Creating Change: Duncan Sones of CASA

In conversations our team has had with communications professionals within the context of emerging markets, we’ve noticed some common patterns: small (or solo person) comms teams, an emphasis on content creation but less so on dissemination, and frustrations involving delays due to processes in place.

In an attempt to shed light on challenges comms professionals face, and the solutions they have found, we are starting a Q&A series with comms teams at mission-driven organizations.

Meet Communications Consultant Duncan Sones. He works for the Commercial Agriculture for Smallholders and Agribusiness (CASA) Programme. CASA aims to make the commercial and development case for investing in agribusinesses that source produce from smallholders. Hopefully his insights will inspire your own team.

Why do you think communications are important for creating change?

Duncan Sones: It’s about inspiration and intent. Communications can do a really good job of inspiring and helping you to understand a need for change and an opportunity to change in response to a challenge. Communications are a means by which tools for change can be shared, including evidence toolkits or examples of how things that have happened elsewhere could be applied in other contexts. Communication is an essential part of creating change, but not the only part of it. Without some level of communication, change isn’t possible, at least at scale.

What are your largest obstacles when it comes to creating change in comms?

Duncan Sones: I’m not sure that the largest obstacles are within the communications itself — the communications challenges are relatively easy, it’s about sorting out who the messages are for and presenting it in a way that makes sense to them. There are mechanical processes to be followed, and it does take some creativity to strip down the complexity to the point where the message is understood. The real challenge is one of enlightenment: what you usually need for change to happen is a series of things happening simultaneously. It’s about understanding the architecture of the places where information needs to sit, and there are a number of decision points that exist in those interlocking spheres. The problem is not with any one of those elements (you can work on the who, the what, your story, etc.), the complexity is getting everybody to receive them in the right order to create a bridge of sorts — the bridge will only stand up if all of the pieces are in place.

What have been best practices for you when it comes to comms?

A lot can be said for simplicity and for trying to ensure that we strip messages back to very clear, relatable benefits for specific audiences. A lot of communication is seen in a generic way, and it takes very little additional effort to tailor the messages to specific audiences. For example, within CASA we are trying very hard to be really clear about who our audience is, whether it is investors or businesses or policy makers, and then start to pull elements of our communication out that speak directly to those audiences. Too often the communication is focused on the needs of an information provider, and quite often that can be forced. What is important is direct communication to people you want the change to happen for. It is crucial to create a clear link to the benefit — establish what the thing you are advocating for can do for them — and do that in an exciting way. It is also important that small pieces of information go through a trail that leads you back to the data that informs those insights, that way the audience can get as much detail as they need. Increasingly, that Agile style of communication is what we’re trying to do, and technology is making that easier all the time.

What direction do you think content is going in? Have you noticed this varying by country?

Duncan Sones: Our content is going much more modular and much shorter, and we are trying very hard to publish executive summaries of reports, for example a 4-minute introduction on a particular subject, which does a good job of curating the information. I’m not sure that we are seeing specifically different approaches by country, but everything we’re doing is around trying to present a package of information that is a clear summary of the key issues.

What views need to change so that comms are prioritized in the next 5 years?

Duncan Sones: It would be enormously helpful to change the way that scientists are trained and incentivized, so that basic communication is central to their work and they aren’t just talking to each other, but talking to the world in a way that can communicate a change. The way that social media and professional networks have evolved and changed over the pandemic mean that a whole lot of communication that wasn’t even possible 5-6 years ago is being conceived. A lot of those trends happened around remote meetings, but there are losses with the lack of face-to-face meetings because it is impossible to build your network in the same way. A lot of different trends are going on at the moment, but all of them have positives and negatives. There are lots of individuals at the start of their careers who are trying to build a network even with their own peers and colleagues, but remote work has created challenges around team building both internally and externally. Change is complex and needs a lot of different elements in place, but a big part of it is these relationships and the ability to network. These connections are needed for change to be delivered.

Keep an eye out for more insights in our Creating Change series, where we chat one-on-one with communications professionals to expedite the problem/solution process within the communications field throughout emerging markets and beyond.

Reach out to Marin Herold (marin.herold@discoveredmarkets.com) if you’d like to nominate yourself or someone else with wisdom to share!