AA: Example of Just Not Getting the new communications arena

It may be old news, but what a great example of both corporate brand and employer brand converging at the intersection of “internal” and “external” communications, and the new social computing world we inhabit. 

Plus, employee brand engagement and customer engagement.

In short, an American Airlines customer who happened to be a user experience professional wrote about some issues with the AA website and suggested some changes.  An employee saw this and responded, saying it was hard to get right but they were trying.  AA fires the employee for disclosing internal company information.  How stupid can you get?

Read here for more.

Filed under: Employee engagement, brand engagement, digital engagement, employee communication, employer brand, internal communication, pr

Design Thinking continues apace

A good article over at BusinessWeek on how design thinking is gaining pace and  starting to gain traction.  In essence it’s broader, more creative thinking about how to solve problems and drive strategy than traditional silo-managed and owned ways of working.  Dave Armano pushes it into social media and the idea of a “collaboratory“.  Have a gander…

It links in to systems thinking and Dan Gray and my ongoing crusade against an internal communications / change communications / employee engagement / employer brand community that seems hell-bent on driving incremental competence-led changes rather than higher-level approaches to delivering more to the organisations we work with.

In other words, to paraphrase Einstein, the thinking that got us here is not the thinking that is going to get us out of here.  It’s not about better employee surveys, or using social media as a communication channel, or getting better at writing for the web, etc.  These are all tactics, and valulable ones, but we need to be looking at a new toolbox, or a bigger van…

Filed under: Employee engagement, brand, brand engagement, digital engagement, employee communication, employer brand, hr and brand, internal communication, internal marketing, organisational communication

HR vs Marketing-led engagement

 There is sometimes a communication issue when people use the term “engagement”.  Sometimes people think it’s all about HR-type engagement – e.g. The Gallup 12 sorts of things.  Other times they mean “Living the Brand” or brand engagement.  It’s both, and it’s neither. 

Maybe this helps …

Filed under: Employee engagement, brand, brand engagement, employee communication, hr and brand, internal communication, internal marketing

Two must-read books …

… are on their way.

Dan Gray and I have set off on an outrageous publishing adventure together.  It started when, in a bad pizza/Jerry MacGuire moment, I sat down over 2 days and bashed out a short book(let) that was initially called “The no-bullshit guide to employee communications.”

The premise is that in a world of 200-400 page deep dive books on many topics, most of us don’t have the time to read them properly if at all.  Wouldn’t it be nice if you could put forward some new thinking, and capture the must-knows on a topic, without consuming more than a morning’s commute or a short plane flight for your reader?

I shared the manuscript with a couple folks including Dan and colleagues at Coca-Cola, Google etc. 

Heaven forbid you inspire Dan Gray.  Within a week he had grabbed the baton and bashed out a no-BS guide to brand and sustainability.

Repurposed as “60-minute guides to …”, we’ll soon be launching these unto an unsuspecting world.  They will probably be accompanied by 1-day workshop sessions on each topic that follow the books.

Advance orders welcome.

Interesting aside

Dan and I both share a passion for “whole systems” thinking, often at odds with organisational structures and operational models based on outdated modes of topic expertise and audience/ agenda “ownership”.  (See here, for example). The same holds true in publishing, it seems.  We’re currently discussing with the publisher whether these books should be managed by the HR editorial team, the marketing editorial team, or the “trade” editorial team.  Dan and I would argue “Why are they different?” … but for the moment, we’ll let them scratch their heads for a while.  They’re the experts, after all.

Filed under: Employee engagement, brand, brand engagement, digital engagement, employee communication, hr and brand, internal communication, internal marketing

… and some Just Don’t Get It

I found an interesting comment on an age-old post on another blog on another site talking about “The end of internal communications.”  The blog argued a point similar to mine that internal communicators sometimes don’t spread their wings wide enough to embrace the “big picture.”

Here is the comment:

“I think that people in business often think that communications is an easy task, that as (the majority of people) have the ability to ‘communicate’ i.e. they can speak and write – that they are therefore ‘good communicators’.  Internal Communications is a specialist role, and without us ’specialists’ it can and does go wrong.

I’ve worked as an Internal Communications Manager covering various areas from Finance (Risk, Finance, HR etc) to the Public Sector (Policing, Human Rights) to Sports (Football, Rugby orgs) – and I’d like to say that I was very effective in each of these arenas despite not having ‘relevant’ business experience in any of them. A good communicator doesn’t have to be an expert in the field. They have to be an expert in finding information, and communicating it in the best way for their audience.” [ emphasis added].

OK, on the plus side, of course we all know the cliche “everyone thinks they can communicate” argument IC so often resorts to. And it’s true.

But really, ‘Finding information and communicating it in the best way for their audience?’  Whose audience, the communicator’s?  What information, the information the communicator says is important?  Isn’t this just “internal communications as channel and message management” instead of adding value?

Being an expert in finding information makes the role sound like an interrogator or librarian, not a dialogue starter.  Can you say  “Push” communication, anyone? 

I prefer to think that the purpose of information is is to get communication, not the other way around.  Thanks, Facebook dude!

PS – great post by Steve C here

Filed under: brand engagement, employee communication, hr and brand, internal communication, internal marketing, organisational communication

If you’re going to navel gaze, why not look at someone else’s?

David Ferrabbee and I had lunch recently, and asked the question, what value do we add, really, as “communication experts”?

The main reason many of us seem to keep our jobs could arguably be because we serve the outdated management thinking and organisational structure of our employers, not because the skills we bring to the table matter to the business.

I know, that’s a bit harsh.

But a small movement is gathering.  A newish generation of those who are a bit fed up with the old guard and their relentlessly incremental, inward-looking, clubby and self-congratulating thinking…

The point is,  have a look at, say, Euan Semple; or Guy Kawasaki; or Mike Williams; or Russell Davies; or Flo Heiss… Euan has more followers on Twitter as there are international members of several communication associations. 

Maybe it’s just me.  I have a sardonic edge; I’m suspicious of clubs that would have me as a member; I don’t like groupthink; and ultimately maybe I need to admit I believe can make a bigger difference being on the outside of the tent pissing in.

And maybe it’s the world I inhabit – designers, digiterati, most under 30 (25 even) and constantly not only tapping apps on their iphones, but developing apps for iphones.  I’m sort of an honorary member of their club; the older guy who gets it.  Who is, in fact, often their champion on projects.

Once again, I wish internal communicators and our broad associations would start looking over the fence into other people’s yards, because to be frank theirs are a lot more interesting.  And we can get inspired by what they’re all doing, rather than eking another 1% effectiveness out of how to run employee surveys, or write for the web, or use social media internally. 

That’s how we will remain relevant, and valuable. That’s how disruptive innovation occurs.  The time for incremental improvements in employee engagement is past, I’m afraid.

The guys on the other side of the fence are looking at ways to destroy – for all the right reasons – everything our profession seems to stand for.  Not in a meanspirited, evil way, but just in a way that reflects that the incremental audience-message-channel-measurement view of the world is just so … flawed. 

The founder of Facebook recently said, “The other guys think the purposeof communication is to get information. We think the purpose of information is to get communication.”

That is a massive shift in thinking no number of awards for “internal communication excellence” as is going to be able to stave. 

I mean, THIS is interesting (from Publicis sister agency Fallon):

(And I’m a twitter sceptic)

And THIS isn’t:

 Well, I’m tired of it.

Anyone want to join the Evolution, drop me a line.

Filed under: Employee engagement, brand, brand engagement, digital engagement, employee communication, employer brand, hr and brand, internal communication, internal marketing, organisational communication, pr, social media, stakeholder engagement

Over-specialisation kills

I’ve banged on (in this blog and relatively recently in Communication World) about how over-specialisation has done a lot of damage to organisations’ ability to engage their people.

What has happened is that the engagement efforts of many organisations are broadly driven by an agenda based on the heritage/skill set of the manager or the consultant/agency.  In short, if you ask an HR-heritage person you get an HR solution; if you ask a statistician, guess what? it’s about tracking engagement drivers in your data set.

Recently, I’ve met with several of Publicis’ agencies around the world and we’ve agreed that this is actually true at the strategic level. Agencies themselves have become over-specialised. 

So if a client wants to “join things up” — for example, if they want a data-informed approach, featuring, say, face to face workshops, but aligned with brand – the chances are they need more than one agency to support them.  This can’t be fun for them.

So, maybe the pendulum is swinging back toward full-service providers rather than micro-specialists.  Or at least providers with robust “loose ties” to the hyper-specialists needed to get the job done.

Multi-specialists, this is your time.

Filed under: Employee engagement, brand engagement, employee communication, employer brand, hr and brand, internal communication, internal marketing

What’s your secret formula?

We recently launched the new European careers site for The Coca-Cola Company (soon to be global employer brand).

Really pleased with the core proposition, which is basically: Passion is fine, but you need to be able to turn it into action. What’s your secret formula?

This is being adapted for all HR-related internal communication as well, so we are creating some cool formulae for a range of communications (including a “build you own formula” workshop toolkit).

Have a gander here

Filed under: Employee engagement, brand engagement, digital engagement, employee communication, employer brand, hr and brand, internal communication

Simplicity, specialisation, complexity, strategy … a theme emerging

The whole theme of moving from complexity to simplicity and from specialisation to a broader “multi-specialist” skill set has loomed large for me (and this blog) over the previous year.

The recession we are in – largely due to specialisation in obscure financial instruments that many didn’t fully understand, with no one taking a “big picture” view (or those who were supposed to not succeeding).

The circumstances in internal organisational politics and responsibility – where internal and external is overlapping and marketing, HR, internal comms, IT and others rubbing shoulders- largely due to specialisation.  Some organisations have appointed strategic-level people to oversee this; most haven’t.

I spent some time recently in an American Intensive Care Unit with my dad; specialists had all kinds of information, but no one seemed to have a grip on the big picture.

I’m not saying we need to be experts in anything.  One could never be.  But I truly believe the next several years will see the pendulum swing back towards bigger, more holistic, more consolidated views of things in the business world.  People who can see the connections, dig into the complexity and then unravel it and make it simpler, who can join things up will be worth their weight it platinum.

With this comes accountability.  With this comes efficiency and cost savings since the left hand and right hand will be working together.

What do you think?

Filed under: Employee engagement, brand, brand engagement, digital engagement, employee communication, employer brand, hr and brand, internal communication, internal marketing, organisational communication

Annual Predictions 2009

For the third year I will be making my predictions for the coming year.  In January I’ll revisit last year’s predictions and see how I did.  That way, I have to write a blog posting, see? 

I have to admit I’ve had less time to think about it than in previous years.  However… here goes:

1)  Strategy, design and communications businesses will fare better than advertising and PR.  (Duh)

2)  The new must have / bling thing will be exclusivity — that will be the thing — invitation-only music sites, for example.  Fewer, quality things in our lives.

3)  Similarly, Luxury brands will have to go ever more bespoke and tailored. 

4)  Similarly, social media sites will see ever more exclusive and bespoke content.  “Discoverability” will emerge as a common term. Pull communication will disrupt old models.

5)  HR and Marketing will solidify ownership of the employee engagement and brand engagement space, and will more likely co-opt corporate comms/corporate affairs than the IC community

6) Large multinationals will embrace employer brand and EVP efforts as a way to cut through attraction noise; but smaller (still big) companies will question how this differs from the behviour touch point of their corporate brand.  Smart multinationals could well head this way too. 

7) At the same time, consolidation of internal communications around brand and HR issues — driven by marketing and HR, see 4, above — will expand dramatically, with actual process changes emerging rather than just communication about issues/processes.

Mobile.  Bigger and more present than ever; my new laptop has a bloody SIM card in it! Unlimited data! Slow, maybe; cool – very.

9) Astronomers will uncover our first ever evidence of life elsewhere in the Universe.

10) Greenwashing on a major scale will be uncovered across at least 3 Fortune 100 companies, wiping billions (more) in brand value off their balance sheets.

Filed under: Employee engagement, brand, brand engagement, digital engagement, employee communication, employer brand, hr and brand, internal communication, internal marketing, organisational communication, pr, social media, stakeholder engagement