2nd year running the No Shit Sherlock award goes to …

I’m not even going to name names…

o 96% of intranets have communication information such as news and policies.
o 86% have company information such as organizational charts, company vision, values, etc.
o 82% have employee directories.
o 81% feature standards and compliance information.
o 70% have HR applications.

…. gee, thanks for the cutting-edge insights.

Meet me on LinkedIn

Tired but true …

LONDON – Inc Magazine has a good little online article about the well-documented fact that cash compensation is not always the best motivator.  Not news but a handy little reminder for all of us.

Meet me on LinkedIn

People are not your greatest asset

LONDON – At least that’s what this article in HBR states.  And they are right (yes it was a deliberately provocative headline, but it worked).  The point they make is that

It’s how you empower your people. Think about it. What is the primary purpose of a business organization? To assemble a group of people, who previously may have had no association, and empower them to accomplish productive work toward the organization’s objectives. More effective empowerment typically equals more productive work.

Yep.  Empowerment. Erm, engagement.

Meet me on LinkedIn

Social communication, social media and talent attraction communication

Social research company Reppler recently published some findings about the use of social media in talent acquisition and hiring decisions that makes for interesting reading.  Although the sample is only 300 hiring professionals and the sample is not published, given that some professional services organisations, for example, make public pronouncements that they do NOT as a matter of principle use “private” social media in the selection process, the study nonetheless claims that a whopping 91% of hiring professionals (it is unclear if these are agencies or in-house talent acquisition and/or hiring managers) use social media to screen prospective employees.

That’s not the surprising statistic – what is surprising is the one that asserts that 69% have rejected a candidate based on what they have seen (e.g. inappropriate photographs, comments, etc.).  The opposite also appears to be true – that a positive social media presence can influence the hiring decision as well (68%).

Now I am not a choirboy.  I have been known to dance on a table in my underwear in a bar, but where do you draw the line?

CEOs and senior leaders still see attracting talent as a major priority in growing and sustaining their businesses in tough conditions, so it’s more important than ever that you hire the right talent who will come, get the job, and stick around.When you hire someone, you want to have as much information as possible when you make that decision. Where do you draw the line? Background checks are reasonably routine these days, but is poking around on someone’s Facebook profile a legitimate approach?

GE does some amazing work, while Deloitte and many others use Facebook as a recruitment channel.  Ericsson, on the other hand, consciously avoids it (and it is by design if you look at their rather stunningly sophisticated search advertising efforts on LinkedIn).  They advertise on Facebook to drive you to their careers site if you search for “Ericsson” or “Ericsson jobs” – but there are tumbleweeds on Facebook if you want to join an Ericsson group.  A far cry from Sony Ericsson.

Two issues to ponder.

First, the Equality Act of 2010 is intended to consolidate a range of legislation around employment and discrimination and  states that discrimination is unlawful when an employer is hiring a person, in the terms and conditions of contract that are offered, in making a decision to dismiss a worker, or any other kind of detriment. “Direct discrimination”, which means treating a person less favourably than another who lacks the protected characteristic (protected characteristics include things like race, religion, sexual orientation etc.).  Now while “conduct” might not be a protected characteristic, conduct observed third-hand on a social media site could well stray into some very risky territory for the prospective employer.

Second, as people become more adept at engaging with social media they are also become more sophisticated in terms of their levels of awareness of their digital footprint and their data protection and privacy rights.

In summary, I think while a lot of employers are patting themselves on the back for their clever and innovative use of “social media” to build their reputation in the marketplace, this could very, very easily backfire.  My intuition – and that is all it is – is that Ericsson is spot on, and by taking the moral high ground might well be protecting their own reputation as an employer – indeed enhancing it – as a technology company that knows where to draw the line.

Vanity commenting

We’ve all seen it:  a blog posting or a LinkedIn Group discussion amongst a community of interest, and in the middle of the discussion comes a comment – usually from an agency / consultancy to be fair – that is more for the benefit of self-promotion than contributing to the discussion.

To be fair, all of us are now in the business of managing and building our personal brands, particularly in the social media space – and part of that includes participating in the conversation economy.  I’m sure I’m guilty of “ego commenting” myself.

But I’d argue that if the “ego posters” aren’t careful, just as with any other brand and marketing communications, their attempts could be counter productive.

Some examples: Bob responds to a post about X with a tenuous link opening door to a monologue about his experience as a general manager in the defence industry – a thinly veiled attempt to demonstrate high level trusted advisor status.  Janet sends a hilarious email to several people who know Bob and his (ahem) propensity for self-aggrandisement – “Good thing we have Bob around so we can all sleep at night.”  Just like with a business or consumer brand, your brand exists in the minds of your audience.  Everything you say or do has an effect, sometimes not the intended one.

Another example:  A client (Davina) gets a glowing write-up in the trade press spurring a discussion about the way she’s dealt with a challenge. The discussion is by and large about the technique at hand and exploring the idea – but of course there are a couple of posts from Niall (and the group is well aware of Niall’s combination of sanctimonious lecturing coupled with delusions of competence) that seem more interested in (a) subtly knocking down Davina and (b) implying that if Niall had been in charge, things would have been done a lot better and more effectively.  Once again, the emails do the rounds and Niall’s brand is further damaged.

On the other hand, there are examples where someone shares a really insightful personal story.  For example, the discussion on topic X is heading in one direction when Gary puts forth a simple and quite touching remark redirecting the conversation into totally new territory.  Gary’s brand equity rises exponentially with a single, sharp intervention.

Now these might be a slightly apocryphal, but that’s how communities communicate and social communication happens.

What are your comments and posts like?  I’ve got it wrong plenty of times (no shortage of self promotion, vanity, or ego here I’m afraid).  But I do now strive to think – Is this comment for them, or is it for me?

10 minute investment = great insight into engagement

I’m a sort of lapsed Fellow of the RSA and discovered this gem lurking on our intranet (thank you Romain), I mean our wikicommunitysocialmediaspaceenterprisetwopointohplatform.

Basically, research continues to indicate that stimulus-response (read command and control) thinking only works if your people do mechanical work requiring no cognitive skills.  Performance drops as rewards increase, counter-intuitively.

People do better when they achieve AUTONOMY, MASTERY and PURPOSE.  Sort of obvious maybe … hell, Built to Last said it a decade ago:  businesses with a purpose earn more profit than those that simply seek to earn more profit. Echoes as well of The Wisdom of Crowds.

Have a look.

The exception proves the rule…

LONDON – I was excited to receive an invitation to an upcoming conference on communication.  I dove straight into the conference session list and my enthusiasm was dampened … I couldn’t find any sessions that had much to do with tackling the challenges my FT100 multinational clients are facing.

I felt a bit deflated.  It was a bit late, I was slightly irritable and had had a drink.  I then had a panic attack: my God, am I really that out of touch with the marketplace and professional practice?

Well, no.  I think it’s indicative of the chasm that has widened between the practitioners who have made the leap across to the “new world” and those who cling to the security and certainty of the “old world.”

With numerous organisations grasping the nettle and discovering the joys and challenges of navigating a world where “internal” and “external” communications lines have blurred into near invisibility – the possible exception being deeply operational communications – it’s interesting to note that the conference has split into “internal” and “external” tranches.  Now, clearly one has to start somewhere when organising these things but the “conference by numbers circa 1995″ approach seems to lack vision and creativity. Maybe I’m being too harsh. Again.

What is it with me and conferences?  I am obviously well into pariah territory, refusing to lower my standards, and have completely unrealistic expectations of what they can and should be. 

But, the good news is, I am not alone. It is another reminder that the CommScrum Manifesto is on the money. 

I suppose you can be judged by the company you keep…

2011 Predictions

Dateline Bayswater, London, UK — 2010 was a healthily schizophrenic year. 

A remarkable amount of fragmentation ran alongside consolidation in the world of communication and technology.  An identifiable chasm began to open between the “old world” and “new world”, with many “old worlders” taking a look left and right and saying “Bugger this!” and making the leap across.  Many didn’t. 

The chasm widened. 

Those on the other side seem content that they’d dodged the change, that it was all a bunch of hyperbole and we can now return to originally scheduled programming.  Oh, wait … where are they?  Those specks in the distance?  I can barely hear them now, faint voices on the wind …

What lies ahead?

1)  The concept of the ‘segmented audience’ will die – long live tribes!  In more than a semantic sense, (i.e., not just the emperor’s new clothes) decade-old tribal theory will come to fruition.  Some have been there for a while … in a consumer marketing and branding sense …  but this will cross over into employee communications and even corporate branding and communication.   (Yeah, I ‘got it’ when it came out … only now I think we can believe it.)

2) People will wake up that “social media” that isn’t … isn’t.  Taking my cues from sources ranging from Mike Klein’s upcoming 55-Minute Guide; to Fortune and Fast Company; forgetting Wired and technology rags … and to-remain-unnamed “gurus” … now that the smoke is clearing companies and their “social media” leaders will realise that if it’s about a specific platform or technology, it isn’t technically social media.  The technology is an enabler.  It’s more important to get it to work to deliver the social side that matters.  Which leads to …

3) … a return to short, sharp, interruptive ‘campaigns’.  My colleagues at SAS will debate this with me, but I think given a world where “tribes” are the centre of focus and media must be social … there’s still presence and content to be considered, on which community and dialogue are built.  Tribes (which are a new and improved kind of audience, right?) want to be communicated with on their terms.  I’m not saying 30 second spots or internal branding initiatives.  I’m saying focussed and issue-driven “365 micro-campaigns across platforms aimed at the base-jumping billionaire spelunker” set.  (Thanks Batman)… and yet …

4) Big ideas will still matter.  In utter contradiction to points 2 and 3 in particular, and against the zeitgeist of the brand literati, organisations (and potentially Tribes too) will still hunger for the bigger, unifying idea.  It might be at the END of the conversation as an outcome we are led to – a destination rather than a vision – but we’ll still need it.  we’ll hunger for it.  And that big meaning will need to be authentic.  Hmmn.  Watch this space.

5) Sell your shares in big employee survey companies.  Invest the proceeds in analytics.  The data machines of yesteryear will have to give up the ghost and breathe spirit into shorter, sharper, smarter (and much, much more complicated – while at lower cost and higher speed) solutions.  The 24-7 conversation economy waits for no annual employee opinion survey.  Buh-bye!

6) HR process outsourcing will continue apace.  A no-brainer, perhaps, but the outsourcing pendulum (scythe?) continues its swing in this particular discipline.  But … and it’s a big but … HR (having morphed into Talent Acquisition and Management) will get its hands firmly back around Employer Brand and EVP as a strategic, joined-up business process.  Cue Employer Brand 2.0… which leads to …

7) … an (potentially misguided) emphasis on the ‘EVP inside’.  The message has been received: Employer Brand is not just about external reputation and Talent Attraction.  The risk: leave unfinished as “too hard” cracking the external manifestation of the EVP and instead put all of your energy into making sure it is working internally with your existing employees.  It’s both!!! 

8)  Smartphone apps applied to internal communication.  No brainer, but you saw it here first.  I hope.  So that smart-arse who just beat you on a pitch by waving around an iPhone … might have had a point. It’s the tribe, stupid.  See 2 & 3 above…

9) More face to face.  Leave your Smartphone at the door.  Good old-fashioned a-talkin’.  Leader and managers in particular will be required to invest the premium effort and time required to face to face communication (conversation, not broadcasting, and including listening and intelligent responses), and they will need support.

10) External channels for internal communications . Perhaps a no-brainer, but using YouTube for internal comms is already well underway (I’ve just done it with a big, arguably “old world” organisation … let’s see how it works …) but why invest in platforms when they already exist?  It’s the tribe, stupid.

Thanks to Mary Boone, Mike Williams, Geoff Barbaro, Adam Hibbert, Indy Neogy, Dan Gray, Soli Townsend, and especially Mike Klein for inspiring me this year – even if they don’t realise they have.

2010 Predictions assessed

From last year – self-assessment of my predictions for 2010.  Short assessment: my worst year for predictions.

1)  Employee engagement spend, recruitment spend will increase. SCORE: 50%.  Compared to 2009, the tap opened again.  As usual, my prediction was ahead of itself as Q4 and Q1 really took off.

2) Free content will (really) begin to replace over-priced Intellectual Property such as specialist publishers in non-traditional channels (for example, Forrester, Melcrum, IABC, etc.).   SCORE: 50%.  Well … sort of.  With the big exception of Rupert Murdoch’s experiment, which seems like it might succeed and change the game for traditional online publishing.  On the other hand, LinkedIn Groups are having a positive impact on users particularly around professional associations – perhaps less positively for the publishers.

3) Small and exclusive will replace big, blingy and mass market, big time.   SCORE:  50%.  American Express campaign is a good indicator, “secret gigs” have become as much a must have as O2 arena tickets.  But we have some way to go.

5) People will finally “get” PTT (Push To Talk) – and wonder why they didn’t use it 5 years ago when it was available on most handsets.  SCORE: 0%, at least in my world. 

6) Concentrated, tactical, ephemeral “microbranding” will begin to dislodge cumbersome and time consuming branding approaches – both corporate and consumer.  SCORE:  25%.  Starting to see some evidence.  But not a lot.

7) The business book press will slowly begin to realise that people will pay for insightful brevity.  We’ll see more 50-100 page books like Zag, The Brand Gap, The Talent Journey, Live Long and Prosper, etc. entering publishing schedules toward the end of the year and fewer pseudo-academic tomes of more than 200 pages.  SCORE:  50%.  Yes there is evidence but hard to gauge against blogs, internet sites etc.

8. ) Google will stumble and lose its way (they may then recover, we’ll see). SCORE:  25%.  Sort of but not in a big way.

9)  Powered by the wonderful success of Avatar, interactive experiences will begin to also gain traction in the corporate setting as well as in consumer home theatre and gaming. Invest now in 3D display companies… SCORE:  25%.  3D consumer TVs are out now … but 2011 might be the year.

10)  Connecting internal comms to employer brand will gain mainstream acceptance, for example, internal comms about HR actually looking like and saying similar things to recruitment media.  SCORE:  50%.  Many of our clients are really taking a more holistic and inside out approach, or at least starting to and realising the turf challenges this presents.

Has it all been said already?

I suspect it has and the debate is mostly about semantics and definition of terms.