The podcast that explores the many facets of communication that influence our behaviour – but often go unnoticed.
From menu design to motorway typography and medical instructions, to different communications environments - courtroom, concert hall and emergency incidents - communications specialist Sue Keogh and guests share brilliant techniques to convey ideas, influence behaviour and get across critical messages in your marketing, business and brand.
Lessons in leadership communication from orchestra conductor Robert Ziegler and business identity expert Majid Islam, with communications specialist and host Sue Keogh.
When you’re leading an orchestra, how do you communicate with 80 incredibly talented musicians, all at once – when you’re the one person in the room who can’t make a noise?
Conductor Robert Ziegler shares lessons in leadership communication from his incredible career leading orchestras around the world. Not just performing classics from Beethoven, Chopin and Holst, recording the soundtrack to computer game Genshin Impact, the live tour of David Attenborough’s Ocean, and the film score to Lord of the Rings.
He’ll talk about the importance of eye contact, how to read the room when you have your back to the audience, and why the best conductors are like the CEO, presenting a compelling vision everyone can get behind.
We’ll also hear from Majid Islam, from Alignment Cubed, who explains how you need to adapt your communication style according to the type of organisation you’re leading – is it a Giant Monster, Elite Team, Visionary Ecosystem, or Efficient Machine?
Communication Untangled is a podcast from Cambridge communications consultancy Sookio.
Got a knotty communication challenge you need untangling? Talk to us
Robert Ziegler’s website: https://www.robertziegler.co.uk/
Alignment Cubed: http://www.alignmentcubed.com/
Communication Untangled is a podcast from Cambridge communications consultancy Sookio.
Got a knotty communication challenge that needs untangling? We can help, through communications strategy, marketing consultancy and brand storytelling.
How do you communicate in high-pressure situations? East Anglian Air Ambulance paramedic Dr Brendan Fletcher explains. And Claire Percy, Head of External Affairs at Dublin Port, tells host Sue Keogh how to build an effective crisis comms plan.
Dr Brendan Fletcher is an NHS Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridgeshire, and part of crew for the East Anglian Air Ambulance. They arrive on the scene of road traffic collisions, cardiac arrests and other medical emergencies, offering critical care and airlifting patients in their eye-catching yellow helicopters to hospital, giving them the very best chance of survival.
He explains how paramedics use body language to inject a sense of calm in panicky situations, and the communication techniques he uses in different scenarios, from talking to injured children, breaking bad news to loved ones, or dealing with the modern very phenomenon of bystanders getting their phones out and filming at the scene.
His 90-second rule is very interesting too – and you’ll soon be applying it in business situations yourself.
We take a break in the middle to hear from Claire Percy, Head of External Affairs at Dublin Port, a critical site of Ireland’s national infrastructure with 1.8million passengers and 165bn Euros worth of trade passing through each year. She tells us how to build a crisis communications plan so your organisation keeps control of the narrative if something goes wrong. Which…let’s be honest, it always will!
Communication Untangled is a podcast from Cambridge communications consultancy Sookio.
Got a knotty communication challenge you need untangling? Talk to us
https://www.sookio.com/podcast
http://sookio.com/contact
Please donate to the East Anglian Air Ambulance and support their incredible work: https://www.eaaa.org.uk
Connect with Claire Percy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairepercy
Untangling Humour
Season 3 · Episode 1
Sunday, September 6, 2026 • Duration 24:34
Toby Freeman, Founder of The Robin Cancer Trust – and a man who runs marathons dressed as a 7ft high pair of testicles – joins communications specialist Sue Keogh to explain how the charity uses humour brilliantly to break the stigma and enable honest conversations about cancer.
He outlines why it’s so important to make yourself the butt of the joke – not the people with the condition – and how charities can convert these moments of laughter into actual donations. He’s also got some great advice if you’re a business who wants to use humour in your marketing – but are holding back for fear of getting cancelled.
We’re also joined by standup-comic-turned public speaking coach Jon Torrens, who’s got some very practical tips in using humour to win over your audience.
Communication Untangled is a podcast from Cambridge communications consultancy Sookio. Got a knotty communication challenge you need untangling? Talk to us.
About Toby Freeman
Toby Freeman is Founder & CEO of Robin Cancer Trust, the UK's only dedicated testicular, ovarian, and germ-cell cancer charity.
He founded the charity in 2012 after losing his brother, Robin, to late-stage testicular cancer when he was just 24. Toby’s personal mission was simple: to prevent another family from going through what mine did.
A men's health advocate and podcast host, he uses honesty, humour and purpose-led leadership to break stigma and create impact. These bold campaigns turn taboo topics into normal conversations – like his Big Ballsy Challenge, which saw him run the London Marathon in 2026 dressed as a 7ft high pair of testicles to attempt a Guinness World Record for “fastest man dressed as a body part” and raise vital funds to support every man diagnosed with testicular cancer in the UK.
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Communication Untangled series 3 trailer
Season 3
Sunday, September 6, 2026 • Duration 01:22
What do you get when you cross a basketball coach, orchestra conductor and two funeral directors with a doctor, criminal defence barrister and a man dressed as a giant pair of testicles?
Series 3 of Communication Untangled! The podcast which explores the tiny facets of communication which shape our behaviour – but often go unnoticed.
And it’s all hosted by me, Sue Keogh. Founder of Cambridge communications consultancy Sookio, Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and behavioural science enthusiast.
In my 3-decade career in comms, working for the BBC, ITV, GOV.UK and with clients like the NHS and the University of Cambridge, I’ve always been fascinated by those little elements of communication which influence us in a big way.
And for this series, we’re shifting the focus to different communication environments and untangling the techniques you can use within them.
In each episode I’ll be joined by a guest who’s a brilliant practitioner in their field, with a short blast of tips in the middle from a specialist….sharing secrets you can steal to help convey ideas more powerfully in your own marketing, business or brand. Click subscribe to make sure you don’t miss an episode.
Communication Untangled is a podcast from Cambridge communications consultancy Sookio. Got a knotty communication challenge you need untangling? Talk to us
Communication Untangled is a podcast from Cambridge communications consultancy Sookio.
Got a knotty communication challenge that needs untangling? We can help, through communications strategy, marketing consultancy and brand storytelling.
Start here: sookio.com/podcast
Hosted on Acast. See for more information.
Untangling Sound
Season 2 · Episode 6
Tuesday, June 3, 2025 • Duration 18:21
Sound designer Sian Harris (Star Wars, LEGO, Need for Speed) from Fuse Games explains how audio in games has a huge impact on our emotional response as we play. We talk elephants, toucans, and why she’ll never replace humans with robots.
Plus, remember the classic Nokia ringtone? It was heard nearly 2 billion times a day at its peak – but now we keep our phones on mute.
Whether you're accelerating at speed in Grand Theft Auto, collecting coins in Super Mario, or you've just caught a fish in Animal Crossing with a satisfying splosh, the way the sound is designed in gaming has a huge impact on our emotional response as we play. It helps you become immersed in whole new worlds, and alerts you to points won – and lives lost.
Someone who knows all about games audio and the techniques used to heighten our emotions is Sian Harris, Lead Sound Designer at Fuse Games. She's worked on numerous titles in the Star Wars and LEGO franchises, along with racing game Need for Speed and Sea of Solitude, set in a flooded city with big monsters making scary noises!
She tells host Sue Keogh about all the subtle ways she uses sound to get people really tuned into the game...and how she strikes a balance between using AI technology and keeping it old school.
Speaking of which! We’ll also remember the famous Nokia ringtone, a total classic from the early days of mobile phones which at its peak was heard nearly two billion times a day.
Communication Untangled is a podcast from Cambridge communications consultancy Sookio. Got a knotty communication challenge you need untangling? Talk to us
About Sian Harris
Sian Harris is an award-winning Lead Sound Designer currently working at Fuse Games. With over a decade of experience in sound design, audio direction, leadership and mentoring. Sian has played a pivotal role in shaping the soundscapes of some of the most innovative games in the industry such as the Need for Speed, Battlefield and Star Wars franchises.
Untangling Recipes
Season 2 · Episode 5
Tuesday, May 20, 2025 • Duration 23:37
Chef and food writer Noor Murad joins Sue Keogh to Untangle Recipes. Part of Yottam Ottolenghi’s Test Kitchen team, she’s cooked trackside at Formula 1 and trained at the Culinary Institute of America in New York.
She explains how you how you test and proofread recipes, the difference in writing recipes in Arabic and English, and questions whether social media put us under too much pressure to make our food look glamorous.
We also look at a different kind of recipe – the formulations for beauty products – and the challenge for iconic brands like Chanel in not giving away trade secrets.
Sue Keogh: One of my early copywriting gigs when I first went freelance was to get hundreds of recipes from print – onto a new online portal. It had literally never occurred to me before that point, that there was a consistent structure in the way that recipes were written.
You list the ingredients in order of use, putting the most important ones first…and any the salt and pepper and other seasoning goes at the end. It suddenly seemed so obvious! But I’d just never noticed.
And the way a recipe is written affects how well we cook it too. So in this episode we’re going to untangle recipes and find out how it’s done.
I’m joined by Noor Murad, who is part of Yottam Ottolenghi’s Test Kitchen team. Her recipe books include Shelf Love and Lugma – an ode to the food she grew up eating during her childhood in Bahrain.
She’s cooked trackside at Formula 1, and trained at the Culinary Institute of America in New York. She now lives in London, and invited me over to the very kitchen where she develops her delicious Middle Eastern recipes.
She tells me how you test and proofread recipes, how social media puts us under too much pressure to make our food look glamorous, and the challenges of translating clotted cream into different languages.
We’ll also think about a different kind of recipe – the formulations for beauty products – and the challenge for iconic brands like Chanel who have to list the ingredients by law – but not give away their trade secrets.
Untangling Tickets
Season 2 · Episode 4
Tuesday, May 6, 2025 • Duration 22:51
A ticket is way more than just a slip of paper that gets you into the gig, show, or football match. But with the move to QR codes, barcodes and digitisation, do they still feel special?
In Untangling Tickets, designer Jules Akel draws on his extensive experience in designing beautiful tickets for Lord’s cricket and Wimbledon which helped build a sense of anticipation ahead of the day. Along the way we talk forgeries, buried treasure, and the power of wit in helping brands connect with the audience.
And how does Disney take tickets to a whole other level, with their wearable technology – the MagicBand?
A ticket is more than just a slip of paper. It’s something you gaze at longingly as you look forward to the event, and hold onto afterwards as a keepsake. It’s as much about anticipation – as the basics of gaining entry on the day. In this episode we’re going to Untangle Tickets, with designer Jules Akel.
For 25 years he created beautiful tickets for Marylebone Cricket Club at Lords. And he has designed an abundance of materials for Wimbledon, Ascot, whiskey distilleries and music festivals.
Of course, nowadays – we just flash a QR code or barcode stored on our phone, but as Jules explains, we can still design tickets so they feel special. Giving us a sense of joy and fun about the whole experience.
Along the way we talk forgeries, buried treasure, and the power of wit in helping brands connect with the audience.
We also break off to look at how Disney take tickets to a whole other level, with their wearable technology – the MagicBand.
Communication Untangled is a podcast from Cambridge communications consultancy Sookio. Got a knotty communication challenge you need untangling?
Untangling Votes
Season 2 · Episode 3
Tuesday, April 22, 2025 • Duration 21:03
“Democracy is a design problem.” Whitney Quesenbery, Co-Founder of the Center for Civic Design in Washington, talks voting slips and the many factors that influence how we behave in the polling booth.
We’ll talk hanging chads. Dogs in polling station! And we pop on a posh frock and prepare a tearful speech to take a look at the Oscars and how the Academy votes for the most sought-after awards in entertainment.
You’re in the polling booth. Just you, the ballot paper and a pencil on a string. You’re hovering over the names as you decide where to put your cross.
Can the design of this tiny slip of paper affect how you vote? Can you make sense of the information? Do you just go for the candidate at the top of the list? In this episode we’re going to explore a small-but-important part of democracy; the voting slip.
Our guest is someone who cares deeply about the design of ballots. Whitney Quesenbery is the Co-Founder and Director of the Center for Civic Design in Washington. She advises government organisations, non-profits and tech companies on best practice in election design.
Their core principle is: ‘Democracy is a design problem’. Elections should work for everyone, and as she explains, design is a tool for building a better democracy where more people can take part.
We’ll talk hanging chads. Dogs in polling stations! We’ll also look at the Oscars and how members of the Academy vote for the most sought-after awards in entertainment.
Lucy Sheldon and Clare Beddoes from Cambridge Design Partnership explain how to develop clear instructions for medical devices, and what Apple can teach us about making products so intuitive we don’t need instructions at all. And how do LEGO make instructions part of the act of play itself?
When you walk into reception at Cambridge Design Partnership, you see lots of intriguing case studies on display – from heart catheters to smart pills to nasal swabs.
As an innovation consultancy, it’s critical that people can actually use the medical devices they develop. Which is where clear instructions come in.
Lucy Sheldon is a Human Factors Engineer, focusing on good interaction design – helping people be at one with the technology they’re using – not battling against it.
Clare Beddoes heads up Drug Delivery, thinking about the needs of the patient and medical teams. She works closely with Lucy’s team to make sure the drugs can be used safely, minimising risk in a very risk averse sector.
We talk about the importance of sound and visuals in helping people use devices properly – and how they consider the emotional state of the end user, whether it’s someone using an Epi-Pen in a panic - or nervously taking a pregnancy test in the bathroom.
And we take a break in the middle for playtime! Looking at LEGO and instructions aren’t just functional, they’re all part of the fun too.
Hector Minto, Lead Accessibility Evangelist for Microsoft, joins communications specialist Sue Keogh to explain how AI is transforming the ability to create fast, accurate captions, and how to make your digital content more accessible and inclusive. Plus a trip to the Tate, and how the clarity of their artwork descriptions make everyone feel welcome in their galleries.
Have you noticed how captions have become more commonplace nowadays. Influencers add text to their TikToks and Instagram reels so you can understand their content – even with the sound off. Or you might be in a Teams meeting and there will be live captions as it goes along – really helpful if you have issues with your hearing, or maybe English isn’t your first language…or you’re in a new job and just don’t know what everyone’s talking about!
My guest in this episode is Hector Minto, and he’s the Lead Accessibility Evangelist at Microsoft. He’s spent his career focusing on accessibility, assistive technology, and disability issues.
The day we met he was giving a talk on digital inclusion at a Lloyds Bank event – so we ducked off into a side room, where he told me about how AI is transforming the ability to create fast, accurate captions and the difference this is making so people don’t get left behind in an ever-more digital society.
He also shares some brilliant tips on alt text, captions and tools to make your content more accessible and inclusive.
Along the way, we’ll take a moment to think about Tate galleries– and how the clarity of the artwork descriptions and the font itself help break down barriers and make everyone feel welcome.
Show notes
About Hector Minto
Hector is a dedicated leader in accessibility and leads Microsoft customer and partner engagement strategy for accessibility, growing awareness of assistive technology inside the largest employers across all geographies.
He has worked in the field of Assistive Technology (AT) and accessibility for over 25 years, working with both established and emerging technologies, maximising their effectiveness across the wide range of people with physical, learning and sensory disabilities.
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Visit the Dublin Port website: https://www.dublinport.ie
Communication Untangled is a podcast from Cambridge communications consultancy Sookio.
Got a knotty communication challenge that needs untangling? We can help, through communications strategy, marketing consultancy and brand storytelling.
Communication Untangled is a podcast from Cambridge communications consultancy Sookio.
Got a knotty communication challenge that needs untangling? We can help, through communications strategy, marketing consultancy and brand storytelling.
Communication Untangled is a podcast from Cambridge communications consultancy Sookio.
Got a knotty communication challenge that needs untangling? We can help, through communications strategy, marketing consultancy and brand storytelling.
Communication Untangled is a podcast from Cambridge communications consultancy Sookio. Got a knotty communication challenge you need untangling? Talk to us
About Noor Murad
Bahrain-born, London-based and New York trained, Noor Murad joined the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen in 2018, where she worked as a recipe developer for Falastin and Flavor as well as Ottolenghi's New York Times and Guardian columns.
She became the head of the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen, and wrote the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen books: Shelf Love and Extra Good Things.
Her own recipes have featured in the New York Times and she has cooked on BBC's Saturday Kitchen. Her Middle Eastern roots have a strong influence on her cooking, with Arabic, Indian, and Persian flavours making a prominent appearance in her recipes.
Communication Untangled is a podcast from Cambridge communications consultancy Sookio.
Got a knotty communication challenge that needs untangling? We can help, through communications strategy, marketing consultancy and brand storytelling.
Jules is a graduate of Preston Poly where he was taught about the primacy of the idea over decoration. Of course the art is important, but in the service of communication. He has enjoyed creating all manner of designs to help companies large and small to prosper. These companies have included Marylebone Cricket Club, Wimbledon Tennis Championships, Greenpeace, L’Oreal, Dalwhinnie Distillery, Marlborough College, Wellington College, Skibo Castle and others.
And thank you to Christian Wolmar for kindly allowing us to use your front room to record! Listen to his podcast Calling All Stations: https://cogitamus.co.uk/calling-all-stations
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Communication Untangled is a podcast from Cambridge communications consultancy Sookio.
Got a knotty communication challenge that needs untangling? We can help, through communications strategy, marketing consultancy and brand storytelling.
Communication Untangled is a podcast from Cambridge communications consultancy Sookio.
Got a knotty communication challenge that needs untangling? We can help, through communications strategy, marketing consultancy and brand storytelling.
Communication Untangled is a podcast from Cambridge communications consultancy Sookio.
Got a knotty communication challenge that needs untangling? We can help, through communications strategy, marketing consultancy and brand storytelling.
Hector is the current UK Government Disability and Access Ambassador for the Technology and Website sectors. He actively contributes to government consultations on disability inclusion and promotes inclusive design, product accessibility, inclusive hiring practices, and accessibility innovation.
His dedication to accessibility and his influential advocacy for disability rights have made him a visionary leader in the industry. His work continues to inspire and shape the future of inclusive technology.
The Cranes Nest podcast studio in Cambridge: https://www.thecranenest.co.uk/
Communication Untangled is a podcast from Cambridge communications consultancy Sookio.
Got a knotty communication challenge that needs untangling? We can help, through communications strategy, marketing consultancy and brand storytelling.
