On leaving di:ga – or the importance of good communication
NB: This blog is based on the speech I delivered at my leaving do from di:ga Strategy and Communications, in August 2025
I didn’t mean to start a company. I didn’t have a vision or a 10-year plan. I certainly didn’t expect to start something that in time I would be able to pass on to others. In that sense, I guess you could call me an accidental entrepreneur.
What I did know was that I believed in the power of good communication to drive change. To persuade, convince, inspire, and challenge. I still believe in this, although there are times when it feels like we are shouting into the storm.
di:ga is the imperative form of ‘to speak’ in Spanish. A Spaniard will say – digame – tell me. I chose the name when I set up the company because I liked the simplicity of it: the power of speech, the imperative to say what matters.
In In Memory of WB Yeats, written less than nine months before the outbreak of World War II, as tensions were mounting across Europe, WH Auden counters his own assertion that ‘poetry makes nothing happen’ with the exhortation to: ‘Follow poet, follow right to the bottom of the night and with your unconstraining voice, still persuade us to rejoice’.
While I wouldn’t make the claim of poetry for the press releases, opinion pieces, and LinkedIn posts di:ga produces, I do hope that in some way they make a difference – in countering disinformation; speaking up for the rights of those who are marginalised, abused or silenced; clearly advocating for solutions to some of our biggest problems – from climate change to conflict, to exploitation and inequality.
It's a tiring task. Sisyphean at times. But there are moments of light, of breakthrough. When a client’s policy recommendation cuts through and influences a target’s decision making; when a false or damaging claim is countered on record; when you bring to life an idea for an organisation – unlocking support and hope.
Many of us involved in campaigning and advocacy for progressive causes are seeking to influence things that are far beyond the purview of one individual or group. The sort of change we are seeking often happens incrementally, is hard to measure, and can go backwards. We believe passionately in our solutions, but it’s important that we don’t let that passion exacerbate the problems we want to help solve.
When I started working in the non-profit sector in my twenties, having gone into journalism straight from university, I was struck by the moral fervour of many of my colleagues. And how that fervour could alienate or shame others, and even blind the person trying to do good to their own flaws.
I often thought of the lines from Yeats’ poem, The Second Coming, “The best lack all conviction while the worst / are full of passionate intensity.” I was never sure which I wanted to be. No one wants to lack conviction – a jaded cynic on the sidelines – but I felt then - and still feel - that the intense self-righteousness of charity campaigners and left-wing activists could possibly be more harmful.
Twenty years on from my press office job at Oxfam, it feels ever-more important to think about the widest implications of our language – to have humility and try to see things from others’ points of view, as well as holding true to our values and pursuing what we believe matters.
Polarisation and othering are two of the biggest challenges of our times, fuelled and weaponised by social media and its addiction-driving algorithms. We won’t escape this vortex if we cannot dig deep into empathy – for everyone, including those we disagree with - and examine our own biases, assumptions and motivations.
As the world changes, so do the means by which we must seek to engage with and persuade others. This is the challenge for the new leadership at di:ga – and for all of us who want a fairer, safer and more just world.
1 August 225
