In this series, we talk with different Sussex Innovation team members about their interests, role, and the day-to-day support they can provide for members of our community. Today Catalyst team member, Busola chats with Joseph Bradfield PR and Communications Advisor.     

Tell us bit about you and your role.

My name’s Joseph, I’m the PR and communications advisor for Sussex Innovation. Part of my role is working on behalf of Sussex Innovation to spread the word about the projects that we are working on, the products and packages that we offer as well as the events that we run. I tend to write most of the content for our website, press, email marketing and so on. The other half of my role involves consulting with our clients to help them with their brand storytelling and content marketing.

 What kind of issues can you help our members solve?  

As my background is in PR – consumer-facing PR and specifically copywriting, that’s the focus of a lot of what I do with our members. What many of them get the most benefit from is helping to define their message and tell their story more effectively. If there is a particular point that they need to explain to an audience, I am quite good at taking those kinds of more complicated ideas and distilling them into something that can be easily understood. I would say I’m always interested to find out more about what our members are working on. So please come in to come and bend my ear and tell me what you’re doing because you never know when it might make for good media story or marketing campaign!  

What is a project you have enjoyed working on the most till date ?

There was one I did quite a few years ago now, I worked on a research project with one of our tenants One Research. They’re a business that specializes in recruiting patients into clinical trials. I worked very closely with the research and insight team, who interviewed lots of people in the industry about the problems around patient recruitment and the challenges within that and then I wrote up a white paper that explored all those issues and explained why One Research is so good at helping to overcome those challenges. It was really interesting, I enjoy learning, so I love when I get to deep dive into what one of our members does and understand more about the issues within an industry that’s not so familiar to me.

More recently, just last week I spent a day with FareShare, a not-for-profit that collects and redistributes surplus food to people who need it. There were about 20 people from their various teams across the south of England, and we worked on how to create impactful stories to win over potential donors, volunteers, commercial partners and the press. It’s always rewarding to support good sustainable projects like that, and I also love running those kinds of creative sessions.

Where will we find you on an ideal weekend ?

I generally like creative pursuits; an ideal weekend for me is often spent at home. I like to go out for a nice walk or find an activity to get outside for a bit, but most of the time you’ll find me writing, cooking, making music or doing some digital art or model painting or something. Something that I find relaxing, distracting and creative. 

What is a unique hobby or talent you have ?

Well, the reason I have been doing a lot of model painting recently is that me and my partner play Dungeons and Dragons. It is something that we got into during the first lockdown as a bit of a creative outlet. We meet up with a bunch of friends once a month to hang out, do some roleplaying and collaborate on an ongoing story. It’s given me a really good toolkit for understanding and exploring storytelling, because it involves a lot of thinking on your feet to make sense of something that involves a lot of surprising and random elements. It has been quite a good exercise for stretching the brain and working on my improvisational skills. 

 What is your favourite innovation/ invention and why ? 

It’s a boring answer, but I always go back to the printing press. When you think about it, before we were able to mass produce written information, the only way you could pass on knowledge to someone outside of your immediate circle was literally writing it down and then sending it to the person.  The ability to copy and distribute information efficiently is what almost all other inventions or innovations since medieval times have stemmed from. The internet is built on that same principle of being able to take down and replicate knowledge and then share it with other people as far as possible.