This episode features an interview with Kristin Hancock, Vice President of Community and Engagement at ICology. Kristin’s passion for communications fueled her career at organizations like Ronald McDonald House and Children’s Wish Foundation. Kristin has over a decade of experience connecting humans through meaningful messages. She also has a flair for astrology and offers birth chart readings for people and pets! In this episode, Amanda and Kristin discuss how ICology improves culture, how to make connections instead of network, and Kristin reads Amanda’s birth chart.
This episode features an interview with Kristin Hancock, Vice President of Community and Engagement at ICology. Kristin’s passion for communications fueled her career at organizations like Ronald McDonald House and Children’s Wish Foundation. Kristin has over a decade of experience connecting humans through meaningful messages. She also has a flair for astrology and offers birth chart readings for people and pets!
In this episode, Amanda and Kristin discuss how ICology improves culture, how to make connections instead of network, and Kristin reads Amanda’s birth chart.
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“We carry with us experiences from our life, from our personal lives and our professional lives. Knowing those pieces of yourself before you start a role is, I think, the most important part of it so you can be self-aware when you have tendencies to respond in certain ways, for example. I think the other piece is connecting with your industry. Someone has been in your shoes before and someone will be in your shoes in the future. So, getting to know the folks who are in your industry, getting to know the people in your organization and also outside your organization, I think is the other big part of being in this industry.” – Kristin Hancock
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Episode Timestamps:
*(01:50): Kristin’s background
*(04:50): Kristin’s role at ICology
*(06:05): Segment: Story Time
*(07:09): Kristin reads Amanda’s birth chart
*(11:04): How astrology impacts Kristin’s view of internal communications
*(12:57): Segment: Getting Tactical
*(14:46): How ICology builds community
*(20:39): Segment: Seat at the Table
*(21:42): The importance of making connections
*(28:27): Segment: Asking for a Friend
*(30:06): Challenges IC professionals are facing
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Links:
Connect with Kristin on LinkedIn
Connect with Amanda on LinkedIn
Amanda Berry: Kristin. Thanks for joining me. How are you today?
Kristin Hancock: I'm so great. Thank you for having me. How are. I'm doing
Amanda Berry: really well. Thanks for asking. I wanna start off and understand more about your background. Can you walk me through your career journey and how you got to Indianapolis?
Kristin Hancock: that's, that's a great long story, but I will keep it.
I will keep it short for the purposes of podcasting. So I'm Canadian, I'm often the token Canadian on things like this. And I ended up in Indianapolis. Through marriage. I swore I'd never move for a boy and I immigrated for one, if you can believe it, but he was worth it. So I, uh, I had been trying to move to the us for a job for many years.
It was proving way more difficult than I thought the internal comms industry in the United States is larger, a little more mature than, than that in Canada. And so there were more job opportunities, but I ended up moving for marriage for love of all things and a lovely story. And I've been here for about two and a half years.
Amanda Berry: I know you, um, are vice president of community and engagement on ICology. Can you talk about what ICology is?
Kristin Hancock: ICology started as a podcast actually. And my partner, Chuck Gose started it many years ago. I think it was back in 2014 or 2015. And it was, it was a side project of his, he wanted to bring some more voices to the forefront of internal coms and started by interviewing those people, getting.
Stories from them and learning more about their roles and some of their best practices and, and how they enjoyed their, their work and like many podcasts as you well know, it, it takes a lot of effort and commitment to continue a podcast on a regular basis. And so after a couple of years, it went dormant for a while.
And so when I immigrated into the us and we were talking about what kind of work I wanted to do down here, starting a business was a natural flow to that. And we spent a lot of time talking about what ICology might look like if we revived it, recognizing that it would be much bigger than a podcast, much broader and more involved than a podcast.
And so we started, this is it's funny now our original business plan. Was that it was going to be an internal comms event based business. Now we, in, in many ways, the timing of it helped us because we had not launched before the pandemic hit. And so that hit first and then we realized we needed to go back to the drawing board and figure out what psychology was going to be because in person events was not going to be on the table for the foreseeable future.
The silver lining of that is that it forced us to build. The community first. So ICology now is a member based community online largely, but in the coming months, I am crossing my fingers that we will be able to launch our first in-person events this fall in 2022. So maybe a year late, but right on time, we are expanding what we're offering.
But like I said, it started with a community first and that was absolutely a silver lining because now we've got this really. Great network and community of internal comms, people who are learning from each other in the mean. Yeah,
Amanda Berry: absolutely. What do you do as the vice president community engagement at ICology?
Kristin Hancock: Well, I have a lot of fun. So that, that's the first part of it. The fun, the fun part about being self-employed is kind of doing whatever you want. I, so I picked the title of vice president community and engagement to reflect. My two most important commitments to ICology. So developing the community and engaging members.
So most of my days are planning content for our community, introducing people to each other. That's a much bigger part of my job than I anticipated when we first launched. There are so many times where we get people coming to me to say, Hey, I'm looking for a new job or I'm looking for a side project, or I'm looking to hire someone I'm looking to hire a contractor or a consultant.
So a lot of my work is connecting those people. And then I would say the other big parts of it really are listening to our members and what they want to talk about, what they wanna learn about who they wanna meet, and then staying on top. Industry trends. So a lot of that then is partnering with companies with people like, you know, our friends it's Simpplr and finding out what's coming up.
What's new, what's next in the world of technology. And what's gonna help us do our best job in our, in our roles, in internal com. Yeah. Yeah, we
Amanda Berry: appreciate the partnership. It's been really great. I wanna move into our first segment story time.
Kristin Hancock: Welcome to story. Time, story, time, story time. Let me tell you story time.
Amanda Berry: You own an astrology reading business. I discovered this. This is very interesting. Will you talk about how you got started in astrology?
Kristin Hancock: I got into astrology as many people do because I was going through an incredibly challenging time in my life. And I was admittedly looking for something to help heal and validate what I was experiencing.
So I was back, I believe in 25th. 15. I flew from Winnipeg where I was living at the time to Toronto for a reading. It was a five hour reading. So that sparked all kinds of, I knew nothing going into it. I just knew that maybe this was something that could help me understand better what was happening in my life.
And then from there for the last two years, I've been studying astrology more formally. And now I get the pleasure of, of doing birth chart readings and helping people work through challenging things and learn a little bit more who they are through astrology. So it's a lot of. Well, while we're on
Amanda Berry: the topic, would you wanna do a reading for me today?
Just a
Kristin Hancock: short one. I, yes, I would love to. I would love to. I always tell people I could talk about this for an hour and a half, but I, I will, I will summarize in a couple of minutes. Amanda, you sent me your birth information ahead of time, your birth date, time and location. So most people know their sunshine.
So when people say, oh, I'm an Aries or I'm a cancer. That's that's. Sun was what the Zodiac sign that the sun was when they were born. This is the popularized, the pop culture version of astrology, where your sun is located is only one part of your existence. It's an important part, but it's only one part.
So when we do astrology readings, we look at someone's entire birth chart and your birth chart is a snapshot. Sky at the moment you took your first breath. So many people do not know that we all contain every Zodiac sign and every planet in our birth charts. So I laugh sometimes when people will make jokes about a certain Zodiac sign and I always wanna ask them, well, you know, you have that sign in your chart as well.
Amanda Berry: is that, is that like saying like, you know, oh, I'm in Aries and I can't date a
Kristin Hancock: tourist. Exactly, exactly. It's very, okay. It's become very generalized on social media pop culture. And the study of astrology is so much more nuanced than that because humans are of course more nuanced than that. So one of the things, when I look at your birth chart, the, the, when I'm reading a birth chart, I'm looking for highlights.
I'm looking for hooks, I'm looking for storylines. And one of the first things I noticed is that you have, what's called a Telium in your first. So Telium is a concentration of three or more planets. I like to call it a planetary party and this is located. So, so when you have yes, of course, it's just a party all the time when you're Amanda.
So you have your son and mercury and a calculated point that we call your ascendant all in Capricorn. So you likely knew that your son was in Capricorn. Most people know the Zodiac sign, the sun was in when they were born, but you probably did not know that you also have mercury and your ascendant in there.
The they're all located in the first house. I won't go into too much detail about that, but just know that the house system and astrology sets up the areas of life, that those planets might be activated in. What this means is this is adding. All kinds of extra emphasis on this particular sign of Capricorn and that area of life, which is quite literally the house of yourself.
It's the house of you and your personality and who you are and how you greet the world. So your son being there, your son is your. Core identity. Your ego wants to be individual, your ascendent, your, or what we call sometimes your rising sign is how you greet the world. And mercury is the planet of communication and learning and connections.
So it is not surprising that you work in communications for a living, given that the planet of communications is very much defining this first house of who you are as a person. Wow. That's incredible. It's very interesting. And so Capricorn is a Zodiac sign. That strives for integrity. It's very important for Capricorn to have solitude and independence, to find practical supports.
It's very tangible. It's an earth sign. It's very goal oriented. So one of the things we see with this is that it's, it would be very important for you to align your goals with your values. Capricorn is also a sign that can wait it's the, the king or queen or royalty of self discipline and waiting for things.
So I will leave you with that little snapshot. My cautionary tailor my tip for you is to be very aware of the fine line between needing solitude. And putting yourself in a P in a situation that feels isolating. So there's a fine art to having those two pieces in your, in your life, as you probably know.
I do
Amanda Berry: know that. Yes, . Well, that's super cool. I've I'm glad to know each. Chose the right career. Absolutely fantastic. How has this impacted the way you view internal
Kristin Hancock: communications? This is surprising and yet not. I, I often see astrology in what I do with psychology in such different ways, but the reality is they're very interwoven and.
The, the two biggest things I get from it. Number one is that people are unique. People are nuanced, people are complex in astrology. We are not just our sun signs and in our work lives and our, in our existence, in our personal lives, we are so much more than just the face value of what we present to people.
And overall. What everyone wants when we're working in internal coms. When we're working with employees, people want to be seen and heard and validated, and both the internal coms profession and astrology are dealing with those two, those, those concepts all the time. Yeah, well, first
Amanda Berry: of all, thank you for reading my you're very welcome my chart.
That's super awesome. That's that's really cool. I feel as if this would be such a great tool to have, when you go to meet, like, let's say leaders as
Kristin Hancock: calls you, I can get their start sometimes with teams. You and yeah. It's a very interesting makeup of that. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay.
Amanda Berry: And has it helped you then, like, Connect with teams, connect with leaders, understand who
Kristin Hancock: they are.
Yeah. And I think more importantly, it's helped teams connect with each other. So I've a couple of years ago, I did a reading for a newly formed team in a company. And we looked at, you know, different elements in people's charts and how their communication styles mercury might relate to each other. It caused people to be very self-aware about their communication styles and own that.
And then also learn about how to best communicate with their new teammates. So, absolutely it's, it's helpful in that.
Amanda Berry: Okay. Yeah, I've done something similar with like personality charts, absolutely personality tests. And it's just super cool. Cuz it does sort of open you to a different way of seeing people, the humans that are in front of you.
It absolutely does. And then learning them, you know, like I said, how to communicate, how to work with people differently. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm gonna move us into our next. Segment called getting tactical.
Kristin Hancock: I'm trying to figure out tactics and to be perfectly honest, and I didn't have to worry about tactics too much.
Here I am in charge and trying to say, why did you sleep through tactics tactics?
Amanda Berry: So let's dive deeper into ICology. You'd mentioned that you in shock had sort of said, let's redo it. Let's start it up again. Um, after it went on a little lull, what inspired you to start this?
Kristin Hancock: I think for both of us and I'll, I'll speak for myself in particular, it really.
Was about filling a need and filling a void. I was feeling very, kind of at a dead end, I guess, with professional connections, with professional associations, I've been very involved in the industry in a number of different organizations and groups over the years. And I just found that they weren't working for me anymore.
I wanted to have more fun. So that was a big part of it. And I wanted. To include more people. It felt like even the associations and, and events that I was a part of and helping to lead, it felt like it was the same voices over and over myself included. I like to hear myself talk, but even I've got a limit on that.
So it was really more about how can we bring. New people into a networking community environment. And how can we create community that feels enjoyable. That feels fun. That feels inclusive. And that's accessible for everyone in the industry. Many of the organizations and associations that I was a part of were, were helpful and helped me get my career footing.
But they became stagnant for me after a while. And so we were like, how can we, how can we start something that has staying power, but also is innovative and fun and people want to be a part of it. That's really, that's really how the idea got started in the inspiration. How does psychology
Amanda Berry: help build community?
Kristin Hancock: It's funny. We talked about the, the launch of it during 2020. We're really starting from what I'm gonna call a 2020 mindset. Meaning everything we've done has been virtual or online first, and that's helped us because we haven't had to pivot, right? We're not, we're not turning the ship around from a, an old school bureaucratic organization.
We started with an agile, innovative concept. So it allowed us to. Inclusive to be welcoming and to have that personal touch, we are not a huge community at this point. I think we're hovering getting close to 150 members at this point. But that still allows me to reach out to every new member who joins.
It allows me to, to have a chat for 10 or 15 minutes to make introductions to people and to really get to know people. And it allows the community to get to know each other as well. The huge part that I love of my role is really listening to what members want to see and hear, and it allows us to be innovative.
So there are all kinds of things that we've tried for the first time that we didn't necessarily anticipate rolling out in the first. Or at all, our mentorship program has been hugely successful, of course, thanks and part to Simpplr and that partnership. And that was not something we, it was on our radar at all.
It wasn't something we were planning to do, but a member of ours came up to us and said, Hey, I've, I've run a mentorship program. Would you be interested in doing an ICology version of that? And we ran with it and we were like, let's try it. What's the worst that can happen. Right? Let's let's try it. Let's be innovative.
And I think that innovative mindset helps people feel safe in the community and helps people be okay with trying new things and admitting failure and talking about successes without fear of judgment.
Amanda Berry: if we have listeners out there who are looking for mentors, can you just talk about how this works, how your mentorship program works?
Kristin Hancock: Sure. Yeah. The program is free. If you are an ICology member, there's no. So it's only open to ICology members, but it is free of charge included with your membership. We did an application process where. We asked for people who wanted to be mentors. And we asked for people who wanted to be mentees, the application was fairly extensive.
We asked about career history where you're looking to grow if you know, and if you don't that's okay. What your background is, what your. Strengths are where you want to learn more. And we matched everyone up. So we really looked at every single application and went, okay, this person wants to grow in this area.
And this person has a strength in that area. So let's partner them up. I'm so proud of the, the work that's been done on that program. I'm so proud to hear about the success that each partnership has come up with. The original plan was we were going to run it for six months and, and at the five or six month mark.
Everyone in the program said, can we keep going? So to me, that's a huge success. Again, not something we anticipated, but because we're a smaller group and more innovative, we're like, sure, let's keep running. It. Let's run it for a year. So our plan is to run it again in the fall of 2020, and start taking applications in the next couple of months and, and partner up again.
So we might see, I'll be curious to say, we might have some mentees. Who now are growing into a mentor role, for example, which will be really fun to see, because it's not just based on career seniority. You could be someone who's relatively new, but if you have experience in another area, you might be paired with someone who actually is more senior in their career, but maybe newer to the industry.
Amanda Berry: So besides mentorship and, and mentorship, I guess, what can I see professionals? What else can they gain from being a part of
Kristin Hancock: ICology? I tell everyone who signs up one of our little taglines, I guess you could say is that ICology is a journey you wanna take with people you wanna meet. I will also say it's people you wanna hang out with and people who are fun.
So it's really about new perspectives, all levels of seniority and experience. You get to be the student and the teacher, which I think is the coolest part of ICology. We do a program called tools day that we hold on Tuesdays where sometimes we'll bring in outside vendors or people. And sometimes it's people within our community who have something really cool to share.
So we've had members share, you know, how to use Canva or here's a productivity hack that I have. So it's just a really cool way for people to learn from, from each other. And I think that's really. The be the big benefit of having a community like psychology.
Amanda Berry: What are some of the hiccups you you've found along the way while
Kristin Hancock: you're oh, none.
Every everything's just been perfect and smooth the whole time. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Anyone who has started a business or an association and organization knows that there that's all hiccups. I think our biggest hiccup truly at the beginning was 2020. And I think that was everyone's hiccup if I'm being honest.
So again, any, any hiccup really encourages you. Look at the growth. Look at the opportunity. A, a friend of mine calls them growth, accelerating moments. So that's a, that's a cool way of looking at it. I think the other, the hiccup really for me has been my. Maybe too high slash unrealistic expectations. And this is a theme throughout my life.
So it's not surprising. It showed up in ICology. It's I think I expected instant, explosive, massive growth. And I have to remind myself that what we're building has quality over quantity. And I, we all get that way, right. With social media, everything is based on likes and numbers, and who's how many people were on the zoom call.
And I have to remind myself. If we have five people on a network on a member, networking chat, but those five people leave with learning and insight and tangible things they can take back to their careers, then that's worth it. That's totally worth it. Do
Amanda Berry: you wanna give people like the web address to go through, to check out ICology?
Kristin Hancock: Sure. Yeah. So our website is join ICology.com or on where I join ICology on all social platforms. And if you there's a link of course, to join through our external website, the internal website is members dot. Join ICology dot.
Amanda Berry: Let's move onto the next segment seat at the table.
Kristin Hancock: First, get seat the table, get seat the table.
You want to seat at the table.
Amanda Berry: I love that. You're doing I ICology and I love this networking opportunity. I know, you know, you had, have talked a few times about, you know, happening right before COVID and certain everything's been virtual. I think there's so much value in that though, because a lot of times these in-person events can really.
Keep people out, you know, you mentioned inclusion because either their job won't pay for them to travel to New York or Miami or wherever these events are happening sometimes. So that virtual oftentimes bring, brings in people who don't have the ability to do this otherwise, cuz it's expensive, like go places and to conferences.
So I love the networking aspect of this. You can even do it virtually the mentorship program. I feel as if from the day I got into my internal communications, I heard. Network network network. And so I felt like I was just hungrily sort of like, okay, okay, I'm gonna network, but can you talk a little bit about maybe for our listeners who are hearing that you need to network, you need to meet people.
Why it's important to network.
Kristin Hancock: It's funny you say that because I. This. So, so seat at the table and, and this getting tactical, this is like Pete Capricorn. So I'm glad that we're, I'm glad we were doing this conversation. I'm not surprised. So, so I would say that part of my challenge with networking is the word networking.
I think we've. I don't know if we've overused it or we've used it in ways that's made it seem like the most dragging boring ne necessity of career. And it just, it sounds painful. Doesn't it to say? Oh, we have. Yeah.
Amanda Berry: And it sound like there was like, like a chaos, like you need to be network, you need to meet people on.
And I was like, okay. I'm how
Kristin Hancock: am I gonna do this? Right, right. Okay. Network check the box. Right. Exactly. Not working.
Amanda Berry: I'm going to like the chamber commerce meetings. I'm networking, looking me network came of yeah, yeah, exactly. But nothing came of it early on, cuz probably cause I didn't understand it and how to do it.
So I'm glad you're here to talk about
Kristin Hancock: it. Yeah, I try, I, I do try and avoid the word networking when I can, because. Really what we mean when we're saying networking is making connections, meeting people and that's, I think so many of us are doing that naturally. We just don't call it networking. Right. I have calls with every new member and, and even members that have been with us for a long time to chat about what, what do you wanna see?
How are things going? Did you like this last event we've done? I don't call it networking. Right. But that's what it is. And so it's really about making connections and offering support. I think this. Extra important for internal coms and likely why everyone told you when you first joined the industry, you need to do this because so many people who work in employee coms in internal coms, corporate coms are often the only people in their organizations doing that function.
Or they're doing both, they're doing internal and external. There's so many members of ology who are, who have joined ology because they don't have a network at work. They don't have a team to bounce ideas off of. And many of them don't even have a, a boss or a superior person with a background in internal coms who might be able to give guidance or insight.
So we are all like searching for that, those kinds of connections. And I. If we stop calling it networking and start talking about making connections, then that's a better way of looking at it, you know, for, for anyone who is maybe the only person in their organization, or we just had a, a member join who is actually in PR and marketing, but she's been tasked with.
Growing an internal coms function within their company because of the growth they've seen. I'm so happy to see those folks join because Ms. Capricorn, you cannot go it alone, right? You can't, you, you, you will want to, I would disagree. I know you would. I know you would. So you, you know, you, you can try, we can all try to do things on our own and.
Feel like we can be independent, but at, at some point that becomes very isolating and you're going to do better work when you have a peer support group of people who can bounce ideas off of you and brainstorm with you and all of those things. So, yeah.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. That's one thing I really liked about the community of internal communicators.
No matter where you go, you can sit down and start having a conversation. You have the same problems. Yes, yes you do. You're, you're trying similar things to solve them. So it's almost like we've all been educated in like these very similar ways, but then everyone's so willing to share. Well, here, try.
Here's some things that I tried, you may wanna try and then you can take those through your connections, not networking or through your connections. and try to implement that stuff, you know, your, your, with your leaders, your organization. So it's such a great, it's such a great industry to be in cuz everyone.
So giving and helpful
Kristin Hancock: it is. It absolutely is. And I think the other piece is that, you know, one of the benefits of, of a group like psychology is you can share things from within your workplace that you couldn't share on a platform like LinkedIn. Right? I, I love LinkedIn. They, it's a, it's a great platform for broad career things and making connections, all those kinds of things.
It's, you're not going to post your internal comm strategy on LinkedIn and say, Hey, give me feedback on this, please. Right? You can't do that. You can't post those things in ICology. You can do that. There's a privacy element there. And, and a comfort level that everyone in that group is, is going through. As you said, the same challenges or similar ones, and they would love to help.
You know, share that information. It's also great from a career planning standpoint, because again, there might be times where you're looking for a job or a new side gig or whatever, and you can't necessarily post that on a more public facing social media site. What does that look
Amanda Berry: like right now? Or we're in COVID I know we're kind of getting out of it, but I, I don't wanna think about we're getting outta COVID.
So we're gonna go back to the way things were, like I said, I think there's a, a bunch of people in internal coms who don't have the access. They may look in a rural area rules. State that isn't near these big cities. So what does networking look like? I guess pre COVID looks a little different than just how it's gonna be, but would you talk about what it looks like or how it should look like going forward
Kristin Hancock: to be inclusive?
This might be the Canadian in me, but I, I, I think I see the good side of this part of COVID times, et cetera, is yes, our networking and our, our meeting people experiences. Very often in person before 2020 it's there are elements of that. Now that sucks because I would love to be in person with people.
And I would love to be able to hug people and, you know, have the parties and do the in person conferences and all of that. And it's slowly coming back. But the benefit is that if accessibility is a challenge for you, for whatever reason, whether it's geographically, whether it's physically for you, the benefit now is you don't have to be physically in those same locations.
So. Making I also tell people if you would consider yourself maybe a little more introverted or maybe a little shy. Doing an email introduction is actually a little bit easier. It sort of helps break the ice as opposed to walking across the room to someone and sticking your hand out and saying, hi I'm so, and so that, that takes a lot of guts to do, even for someone who isn't shy or is extroverted.
So I think the email introduction. Can often be an easier way for people to do a little soft introduction. I'm happy to make introductions for people as well through email. And then you set up a 15 minute zoom call to say hi. I think it's a little different in that generally speaking. It's it's a good idea to have a more specific.
Topic when you're calling someone like, hi, I would love to talk to you about how you got to where you are in your career. Or I would love to talk to you about how I get into the, the manufacturing industry of internal coms or, you know, whatever that might look like. But I think once you do that online, there's an element of it.
I think that's a little, a little bit easier if you're nervous about networking and maybe a little bit shy.
Amanda Berry: Well, let's move into our last segment, asking for a friend who's asking for a
Producer: friend.
Kristin Hancock: Hey, asking for a friend, asking for a friend for a friend.
Amanda Berry: What's one piece of advice you would give a new IC professional.
Who's just starting off in the industry.
Kristin Hancock: The advice I give. Everyone in any industry, starting out from anywhere is to know yourself and whatever way that happens for you is healthy and acceptable to me. So I just, I hope that people are self aware of who they are when they go into a role, because we carry with us.
Call it baggage, call it whatever you want. We carry with us experiences from our life, from our personal lives and our professional lives. And so knowing those pieces of yourself before you start a role is I think the most important part of it. So you can be self-aware when you have tendencies to respond in certain ways, for example.
And then I think the other piece is connecting with your industry. Someone has been in your shoes before and someone will be in your shoes, in the future. So getting to know the folks who are in your industry, getting to know the people in your organization and also outside your organization, I think is, is the other big part of being in this industry.
And as you said, it's a hugely supportive industry more. So I think than other types of industries out. Yeah. Getting
Amanda Berry: to know yourself. That'd be a great opportunity to get a reading.
Kristin Hancock: Wouldn't it?
Amanda Berry: yeah. Yeah. That's that's fun. I feel like there are really starting to zero in and some stuff
What do you think is some of the biggest challenges that I see professionals are gonna face
Kristin Hancock: in the future? You know, I, this is a common question. See it on LinkedIn. I especially see it at like year, end times. Like, what does the next year look like? What are, what kinds of challenges are coming up? And every year I'm like, oh, the same challenges as last year.
Great. I really don't think, and I don't say that to be negative. I really don't think our challenges are going to be any different. So I think the takeaway from that is for us to stop expecting them to D. Those, the challenges that existed pre 2020 are the same challenges we have now. They were just exacerbated by what happened over the last two years.
The underlying challenges and problems are the same and they will likely continue to be the same budgets. No one is, I would love to meet someone in internal coms. Who's like, I have such a big budget. I don't know what to do with it. I have too much money. Right. Have you ever met someone like that? I have too many staff, right?
I have not. Yeah. We have too many staff people on our internal comms team. It's never going to happen. So we need to learn to work with that. We need to be creative, you know, talking about seat at the table or having priority with your C-suite. That's always going to be a challenge. It's pretty rare. It's I think it's getting better because more people with an internal coms background are moving into those senior leader roles, but you're always going to be fighting for air time.
Right. You're competing with it and finance and you know, whatever HR, all those. Departments are, are fighting for that time. So we have to get creative connecting remote employees. That's always going to be a challenge, right. 20, 20 exacerbated that, but it was a challenge before. So yeah, I, I don't think the challenges are going to, to change.
I think we have to get really creative with how we're approaching them.
Amanda Berry: Yeah, I love how you point that out. I wrote a blog about remote employees and I said, well, this isn't new. Right. Kind of what, what you said, it's just been really put in the light. You know, I remember having remote employees seven, eight years ago where having no deal, but I hate to say it this way, but it's just like, well, we're just gonna have 'em dial in.
Right. You know, on a, on a, on an actual, just dial in call in line. They can't. See anything can't see. And if that's okay, because they're remote. Right. And now that everyone, not everyone, but like a lot of people have to go now it becomes like something we have to deal with because it was a ma it was more of
Kristin Hancock: a, a mass issue.
Yeah. I wonder if the, I, I suspect a lot of people who were remote before all of this changed, or like, oh, I hate to say, I told you, so like, see, these are the challenges I was dealing with before, but people weren't listening to me.
Amanda Berry: yeah. I mean, I have a few friends who are, have been, you know, working remote.
And they're just like nothing changed in my world, really. I mean, in terms of work, because this is how it's been. Right, right. And now you're all complaining about now. There's no, there's no culture. Right? Exactly. You can't make connections. so yeah. That's exactly what happened. They they've already had to work through those and sort of live with within those, within those boundaries.
So everyone's trying to get better at that job. What does that look like for you?
Kristin Hancock: I, for me, the, the piece that I try and impart on other people in internal comms is to explore things. And topics other than internal coms. So challenging yourself to learn a bit about business finance, learn a little bit about it.
Graphic design, human resources, marketing, learning, some of those other skill sets. I'm not saying go to school and get a degree in those things, but be open to learning the language so you can have conversations about them because I think there are a lot of, one of the, you know, Conference complaints I have is that these, these large scale events had become kind of internal comms, echo chambers, where we were hearing the same things from a lot of the same people.
I will say. I was a part of that for, for a while. And I think now it's like, can we have a session on like psychology or can we have a session on. Budgets for internal coms. Like I think people in this industry would hugely benefit from exploring learning opportunities that do not fall under the traditional communications banner.
Amanda Berry: Yeah, I agree with that. I've often thought about myself getting like an MBA in something mm-hmm not, you know, not marketing or communications related just so I can learn business stuff. I brought perspective. Yes. Because I find that to be so valuable. I'm in a room and I don't, then I don't ask a million questions if I've got some foundational stuff.
Absolutely. Yeah. Well, this has been a lot of fun. Great. You go. Yeah. I, I feel as if you're such a wealth of knowledge, is there anything that you would like to discuss or cover that we haven't already talked about today?
Kristin Hancock: I mean, aside from the rest of your birth chart that we could talk about for two hours, I would love to do that.
no, I think we've covered everything important that people might wanna, people might wanna know from a glance. All right, Kristen.
Amanda Berry: Well, let people know where they can find you.
Kristin Hancock: I am Kristen Ann H on Twitter. I am Kristen Hancock on LinkedIn. I'm happy to connect with people. And psychology is joint psychology.
Every. Well, thank
Amanda Berry: you for joining me today, Kristin, this has been great.
Kristin Hancock: Thank you so much. Thank you again for listening to this episode of the Cohesion podcast brought to you by Simpplr the modern internet software that simplifies the employee experience. Learn more about how Simpplr can help you build a future of your employee experience at Simpplr dot.
That's S I M P P L R .com
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