The Signal Constitution

Signal never sells
attention.
Signal earns trust.

Everything Signal builds derives from a small set of principles that do not change. They are published here so that anyone can hold us to them.

Why this is published

Principles nobody can see are not principles.

Most organisations keep this sort of document internally, where it can be quietly revised whenever it becomes inconvenient. Signal publishes it, because a commitment only counts once somebody else can check whether you kept it.

These articles govern Signal Vox, PartnerCast, Signal Sessions, the community, the Advisory Board and everything built afterwards. Where a commercial decision conflicts with one of them, the article wins.

They can be amended, but only in public, with the reasoning stated, and with the Advisory Board's agreement. Nothing here is changed quietly.

The first principle

The audience is not what we sell.

Not download numbers. Not views. Not reach. What Signal makes is an independent, professionally produced conversation that a partner can keep using for years. Everything below follows from that.

The articles

Seven, and they are not ranked by importance.

Article 01

Nobody can buy control over a conversation

Signal chooses the guests. Signal writes the questions. No participant, partner or supporter sees them in advance, approves them, or influences what is asked. This applies identically to an independently commissioned Vox conversation and to a partner supported PartnerCast.

People trust PartnerCast because partners cannot buy control over the conversation.

Article 02

Commercial support is declared, always

Where a conversation is partner supported, that is stated plainly on the conversation itself, in its title, and wherever it is published or reused. A listener should never have to work out which format they are hearing.

Declaration is not a caveat Signal accepts reluctantly. It is the condition that allows a commercial format to exist at all.

Article 03

Members are people, not pipeline

Signal does not sell, rent, share or otherwise pass member, attendee or listener details to partners or anyone else. There is no list. There will not be one.

Anyone who treats the community as a list to work through will lose their place in it, whatever they contribute commercially.

Article 04

What is said in the room stays unattributed

Signal Sessions and the private community operate under the Chatham House Rule. What is heard may be used. Who said it may not be repeated. This is what allows people to be candid about what went wrong, which is the only reason the rooms are worth being in.

Article 05

Nothing is published that has not been approved by the person who said it

Every participant approves their own recording before publication. They are confirming they are content with what they said, not approving the questions. Nobody is published on their own behalf without their agreement.

Article 06

Nothing unverifiable is claimed

Signal publishes no testimonial it has not been given, no figure it cannot evidence, and no capability it does not have. Where something is not yet confirmed, the site says so rather than filling the space.

This applies most strictly to material sent to buyers, because that is where an unverified claim does the most damage.

Article 07

The profession owes the people entering it

A community that speaks only to its own leadership stops learning. Signal makes deliberate room for people early in their careers, including in the rooms they could not otherwise afford to be in, and reserves a seat on the Advisory Board for one of them.

The test

One question, when the articles do not settle it.

New situations arrive that seven articles cannot anticipate. When that happens there is a single question, and it is deliberately harder to answer in your own favour than it looks.

Ask

Does this increase trust?

If the answer is yes, it is probably the right decision. If the answer is no, Signal does not do it, whatever the commercial argument for it happens to be.

The value is not that Signal speaks to its audience. It is that Signal helps create something credible enough that a partner can confidently share it with theirs.

Where this applies

Every strand, without exception.

Signal Vox

Independently commissioned. Guests chosen on editorial grounds alone, questions written by Signal, published in full and free.

Signal PartnerCast

Partner supported and declared as such, under identical editorial rules. Governed additionally by the PartnerCast Licence.

Signal Sessions

Chatham House Rule throughout. No stands, no slots, no pitches from the front, and no attendee list passed to anyone.

The community

Membership by introduction, moderated by practitioners, and closed to anyone who treats it as a market.

The Advisory Board holds us to this
If we get it wrong

Tell us, and we will answer.

If something Signal does appears to breach one of these articles, write to vin@thisissignal.co.uk. It goes to the Advisory Board, and you get a straight answer. Publishing a constitution is only meaningful if it can be enforced by the people it was written for.