Explore my experience and find out what I've been up to (there's a prize at the end)…
I've been leading the global marketing strategy for the world's largest sea tourism company, Dream Yacht. I was responsible for global marketing strategy across nine source markets and seven products, as well as coordinating the content audit and copywriting for the soon-to-be launched website, producing more than 200k words of new SEO content. Three category 5 hurricanes have hit prime sailing locations and I developed the crisis communications strategy to help customers and restructured the marketing plans.
Dream's latest brochure
As Head of Content Management for ContactOne, Swiss RE's new internal group operations service portal, I put user-centred design at the heart of content creation and planning to serve the organisation's 20k staff worldwide. ContactOne handled tickets for HR, IT, logistics, communications and legal departments and content played an important role in explaining simply and quickly how to find and use a service online.
Last year I launched Virgin Unite's Action Network online education platform to help entrepreneurs build social and environmental impact into their business models. It’s been a highly rewarding time as a product manager, working with a pilot cohort and designing the MVP, educational content and engagement strategy.
The project was 4x oversubscribed, had a MOOC completion rate 5x the average & a 97% user recommendation rating.
I worked on creating the Virgin Unite Impact Award as part of the Virgin Media Business #VOOM competition, which invites UK businesses to pitch to Richard Branson to win prizes worth £1 million. Around 2,500 business entered, attracting 100,000 public votes and £160,000 in crowdfunding. Holly Branson announced Paint360 as the winner - a fantastic business that recycles waste household paint and resells it to local authorities and the construction sector, all while employing the longterm unemployed.
I led Virgin Unite's relationship with Google for Entrepreneurs, creating a series of online hangouts with high profile entrepeneurs, such as the Google Hangout with Richard Branson and Tyra Banks where they talked about failure. I also curated a content series for President Obama's Global Entrepreneurship Summit.
Eric Schmidt shares his big regret
When it comes to supporting people with mental ill health, we're a long way from the austere mental health institutions of the past. I admire those who share their experiences and how they've recovered. I've spoken to many while working on the editorial team for mental health trust magazine Connected and enjoyed interviewing the dedicated health professionals providing support, from psychiatric nurses to research teams.
Read the latest edition
I am passionate about volunteering, both in a personal and professional context. I’ve been fundraising and giving my time to the Calais jungle since 2015. I’ve also volunteered as part of the event team for Drupal Camp Brighton and the Agile Content Conference.
Read my interviews with refugees
I've been working with global yacht charter specialists LateSail on content and social strategy for the last 18 months, as well as writing content for new websites, such as LateSail Cabin. I love exploring new places and it's a joy to write about life on the ocean. This work inspired me to visit Croatia but I haven't quite made it to being my own skipper just quite yet!
Five novices go sailing
I worked with some great clients as a strategist while at Drupal development agency, Deeson including content discovery and search improvements for Johnson & Johnson's Do Surgery website, a Drupal knowledge sharing community for the world’s leading surgeons. Other projects involved the Royal Collection Trust, the Society of Radiographers' Radiography Careers website, Royal Society of Medicine, Institution of Technology and Engineering and Jonas La Salle. My agency experience also includes working with ISS and Visa Europe while at strategic communications agency, Zoodikers.
I've turned doubters and the tentative into enthused advocates after running social media training courses for many organisations, including the Information Commissioner's Office, Defra, The Institution of Engineering and Technology and Becton, Dickinson and Company. I also ran global content strategy workshops for Gaggenau.
I gave a lightning talk about the John Lewis Christmas campaign at Together London's agile content meet-up, specifically how I made the most of the retailer's missed opportunity to build audiences using social media. After the premier of their Xmas ad, I launched @MrsJLSnowman and ended up sharing yuletide joy with celebrities, John Lewis fans and even took part in a virtual snowball throwing contest with the company's Marketing Director. The Drum interviewed me about being put in Twitter jail, the peril of parody accounts and building a community from scratch.
The Drum on @MrsJLSnowman
I love talking to people and listening to their experiences around digital service design. I've interviewed digital evangelists working across open source software, the public sector , health 2.0 and Martin Belam on Trinity Mirror’s attempts to connect with a younger audience.
Martin Belam talks newspapers and digital
I had a mammoth challenge when I joined SNCF’s Voyages-sncf.com team to promote rail travel around Europe. I was given a very small budget to raise InterRail sales using Facebook. By convincing a Guardian journalist to take part in a fan-voted mystery tour and developing a network of tourist boards across Europe, I managed to create an inspirational marketing campaign that generated traffic and boosted sales by 98% by the end of the campaign.
Experience the Great InterRail Adventure
As web manager for the University of Kent's School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, I overhauled the content strategy including making the lecturer profiles as marketable as possible and commissioning market research to assist recruitment strategy in readiness for the introduction of student fees.
Nothing matters to us more than our health. While at the NHS I was responsible for the marketing campaign for NHS 111 roll out, reporting to LOCOG as regional NHS media lead during the Olympics and Paralympics and coming up with awareness campaigns for health drives, such as flu vaccinations. I developed a proactive content strategy that achieved a 60% increase in positive editorial coverage.
I often donned a hi-vis vest to accompany filming for Sky's Night Cops show and was part of the team handling the world’s biggest cash robbery of £53m. One of the most satisfying projects I have worked on was managing the governance, strategy and content for the new Justice Seen, Justice Done project, the first time magistrate court results were published online in England.
Bringing justice online
As a freelance journalist, I've often written about my fabulous grandad, Dick Denney, the inventor of the Vox AC30 amp used by The Beatles, Hendrix and Brian May. Have a read of his story as published in The Word magazine.
I divulged my secret chat with digital entrepreneur and Holy Moly! celebrity gossip forum owner, Jamie East for The Independent and wrote about the barriers and inequality in publishing for The Guardian.
I drove online funding applications for the European Social Fund, working with the Department of Work and Pensions, to engage audiences by developing a new website and online magazine.
Delve into the ESF archives
I managed intranet strategy and digital projects for Shell and content strategy and projects for Wintershall, Compass Group, Danone and Biotest. I was part of the team managing the Shell refinery blockade and national fuel shortage crisis in 2000 and was a crisis trainer for Shell, Maersk, Akzo Nobel, SMIT and Lloyd’s Register.
When the pumps ran dry
As editorial assistant and then markets editor at Lloyd’s List, I covered major news events, such as the collapse of the Asian economy, Kosovo conflict, Iraq oil-for-food programme and conglomerate mergers.
Prescott on coastguard closures
I first chatted to someone I didn’t know on the internet using Apple’s eWorld in 1994, way before online chatting was socially acceptable. It is hard to remember what it was like to talk to people without any digital footprint or way of verifying who they were.
I was one of the first journalists in England to interview Boyzone for Carlisle's News & Star. It was awkward as they arrived late and in their underpants.
