LIFT Labs Communication Strategy
Connecting Innovation Culture to Business Outcomes
This communication strategy translated Comcast NBCUniversal’s innovation agenda from an abstract priority into visible, lived behaviors across the enterprise.
Through a sustained drumbeat of storytelling, visible leadership participation, and audience-specific entry points, the strategy embedded a startup mindset (entrepreneurial, iterative, and status quo–challenging) into how teams approached their work.
Example shared at a strategic level to illustrate approach; details generalized to protect proprietary information.
The Business Moment & Communication Mandate
The Challenge:
As Comcast was externally repositioning itself from a cable company to a global technology company, with tangible signals such as the new Comcast Technology Center, the same shift needed to take hold internally or the external narrative would lack credibility.
For most employees, innovation felt abstract and disconnected from their work. Few understood how a 'startup mindset' applied to their roles or why it mattered to the company's future.
The Communication Mandate:
Design and execute an internal communication strategy that bridged the gap between brand positioning and internal cultural reality, making innovation visible, relevant, and actionable across the enterprise.
  • LIFT Labs served as the primary vehicle for translating innovation from a corporate priority into lived behaviors, introducing experimental ways of working across products, processes, and culture.
  • The strategy explicitly connected cultural messaging to business outcomes, positioning innovation as how Comcast competes for talent, accelerates learning and execution, and builds future-ready capabilities.
Core Business Drivers:
  • Compete for and attract technology talent
  • Increase exposure to disruption and emerging technologies
  • Accelerate learning and execution through startup partnerships
  • Reinforce Comcast’s evolution as a forward-looking technology company employees could believe in
Operating Model:
  • Strategic Ownership: I owned the communication strategy end to end with responsibility for strategy design, execution, and ongoing evolution.
  • Executive partnership: Worked closely with senior leaders, including the Chief Growth Officer, Head of LIFT Labs, Internal Communications leadership, and Talent leaders, to co-create the innovation narrative, align leadership messaging, and equip leaders with clear talk tracks, moments, and forums to model desired behaviors internally.
  • Execution: Lean team (team of one at launch; two during early scale) supported by select external partners. Delivered large-scale moments and always-on storytelling with a sustained focus on behavior change over output volume.
Strategic Approach – The Framework
How Communication Connected Innovation Culture to Business Objectives
1
Business Priority
Strategy anchored in a clear business priority and, through senior-leader engagement, translated into concrete relevance for employees’ day-to-day work.
2
Visible Leadership Behavior
Emphasis on leaders showing up as champions, mentors, and learners to build credibility and signal that experimentation was valued.
3
Narrative Drumbeat
A consistent communication rhythm reinforced the innovation narrative through real examples of work and partnerships.
4
Narrative, Repackaging, and Reinforcement
A single core story was intentionally repackaged across channels to align external brand positioning, internal culture-building, business priorities, and talent messaging.
5
Audience-Specific Participation
Create multiple, low-barrier entry points, including experiential moments, tailored to each audience rather than one-size-fits-all participation.
6
Credibility and Momentum
Trust and participation increased, enabling innovation behaviors to scale beyond a standalone program.
Result: Transformation shifted from a program to a durable enterprise capability.
Strategic Communication Goals
Make Innovation Visible & Learnable
Surface real examples of how innovation moved the business forward, creating a sustained narrative that kept innovation present, credible, and top-of-mind across the enterprise.
Translate Startup Mindset into Practical Learning
Bridge startups and internal teams by highlighting concrete, real-world examples employees could recognize and apply, moving innovation from abstract concept to usable practice.
Normalize Experimentation & Iteration
Highlight innovation already happening across the organization, particularly among product and technology leaders, while demonstrating how non-traditional and non-technical teams could apply a startup lens to challenge their own ways of working.
Shift from Observer to Participant
Position leaders and teams as mentors, learners, and builders alongside founders, making entrepreneurial thinking tangible and credible and reinforcing that employees were part of the innovation ecosystem, not spectators.
These goals guided how I partnered with senior leaders and teams to shape messaging, experiences, and participation over time.
Core Messaging & Audience Strategy
Primary Message:
Innovation is everyone’s job. By learning from founders and applying a startup mindset to our products, processes, and ways of working, we accelerate Comcast’s evolution and ability to compete for the future.
Key Audiences & Entry Points:
Key Principle: Create multiple, low-barrier entry points tailored to each audience rather than one-size-fits-all participation.
Experiential Engagement as a Cultural Accelerator
Strategic Intent
The communication strategy deliberately used immersive, high-energy experiences to make innovation tangible, social, and exciting, creating emotional buy-in alongside understanding.
What This Looked Like
  • Flagship live moments (accelerator launches, Demo Days) where hundreds of employees experienced innovation outcomes firsthand
  • A visible, purpose-built LIFT Labs space inside the Comcast Technology Center that showcased startups, products, and internal innovation and became a destination for tours, talks, and collaboration
  • Employee participation in major ecosystem moments (Philly Tech Week, Denver Tech Week, SXSW), extending innovation beyond HQ and back into regions
  • High-quality storytelling and content (video, live streams, podcasts, docuseries) that amplified energy and made participation visible enterprise-wide

Why It Mattered
Excitement created pull. Employees didn’t just understand the innovation narrative, they wanted to be part of it.
Integrated Enterprise Communications
An integrated, omnichannel approach ensured the innovation narrative was experienced consistently across the enterprise while being tailored to each audience.
High-Visibility Leadership Moments
Flagship moments served as visible proof points of leadership commitment and learning from founders.
Examples: Accelerator launches with CEO; Demo Days; SXSW and industry conferences; focus-area reports.
Sustained Storytelling & Narrative Reinforcement
Ongoing storytelling kept innovation present, relatable, and actionable between major moments.
Examples: Leadership testimonials; email and intranet content; manager toolkits; thought leadership; internal roadshows.
Participatory Events & Community Building
Direct participation and local storytelling moved leaders and employees from awareness to engagement, with experiential moments designed to generate energy, visibility, and emotional connection.
Examples: LIVE at LIFT events; regional ambassador participation; peer storytelling; innovation challenges and pilots.
External Positioning & Brand Building
External communications reinforced Comcast’s positioning as a technology company and credible innovation partner.
Examples: Press and industry coverage; executive visibility and speaking opportunities; partnerships; talent brand collaboration.
Content Repackaging Strategy:
A single core story was intentionally repackaged across formats to reinforce credibility and alignment across audiences.
Examples: Press release; executive brief; employee email; founder pitch; podcast episode.
Why This Works - Lessons from Enterprise Transformation
Designed to travel: The approach emphasized leadership behavior, narrative discipline, and scalable execution rather than reliance on a single program or brand.
Business-First Framing
Anchoring the strategy in clear business imperatives, including talent, disruption, and growth, aligned stakeholders and established credibility from the outset.
Visible Leadership Behavior
Leaders showing up as mentors and learners, not sponsors, signaled seriousness and unlocked participation across the enterprise.
Consistent Narrative Reinforcement
A sustained, repeating narrative across channels kept innovation top-of-mind and created the conditions for behavior change over time.
Multiple Entry Points
Providing varied, low-barrier ways to engage enabled broader reach and distributed ownership rather than centralized control.
Integrated Enterprise Narrative
Connecting innovation communications to Comcast’s broader transformation from cable to technology company ensured the work felt meaningful and durable, not programmatic.
Lean, High-Strategy Execution
Operating with a small team and strong strategic clarity ensured quality, credibility, and focus without overproduction.
Experience as a Catalyst
Immersive, high-energy experiences made innovation tangible and emotionally resonant, accelerating belief and participation across the enterprise.
Results & Business Impact
Rather than optimizing for standalone communications KPIs, success was measured through participation, leadership engagement, program adoption, observable behavior change, and qualitative sentiment from leaders and employees, aligning communications performance directly with business and cultural outcomes.
Reach & Participation
Enterprise-Scale Engagement
  • 15,000+ employees engaged across events and programs
  • 250+ business leaders participated as mentors and innovation partners
  • Six regions activated through the employee ambassador model
  • Sustained audience growth across email and internal channels
Cultural Shift
Behavior Change Took Hold
  • 50+ leaders engaged directly in pilots and startup partnerships
  • New internal communication formats adopted organically, including podcasts and peer storytelling
  • Employee-founded startup entered the accelerator, signaling ownership and action
  • Leaders carried the innovation narrative into their own communications and forums
  • Employee pride and identification with innovation increased
Innovation became something employees experienced and felt, not just heard about.
Business Impact
Business Value Realized
  • 90% of participating startups converted into pilots, POCs, or commercial deals
  • Innovation practices adopted across the enterprise, including HR, Universal, Corporate Comms, Customer Experience, and other teams
  • Stronger talent brand and employer credibility, including recognition on Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators list
  • Executive validation of impact on core business functions
CTO: “LIFT Labs has been a strong direct and indirect influence on the Product & Technology organization.”
Sustainability: The communication strategy embedded innovation as a lasting enterprise capability, shifting how teams worked well beyond the life of the program.
Governance, Execution & Key Decisions
Operating Model:
  • Strategic Ownership: I owned the communication strategy end to end with responsibility for strategy design, execution, and ongoing evolution.
  • Executive partnership: Worked closely with senior leaders, including the Chief Growth Officer, Head of LIFT Labs, Internal Communications leadership, and Talent leaders, to co-create the innovation narrative, align leadership messaging, and equip leaders with clear talk tracks, moments, and forums to model desired behaviors internally.
  • Execution: Lean team (team of one at launch; two during early scale) supported by select external partners.
Execution spanned large-scale events, high-production content, and always-on storytelling, but the strategic focus remained on behavior change rather than output volume.
Key Operational Decisions:
Integrated, not siloed
Positioned innovation communications as part of Comcast’s enterprise transformation narrative, not a standalone function
Leadership participation as non-negotiable
Leaders showed up as mentors and learners, not passive sponsors
Multiple entry points over centralized control
Enabled broad participation and distributed ownership across regions and teams
Consistency over novelty
Established a sustained editorial drumbeat rather than one-off moments to drive behavior change
Credibility over promotion
Grounded communications in real work, visible leadership involvement, and employee value
Efficiency by design
Reused content, leveraged employee and founder stories, and relied on scalable templates to maximize impact with a lean team