Are you a social business? As a first response I say that yes, we are at Parity Trust... I then got to thinking; yes we are a social business in that we aim to deliver social objectives like improving well being and repairing and adapting homes and bringing empty properties back in to use and yes, we are 'social' i.e. on Twitter and LinkedIn and yes, we do attend meetings and networking events where we talk about what we do and take the time to listen to and learn from others... however, I think it is safe to assume that most of the team are involved in some form(s) of communication be it on social media, or by ‘real life’ face to face interactions, or presenting to others, but not everyone is involved in all forms of communication, maybe because some are more comfortable staying in the wings and getting on with the desktop tasks at hand. So should we all be trying to do all of these things at the same time?

As I’m sure most businesses find, some individuals have strengths in one area or another – some people are very good at the tech side of things, or running social media campaigns and some excel in going out and about and spreading the word about what we are able to offer. I think that as long as you have a good mix of all of the above, why not play to peoples strengths. We all know that widening the scope of our abilities and achievements is really important for the organisation in which we work, but mostly for our own personal development and yes, it’s great to face your fears and do something outside of your comfort zone (the first time someone wanted me to do a presentation, I spent most of that day hoping that, by some miracle the whole thing would be cancelled – strange as I've been told I can talk the hind legs off a donkey on more than one occasion). But I’m beginning to think that it’s ok that not everybody is just ok at everything - a bunch of ‘jack of alls’ for want of a better phrase - and that we all have our strengths, its what makes us all different and brings diversity to the company.

With a pretty small team (we have five full time staff plus or CEO), as long as people are prepared to ‘step in to the breach’ and help each other out when needed, or to do something that’s a little bit outside of the job description and as long as the organisation has a good mix of all types of communications from press releases to social media posts, to attending or running events and being confident in talking with people about what your business has to offer face to face, does that make us social enough?