This morning we hosted our first ever Passle Super User Workshop with the aim to empower our client-network to share ideas, best practices, and solve their business challenges collectively. 

Our second speaker was the brilliant Leigh Kendall who leads the NHS Horizons' communications and social marketing strategy. With an extensive background in the NHS and healthcare communications, Leigh oversees the production of content across the Horizons' team. 

A collective challenge which Passle seeks to address is to empower experts to activate their voice online and share their opinions around topical issues which are relevant to the audience that the experts need to influence. 

Achieving this at scale, across your whole team, and all levels of seniority requires the right people in place to drive this as an initiative forward. This is exactly what Leigh does for the Horizons' team, making sure that anyone who wants to share an idea/ opinion/ or story that they have not only the tools, but also the confidence and understanding of how to do this effectively. 

To reduce the barriers to creating 'powerful expert-led' content at scale across your organisation, I have listed some of the key learnings from Leigh's experience rolling Passle out across The NHS' most socially influential team.

1. 'Nearly perfect' is better than no content at all - encourage your team to get their ideas down, the structure will come later. Getting started is the key. Confidence will gradually grow and evolve into a habit. 
2. Short and sweet is better than War and Peace - for subject-matter experts, their opinions and stories matter to their clients. You do not have to write a thesis or completely unique piece, but rather a digestible nugget of insight about the right topic at the right time is ultimately what matters.
3. Be Human not a Robot - people connect with people, get your experts to use their interest, stories, and passions to showcase what it is that they care about.
4. Story telling and narrative is powerful - this will take data, information and knowledge, transforming it into insight, wisdom and impact.
5. What's in it for me? - make sure the experts understand how creating content is going to benefit them, and then feedback the results on a regular basis.
6. Look out for opportunities to create content and make sure to remind the team - whether your team are attending an event, or you have seen something relevant in the news, make sure to keep this front of mind for your experts and co-create if necessary to give the additional confidence for newer writers. 

The final piece of advice which stuck with the audience is as a communications professional have confidence in your expertise!