Lifetime Achievement Award – Vote Me!

Like a reality TV star who releases an auto-biography before they hit 21 there seems something premature about my shortlisting in the Lifetime Achievement Award category at the Comms2Point0 UnAwards at the age of 36.

That doesn’t make it any less of an honour to be nominated and then shortlisted with three great, talented and inspirational comms professionals (Cormac Smith, John Fox and Matt Johnson), or any less likely that I’m going to spend the next week shamelessly shilling for votes.

• If you’re really keen to just post your vote online you can do that here, now.

My nomination covers all the areas of communications I work across and my 15 years of experience, and success, in journalism, PR, promotion and digital strategy and delivery.

It’s really nice to see all the areas of my professional life represented as often they’re kept separate but for me there is lots of cross-overs and lots of transferable skills and experience. It means I’ve not really taken my career in a linear fashion but run it altogether so at any given time I’m working at a high level in digital, online and print music journalism, leadership in local government, as an editor in music and on PR and promotions both online, in print and live.

As a bit of a summary my main roles at the moment are:

• Senior Digital Officer / Digital Team Leader at Nottinghamshire County Council. I’m leading the delivery team and worked on the strategy for the Digital First project. We’ve just delivered a new website for the council but are also working on a more strategic yet human approach to social media, a number of micro sites and an intranet / employee engagement work stream. It follows on from my work at Derbyshire County Council where I introduced social media and designed and delivered the award winning Local Elections 2009 campaign. Further back I worked as an intranet manager, a community manager, an online journalist and writer for the BAFTA winning Headline History project at Northcliffe Electronic Publishing.
• Co-founder / Communications Lead LocalGov Digital. I co-founded this growing network with Carl Haggerty and my contributions have included creating the Voice network to bring together conversation from across the sector, running LocalGovCamp in 2014 and helping to organise in 2015 and providing systems leadership across the sector. Last year we were co-winners in the Best Collaboration category at Comms2Point0.
• Editor and journalist at Louder Than War. I’ve been writing about music since I was about 14, mostly for my own fanzines and blogs but also as a freelancer. I joined John Robb’s Louder Than War in 2012 as reviews editor, becoming features editor in 2014 and editor in 2015. I’ve had the pleasure of writing about lots of new and grassroots music but also artists such as The Charlatans, Inspiral Carpets, Stone Roses, The Anchoress, Mark Morriss, and Chris Helme.
• Associate editor and journalist at Louder Than War magazine. We launched in print in September 2015 in partnership with Big Cheese publishing and I’m thrilled the first issue was so well received. I write reviews and features at the magazine as well as working with the print editorial team to co-ordinate coverage with the website and grow both areas of Louder Than War.
• Boss at Noble and Wild. A little agency I set up in 2013 through which I’ve done music promotion around Derby for bands including Hope and Social and Evans the Death as well as working with the wonderful Phil Burgess at the Hairy Dog on running Bank Holiday All Dayers for local bands throughout 2013. I also provide online and print PR for Chris Helme and am working with Team Love Records on an album launch campaign for early 2016.

I’m really lucky to have the opportunity to do all this at the same time (even more lucky to have a husband who supports me in a very practical way as well as emotionally).

I’m hugely honoured to be shortlisted in these awards and if you’ve worked with me or liked anything I’ve produced then I’d also be honoured if you would give me your vote. You can vote online here until 17 December.

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Online voting is open until 17 November and the winner will be announced at the UnAwards ceremony in Birmingham on 3 December. VOTE HERE!

You can find me on Twitter, read my words about music on Louder Than War, check out some cool clients at Noble and Wild or follow my words of fiction.