For Your Approval

The wisdom of Patti Smith

I have always admired the creative voice and powerful intellect of Patti Smith, one of the artists I avidly followed back in my university days. This week Smith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The singer, poet and pop philosopher recently shared her thoughts about the honour in a New York Times op-ed piece. It doesn't have a lot to do with internal communication, but there are some insights that I thought would be of interest to readers of this blog -- particularly when she writes of an emerging "new guard...

"...the guardians of our cultural voice. The Internet is their CBGB. Their territory is global. They will dictate how they want to create and disseminate their work. They will, in time, make breathless changes in our political process. They have the technology to unite and create a new party, to be vigilant in their choice of candidates, unfettered by corporate pressure. Their potential power to form and reform is unprecedented."

Tomorrow's employees will have similar powers. They'll just be a bit longer coming.

It's awards season

Call me an aging communication nerd. I passed up watching the Oscars last Sunday to judge the Intranet feature and internal blog categories for the Ragan Recognition Awards.

I also spent a couple of evenings last week helping judge the publications category of IABC’s Gold Quill Awards. (It's heartening to note that the publications category still draws the most entries -- our group in Vancouver had over 120 publications to judge.)

I always jump at the chance to be a judge in communication award competitions. It’s a rare chance to take a close look at the work of other communicators – to see the kinds of challenges they’re facing and the solutions they come up with. I always learn something from my experience, and this awards season is no exception.  So here, in no particular order, are some observations:

1. When it comes to internal blogging, we’re still very much in the early days. Ragan received only two entries in the new category. They were both impressive and engaging, but also rudimentary and experimental. The communicators who put them together knew they would be learning as they went, and the blogs they initiated, although rough around the edges, reflected a positive, pioneering spirit. One of the measures of a good blog is whether it generates lots of comments, and by that measure the ones I judged were great, if somewhat clunky, successes. Interestingly, both blogs were written by communication staff members and not rank and file employees or executives. Both were quite transparent attempts to simply start a conversation by putting issues on the table and then inviting readers to comment. And comment they did, with some posts attracting close to 100 comments. Some good lessons for anyone considering starting an internal blog:

• Initially at least, expect a flurry of comments that don’t necessarily stay on the subject being discussed.
• You may also get a certain amount of bitching and complaining as people take advantage of having a new internal forum to voice their irritations with their employer and their workplace.
• Allowing anonymous postings tends to encourage comments, but here’s a good rule – if you’re allowing a mix of attributed and anonymous comments, allow immediate, unedited posts for those willing to identify themselves, and moderated posts for anonymous contributors.
• The blogs I saw had effective self-regulation. Comments that are out of line (rude, unreasonable, confusing) get shouted down, with different degrees of politeness, by other readers.
• Set out clear, sensible guidelines when you start the blog so everyone knows what to expect, and what’s expected of them one of the blogs I judged did a great job of laying out the ground rules.

2. There’s a lot of great writing on Intranets, but how much of it is being read? I was amazed by how much some of the writers could get done in a short Intranet feature. At this point Intranets are relatively mature channel and the entries I saw were quite effective in telling interesting and relevant stories. My biggest concern is that so much good work gets done on these things, and no one is reading them. If you’re trying to keep your Intranet content “fresh,” that means you’re highlighting articles on your portal for only a day or two, or sometimes a week, before they’re buried by other content and then relegated to some kind of archive. Readers of this blog know I’m passionate about this: it’s a crying shame that so many companies have abandoned the extremely effective print medium, which is still one of the best ways of sharing information with employees and creating a sense of community at work.

3. You don’t have to look good to be good. I’m big on using great design and compelling photos to help get information across to employees. And I know there’s a disheartening amount of really crappy looking publications out there, with tiny photos, bad typography, amateurish writing and so on. But one of the publications that I judged looked about as bad as a desktop published newsletter can look – but it succeeded because it had clear communication goals and delivered on them. On a shoestring budget, an editor who had to do triple duty as writer, photographer and layout person managed to strike a chord with readers and influence bottom-line results.

4. Anecdotes and quotes are perhaps the two most powerful things in written communication. Stories that have them, sing. Those that don’t, sink. I was reminded of this with every item I judged. There’s really no better way to make an article come alive than to focus on an individual who is experiencing change first hand. Tell that personal story, using the subject’s own words, and you will be a better communicator.

Baby's first year

I posted the first entry in this blog one year ago today. Woo hoo!

With 64 posts, 145 comments, four trackbacks and 11,225 page views under my belt, I certainly can't claim to be the most popular blog on the Internet.

But (sour grapes aside) it really doesn't matter how many visitors you have; it's whether the blog means something to you and your readers. And I can tell from watching the traffic, and seeing the people who link to my blog, and reading the excellent comments and conversations that we've had over the past year, that this blog does mean something to you.

So thanks. It's been fun so far.

Thank you David, for showing me how a great blog is written.

Thank you Shel, for telling me I should have my own blog. You were right.

Thank you Shel and Neville, for For Immediate Release. Your crazy hobby keeps me interested and engaged in the new world of social media.

Thank you, Ricky, for leading the way into the blogosphere and sharing your adventures with the world.

Thank you Craig and John, for being there with great comments and helpful suggestions.

Thank you Kate, for being such an understanding wife, and such a superb and funny writer.

And, finally, thanks to everyone who ever clicked their way to this tiny corner of the blogosphere.

So here's to the second year of For Your Approval.

I'm glad you approve of this blog, and I look forward to earning that approval and carrying on the conversation in the months ahead.

The year ahead

Here’s my list of predictions for 2007. Forgive me that the first five aren’t very optimistic as they foresee the continuance of several negative trends, but at least I get them out of the way at the beginning.

1. The stability of the modern workplace, and the commitment of the people in it, will continue to decline as baby boomers, the last of the truly loyal employees, retire in droves and the market for skilled workers heats up.

2. “Employee engagement” will continue to be the Holy Grail for many organizations as their leaders try to connect with the new generation of disenchanted employees, whose loyalty will reach new lows in 2007. At least one new major business scandal will erupt, adding fuel to this trend.

3. Internal communicators will continue to shower information upon disengaged employees, hoping it will wash away their cynicism and distrust, but it will only drown them in data, impede their actions and add to their alienation.

4. The rise of megapixel digital cameras will continue to erode the quality of photography in employee publications.

5. Management’s reluctance to communicate openly with employees will continue as risk-averse leaders ignore changing workplace values.

6. For Immediate Release, the seminal podcast about “the intersection between communications and technology,” will produce another 50 shows as co-hosts Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz push our profession into the new millennium (thanks for everything, guys). As a side prediction, Shel will get a part-time job at Circuit City to feed his hi-tech gear addiction.

7. Employers, realizing that disengagement is a threat to competitiveness, will increase their investment in the people side of their business, including employee communications.

8. Under pressure to do something different and innovative, more employee communicators will turn to social media to reach out to employees and invite them into a conversation about their companies, their jobs, their customers and their collective future.

9. In 2007, this trend will produce as many failures as successes, as some communicators jump on the bandwagon and use the new technologies just because they’re new and sexy, to the detriment of effective communication.

10. Finally, and most optimistically, in 2007 employee communicators will be appreciated by their leaders, co-workers and employee audiences like never before.

Happy New Year! I hope it’s a great one for you, and the people you love.

And one more thing. If you're a regular reader of this blog, thanks for sticking with me, and if you're new, thanks for dropping by.

An enlightened advertiser

Advertisers are taking blogs more seriously these days.

I'm delighted to welcome my blog's first and only advertiser, CNW Group, Canada's best known information distribution service. I've used CNW for almost 20 years now and I've watched the company grow from a basic wire service to embrace all the newfangled ways of reaching audiences, including webcasts, conference calls and multimedia news releases.

Now, with a pilot program I'm proud to be associated with, CNW is reaching out to the PR blogging community with a clever ad that educates people about CNW's many services through an entertaining little online game/contest that will give players of Space Invaders a nostagic twinge.

I encourage you to click on the orange square to the right of this post and check it out. 

Jarvis nails it

BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis is an insightful commentator on the state of today's media. In a recent speech at the VON (Video on the Net) conference in Boston, he said:

"We debated for decades in media whether distribution is king or content is king. Turns out neither is. Conversation is the kingdom. Trust is king."

This little wisdom nugget applies to internal communication, too. In our world we debate about the effectiveness of print vs. online, and worry about finding content to fill the 'news hole.' Now we have the new tools of social media. Let's use them to nurture dialogue and build trust, not as another way to shovel more content at people.

Crescenzo Unplugged

My old friend Steve Crescenzo likes to call himself the Winston Churchill of employee communications. Like Churchill, he's a blowhard, has a rapier wit, enjoys a drink and a cigar now and then, and likes going to war once in a while. And, of course, he's also a great speaker.

I imagine many of the readers of this blog have attended Steve's conference sessions and read his blog. But if you haven't heard Steve speak, here's a chance to get a taste of the man in action (that didn't come out right, but anyway....).

Visit a link to Steve's interview with Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz at In Session, the IABC conference blog or, if you have iTunes, search the podcast section for "In Session" and you can download it from there.

Steve's commonsense approach to employee communication is refreshing and enlightening, and his energy, enthusiasm and humor are enough to give even the most burnt-out, cynical communicators some inspiration and hope.

The future of employee communications

One of my favorite podcasts is For Immediate Release: The Hobson and Holtz Report, a twice-weekly show that covers what co-hosts Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz call "the intersection between technology and organizational communications."

For Immediate Release (F.I.R.) is  "listener-driven," which means the content of the show is based on comments and questions sent in by listeners. It's a pretty simple format: two plugged-in guys talking about what's on their mind, and responding to input from listeners. It's sort of the internet equivalent of a call-in radio talk show.

I enjoy For Immediate Release because it's my connection into this strange new world of "social networking" -- a world in which new media like blogs, vlogs, podcasts and wickis are changing the way people communicate. The traditional one-way, broadcast model where information providers spew content at docile audiences is giving way to a new communication paradigm in which everyone is interconnected and communication is all about dialogue.

How this will affect employee communications remains to be seen, but it's clear that these new media are making their way into the corporate world and that employee communicators need to pay attention. Internal blogs and podcasts are just starting to be adopted by some companies. I wonder if, as this trend progresses, we'll come up with a new name for it -- just as the Intranet is the internal version of the Internet, what will be the internal version of the blogosphere?

The Intrasphere? Corpcasting?

Or are the lines between internal and external communciation blurring so much that social media cannot be contained inside the firewalls of big organizations? Perhaps, rather than appropriating these new channels for internal use in the usual controlling way, corporations will be forced to recognize that the blogosphere has no walls, no boundaries, and that they might as well voluntarily join the Age of Transparency rather than getting exposed against their will.

As with all paradigm shifts, some will lead, some will be dragged kicking and screaming, and some will be left behind alltogether. Listening to podcasts like F.I.R. helps ensure you won't be part of the latter.

- for a related post, visit the IABC Employee Communications Commons blog.