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Dear {{ first_name | reader }},
Forbes Communications Council published its list of 20 skills every communications professional will need by 2027 on 13 October. It is a sound list for communicators in general, but we are not the people it was written for.
So here is mine. This is opinion rather than research. It comes from the work we do and what tends to go wrong, plus some background reading, including a look at how existing competency frameworks describe our job.
Disagree wherever you like, and tell me which parts.
P.S. The RiskComms Global Outlook survey is still open until 30 November. It asks practitioners how risk, crisis and emergency communication is really done, as opposed to how the plans say it should be, and it runs in English, French, Spanish and Arabic.
It is anonymous, and you can ask for the final report. If you disagree with anything in this list, the survey is where your answer counts for more than a comment would: https://riskcommsresearch.com/
WAG THE DOG NEWSLETTER | ISSUE WEEK 43, 2026
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Most skills lists are written for communicators whose main risk is irrelevance. In risk, crisis and emergency work, the risk is that people act on the wrong information, or on none.
Know your audience first, because if you do not know who is affected and what each group can actually do, nothing else on the list will rescue the message.
Situational awareness is never switched on. It runs permanently, from baseline to watch to live, and you judge the shift by source, coordination and relevance, and ignore volume.
AI adds three jobs to ours: governing your own use of it, auditing what it says about your organisation, and verifying what you see before you pass it on.
Looking after your own mental health is the skill underneath the other fifteen, and even a team that has all of them still needs enough rested people to use them in week three.