Russell-Oliver Brooklands' background

So who is this bloke who's put together the Internal Communication Model?  And what qualifies him to do so?  Well, how about more than 20 years of experience as a professional communicator, and sixteen years of study and research into Behavioural Linguistics?

Radio Broadcaster

Freelance Journalist & Copywriter

Corporate Writer

Corporate Brand Manager

Behavioural Linguist

Independent Trainer & Consultant

Director of the Institute of Internal Communication

As far as my professional experience is concerned, I started out nearly a quarter of a century ago as a radio DJ, but soon fell into writing features and advertisements. 

I then branched out, taking on freelance journalism and copywriting jobs until, in 1990, I was invited by Allied Dunbar (now Zurich Financial Services) to become their Corporate Writer. 

After three years' writing all manner of material: Marketing, Internal, Recruitment and Shareholder comms, I was invited to join the newly formed Brand Management team, and given responsibility for the company's Verbal Identity (basically coming up with the rules and guidelines which told 8,000 other people how to write stuff).

My personal belief was that the right way to write stuff would depend on the result one was trying to get - and from whom.  So it never made any sense to me to put together a style guide that didn't also include guidance on how to identify results and audiences.  And thus were sown the seeds of what, fifteen years later, became the Internal Communication Model. 

But first, I had to work out the Verbal Identity, a task which was the catalyst for me starting to study something that has become my passion: Behavioural Linguistics.  Behavioural Linguistics, in its various forms, is the study of how we use language to construct our understandings of the world. 

It enables us to analyse our own thinking patterns, and identify how we can make our language increasingly precise and effective.  So it's been the perfect discipline for deconstructing traditional business communication models, identifying their flaws, and creating a completely new model for the IC arena.

Having put together the Verbal Identity, I realised that I'd been able to construct a new way of thinking through business communication.  So, in 1996, I set up on my own, as a consultant and trainer.  For the next 12 years, I continued to refine my original ideas, focusing increasingly on internal comms.  And in March 2008, I launched the ICM.

In May 2008, I was also elected to the Board of the Institute of Internal Communication, where I have since been particularly active in helping develop the Professional Accreditation programme.  I'm currently working on the Institute's self-assessment Career Planning tools.