Meet the Expert: Sarah Netherclift, Technical Content Specialist

Our technical content specialist, Sarah, joined the team earlier this year. While she’s new(ish) to Resonates, she’s not new to content writing and has written about subjects as diverse as smart canals, greases on Mars, and lots of tech. 

How has your PR and marketing journey grown?

It’s been a long one! I started as a report writer – what we’d probably call a content writer today – with Hewlett Packard straight out of university. Then I worked my way up through a number of marketing roles in the IT industry before coming full circle as a jobbing copy and content writer for engineering clients as well as tech. I joined Resonates earlier this year as the Technical Content Specialist. Apart from being a PR agency client in my marketing management days, this is my first real exposure to the pointy end of PR and learning from the experts.

What do you find most rewarding about your job?

Variety and the chance to think creatively. Content can take many forms and it’s always rewarding to come up with a new angle to get a point across. I learn more in a day talking to clients about the problems their tech solves than I ever could reading pages of industry analysis. I do that too, of course, but it’s the human element of technology that’s the most interesting.

What’s your favourite brand and why?

Thought, (wearethought.com) a low-environmental impact clothing brand that uses sustainable fabrics like bamboo and hemp.

What content are you enjoying consuming right now?

I’ve enjoyed the podcasts that accompany TV series like Inside Number 9 and Line of Duty, and Test Match Special, does that count?

The future workplace is evolving – what do you think businesses need to focus on in the next few months?

Businesses will need to adjust how they deal with the post-pandemic shift in employees’ priorities. Employees will realise that they have more power to change things than they realise. The focus for businesses over the next few months will be to truly understand their workforce, not as a single body but as individuals, and deliver an employee experience that makes opportunities for progression and growth universal.

What are the major challenges to tackling Net Zero and how do you overcome them?

Insulating homes in the UK is a major challenge. So much energy disappears through roofs, walls and windows. I live in a cottage that was built around 1730. The walls are a foot thick. In the middle of winter and the middle of a heatwave the temperature remains pretty much the same. Though, because it’s listed, I have no idea how to insulate the dodgy 1970s extension.

The over-use of plastics bugs me. If we could lose our unnecessary reliance on plastics, we’d save the carbon emitted in its manufacture and disposal and prevent more of it ending up in rivers and oceans.

What green products/services do you use/like/would recommend?

As well as Thought, above, I recommend the no-plastic laundry detergent sheets from Earth Breeze.

If you could choose to do anything for a day, what would it be?

Go to Lords and watch a delightful day of Test Cricket in the sunshine. Oh wait, I did that at the start of June for the first day of the first test against New Zealand.