Rosie has 12 years’ experience working in digital communications. Passionate about helping communicators demonstrate and deliver their value, she champions the use of data and insight to build trust, drive change, and evidence impact. At Orlo, Rosie’s goal is to support public sector teams in making the most of community engagement, not just to hit KPIs, but to show the real difference their work makes to communities.

Mastering social listening – from setup to strategy. How Orlo’s Professional Services Team have helped Lambeth Council and Northumbria Police turn raw data into strategic action.

Having access to social data is one thing; knowing how to listen, filter out the noise, and embed social intelligence into your team’s daily routines is another challenge entirely. For many public sector organisations, social listening can feel overwhelming – where do you start, what should you actually listen for, and how do you turn online chatter into real-world action?

That’s where Orlo’s Professional Services Team steps in. In this practical, story-led session, discover how Orlo’s strategic consultancy, expert data structuring, and process mapping take organisations from complete social listening novices to data-driven powerhouses.

Joined by representatives from Lambeth Council and Northumbria Police, we’ll explore how Orlo’s consultants worked hand in hand with their teams to bridge the skills gap, build custom frameworks, and seamlessly embed social listening into their everyday workflows.

What we’ll cover:

Teaching the art of strategic listening with Lambeth Council. Discover how Orlo’s expert consultants guided Lambeth’s comms team on how to effectively listen to complex social conversations. Helping them set up tailored theme alerts around recurring community safety concerns, Orlo’s Professional Services Team enabled them to embed social intelligence directly into their strategic comms planning. Learn how this consultancy empowered them to produce community-inspired content, specifically designed to build trust and foster cohesion.

Designing and embedding daily processes with Northumbria Police. Hear how the Orlo Team assisted the team at Northumbria in cleaning, filtering, and prioritising extensive data sets, enabling them to quickly identify what truly matters. Understand how the team guided the force in embedding Insights into their daily 8 AM operational routine and helped establish a ‘viral matrix’ to decide when immediate action is required. The payoff? This strategy led to a same-day arrest.

Understand how Orlo’s Professional Services Team helps those who don’t know where to begin with social listening, with expert consultancy giving public sector teams the tools, confidence and strategy needed to drive tangible, real-world impact.

Jake is Head of Digital Campaigns and Communications at Lambeth Council, South London, where he leads digital comms, marketing, design and campaigns. With experience across government and agency settings, Jake’s work focuses particularly on behaviour‑change campaigns, digital marketing, social media, and reputation management. Previous roles include Senior Marketing Strategist at a Melbourne-based digital marketing agency and Head of Community Outreach at Apolitical, the world’s largest online platform for government. Jake is also a member of the LGcomms National Executive Committee.

Mastering social listening – from setup to strategy. How Orlo’s Professional Services Team have helped Lambeth Council and Northumbria Police turn raw data into strategic action.

Having access to social data is one thing; knowing how to listen, filter out the noise, and embed social intelligence into your team’s daily routines is another challenge entirely. For many public sector organisations, social listening can feel overwhelming – where do you start, what should you actually listen for, and how do you turn online chatter into real-world action?

That’s where Orlo’s Professional Services Team steps in. In this practical, story-led session, discover how Orlo’s strategic consultancy, expert data structuring, and process mapping take organisations from complete social listening novices to data-driven powerhouses.

Joined by representatives from Lambeth Council and Northumbria Police, we’ll explore how Orlo’s consultants worked hand in hand with their teams to bridge the skills gap, build custom frameworks, and seamlessly embed social listening into their everyday workflows.

What we’ll cover:

Teaching the art of strategic listening with Lambeth Council. Discover how Orlo’s expert consultants guided Lambeth’s comms team on how to effectively listen to complex social conversations. Helping them set up tailored theme alerts around recurring community safety concerns, Orlo’s Professional Services Team enabled them to embed social intelligence directly into their strategic comms planning. Learn how this consultancy empowered them to produce community-inspired content, specifically designed to build trust and foster cohesion.

Designing and embedding daily processes with Northumbria Police. Hear how the Orlo Team assisted the team at Northumbria in cleaning, filtering, and prioritising extensive data sets, enabling them to quickly identify what truly matters. Understand how the team guided the force in embedding Insights into their daily 8 AM operational routine and helped establish a ‘viral matrix’ to decide when immediate action is required. The payoff? This strategy led to a same-day arrest.

Understand how Orlo’s Professional Services Team helps those who don’t know where to begin with social listening, with expert consultancy giving public sector teams the tools, confidence and strategy needed to drive tangible, real-world impact.

Co-founder and director at Alive with Ideas, Alan brings over 25+ years of creative, brand and storytelling experience to the table. Known for conjuring up fresh campaigns and workshops. He helps organisations bring ideas to life in ways that connect, excite and endure.

1.6 Million reasons to get real: the power of unfiltered social campaigns

Isobel will be bringing to life this best practice case study from the team at South Wales Police, detailing how they were able to reach 1.6 million people across their socials by breaking the mould. Ditching the usual polished social posts in favour of a more raw, storytelling campaign.

This session will also involve an interactive workshop brought to you by Alan Oram from Alive With Ideas and Orlo’s very own Helena Hornby, where we’ll be discussing the power of being bold with your approach to your own social campaigns, thinking outside the box, and considering a more human perspective can often have the biggest impact.

Jen is strategic lead for social media at UHB and is passionate about sociology, behaviour change and is trained counsellor. She incorporates these into her understanding of managing social media.

“I didn’t think anyone would see it”
What do employee social media mistakes teach us about reputation, culture, and accountability, and how do we approach it?

Richard oversees the delivery of Surrey County Council’s comms activities and manages the channels they’re delivered on. A senior communication leader, with experience working in local government, central government and the private sector. Richard has a background working in, and leading creative teams which he brings to his current role, helping to make any comms resonate with the audiences they’re intended for. Richard is currently leading on the branding and communications channel transition work for LGR in Surrey.

LGR in Practice: Lessons, resilience and reflections from Surrey with Q&A

With the local government reorganisation (LGR) programme paused by government in most areas, work continues at pace in Surrey. Join Mike, Richard, Holly and Jenny from Surrey County Council as they take a pause and reflect on their own LGR journey.

The team will share practical advice on collaboration, building resilience, managing expectations, and accepting that perfection is off the table, whilst revealing lessons learned so far. This candid session will also explore the people aspects of a major transformation programme like LGR, acknowledging job security concerns and the emotional toll of merging teams and cultures, beyond the logistical challenges. Bring your questions for an open-floor discussion and leave with honest lessons, practical takeaways, and reflections on how to use today’s pause to build readiness, resilience and momentum for whatever comes next in your LGR journey.

Gemma leads strategic communications, patient relations and reputation management across one of the UK’s largest NHS organisations. Gemma is passionate about using communication, engagement, and patient feedback to improve services, strengthen trust and amplify the patient voice.

“I didn’t think anyone would see it”
What do employee social media mistakes teach us about reputation, culture, and accountability, and how do we approach it?

Brendan is Orlo’s Product Marketing Manager, working at the point where unified data and AI meet the everyday reality of public sector comms and community engagement.

Uncover how harnessing the power of unified data and AI will empower your organisation to drive social cohesion and build stronger communities.

AI is officially here to stay, with Gartner predicting that 80% of public sector leaders will be using AI agents for routine decisions by 2028. However, your AI is only ever as good as the data sitting behind it, and right now, that data is sitting in silos.

In this session from Orlo’s product team, we’ll be diving into the future of public sector communications to explore why joining the dots matters more than ever. We’ll discuss how unifying your data – from complaints and casework to surveys and social media, – gives you a truly holistic view of your community. With social cohesion now a national priority, comms teams find themselves firmly on the frontline. We’ll show how bringing this data into one actionable view gives you the vital context needed to detect early tensions, tackle misinformation, and accurately gauge community sentiment. 

What you’ll get from this session:

Understand how breaking down silos and connecting data across the public sector gives you an unparalleled 360-degree view of your community, allowing you to move beyond simply listening and start taking meaningful action.

Discover the power of natural language querying and learn how you can ask your data questions in plain English to get evidence-based answers instantly, saving you hours of dashboard building.

Get a glimpse into ‘Synthetic Citizen’, a forward-looking view on predictive AI and how modelling a community or place can allow you to test reactions and strategies before you hit send.

Michael is the Director of Communications at Surrey County Council, sitting on the Corporate Leadership Team and overseeing the communications, public affairs and engagement function. He is an experienced communications professional with a history of working in journalism, politics, and Parliament. Michael is the National Secretary of membership body LGcomms – committed to raising the standard of communications in the public sector. He is also an alumni of the national 2018/19 LGcomms Future Leaders programme.

LGR in Practice: Lessons, resilience and reflections from Surrey with Q&A

With the local government reorganisation (LGR) programme paused by government in most areas, work continues at pace in Surrey. Join Mike, Richard, Holly and Jenny from Surrey County Council as they take a pause and reflect on their own LGR journey.

The team will share practical advice on collaboration, building resilience, managing expectations, and accepting that perfection is off the table, whilst revealing lessons learned so far. This candid session will also explore the people aspects of a major transformation programme like LGR, acknowledging job security concerns and the emotional toll of merging teams and cultures, beyond the logistical challenges. Bring your questions for an open-floor discussion and leave with honest lessons, practical takeaways, and reflections on how to use today’s pause to build readiness, resilience and momentum for whatever comes next in your LGR journey.