Author: Sue Johns-Chapman

Company Culture Awards Judging – It’s a job taken seriously!

I had the pleasure of joining the Judging session for UK Company Culture Awards. 

As the Don’t Panic Content Marketing Manager understanding all aspects of the business is invaluable, so thank you to the Events’ team for inviting me and thankyou to Tiago, Janet, Hannah, Dawn and Anna for letting me observe you at work.

Sitting quietly and listening intently I learnt that our Judges are passionate about company culture, best practice and awarding only deserving winners. The robust two-step process ensures every category is pre-scored by each judge prior to the session. At the session every category was discussed thoroughly, and all judges shared their feedback, which often prompted further discussion and challenge takes place – entries are championed where necessary! Collaboratively they award winners and, in some cases, when the competition is so tight there is just a point between submissions, a silver award. 

Our judges are cultural ambassadors, senior leaders in their field and committed to cultural transformation. Whatever the outcome of the awards, it is clear the judges have been impressed by what businesses are doing to grow, develop and look after their people. 

If you are entering the European Company Culture Awards 2022 or thinking of entering the UK Company Culture Awards next year here are the top tips from the panel. 

1. Include your objectives and your financials, to show what you achieved on your budget. 
2. Demonstrate how you implemented your intitiatives/programmes and the challenges you faced. 
3. Diversity is important, but don’t just say you do it. Show and prove what you are doing. 
4. Aspirations need to be supported with frameworks that show they can be achievable
5. Include data, it helps judges understand the what, how and results 

Judging is a ruthless business and let me say that winning and shortlisting in a category is a major achievement. If they don’t believe any entries deserve the award, they close the category! This may seem harsh, but Don’t Panic pride themselves on delivering ethical industry awards that are worth the trophy they are printed on, and that can be trusted by clients and employees. 

Thank you again to Dawn Osbourne, Janet Houlis, Tiago Perdiago, Hannah Butcher & Ama Africa-Tchie for sharing your expertise, and to Event Manager, Kate Humphries for inviting me.

Categories for the European Company Culture Awards can be found here.

Are you having trouble managing all your campaigns and those of your clients due to the overwhelming number of platforms and interfaces? Clever Ads’ Slack, MS Teams and Google Chat Bot integrations offer high-value features designed to provide our users with maximum usability and productivity in their work environments. 

Once users install any of the 3 integrations, they gain access to their own personal dashboard where they can configure the bot, schedule reports and set up alerts. Users can also invite additional team members to use the application and enjoy the integration features.

These are three great tools not only for marketing teams managing ad campaigns for their own businesses, but also for ad agencies managing campaigns for other companies.

You can use the alerts features to be sure you won’t miss a thing. Set up as many alerts as you want by selecting your preferred advertising account, and then the preferred metric you want to track. 

Smart Reports will be your greatest ally when it comes to analyzing your own data and that of your customers. You won’t waste time jumping from one platform to another, downloading data and organizing it into clunky spreadsheets. With these automatic and customized reports, you will get daily/weekly summaries on metrics and data, through your preferred channel. Keep these Smart Reports on file and share them with your team. It is completely up to you!

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The Digital City Festival is taking place from 7^th – 11 March across Manchester. 

The festival features a Digital City Expo, awards, live music, cultural events, speakers and much more. 

Digital City Festival will gather thought-leaders from around the world to address the key challenges facing people, businesses and governments as we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Starting at Media City with its official opening, the festival moves to some iconic venues across the city including the Science and Industry Museum, Beehive Mill Jersey Street, the Central Convention Complex and the Weston Building on Sackville Street. 

Don’t Panic will be at the Digital City Expo on Wednesday, 9^th and Thursday 10^th March. Come along and meet some of the Sales and Events team who will answer any questions you have about our Digital Awards and our event management services. We are sure to have some Don’t Panic goodies to share too! 

We look forward to seeing you there!

Senior Event Manager, Sarah, and MD, Helen headed to Barcelona for 24 hours on Thursday to finalise all the details for the European Search Awards.  Sarah took over the Don’t Panic Instagram and gave live updates of the day which started “too early!”

Sarah fills us in on a Day in the Life of a European Search Awards Event Manager!

Early flights are never usually my ideal, but I am so excited to be bringing the European Search Awards 2022, their 10^th Anniversary, to life that I was up and out of bed and raring to go when we hit Manchester on a cold, damp February morning!

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Arriving in Spain, the temperature was warmer, the skies bluer and the welcome perfect – I knew we were in for a successful day!

First job, and the most difficult task of the day was … Menu Tasting.

Dish upon gorgeous dish arrived for us to sample. Some descriptions were baffling (who knew apples could be ‘ostomized’) and there were combinations of flavours that were too tantalising for words. However, we are nothing but committed to our jobs, and after much indecision and retasting we settled on our dishes. For details of the menu click here. 

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Second visit, on our whistle stop tour, was the venue: La Llotja de Mar, Barcelona. 

Built in the medieval period, Gaudi and Picasso learnt their trade at La Llotja de Mar, so it seems fitting that the artists of the past give way to the creatives of Search in 2022.  The majestic Contracting Hall will play host to the event, and pre-dinner drinks will be served in the beautiful neo-classical courtyard, home to a fountain and figure of Neptune.  This could be the most glamorous of all the Search Awards to date! 

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And now to find a host!

Feeling jubilant because the main event details were all sorted, we went for our liaison with our Host for the live award announcements and evening. Who, you ask? 

I am delighted to tell you that hosting the European Search Awards 2022 is the multi-talented, charismatic and funny Ricky Merino. Ricky is a singer, actor, and TV Host. In Spain he became known for appearing in Operacion Triunfo (sort of like the X-Factor), but in the UK you will know him as the co-host of Channel 4’s, The Language of Love, alongside Davina McCall. Attendees are in for a treat!

And Finally…

Our final task of the day involved heading out into the beautiful city of Barcelona in search of the perfect place to party – a Search event would not be complete without the afterparty!

For the time being we are keeping the afterparty secret to ourselves, but keep an eye on the website and social for a reveal soon.

Visit the European Search Awards website here

Helping Don’t Panic Awards’ entrants from around the world, the Don’t Panic Account Executives are your go to for any help and advice. They answer your questions about categories, judge criteria, how to enter and more on a day to day basis.

You may have spoken to them by phone, communicated via email or met them at a live event! Now put their names to their faces, so you know who you need to, or are, talking to!

Stephanie Gianfriglia – Account Executive

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I have been working with DP for 6 months and have already come in contact with a great many of our amazingly talented award entrants across a multitude of our Awards!  I love being involved in the entry process and feeling the excitement and anticipation from new and existing clients from the outset. 

As a Mum of two youngsters, Charlie and Jessie, you can imagine I don’t get much spare time! I love spending time outdoors with the children and my fiancé, Andrew, so long walks spotting wildlife in the spring and summer and kicking leaves in the Autumn and Winter are high priority at the weekends.

Being of Italian heritage, I like nothing more than cooking up Italian inspired feasts for family and friends and, frankly speaking, I love food, so eating out is a must do for me too.

The Don’t Panic team are great to work with, and our award entrants are passionate and inspired, they make my job worthwhile and immensely fun!

Jordan Wilkinson – Account Executive

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I joined DP in January this year and have quickly become part of the team. I seem to have landed the role as the maker of the first cup of tea of the day. I’m not sure if this a ‘newby post,’ or whether we will start taking the most important task of the day in rotation! I do make a great cuppa though! ☕

The curiosity of a new industry is a challenge I am eager to take, and discovering and learning makes working fun and worthwhile. By nature, I am a very curious person; I like to venture into the ‘unknown’.

I have been working as an account executive for 7 years and love building and managing relationships with clients, overcoming hurdles and streamlining communication. Don’t Panic deliver awards across a multitude of digital industries and I look forward to learning about all the incredible campaigns, software, tech, PR and culture our clients are creating.

In my spare time I like to kick back and relax! By relax I mean play a little Fifa or Call of Duty, and when I say a little, those of you know, know that means longer than I should!

Alongside the occasional gaming, I have always had an interest in music, whether that be the writing and theory side, or the production and back-end mixing of a track. I can play a vast range of instruments, with guitar being my favourite and the trombone most difficult to transport! In contrast to all the chilled relaxing, I enjoy going to the Gym.

Boxing has played a big part of my life in the last 4 years for me and now we are heading back to normality, I am super excited to pick back up again!

I look forward to chatting to you on the phone, e-meeting you and partying with you at the events in 2022.

We are currently looking for a talented individual to join our Sales and Marketing Team as an Account Executive. Interested? Email your cv to sarah.power@dontpanicprojects.com

Don’t Panic’s MD, Helen, sums up the Year!

2021 is coming to an end and as always, we are spending some time, along with our teams, reflecting on another year. It seems to have passed with lightning speed and we are thrilled to be leaving it with some incredible highlights, after what has been (as for most industries) the most challenging 18 months we have faced. 

At points during 2020 we did wonder if we would ever have the luxury of delivering a live in-person events again, and I have to say the biggest highlight of 2021, for myself, and all of Don’t Panic, is that we have! This year we managed to deliver six live, in-person events which may seem a small number given we organise over thirty each calendar year, but I think it is safe to say given the current circumstances and the restrictions we have faced, the number six is huge.

This year we celebrated turning Sweet Sixteen and have grown with some amazing additions to our team. We have welcomed Sue Johns Chapman as our resident Content Manager, Dan Kilburn as our Web Developer, Jo Diver our Data Analyst, Stephanie Gianfriglia our new Account Executive, Leenesha Friend our new Marketing Manager, Emily Winders our Event Assistant and Kate Humphries our Event Executive. All of whom have played pivotal roles in the success of Don’t Panic’s 2021.

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Aside from turning sixteen, we had more reasons to celebrate. 2021 saw the return of our Senior Event Manager, Sarah Belcher, who spent some time on maternity leave after the birth of her gorgeous little boy Ellis. We celebrated the birth of Otis, our Senior Event Manager, Alex Rimmer’s, new baby boy. Operations Manager Sarah Power got engaged! We feel Sarah will be in good hands for any wedding planning that she needs support with! And I got married to Mark, who got Don’t Panic’s blessing and honorary team member status on our last social night out, and became Helen Barklay.

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Another highlight of this year has been the successful implementation of our judge feedback process, which provides all entrants, whether winners or not, with transparent and qualitative judge feedback across all of their entries. We are committed to being the most ethical and transparent awards provider and want to further expand on this offering by delivering content-driven educational pieces and insights into what exactly our judges are looking for in a 2022 award-winning entry.  Our aim is to ensure all our entrants are supported through the entry process, from beginning to end, and are recognised in the fairest and most ethical way possible.

Possibly the overall highlight of 2021 has been the celebration of YOU, and all the incredible campaigns, tools, software and agencies, located around the globe, that enter each of our awards.  We have been inspired by your entries, joined you online to applaud your efforts, laughed at some of your questionable dance moves at our live events and had one too many Jägermeister shots with you….it has been a joy to be a part of, and exactly why we love every part of what we do. 

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Whilst we round up our highlights, on behalf of Don’t panic I would like to thank all of our entrants, sponsors, media partners, judges, clients and suppliers, as your commitment to our events is hugely appreciated and without your support, our awards simply would not be possible. In particular, I would like to personally thank David Edmundson – Bird our Chair of Judging Standards, Richard Gregory our Non-Executive Director, our Award Ambassadors and Judith Lewis who continually help shape and grow all of our award programmes.

The last highlight of 2021 for me is being appointed as MD of Don’t Panic. It has been an incredible 6 months in post, and I have the team to thank for that. Nicky Wake’s shoes are incredibly tough to fill, but I can safely say each member of the Don’t Panic family have made it that little bit easier. So, my last thank you goes to the incredible team I am lucky enough to be surrounded by each day, thank you for being committed, innovative and above all fun!

2021 has been an extremely busy year at Don’t Panic! So far, we have delivered 29 awards with a mixture of live and virtual events, and seen new additions to our ever-extending portfolio. As part of this we have added the Company Culture Awards to our repertoire, which are an extension of the increasingly popular agency culture categories, across the breadth of our agency awards.

The Company Culture Awards have given us a great insight into the incredible work our award entrants are doing to ensure employee satisfaction, productivity and wellbeing are at the forefront of everything they do. Often, we see how these businesses are taking their staff on their journey with them, and often the incentives they put in place are not funded by big budgets, but make a huge difference.

We too have been working hard as a small agency to ensure we are practising what we preach, and ensuring we create a working environment that rewards innovation, creative thinking, and nurtures our talented team members to achieve their personal and professional goals.

With that in mind, this year we have signed the Breathe HR Company Culture Pledge as an ongoing commitment to putting our team first. As part of this, we have recently launched our Culture Committee, which is made up of a representative from each department who report back to the senior leadership team on changes they feel need to be made and give everyone a voice in cultivating our culture. This can be as little as recommending an array of motivational incentives, or how we can improve communication internally and improve our core functions.

We also launched, what some may feel is a cliché but seems to be a hit with our team…Team of the Month. November’s the Team of the Month were our Event Managers. The Events teams work tirelessly (often behind the scenes) to ensure the logistics of every event we deliver, whether live or virtual is seamless, which is not an easy task! They all received an ASOS voucher to help them choose their very important Christmas party outfits! We are hoping that for one night, and one night only, they may be able to put their headsets and clipboards aside!

Our company culture is not defined by the senior leadership team alone. It has been great to see how our teams have been assisting in the development of our company culture and working hard to motivate and support one another particularly during our busiest months. We have recently had our very own GBBO sweepstake organised by our Data Analyst Jo and an incredible team cheeseboard organised by our Content Manager Sue. We have also recently enjoyed a night out at the UK Search Awards which many of us are still recovering from now!

Given the pandemic has seen a real shift in peoples behaviours, and sadly wellbeing, we will be shutting down all operations on Monday, May 9th for our Don’t Panic Mental Health Awareness Day. This means no emails will be sent, telephone calls answered or slack notifications pinging. This will give the whole team a true day off to do something we enjoy, or simply nothing at all. In addition to all this, we also offer a paid gym membership to assist with employee wellbeing– we can’t say this has been used too much on the run-up to Christmas, but can already hear the “new year new me” slogan making its way around the office.

We aren’t the biggest of businesses, but we recognise our teams, and the people that make them, are our biggest asset.

We are committed to continuing to learn and grow, and would love to hear what other businesses are doing to reward and motivate their teams…How do you cultivate your company culture? Email us at awards@dontpanicprojects.com

My journey with Don’t Panic has definitely been a varied one! I joined Don’t Panic after graduating from Manchester Metropolitan University, with a Business Management degree and I’m still here 5 years later, now in my role as Operations Manager. 

When I first started out, I had no idea where I’d end up. I joined Don’t Panic as a Speaker Bureau Assistant and quickly moved on to be Speaker Bureau Manager. From there, my role branched out into a variety of different areas, which led me to where I am today. 

Don’t Panic pride ourselves on putting people first, and that’s something I’ve always loved and enjoyed being a part of. Everyone at Don’t Panic has a huge role to play in the business’ success, which means we never hesitate to nurture and invest in our employees.

A big focus for me at the moment is building on our company culture and making sure our employees are involved in shaping that. This month, we launched our ‘culture committee’, which allows our dedicated ambassadors to share ideas and have their say. We’re always looking to improve, and we know our ambassadors will help us do that. 

Making sure our employees are involved and educated on the business’ goals is key for us. It helps us to ensure that everyone is working towards the same objectives, but also shows them what the business is trying to achieve and how they’re important in making that happen. We work hard together as a team with some ambitious goals, but we make sure to celebrate every win, no matter how small. 

If you want to join the Don’t Panic Team contact me sarah.power@dontpanicprojects.com

Author: Sarah Power

Can you ever go too early? We think not!

We have been hybrid working over the past month as we have had several awards to celebrate, UKeCommerce and UK Search Awards being just two of them, so having the whole team back together deserved a celebration.

Our Christmas Elf, Jo, must have arrived in the ‘dark of night’ to spread sparkle across the office as arriving to Christmas decor in the office, first thing Monday, was a delight. Each and every one of us was treated to a cone, filled with everything you need for the perfect hot chocolate, and we have a 6ft tree, decorated with lights, candy canes, and decorations that would bring a smile to St Nic (and I don’t mean our founder!)

The return to the office was also heralded in with a cheese board and appropriate accompanying delights. Who needs chocolate, when you can have cheese, or in our case both!

As the end of the year approaches the team is working towards deadlines for UK Dev Awards, Northern Digital Awards, European Content Awards, and Global Social Media Awards so we are all busy, busy, busy! We call December a unicorn month, a month when we are supposed to have time for catching up and planning, but this year we have seen increased levels of interest and entries, the launch of some new awards, more than one house move, a wedding, and a new baby so we will be working flat out until we shut for the holidays on the 23rd December.

At Don’t Panic we work hard, but we play hard too! We will of course be heading into Manchester to make merry at the office party on 16^th December. If you are out and about, and see us, be sure to come and say hello.

Help is at hand! We’ve teamed up with awards experts Boost Awards (the world’s first and largest award entry consultancy), who can help you with your entry. They can offer the following discounted service to those entering these awards:

A ‘starter for ten’ for £500 + VAT – a one hour call to explore your story, after which Boost will draft a ‘storyboard’ for your entry within a week.

This document will provide you with a recommended angle, key evidence points, and entry structure to align your story with all the elements of the entry form and the scoring system. It will not only increase your chances of success, it will make it far quicker for you to create a clear, punchy, focused and well evidenced entry that wows the judges. Further assistance is available on request should you need Boost to do more of the writing, evidence of graphic design of your entry than within the scope of this introductory offer. 

Boost can help you enter any of the Don’t Panic Awards whether they are Search, Content, Digital, ECommerce, Business Tech and they can help whatever region you are working in.

To accept this offer, please email info@boost-awards.co.uk