The best strategies set that course and leave space for improvisation. They define the story and audience without locking us into a single route. That might mean working with broad narrative frames that evolve over time, rather than fixed slogans that date quickly or crumble under scrutiny.

They also build flexible systems to make adaptation possible - workflows that let campaigns pivot, approval processes that move quickly, and teams resourced for experimentation as well as delivery.

A strategy like this isn’t vague. It’s honest about the terrain ahead - and about how much we don’t know until we’re in it.

Use stress as feedback

Most strategies treat stress as something to be avoided - a sign that something’s gone wrong. In reality, it’s one of the most valuable sources of information you have. Pressure exposes weaknesses early. It shows you where narratives don’t hold up. It exposes flimsy assumptions.

The smartest communicators don’t wait for the real storm to hit. They deliberately test their work under strain. Seek out people to pick holes in your campaign. Run crisis scenarios to see how your systems hold up. A flat post or a sharp response isn’t a disaster - it’s data to be used for refining and strengthening what comes next.

In our agency, we’ve done this with clients by testing variations of messages, narratives and stories in different formats - at events, on social media, in small conversations (preferably with sceptical audiences) - to see how they land and which ones resonate before scaling them up.

Build in disorder

Antifragile systems thrive on variety. Communication strategies should do the same. Diversity of approaches - in formats, messengers, partnerships - strengthens the whole by ensuring no single point of failure.

This means encouraging experimentation and accepting that some initiatives will fail. That isn’t waste - it’s the system learning. Multiple voices trying different story angles create a natural selection process: weaker ideas fall away, stronger ones gain ground and evolve.

Personally I have long used this approach. When I was a speechwriter, I would test messages and fact find via my own personal social media - and use those insights to write speeches.

Over time, this built-in disorder produces strategies that are more adaptive, more resilient and more likely to seize opportunities you didn’t plan for. It turns variability from a risk into a source of strength.

Implications for communication practice

Designing strategies with antifragility in mind means building feedback loops to learn continuously and resourcing experimentation without destabilising core work. It requires resisting the instinct to over-optimise for control and instead leaving space for uncertainty to do its work.

Crises, when they come, should be seen not just as risks to contain but as opportunities to sharpen narratives and strengthen positioning. Antifragility isn’t a tactic - it’s a mindset that reshapes how we plan, respond and succeed in unpredictable environments.

The real test of a strategy isn’t how closely it follows the original plan, but how much stronger it becomes once reality pushes back. In volatile political and policy environments, antifragility - the ability to learn, adapt and grow through disruption - is a decisive advantage.

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This piece is no exception to that, having triggered a lot of reflection and thinking in my own team and others who I’ve discussed the topic with. I hope you enjoy!

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The policy ecosystem is using the wrong guide for understanding structure. Classic management theory simply doesn't apply to organisations focused on knowledge production, and it is this false playbook that sets up so many Brussels comms departments for failure.

I first came to Brussels to work at Edelman, the global PR behemoth. The Brussels office was at that time, a bit of an odd duck in the network - small, very focused on public affairs, and uninterested in the brand focused campaigns that win awards at Cannes Lions. This created a somewhat exceptionalist atmosphere in the office.

Yes, we're Edelman, but we're not like the other offices. This is PA. It's the steak not the sizzle, serious, dry, unshowy, in the weeds*.

To his great credit, my boss used to roll his eyes whenever colleagues got precious about the distinctions between different service lines. Corporate communications, public relations, public affairs, crisis management, digital marketing - whatever label you slapped on it, he'd wave it away with the same refrain: "Everything is comms!"**

His point was simple: regardless of your departmental allegiances or professional taxonomy, we were all in the business of influence.

That insight has stayed with me through eight years of working in Brussels, but it's taken on new meaning as I've moved in-house to various advocacy organisations and become embedded with this community. Suffice it to say, many organisations in the Brussels Bubble struggle with a fundamental misunderstanding about what comms and even PA functions are actually for.

Communications is still treated as an add-on by many nonprofits. It's positioned as the final hurdle in the production cycle, a necessary evil that happens once the "real work" is done. I've lost count of how many times I've heard about comms teams being handed a 47-page technical report with the instruction to "make this look pretty" or "do a spellcheck and put it on the website." The assumption is clear: the experts have done their job producing knowledge, now it's time for the comms people to package it up with some nice fonts and (preferably free) stock photos***.

This approach is borrowed wholesale from traditional corporate marketing structures****. At Procter & Gamble, for instance, there are hundreds of departments manufacturing actual products - toothpaste, detergent, razors. Only after those tangible goods exist does the marketing and communications team get involved to figure out how to sell them to consumers. In that context, treating comms as service delivery makes perfect sense because there's genuinely something concrete being produced that exists independently of how it's marketed.

But here's the thing: this entire mental model comes from a very specific moment in business history, and it's been codified by decades of academic research that simply doesn't apply to the majority of organisations working in the policy ecosystem.

The (American) manufacturing origins of management theory

Management and business education began in 1881 at the University of Pennsylvania, thanks to the efforts of a businessman, Joseph Wharton, who made his fortune mass manufacturing steel, zinc and nickel. The first MBA was created almost 30 years later, at Harvard, and the second was introduced at Stanford in 1925.

It took a while for these to really catch on, but, as Julien Damon writes [auto-translated], "by the end of the 1950s, 5,000 people had graduated with MBAs each year. In the mid-1970s, there were more than 40,000. Every decade, the United States alone now trains more than a million MBAs."

The 1950s are a key turning point. The main academic foundations for how we think about organisational structures are rooted in that post-war American manufacturing boom that spurred so much interest in MBA programs.

Alfred Chandler's seminal work "Strategy and Structure", published in 1962, examined how companies like General Motors and DuPont organised themselves around mass production. Douglas McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y, developed at MIT in the 1960s, was built on observations of factory floor dynamics. Even Peter Drucker's "The Practice of Management", perhaps the most influential management text ever written, drew heavily from his consulting work with large industrial corporations.

These frameworks were developed for organisations that had clear production processes: raw materials went in one end, finished products came out the other, and marketing figured out how to sell what had been manufactured. The organisational chart reflected the assembly line: R&D developed products, operations manufactured them, and marketing communicated their benefits to consumers.

This made perfect sense in a world dominated by companies like Ford, which employed over 400,000 people in manufacturing roles by the 1970s.

The primary organisational challenge was coordinating massive production processes with tens of thousands of workers performing specialised tasks. Communications was naturally seen as a downstream activity that only kicked in once all the effort and coordination of actually producing things had been optimised.

The problem is that virtually all subsequent organisational thinking has been built on these manufacturing metaphors, even as Western economies have shifted dramatically away from industrial production. As I wrote about earlier this year, the nonprofit sector alone has exploded in size and significance from the 1980s onwards - it accounts for 1 in every 8 service jobs! That's millions of jobs - and, by extension, tens of thousands of organisations - that basically didn't exist when these foundational studies and frameworks were being developed.

From what I can tell, most business schools still teach organisational design as if every company were either a variant of General Motors or a startup focused on hypergrowth. There have long been calls for reforms of the Business School industrial complex as the conditions of both labour and markets have evolved dramatically since the neoliberal shift.

This mismatch of theory and reality is something anyone working in policy will recognise immediately.

How many times have you tried to implement a strategy framework that was actually designed for sales teams? How often do you find yourself mentally translating business development strategies for your stakeholder engagement work? The entire professional development ecosystem - from LinkedIn Learning courses to Harvard Business Review articles to management consulting methodologies - is built around assumptions that simply don't apply to knowledge-work organisations.

Beyond nonprofits: the knowledge economy reality

I know I have been harping on about the niche of policy comms in the Brussels Bubble for quite some time now, but this is a larger issue. The mismatch between manufacturing-era organisational thinking and modern reality extends far beyond Brussels, or even the nonprofit sector writ large. It affects virtually any organisation where the primary output is information rather than physical goods.

Law firms are perhaps the clearest example. A major law firm like Clifford Chance doesn't manufacture legal advice and then hand it over to a marketing department for promotion. The legal expertise, the client relationships, the thought leadership, the reputation management - it's all interconnected. The partners who develop new practice areas are simultaneously building the firm's market position. The research that junior associates produce for client work becomes the foundation for industry publications that attract new clients.

The communications strategy can't be separated from the service delivery because, in many cases, they're the same thing.

The same dynamic applies to consulting firms, where thought leadership has become central to business development. McKinsey doesn't produce management consulting services and then figure out how to market them - their high-profile research reports, their alumni network, their conference presentations, and their client work all feed into a single reputation-building machine that is simultaneously product and marketing strategy.

The venture capital world provides another instructive example. Firms like Andreessen Horowitz have embraced this by building massive content operations alongside their investment activities. They're not investing in startups and then figuring out how to communicate about it - their podcasts, newsletters, and thought leadership are part of how they attract deal flow, support portfolio companies, and maintain their position in the ecosystem.

What unites all these examples is an understanding that influence - my old boss's bottom line - requires treating communications as integral to the core mission rather than as an afterthought. Ironically, many advocacy and policy organisations - orgs designed explicitly to influence 'decision makers' - remain stuck in the old manufacturing mindset.

Why the mismatch matters most for advocacy

For nonprofits focused on policy influence - which describes the overwhelming majority of those based here in Brussels, despite representing a tiny fraction of the broader nonprofit sector - communications literally is the product.

The research reports, policy briefings, expert commentary, stakeholder events, parliamentary testimony - these aren't raw materials waiting to be processed by a marketing department. They are the finished goods that we're delivering to policymakers.

This is especially critical to grasp for smaller organisations, newer groups, those without decades of institutional relationships or millions of members to leverage****.

For most Brussels-based advocacy groups, our only real value proposition to policymakers is knowledge production. We don't bring votes, we don't bring investment capital, we don't bring critical infrastructure. What we bring is expertise, analysis, and the ability to translate complex issues into actionable insights.

There is no material or intrinsic reason for policymakers listen to organisations like Centre for Future Generations (CFG). That means the ideas we put forward have to be both compelling at first glance and absolutely rock solid under scrutiny. This isn't an easy task.

The traditional approach - decide what you want to research, pour lots of time and energy into pulling that into a report, and only then figure out how to get it in front of the right people - consistently produces dense reports that nobody reads. I've written before about the World Bank's devastating self-study showing that 31% of their reports were never downloaded, not even once, and 87% were never cited.

For organisational leaders still operating under manufacturing-era assumptions, here are three immediate shifts to consider:

• Start with distribution, not production: Begin every project by asking who needs this information, where they currently get it, and what format would be most useful for their decision-making process. Bonus tip: if the 'who' question produces a long and non-specific list of potential audiences, you haven't done enough research.

• Integration beats handoffs: Your policy comms experts should be involved from the beginning of any research or policy project, helping to shape not just how findings are presented but what questions get asked. They not only know about the byzantine structures and strictures of Brussels, but they are closer to your target audiences than anybody else in the organisation. Use them as a proxy audience.

• Measure influence, not impressions: Develop measurement approaches that connect communications activities to policy outcomes over time, not just reach and engagement metrics borrowed from consumer marketing. The allure of the bottom line is that it makes measurement simple; policy orgs have nothing so easy to fall back on.

My old boss was onto something when he dismissed our internal departmental boundaries, but he didn't go far enough.

For knowledge-work organisations, the integration of communications and core mission isn't just operationally sensible - it's existentially necessary. The organisations that figure this out first will have a significant advantage in an increasingly crowded and noisy policy environment.

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This is part of a monthly series aimed at examining the underlying narratives of European affairs, with a healthy dose of media criticism along the way. Read the previous article, which focused on the tension between policy and politics, here.

These are personal takes and do not represent the position of my employer.

*I spent quite a lot of time working in other offices to get to know the network better; Brussels was the only one that had no office game equipment of some kind or even music playing.

**The unofficial motto of the Comms team at Clean Air Task Force was ABC: Always Be Comms-ing.

***When we did our rebrand, the RFP that went out to agencies explicitly banned the use of 'navy blue' and 'pictures of buildings'. Those Wikimedia images of the EU Institutions must be the most accessed images in Brussels.

****And in that context, it might actually make sense. I have had a pretty varied career, but I have never been in-house with a large multinational organisation, so I'll leave it to people who know better to analyse the efficacy of this approach.

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Let’s face it, Brussels has a lot of events - and most of them blur together. Some make you wonder how they got approved in the first place. Only a rare few stick in your mind for the right reasons.

We’ve run events for ministers and CEOs, activists and academics, associations and civil servants. We’ve seen what works, what doesn't - and occasionally things that never should have happened in the first place.

Here are ten things that consistently make the difference when it comes to running events.

1. Start with strategic intent

Too many events start with a format or a detail. “Let’s do a roundtable.” “Let’s do a lunch debate.” “Let’s get some MEPs.” The best ones start with a question: what are we trying to achieve?

Do you want to shift opinion, spark partnerships, showcase progress, buy time, build a coalition, land a narrative, test a message, close a deal? Those are all different goals, so they need different formats, timings, guests and styles of communication.

Until you’re clear on the strategic purpose, everything else is just decoration.

2. Curate, don’t just fill

An event isn’t about box-ticking - it’s about shaping an experience.

That means choosing people not just for their titles but for what they’ll contribute. Designing sessions that add up to a coherent story. Cutting things that are only through inertia or just because someone asked nicely. Curating is harder than coordinating - but it’s also what makes the difference between a good event and a meaningful one.

3. Predict the unpredictable

Someone’s flight gets cancelled. A minister cancels by text at 07:58. The projector explodes. The livestream doesn’t stream.

You can’t plan your way out of reality, but you can be ready. That means backup speakers, backup formats, backup content. It means knowing what matters most and what can be adapted or dropped. Calm beats panic and practice beats improv.

Most of all, the team behind the scenes needs to trust each other and have clear roles. When things go wrong, you don’t want bottlenecks or a meltdown in the group chat. You want quiet confidence and efficient execution.

4. Design out the awkward

Confusing signs. A moderator who forgets to introduce the panellists. A minister who doesn’t know where to sit.

Good event design eliminates awkwardness. It anticipates questions and answers them before anyone needs to ask. It makes people feel guided, respected, included. It doesn’t rely on vibes or hope. It’s specific, intentional and quietly attentive to how humans move through space and time.

5. Invest in quality execution

Great events are a product of clear leadership and experience. Someone needs to hold the overall vision, manage logistics, run content and communication - and take responsibility for bringing it all together.

A good event team is a coordinated unit with trust, clarity and shared standards. If you’ve ever been to an event that felt “seamless”, that’s why. It wasn’t magic - it was a quality team with quality leadership.

6. Design for participation

Participation isn’t a Q&A at the end. It’s a mindset.

How are the participants shaping the conversation? Are you including ways for them to react in real time? How are you absorbing and integrating this into the flow?

Participation can take many forms: sticky notes, Slido, shifting chairs, splitting into groups or speed dating. Whatever it looks like, it should be planned, streamlined and meaningful.

And remember, people aren’t stupid - they can tell the difference between performative contributions and meaningful participation.

7. Think beyond the room

Build communications into your event design from the start.

The room matters - but so does the feed, the recap, the snippets and the conversations that take place in the coming days, weeks and months. A good event team works with communication professionals from the start.

That way we are capturing content, repurposing messages and capitalising on every share, memory and quote. The room is the epicentre - it should cause ripples and occasionally maybe even a shockwave!

8. Align every detail with your brand and values

From coffee to name badges, make sure every touchpoint reflects your ethos. If you say you care about inclusion and don’t have a ramp, people notice. If you claim to care about sustainability but serve plastic bottles, they notice that too.

Every detail is a signal - the tone of the welcome email, the timing of the agenda, the way speakers are introduced, the materials people take home. When values show up in practice - not just in opening remarks - people remember.

9. Design with legacy in mind

A great event isn’t just a good time. It’s a launchpad. What do you want people to think or do after they leave? What content will still be useful in three months? What quote will find its way into a deck or a policy paper?

Legacy can look like a summary video, a follow-up report, a new community of practice or just a brilliant phrase that makes it into Brussels vocabulary. If you plan for legacy, you’re more likely to build it. If you don’t, all you’ll have are the leftover name tags.

10. Develop your playbook

Every event teaches you something. The good ones leave a trail you can follow next time. Document your process, refine your templates and build a checklist that includes the things you forgot last time.

We have folders of formats, speaker tips, intro lines, visuals and feedback forms. This is because while great events feel effortless, behind them is a playbook. That playbook is shaped by experience, stress-tested by surprises and continuously improved by teams who know what they’re doing and want to do it better every time.

Final thought

You don’t need to spend more to run a better event. You need to spend smarter - focus on strategy, design with care and execute with confidence. Then capture all the lessons to make it all easier next time.

If you want help running an event that doesn’t feel like just another Brussels panel, drop us a line. We like to build things that work - and leave a mark.

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I’m delighted to be able to say that we are now ready to take on new clients - so if you want to have a chat about your communications needs and how we can meet them, feel free to get in touch!

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What is Moylan Communications?

Moylan Communications is a Brussels-based agency that helps policy-focused organisations cut through complexity with communications that are strategic, politically sharp, and grounded in deep EU experience—without the weight of big agency bloat.

Built for Brussels

Our senior team has spent decades working in and alongside the EU institutions, policy think tanks, advocacy groups, and media. This gives us a nuanced, insider understanding of how Brussels works—and how to influence it through communications.

We don’t just communicate about policy. We communicate in service of it.

Who we work with

We partner with actors operating in complex, policy-rich environments. Our clients include EU institutions, international NGOs, alliances, advocacy groups, law firms, associations, and private sector organisations.

Recently we have worked closely with those at the intersection of trade, tech, and regulation—but we have clients as diverse as climate campaigns, democratic innovation hubs, agencies supporting SMEs, and more.

What we offer: a two-tiered suite designed for impact

We offer two integrated product suites—Strategic and Operational—designed to meet your communications needs at every level. All our work begins with clarity: we embed strategic thinking into everything we do. All offers are available as stand-alone projects or modular retainers.

Strategic suite: define the path

This suite supports clients seeking direction, clarity, and high-level advisory. It includes:

• Strategic Development
  Define your goals, sharpen your narrative, and build a clear, actionable roadmap. For early-stage work or reorientation.

• Advisory & Implementation
  Ongoing strategic support with hands-on implementation. Ideal for organisations seeking embedded, expert guidance.

• Complete Communications Takeover
  End-to-end management, including capacity building. Perfect for teams seeking transformation or high-bandwidth delivery.

Operational suite: deliver with purpose

Each operational offer is backed by strategic consultations and co-creation—ensuring alignment with your broader goals.

• Events, outreach & community building
  Design and delivery of in-person and digital spaces for influence and engagement. Includes events, conferences, delegation visits, workshops, and stakeholder meetings.

• Audio-visual storytelling
  Development of videos, podcasts, animations and more, tailored to complex policy environments and shaping policy narratives.

• Campaign & communications management
  Full-cycle coordination of communications rollouts using our network of policy insiders, creatives, and media professionals.

Why Moylan?

✔ All-senior team – no junior layering, only expert execution

✔ Policy-smart – decades of experience in EU institutions and advocacy

✔ Embedded and flexible – tailored involvement that fits your reality

✔ Long-term impact – we create value and contributions that last beyond our collaborations

✔ Trusted – strategy before spin, relationships before processes

✔ Networked – strong support partnerships with agencies and specialists

Let’s start with a conversation

We usually begin with a short-term project to build trust, then explore deeper collaboration.

You can contact us here:

Tom Moylan, Director

tom@moylan.eu

Ellen Von Essen, Chief of Staff

ellen.vonessen@moylan.eu

One of my favourite things about this newsletter is that it gives me the opportunity to collaborate and exchange with other policy communicators.

Over the past several months I’ve started to host events in Brussels with that same goal - to come together, learn and talk about our shared craft.

So far, the New Media Masters series has hosted experts to talk about LinkedIn strategies, community building, evidence-based comms, communication trends for 2025, adapting messaging for a more right-wing Brussels, speechwriting and more.

If you’re based in Brussels and want to join future events - REGISTER HERE.

Looking forward to seeing you in real life!

Tom

To kick off the year I wanted to share a few communication trends that I’ll be watching in policy communications in 2025. I’m interested in hearing your views too and what I might have missed - let me know in the comments or by replying to this message!

If your organisation is looking to develop their strategic thinking around these and more specific policy communication challenges in 2025, my communications agency may be able to help you.

Feel free to get in touch and we can have a chat about our services: tom@moylan.eu

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1. Responding to platform fragmentation

The real challenge here is investment. With audiences spread thin across a variety of platforms, each demanding significant effort to succeed, organisations must mix and match based on their needs, skills and audience behaviours. There’s no universal solution - only the careful assessment of resources, policy objectives, and audience analysis can help you strike the right balance. It’s less about finding the "perfect" answer and more about creating a manageable and effective cocktail.

2. Community building

When addressing fragmentation, a platform-neutral community and audience strategy is a potential solution. I’ll be watching how different organisations attempt to develop this approach. It would ensure adaptability across platforms, even if they change ownership, policies or experience a shift in popularity. One way I’ve recommended organisations leverage existing platforms in this context is to actively draw their communities into owned spaces. For example, the humble newsletter. With a list of email addresses, you’re building something durable - independent of any platform's rise or fall.

3. AI tools

AI, particularly large language models, has democratised access to tools that once felt futuristic. For communicators, AI shines in brainstorming, generating outlines, editing for grammar and tone, formatting consistency, analytics and task automation. However, it falters in areas like producing high-quality drafts, achieving complex creativity, maintaining natural voice or providing deep expertise. Think of it as the world’s most eager intern: great for support, not (yet) a replacement.

4. AI integrated into existing communication tools

While new, flashy AI tools dominate headlines, I’ll be watching how AI is integrated into tools I already trust. Familiar platforms for data analytics, project management or content creation are evolving, with AI quietly enhancing workflows. Instead of chasing gimmicks, 2025 is the year to keep an eye on how these integrations improve efficiency and results.

5. Data-driven personalisation

AI will further amplify data-driven personalisation, enabling precise microtargeting, dynamic messaging, optimised timing and cultural localisation. While these advances are impressive, they also raise ethical and practical tensions, especially for policy communicators. Navigating this space will demand balancing technical possibilities with strategic considerations.

6. Narrative shifts in Brussels

Brussels has shifted politically, though the policy and public opinion landscape remains nuanced. With a growing emphasis on competitiveness and security, communicators must adapt their narratives to align with these priorities. This doesn’t mean abandoning your positions - just finding fresh ways to persuade. I’ll be keeping a close eye on how organisations reframe their messaging for this new reality.

7. Co-creation is in vogue

Co-creation fits the policy communication space like a glove. More and more, I see client-agency relationships evolving into partnerships. This collaborative approach benefits both sides, enabling better results and deeper engagement. Beyond agencies, organisations are learning to co-create with influencers, partners, peers and communities. Co-creation’s rise marks a shift from one-way communications to more meaningful engagement.

8. Micro- and nano-influencers

The rise of micro- and nano-influencers continues to shape communications, especially in niche spaces. Micro-influencers (10k–100k followers) and nano-influencers (1k–10k followers) bring expertise, authenticity and highly engaged communities. Some organisations are even cultivating their own influencers internally. While this strategy could help address platform fragmentation, it also introduces the challenge of outsourcing part of your presence to third parties. Watching how this evolves will be fascinating.

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That said, it hasn’t been an easy experience. It’s taken a lot of work and I’ve learned a lot of lessons along the way. For my last newsletter of the year I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the past year and offer some (non-comprehensive) reflections on what I’ve learned while setting up a policy communications agency.

For those unfamiliar with the expression, policy communications is a specialised area of communications focusing on passing messages on policies, regulations or governmental decisions to both specialist and non-expert audiences. It aims to persuade, influence narratives and make complex policy issues accessible and understandable to stakeholders, decision-makers and the broader public.

In practice, this means my team and I draw on expertise and experience in both policy and communications. We work with governments, institutions, civil society and associations to analyse their policy goals and suggest ways that communication can smooth their path (or even achieve them!)

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1. Everything should be in phases

When I started I would jump into every project head first. It came from a place of enthusiasm and a desire to show my worth. Now after I have seen a few projects unfold, I take a more thoughtful, gradual approach.

When working with new people, whether client or consultant, you need to give space for both sides to build trust. I find it helpful to think in phases. Early phases focus on producing small wins and understanding how each party likes to work. After you understand each others’ goals and working methods, and have built some trust between you, you can become a little more ambitious in your goals.

Now we phase relationships just like how we phase work plans and projects. We will break it down into five phases: diagnosis, proposal, strategy, implementation and evaluation - then make adjustments and repeat.

Breaking things into phases has helped me communicate to clients clearly, set expectations effectively and ultimately gives me a lot of peace of mind.

2. Don’t go it alone

Moving from 10 years working in the European Commission where I was surrounded by colleagues, friends and support systems to building something from scratch was tough. It can be quite lonely and stressful. I did not help myself either - I can be stubborn when it comes to challenges and I like to solve problems without asking for help.

Eventually I began to reach out more and more to my community of comms nerds and specialists around the bubble. I started collaborating more and bringing people in on projects. I found this not only increased my overall happiness - it improved my work and expanded my business too!

These days I’m delighted to be working with a lovely team. Charline Feurtey is keeping my operations running, and Georgina Unsworth and Victoria Macdonald are leading on different accounts.

This team in turn is supported by an excellent network of collaborators, creatives and specialists like Gabriella Mikiewicz (on paid digital campaigns), Yoran Staas (on video content) and Emma Kersalé (on art direction and graphic support).

3. Study the organisation

Your organisation is weird, it has quirks and has built unnecessary obstacles that you need to negotiate around every day. It’s okay, you’re not alone and nobody blames you for it. A big focus of my work has become learning the working methods, cultures and baggage of different organisations. A deep understanding of (and ideally an affection for) a client helps me design better projects for them.

Often it’s about finding a balance between what a medium or platform demands, what an audience needs and what an organisation wants to or is able to do. You can pitch all the innovative ideas you want, but a good idea is not a good idea if it can’t be implemented in the place you’re working.

I start achievable and align with the pace and comfort of the client. Then, as we build credit and demonstrate success, I gradually become more ambitious over time. Ultimately, building a partnership with a client is about joining them on their journey, not dragging them somewhere uncomfortable.

4. Deliver long-term value (whether they ask for it or not)

I try to make sure that every project has a lasting strategic component that the organisation can use in the long term. If we are helping you create some content, we might develop some audience personas for you. If we are running an event, it’s an opportunity to grow your mailing lists. Often it simply starts with helping you better align your communication objectives with your policy goals.

We pride ourselves on producing high-quality work, but our ultimate goal is to make clients better communicators. It’s good for the client, who gets more lasting value. It’s also good for my agency. It helps us understand how to deliver better projects, strengthens relationships and opens the door to proposing more ambitious projects in future.

5. Go for equal investment in a project

The best work comes out when both the client and the agency are equally invested in the project. As policy communicators we learn as much about the policy as we can, but the client will always be best placed to give guidance and make key decisions. It’s not about one side leading and the other following or dumping tasks on someone’s desk - it’s about working together to create the best outcome.

At my heart I am (like many others in the Brussels bubble) a policy nerd. Policy making is the main reason we’re all here, doing what we do - but I also see communication as a critical component of that process. I want to find clients who share that outlook, make nice things for them and have fun while we do it.

Get in touch

If you’re in need of communication support in the policy space and any of this resonates or looks attractive, let’s chat. Whether you’re curious about a specific project or just want to check in, I’d love to hear from you.

My email: tom@moylan.eu

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In recent years, the news media industry has seen developments that shake confidence in its future. In this era of ‘never normal’ (per Peter Hinssen), where stability is elusive, publishers, both traditional and digital-native, are trying to embrace technological disruptions. They navigate a world in which technology, user preferences and economic realities redefine how news is produced, distributed and consumed.

Why should you care?

EU Affairs media face fierce competition from these trends.

Having the right content for the right audience, while balancing subscription, advertising and sponsorship models is becoming harder every day.

As public affairs and policy comms professionals, you witness these changes firsthand. You see journalists moving between outlets, but might not know the drivers behind these moves.

Understanding the challenges and opportunities of the media might help the way you consume news, interact with journalists and plan the external aspect of your policy comms activities.

With this piece, I would like to focus on four major shifts in the news publishing world and share my thoughts on why - despite the gloomy picture - there’s reason for hope.

Let’s dive in!

I. Trust Decay

While news outlets strive for trust, surveys show a global lack of confidence. Let’s take the Edelman Trust Barometer: people seem to trust not only their peers but also businesses more than media.

Several reasons contribute to the decline in trust:

• The rise of social media platforms as primary news sources accelerates the spread of misinformation and disinformation.

• Platforms prioritise engagement over quality, leading to echo chambers.

• Some news outlets adopt specific political leanings, blurring lines between opinion and fact.

• Shrinking newsroom budgets and the rush to be first to report lead to declining standards.

The good news is that publishers are well aware of the issue. As credible journalism’s importance grows, initiatives are already in place to rebuild trust:

• Fact-Checking Initiatives: Media outlets increasingly establish teams to verify information and debunk misinformation. The European Fact Checking Standards Network recently organised an event in Brussels on this very topic.

• Transparency Measures: Organisations focus more on transparency about editorial policies, ownership and funding, ensuring these are well communicated. The Trust Project encourages standardised labelling for content, with members like Euractiv, BBC, The Economist and El Pais.

• Digital Security: Protecting digital assets is essential to credibility. With increasing AI content, solutions like digital signatures to verify authenticity are growing.

• Hyperlocal Journalism: Focusing on small, sometimes marginalised communities, hyperlocal journalism builds trust by addressing local issues and highlighting concerns that larger outlets often miss.

II. New Buzzword: ‘Liquid’ Audience and ‘Liquid’ Content

The terms "liquid audience" and "liquid content" describe how media consumption and content creation have become fluid and adaptable. Audiences now engage with content across platforms, switching between devices like smartphones, computers and social media, often simultaneously. This behaviour means news media companies must shift from traditional consumption patterns to more dynamic, personalised approaches to reach their target audience.

Light at the end of the tunnel?

Publishers now see that today’s strategy is to go where the audience is, rethinking journalism’s purpose. Dmitry Shishkin, creator of the User News Model, identifies eight reasons people consume news—tapping into desires like understanding the world and joining conversations. He asks journalists: "What would change in your readers' lives if your media brand disappeared tomorrow?"

Legacy media is redefining its purpose, and a new generation of outlets is targeting younger audiences who often avoid traditional news. Publishers like Will Media, TLDR and Brut lead this trend, offering fresh approaches that resonate with this demographic.

III. From Digital to AI Transformation

Digital journalism has moved from being an alternative to print to the dominant form of news delivery. Many outlets still struggle with the print-to-digital transition, but a larger disruption is underway with AI technologies.

This wave of transformation raises concerns over accuracy, authenticity and the diminishing role of human-centric journalism.

Yet, there is hope.

Innovation is never linear, and tech disruption will never stop. The question is when technology stops being special and becomes the norm. And the answer is often “now,” depending on how quickly one adapts to the ‘never normal.’

Most in the news industry agree AI can analyse data but can’t replace on-the-ground reporting. Traits like human intuition and empathy are still irreplaceable by AI.

Leading outlets are blending AI with traditional journalism, adopting ethical guidelines and transparency around AI usage. Best practices are emerging, such as collaborations between journalists and AI tools, where machines handle data-heavy tasks, freeing journalists for in-depth reporting. Successful models include Reuters using AI for data journalism and AP automating earnings reports with human oversight.

AI also offers promising solutions for business operations. AI-powered paywalls enable more data-driven decisions that optimise revenue and improve reader experience. Business Insider recently announced a promising new practice.

IV. From Breakdown to Breakthrough: Redefining Media Revenue Streams

Social media platforms, facing shifting consumer behaviour and regulatory pressure, and the rise of generative AI, take a toll on news outlets’ B2C and B2B activities.

Over the past year, platforms like Meta have deprioritised news, reducing political content visibility and making it harder for media companies to reach audiences. This hit particularly hard during the EU Elections.

At the same time, generative AI threatens readership as language models like ChatGPT offer summarised information, discouraging clicks to publishers’ websites.

Some big publishers have signed licensing deals with AI platforms to recover profits. But for smaller outlets, the question remains: should they build or buy AI solutions to stay competitive?

As subscription fatigue sets in amid a cost-of-living crisis, media companies must innovate. Solely relying on subscription or advertising revenue is no longer viable.

Despite these challenges, there’s a silver lining.

Understanding audience needs opens doors to new revenue streams like personalised content, gamification (as with Wordle) and targeted advertising. Engaging younger audiences through social media and innovative storytelling offers a path forward.

Diversification is essential, leading outlets to explore membership programs, organise events, offer masterclasses and partner with e-commerce brands. Initiatives like Euractiv’s Advocacy Lab, BBC or Politico Studios show how breaking down traditional offers creates opportunities.

Breaking silos between editorial and commercial teams is crucial. Professional autonomy remains vital, but the challenges increasingly pave the way for cross-functional collaboration. Teams from editorial, tech, audience, sales and marketing are now involved in product development, bringing a dynamic energy to the industry.

Final Thoughts

While the news media landscape faces big challenges, optimism grows as publishers embrace the ‘never normal’ and plan for the future. The industry’s ability to adapt through innovation, audience-centric strategies and new technologies offers a path forward. By prioritising quality and credibility, rethinking content production and delivery, and exploring diversified revenue streams, media outlets can not only survive but thrive.

This evolving ecosystem presents public affairs professionals and media companies with opportunities to engage more deeply, connect with diverse audiences and shape journalism’s future in a sustainable, impactful way.

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These days Christina organises Idealists Quarterly, a series of community events in Brussels. They bring together people from diverse backgrounds (particularly tech/policy/sustainability) who care about economic, social and climate justice. Check out their next event here.

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When communicating about your organisation, simply listing activities or reciting good intentions isn't enough to resonate with your audience. Whether it’s taxpayers, donors, clients, or consumers – people want to see tangible results.

That's why impact communication is crucial. It moves beyond showcasing your values and actions, and focuses on demonstrating the real-world effects of your work. It answers the critical question: "What difference have you actually made?" and helps to build trust and achieve your goals. 

But quantifying results, finding case studies or gathering testimonials can be challenging, which is why so few organisations prioritise it. This article outlines some tips that can help you build compelling impact communications.

Who is this relevant for? 

Basically everyone, but let’s break it down by sector:

• Public Sector: Demonstrating impact justifies your use of taxpayer money and strengthens public support for policies and initiatives.

• NGOs: Since nonprofits rely heavily on donor funding, communicating impact effectively showcases the value of your work and ensures the support doesn’t dry up.

• Companies: As people are increasingly paying attention to corporate social responsibility, demonstrating positive societal and environmental impact builds trust with consumers and policymakers, enhances brand reputation and helps retain talent. At the very least, it protects your licence to operate.

Strategies for effective impact communications

Phase 1: Establish healthy working methods

• Start early. Involve your communications team from the outset of your project. This allows them to provide valuable input, develop a robust communications strategy, and plan their resources effectively. Thinking about communication early can even improve your project design by highlighting the need for measurable outcomes.

• Define success with SMART goals. Establish Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound objectives. Whether you're collecting quantitative data or qualitative insights, this step is crucial for demonstrating impact.

• Establish a baseline. To showcase the impact of your work, you need a clear "before" picture. Capture the status quo both in terms of the issue you're addressing and your audience's current awareness and perception of your work. This baseline data will be invaluable when evaluating your progress and the effectiveness of your communications.

Phase 2: Set yourself up for success by gathering quality material

• Document the journey. Capture compelling visuals throughout your project. Instead of just showcasing the finished product, document the process. For example, if you're retrofitting a building for energy efficiency, take photos and videos before, during, and after, including the people involved (with their consent). These visuals will help bring your story to life.

• Identify and engage your allies. Every initiative needs collaborators. Identify those with a shared interest in your success – local stakeholders, advocates, beneficiaries, or anyone connected to your mission. For example, if you're launching a campaign to improve literacy rates in your community, partner with local schools, libraries, and businesses to reach a wider audience and provide resources. Invest in these relationships by keeping them updated, inviting them to milestone moments, and making them feel invested in your success.

• Capture compelling stories. Encourage your team to reflect on the project journey. What surprised them? What challenges did they overcome? Were there any unexpected benefits or failures that led to positive outcomes? For example, if you're developing a new technology, share a story about how the team had to pivot to a different approach when their initial design proved unfeasible. These behind-the-scenes insights, whether shared internally or externally, add depth and authenticity to your communications.

• Gather testimonials. Whenever possible, collect testimonials from those who have benefited from your work. These could be anonymous insights, quotes, or videos. For instance, if you're running a program to help people find employment, gather testimonials from participants who successfully found jobs and share their stories of transformation. Having a repository of testimonials will be vital when communicating your impact.

Phase 3: Communicate

• Identify the right communication cadence. Don't just announce lofty intentions at the start and then disappear. Instead, create a communication plan with milestones that tell a coherent story and build anticipation for your impact. For example, if you're a startup developing a new tool for climate modelling, you might start by releasing a white paper outlining the problem and your proposed solution, then follow up with blog posts detailing the development process, and finally, announce the launch of the tool with a press release and demo video. This keeps your audience engaged and informed throughout the journey.

• Leverage past successes. When starting a new project, reference your past achievements to build credibility and trust. Announcing new funding or resources is important for transparency, especially for public institutions. But it's equally important to demonstrate your capacity to deliver. For instance, if a government ministry is launching a new initiative to promote digital literacy, they could highlight the success of previous programs that expanded internet access in rural areas or provided digital skills training to the elderly. This demonstrates their ability to effectively implement programs and achieve positive outcomes, inspiring confidence in their new initiative. Or if you're an NGO advocating for policy changes to promote sustainable agriculture, highlight your previous successes in influencing legislation or promoting sustainable farming practices. This demonstrates your ability to effect change and inspires confidence in your current initiative.

• Work “out loud” to highlight progress. Maintain transparency by sharing regular updates on your activities. This could include behind-the-scenes glimpses of your work, challenges you're facing, or solutions you're developing. For example, if you're a company developing a new recycling technology, you could post regular updates on social media showcasing the progress of your pilot program, including photos and videos of the technology in action, and early data on the amount of waste being diverted from landfills. This open approach builds trust and gives your audience front-row seats to witness your progress, making them feel invested in your success.

• Focus on outcomes and impact. When communicating your final results, emphasise the real-world difference your work has made. For instance, instead of simply reporting the number of trees planted (i.e. output), highlight the positive effects on the environment, such as improved air quality, amount of carbon captured or enhanced biodiversity (outcome) and improved wellbeing for the surrounding communities (impact). This demonstrates the value and significance of your work. 

• Bring your story to life. Now it's time to thread all your storytelling elements together. Weave your compelling visuals, powerful testimonials, and insightful stories you've gathered into a captivating narrative. Showcase the journey, highlight the challenges overcome, and celebrate the impact achieved. For example, if your organisation has successfully implemented a program to improve literacy rates in underserved communities, you could create a multimedia presentation that combines student testimonials, photos of learning activities, and data on improved reading scores. This humanises your work, demonstrates its tangible impact, and leaves a lasting impression on your audience.

Phase 4: Evaluate, measure and improve

You’ve reached the end of your campaign? Congratulations! Now it’s time to have an honest look at how it’s gone, and improve your game plan for the future.

• Reflect and Evaluate. Take time to assess the impact of both your project and your communication strategy. What worked well? What could have been improved? Were there any missed opportunities? For example, did your social media campaign effectively reach your target audience? Did your visuals resonate with them? Did your key messages effectively convey your impact?

• Gather Feedback and Share Learnings. Encourage the entire team, including all involved departments, to share their observations and insights. For example, the communications team might have insights on which storytelling elements resonated most or least with your audience, while the project team might identify data points that were particularly impactful. This collaborative feedback process allows you to repeat and expand on what works, and improve what didn’t.

• Build on Your Success. Don't let your project outcomes gather dust. Archive your results, testimonials, and successful communication materials to use as examples for future initiatives. This creates a valuable repository of knowledge that helps you continuously improve your impact communication. And having “evergreen” content handy might prove invaluable in your future communications activities.

It also involves an understanding of the resources that consistency will demand. There’s a reason I only put this newsletter out monthly - it gives me a month to come up with an idea, draft and edit a concept. There are many pitfalls. Too high a frequency risks lower quality. Too much content sacrifices quality. Overstretching your resources risks sustainability.

In this edition of Speaking Moylanguage I will explore some of the questions and ideas that are helpful to think about before starting your newsletter. Thanks to Nathan Stewart for suggesting this topic and offering comments on the draft!

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Why Start a Newsletter?

Before diving into the technicalities of creating a newsletter, it's important to think about why you're choosing this medium over others. Newsletters offer a unique opportunity to build a more personal connection with your audience, allowing for longer-form content and connect with your community in a more intimate way. 

As Austin Kleon posted this week, “Newsletters should be letters” - it’s a way to connect people directly with your or your organisation's work, a personal dispatch tailored to your subscribers and their needs.

Some reasons you might want to start a newsletter:

• Personalised communication: Newsletters allow you to speak directly to your audience in a personal, tailored manner. You know who your community are and what’s useful and interesting to them. Deliver it to them directly in the way they like and let them know you’re doing it thoughtfully.

• Tying together your work: Use your newsletter as a way to bring together other content and work, whether it’s your latest thinking in a blog post, a publication or piece of research, an event you’re organising or whatever else.

• Building a community: Regular newsletters help in cultivating a community over time. For example, you can use them to highlight other people’s work and platform other voices within your community.

• In-depth engagement: Newsletters provide space for more detailed analysis and discussion. It is a nice way to have a deeper, more thoughtful layer underneath your social media, beyond the 10 minute speech or behind the interesting conversation you had at a conference.

• Independence from social media platforms: One of the key advantages of a newsletter is that it is not subject to the algorithms and restrictions of social media platforms. This independence allows you to maintain direct control over your content distribution and ensures that your message reaches your audience without being filtered or lost in the noise.

If you're unsure whether a newsletter is right for you, take a look at what other successful newsletters in your sector are achieving. Consider whether you have the time and resources to compete with this content or whether there is a gap in the market you could exploit. 

If, after all this analysis, you think a newsletter would work - that’s great! Just also be sure to consider alternatives and compare the pros and cons of each. Just because a channel is a good choice doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best choice.

Choosing the Right Platform

Selecting the right newsletter platform is an important decision that will impact the ease of creation, distribution and analysis of your newsletters. Personally I chose Substack because I preferred a simple, flexible interface and I liked the fact that they appeared in a blog-like format online too. 

Here are some features to consider:

• User-friendly interface: A simple, intuitive design will make it easier to create and send newsletters without unnecessary hassle. So many platforms I see are needlessly finicky or unintuitive.

• Monetisation potential: If you're planning to monetise your newsletter, look for platforms that offer built-in payment options or subscriber management tools.

• Quality analytics: Understanding how your audience interacts with your newsletter is key to refining your approach. Look for platforms that offer detailed metrics.

• Integration: If you have another platform or website that is already important to your online presence as an individual or organisation, it’s worth looking into options that are compatible with tools you’re already using.

Overall a great way to get to this decision is by listing features and sorting them into “must haves”, “nice to haves”, “don’t cares” and “don’t wants”. This process will help you shortlist the best options available.

Setting Expectations

From the outset, it's important to set clear expectations with your audience. This involves being transparent about what they will receive and how often. Clear communication helps to build trust and ensures that your subscribers know what to expect. Establish these expectations on your subscription page, in promotional materials and in your welcome email.

Consider what your audience will gain from subscribing. Will they receive:

• Expert analysis: In-depth commentary on your field of expertise.

• Tips and tricks: Practical advice and how-to guides.

• Curated content: A hub for information on specific topics.

• Exclusive opportunities: Early or exclusive access to products, events or content.

• Summaries of complex material: Saving their time by doing the reading for them.

Being upfront about what subscribers can expect will help you build a consistent following and minimise the risk of unsubscribes. That said, I tend not to be too worried about unsubscribes - focus on finding the right followers and not wringing your hands about people who are self-selecting themselves out of your following. Follower numbers are a vanity metric, while engagement, clicks and opens are more meaningful.

Deciding on Content Style: Utilitarian vs. Narrative

One of the most important decisions you'll make when creating a newsletter is determining its content style. Two of the most common I see chosen are utilitarian, practical newsletters and more narrative driven content.

A utilitarian newsletter is straightforward, easy to read and designed to be quickly scanned by your audience. It typically provides direct outcomes, such as actionable tips, concise summaries or essential updates. This style is ideal if your goal is to deliver clear, immediate value to your readers, making it easier for them to find and apply the information they need. It also tends to take up fewer resources and be easier to deliver consistently.

On the other hand, a narrative-driven newsletter tells a story. It takes more time, skill and effort to craft, but when done well, it can have a profound impact. Narrative newsletters are engaging, often drawing readers in with compelling stories, in-depth analyses or thought-provoking insights. They are ideal for building a strong connection with your audience, encouraging them to invest time in your content. The trade off is that doing it well takes a major investment on your end.

Beware the middle ground - a common pitfall is falling into a space that’s neither meaningfully utilitarian nor narrative. A newsletter that’s too long to be quickly useful but too short to offer deep insights falls prey to the classic communications trap of “by trying to be everything to everyone, being nothing to anyone”. It’s crucial to clearly define your approach and ensure that your content aligns with your audience’s expectations and needs.

Crafting Compelling Subject Lines

Once someone subscribes to your newsletter, the next challenge is getting them to open it. The subject line is your first, and sometimes only, opportunity to grab their attention. It should be engaging, relevant and aligned with the content of the email. 

In my experience, it’s not too hard - just let people know what’s going to be inside the newsletter and follow a few stylistic rules of thumb. Stay short and concise. Focus on highlighting the subscribers interests or pain points. Be specific, but intriguing - try to pique curiosity, but avoid being clickbait-y.

You may want to experiment with different approaches - some newsletters benefit from consistency in their subject lines, while others perform better with unique, attention-grabbing titles each time. Consistently reviewing your analytics and using approaches like A/B testing on subject lines will help with this.

Finding the Right Frequency

Deciding how often to send your newsletter is a balancing act. Send too frequently, and you risk overwhelming your audience. Send too infrequently, and you may be forgotten. The optimal frequency will depend on the type of content you’re sharing and the expectations you've set, as well as your own capabilities and the resources you can allocate to the project.

Here again, reviewing engagement metrics can help you fine-tune your approach. Consider starting with a monthly or bi-weekly schedule and adjust based on how your audience responds. Additionally, conducting tests on send times and content can provide insights into when your audience is most likely to engage.

Timing, Timing, Timing

The timing of your newsletter can significantly affect its open rate and overall success. While there are countless studies suggesting the best days and times to send emails, the truth is that it often depends on your specific audience. 

However, some general rules of thumb include:

• Send on weekdays: People are more likely to check emails during work hours, so weekdays tend to be more effective.

• Aim for morning or early afternoon: Emails sent earlier in the day are more likely to be opened during work hours.

That said, I once accidentally sent my (consistently Friday morning) newsletter by accident on a Thursday night and it was my most successful edition at the time. Ultimately I put more stock in consistency and quality than minute adjustments in half hour increments.

Design Matters

A well-designed email not only looks professional but also makes it easier for readers to engage with your content. Here are some key principles to keep in mind:

• Keep it simple: Avoid clutter. Use white space, clear headings, and a logical layout to make your content easy to navigate and scan for people in a hurry.

• Use visuals sparingly: While images and videos can enhance your content, they should not overwhelm the text. Ensure that any multimedia elements load quickly and display correctly.

• Mobile optimisation: With more people reading emails on their phones, it’s crucial to ensure your newsletter is mobile-friendly. Test your design on different devices before sending it out.

Calls to Action (CTAs)

Every newsletter should have a clear goal. Calls to action (CTAs) are how you guide your readers towards it. Whether you want them to read an article, purchase a product, attend an event, support a cause or share content, your CTAs should be:

• Clear and direct: Don’t leave your readers guessing about what you want them to do next. Be explicit

• Compelling: Use persuasive language that encourages action.

• Prominently placed: Make sure your CTAs are easy to find - ideally near the top of your email and repeated if necessary.

Remember, a newsletter isn’t just about sharing information; it’s about driving your audience to take action.

Monitoring and Adjusting

Finally, a successful newsletter is one that evolves. Regularly review your analytics to see what’s working and what isn’t. Pay attention to open rates, click-through rates and other engagement metrics. Change up elements of your newsletter occasionally - such as subject lines, send times, and content formats - to see their impact on these metrics. It will provide critical insights into your audience’s preferences.

The best newsletters are those that adapt to their audience’s needs and continue to provide value over time.

“Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.”

There are lots of ideas and pieces of advice published about how to write a good newsletter. Many are written by people in sales or people who have very specific goals in mind. Ultimately, in my experience, a good approach to newslettering will always be at the meeting point of two things. 

The first is your specific, weird, unique audience’s needs and preferences. You’ll learn about them and their needs over time by paying attention to what works in terms of metrics, but also by entering into dialogue with your community and understanding what they like. Consider questionnaires - or simply ask individuals who you feel represent your ideal community member. The second is what you want and are capable of creating. As communicators, we all have something specific we want to put out there and a personal style in delivering it. 

Find the meeting point between what your audience wants and what you want to deliver and you’ll already be well on your way to having a consistent, quality and authentic newsletter.

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Restless Brussels is an initiative designed to foster deeper connections between the diverse international population of Brussels and the city itself. At the heart of this initiative lies a robust digital strategy that supports and amplifies our on-the-ground efforts.

The Digital Layer: Enhancing Real-Life Engagement

Digital tools serve as a layer over our real-life work, complementing community building, events, training, and community actions. This integration ensures that our digital presence not only informs but actively engages and mobilises our community.

This approach can be divided into three broad areas:

1. Website

2. Mailing list

3. Social media

Each complements, reinforces and supports each other. Below you’ll find a quick overview of each.

1. Website: The Anchor of Restless Brussels

The website, restless.brussels, built by Paweł Kamil Krawczyk, is the cornerstone of our digital strategy. It serves several crucial functions:

• Gateway to Engagement: The website draws people into our mailing list, allowing them to signal their interest in volunteering.

• Event Hub: It outlines all upcoming events, ensuring our community stays informed and engaged.

• Activity Archive: An archive of all previous events, with vivid and people-centric pictures, showcases our activity and consistency, highlighting that we have organised over 40 events for more than 1500 people since May last year.

• User-Friendly Design: The single scroller design is practical and visually warm, striking a playful tone that welcomes visitors. It is easy to use, well sign posted and puts the most important information at the top. It is also responsive, looking great on both desktop and mobile.

2. Mailing List: The Backbone of Communication

Our mailing list underpins our entire communication strategy, boasting almost 3000 sign-ups and an impressive 60-75% open rate. This high engagement is achieved by emailing only when there is an action to take or an event to attend, while occasionally delivering organisational news via a "P.S."

Our emails are carefully crafted to include clear calls to action, whether it's attending an event, volunteering for an activity, or supporting a cause. Each email is designed to be concise yet informative, with links to more detailed information elsewhere. This strategy not only drives engagement but also encourages our community to explore our digital presence further. It also acts as a channel where people can respond and enter into direct dialogue with the Restless Brussels team. 

Overall this approach ensures that our community receives the most critical information directly in their inboxes, avoiding potential algorithmic "misses" that can occur with social media.

3. Social Media: Engaging and Mobilising

Adriano Rodari leads our social media efforts, supported by a team of content creators such as Dea Metuli and Mirko Paradiso, creating a dynamic presence across several platforms. Each channel has its distinct style, but all share a focus on people-centricity and usefulness, centred on community members and team experiences. Broadly, we have divided our posts into four content pillars - events, memes, testimonials and “Bruxelles ma belle” (content celebrating our adopted home).

• Instagram: Targeting a younger demographic, our Instagram is playful and keeps existing and potential community members updated on the project. It demonstrates action and aims to recruit new members, showcasing our events and activities in a vibrant, engaging manner. It creates opportunities to engage and exchange with our community by reposting their content when they join events, responding to messages and answering practical questions, such as on registration and event details.

• LinkedIn: Our LinkedIn profile targets professionals, serving as a crucial outreach tool that has driven much of our new sign-ups. It helps us connect with new groups and signal to other organisations and political entities that we are active and interested in collaboration.

• WhatsApp Forwarding Group: Focused on our "Get Out The Vote" campaign, this group is essential for mobilising our community. More broadly, WhatsApp groups are important for internal collaboration and proved critical during our volunteer outreach day, where they were used in coordinating 40 of our volunteers and volunteers from five partner organisations on the streets.

Influencer partnerships also play a vital role in our social media strategy. Accounts like Brussels Affirmations and DG MEME provide critical support, while influential individuals like Sevim Aktas and Katarzyna Kowalewska help spread awareness and create content for us.

Integrating Digital and Real-World Actions

Our digital strategy does not exist in isolation but is intricately linked to our real-world activities. We drive community members towards other civil society groups, tagging them whenever we collaborate on an event. This approach fosters a sense of solidarity and collective action, reinforcing our core values of humility and curiosity.

The Benefits of a Digital Layer

The digital layer offers numerous advantages for building an activist organisation:

• Cost-Effective Communication: Digital tools provide an affordable way to communicate and coordinate campaigns, making it easier to mobilise and organise.

• Attracting Allies and Members: Our digital presence has allowed us to rapidly grow our community, attracting new members and allies.

• Organisational Efficiency: Digital tools streamline our operations, helping us stay organised and focused.

• Branding and Values: Our online presence helps us brand the organisation and convey our values upfront, creating a cohesive and recognisable identity.

• Demonstrating Support and Scale: Digital platforms allow us to showcase the scale of our activities and the support we receive, building credibility and trust.

• Narrative Building: An ongoing digital narrative keeps our community engaged and informed, reinforcing the impact of our work.

Restless Brussels leverages a well-rounded digital strategy to enhance its real-world impact. By integrating the website, mailing list, and social media, we create a comprehensive and engaging digital layer that supports our mission of building a connected and active community in Brussels. 

This strategy not only helps us reach and mobilise a diverse audience but also ensures that our efforts are sustained, visible, and impactful. If this resonates with you, join our mailing list and become part of a project that is making a real difference in the heart of Brussels.

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Beyond the jargon

Despite sounding like a brainwashing technique, thought leadership is classic business jargon adopted into the political field. Like all jargon, it puts people off who aren’t in the know. But in reality there’s nothing more intuitive.

If done right, it has huge potential to open doors for you personally, and the organisation you work for. Yet in the wild, it’s mostly just a series of desperately dull LinkedIn posts.

‘Thrilled to be invited to speak at [insert humble brag]’ – the only place these posts lead my thoughts to is the sweet embrace of death.

What is ‘thought leadership‘?

Part of the issue with thought leadership is that everyone has their own idea of what it is. Beyond the banal LinkedIn blurts, in my experience ‘thought leadership’ in Brussels often means a certain type of long-form report that has nice pictures. 

Don’t limit yourself. My definition is simple, it’s about establishing credibility, showing expertise, and being entertaining. 

Unlike policy communications, your goal is not to change minds. It is not an opportunity to ram home your recommendations. It is about establishing trust. Your goal is to prise open the door so that your messages can sneak through at a later date.

As a successful thought leader, what you say will carry more weight. Policymakers, or customers, are more likely to listen to you. Journalists will come to you for quotes. 

How to apply it

Good communications can be boiled down to the right message, at the right time, delivered in the right format.

The right message

The goal is less to persuade but more to inform and – as we just discussed – entertain. Find something relevant in the news, break it down, offer an insiders’ view – ‘how did this happen?’ Bringing original data will enhance your credibility.

You might not be an expert, but think about what you or your organisation’s unique take could be. Be honest. If you don’t understand something, say it. Authenticity is key.

Going back to the typical LinkedIn post I mentioned in the opening. You have added a photo of you, ideally a selfie, you have gamed the algorithm and people will see a lot of your face as they scroll.

Whilst there is some value in being seen in the right places and demonstrating that others value your input, in my view it fails as thought leadership. You are not adding anything insightful and, being clichéd, it can have a negative effect on your credibility. 

Worst of all, it’s boring. Yes, people are probably talking about you, but it’s behind your back. Not all engagement is good engagement. People like to gawp at traffic accidents too.

The right time

Frankly, there is always a right time for thought leadership. As social media pros will tell you, regularity is key. But in choosing your topics you should take an outside-in approach. Start from what everyone else is interested in, ‘what’s in the news’, not your organisational priorities. 

Recognise that pumpkins are interesting in October. But also recognise that by November 1 they’ll be less interesting again.

External factors matter. Look at the EU right now: The policy engine has paused. Hordes of new MEPs and other politicians will descend on the town. People are thinking about the future, and they are scratching around for ideas. Now is the perfect moment to establish yourself as a trusted voice on your issue.

The right format

Like all communications the format depends on your audience. A CEO is unlikely to put out Youtube shorts to explain her strategy pivot, but thought leadership is not immune from shortened attention spans, and new formats should be embraced.

Social media – that’s thought leadership;  a podcast – that’s thought leadership; and traditional op-ed – that’s thought leadership. Hell, even memes can be thought leadership.

Whisper it, but I do think there is still space for traditional reports with forewords and graphs as thought leadership, as long as you have strong messages. There are certain policy or scientific communities that just won’t take you seriously otherwise. If that’s your audience, go for it. The important thing is to be entertaining and package it up in a way your audience will respond.

Ultimately when thinking about an issue you want to communicate, think Robin Williams in the Dead Poet’s Society: you are in front of a classroom of gormless schoolboys. How are you going to get their attention? Find the equivalent of jumping on a desk, and do that. Encourage your followers to head into a grotto in the woods and wear capes and recite poetry.

Is it really so simple?

Thought leadership sounds fancy but it is an essential pre-step towards achieving your goals. 

If it sounds simple, that’s because it is. Most of us know this instinctively. There are some people we trust more than others. If Jamie Oliver tells me that a particular recipe tastes good, I’m more likely to believe him (except if I’m Spanish of course), than if Jean-Claude Juncker does. Nothing against Mr Juncker’s cooking, he’s just not an established expert in this particular area.

In short, the focus shifts from ‘how can I convince this person?’ to ‘how can I convince this person to listen to what I have to say?’. It’s a subtle but essential change in mindset and one we can all build into our work.

Which thought leader are you?

The columnist

Journalists are the original thought leaders. Their goal is to gain readers and drive engagement by grabbing your attention. What they lack in technical expertise of an issue, the best among them make up for with timely, entertaining remarks, and their finger on the pulse of what people care about. And as trust in institutions falters, trust in individual journalists is becoming more important.

The entertaining nerd

Humour is their secret weapon. They mix in complex data points about their chosen policy area with photos of cats or a scything line by line deconstruction of that thing that everybody is watching on the telly. Think Menswear Guy.

The CEO

The stakes here are higher. They are the figureheads of their organisation and their credibility is drawn from their reputation and that of the company. Thought leadership is crucial to communicate their strategy – to board members and employees, to policymakers and customers.  It is an opportunity to show who they are, and what the company stands for, beyond selling things. Frivolous humour is less appropriate, but clear speaking and leaning on experience can help us get beneath the armour of corporate language.

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Bridging the science communication gap

Do face masks protect us against respiratory infections? Why are oceans warming faster than predicted? How do algorithms influence what we see on social media? We all need a basic understanding of science to answer questions like these about the increasingly complex world around us. 

Public interest in science is at an all-time high, particularly in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic. According to an opinion poll published by the Commission in 2021, 82% of Europeans are interested in new scientific discoveries, but only 66% feel well informed. And the 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer showed that scientists are trusted by people to ‘tell the truth about new innovations and technologies’ (77%, compared with 47% for journalists and 45% for government leaders) but almost half of respondents think that ‘scientists do not know how to communicate with people like me’. 

So how can we bridge this science communication gap?

For the last six years, I have had the privilege of working with many of Europe’s top scientists as Head of Unit for Communication at the European Research Council (ERC). I was very happy to accept Tom’s invitation to share a few of the things I have learned along the way. I hope they will be of some use for readers of this newsletter who work with scientists (or experts more generally). So here are seven science communication tips. (Yes, this is a listicle!)

1. Make time 

Convincing scientists that it’s worth their while devoting time to communication is the biggest challenge colleagues from European universities and research institutions mentioned to me. Researchers are busy people, especially with academia’s relentless ‘publish or perish’ culture where there is constant pressure to keep up a regular flow of scientific publications. 

But incentive structures are changing, with reforms to research assessment and new generations of scientists challenging the status quo. Many funders are now taking other contributions into account when evaluating researchers’ track records. And scientists who go the extra mile deserve recognition. At the European Research Council, we launched a Public Engagement with Research Award to recognise outstanding contributions and share good practices. 

2. Be strategic 

Like all good communication, it’s important to be clear about what you’re trying to achieve when it comes to talking about science. As communicators, one of the most useful things we can do to support scientists is to help them refine their objectives, to be as specific as possible about the messages they want to convey and the audiences they want to reach. Clarifying these strategic issues at the outset is important before designing a communication plan, planning specific actions and thinking about the right KPIs to measure success. The ERC has published some strategic communication advice for researchers.

3. Choose the right words

In A Sense of Style, Steven Pinker mentions several of the pitfalls that experts face when communicating with non-specialists. These include jargon, abstraction and metaconcepts. 

All scientific disciplines have their fair share of acronyms, technical terms and obscure vocabulary. These can be major obstacles to understanding for people outside that specific field. As communicators, we can help scientists to find more accessible ways of expressing their ideas. Flesch-Kincaid reading ease and grade level tests are one way of checking the accessibility of texts. It’s handy that these tests are now incorporated in Word for Microsoft 365.

A lot of science can sound very abstract to the non-initiated. Metaphors can be an effective way of making things more relatable. One scientist told me that he had struggled to explain the risks posed by the exponential increase in Covid cases during the initial phase of the pandemic. It helped when he used the metaphor of a forest fire, with an initial spark spreading rapidly and a need to act quickly to stop things getting out of control.

I find a lot of the advice in Ros Atkins’ book The Art of Explanation relevant to science communication. In particular, he talks about the need to avoid verbal (and visual) distractions. It’s important to make every word count!

4. Reduce complexity

Understandably, scientists who are passionate about a research topic that they have spent decades working on sometimes find it difficult to boil things down into something that is digestible for a non-specialist audience. The best analogy I have heard is the distinction between a full-length film and a movie trailer. Often the trailer version is the one you should aim for. At the ERC, we provided coaching to researchers who appear at events with policy-makers so that they could present a 3-minute pitch. Another great example I have come across is the Ma thèse en 180 secondes initiative from France.

5. Visualise

During my six years at the ERC, one of our biggest successes was the international media campaign around the release of the first image of a black hole. As far as I know, this remains the European Commission’s most popular press conference of all time with over 3 million views. The fact that we had a great image was definitely part of the story’s power.

I have sat through some truly terrible PowerPoint presentations by scientists (slides with too much text, too many graphs with unclear data …). My advice is to simplify as much as possible, and to limit each slide to only one key message. It’s also important to make sure that the speaker is talking about what the audience sees on the screen (the same principle that TV journalists are supposed to follow). Otherwise, the cognitive overload of trying to understand the visuals and the spoken words simultaneously will overwhelm people.

I have also seen very effective use being made of physical objects or props to engage the audience at a science talk. This is something you will often see at science festivals, and I don’t see any reason why it should be reserved for kids!

6. Tell a story

Science lends itself naturally to storytelling, and many scientists make enthusiastic storytellers. Most research follows the typical story arc – there’s an initial idea, the main protagonist makes progress but also faces setbacks and, eventually, there is a resolution in the form of a scientific breakthrough or discovery. 

One of the most interesting parts of my job at the ERC has been interviewing researchers for our series of science stories. There are many creative ways of telling stories about science. At the ERC, we experimented with web comics, several of our grantees have produced documentary films (eg the Nanocosmos project) and one of the winners of our Public Engagement with Research Award used art and dance to communicate about particle physics! 

7. Build trust

Most science communication focuses on research results and breakthroughs, but those of us who don’t practice science on a daily basis may not fully appreciate the inherent uncertainty of science. The scientific method is based on systematic observation, measurement, and experimentation, as well as the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses. This means that scientific knowledge is constantly evolving as new evidence emerges. Obviously, that was extremely challenging during the pandemic when people were anxiously looking for definitive answers.

I recently had a chance to interview two scientists who were thrust into the media spotlight during the pandemic – Irish immunologist Luke O’Neill and Belgian epidemiologist Marius Gilbert. They have some great advice for science communicators, including explaining uncertainty and building trust with the public. You can listen to the full interviews in the ERC’s Frontiers of Research podcast series.

Support for science communication

Many universities and research institutions are moving from a model of centrally controlled communication to one where the communication department empowers and trains researchers to communicate. One of the best examples of this I have seen is the Communication Academy at ETH Zurich.  You can find some interesting examples of EU-funded science communication projects in this CORDIS results pack. And it will be interesting to follow the COALESCE project, which aims to establish a new European Competence Centre for Science Communication.

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Disclaimer

The personal views expressed by the author of this article do not necessarily reflect the official position of the European Research Council or the European Commission.