Even Bill Gates is beginning to see the value of weblogs as an internal communication tool. A portion of his remarks at the May 20, 2004 Microsoft CEO Summit:
Another new phenomenon that connects into this is one that started outside of the business space, more in the corporate or technical enthusiast space, a thing called blogging. And a standard around that that notifies you that something has changed called RSS.
This is a very interesting thing, because whenever you want to send e-mail you always have to sit there and think who do I copy on this. There might be people who might be interested in it or might feel like if it gets forwarded to them they’ll wonder why I didn’t put their name on it. But, then again, I don’t want to interrupt them or make them think this is some deeply profound thing that I’m saying, but they might want to know. And so, you have a tough time deciding how broadly to send it out.
Then again, if you just put information on a Web site, then people don’t know to come visit that Web site, and it’s very painful to keep visiting somebody’s Web site and it never changes. It’s very typical that a lot of the Web sites you go to that are personal in nature just eventually go completely stale and you waste time looking at it.
And so, what blogging and these notifications are about is that you make it very easy to write something that you can think of, like an e-mail, but it goes up onto a Web site. And then people who care about that get a little notification. And so, for example, if you care about dozens of people whenever they write about a certain topic, you can have that notification come into your Inbox and it will be in a different folder and so only when you’re interested in browsing about that topic do you go in and follow those, and it doesn’t interfere with your normal Inbox.
And so if I do a trip report, say, and put that in a blog format, then all the employees at Microsoft who really want to look at that and who have keywords that connect to it or even people outside, they can find the information.
And so, getting away from the drawbacks of e-mail — that it’s too imposing — and yet the drawbacks of the Web site — that you don’t know if there’s something new and interesting there — this is about solving that.
The ultimate idea is that you should get the information you want when you want it, and we’re progressively getting better and better at that by watching your behavior, ranking things in different ways.
Read the full text of his speech, and see his PowerPoint presentation, here.
The Washington Post has a worth-reading account of Microsoft’s recent decision to restructure its employee benefits plan. It’s an interesting case study of the intersection of corporate policy, employee attitudes, internal communication, feedback, and personal publishing.
The Virtues of Chitchat (in the recent CIO magazine) discusses project logs, or plogs — weblogs that track a project’s progress, obstacles, etc.:
Indeed, most of us so loathe traditional IT’s ‘mushroom management’ techniques (keep them in the dark and throw manure on them) that the notion of plogs that either complement or supplement more formal communication has a certain appeal.
[…]
From a managerial perspective, I can hardly think of a better way to get new members of an IT team contextually grounded than to give them plogs to peruse, rather than make them read the outdated project sheets or suffer through a hasty luncheon debrief by the current project leadership.
True Professionalism is a wonderful book by David Maister that lucidly and compellingly describes the art of professional counsel. It’s a must read for advisors to leadership, be they consultants or staff.
It’s also an apt description of Paul Newman, with whom I shared a green room prior to a client speech several weeks ago. Newman was part of the intro to the show, and he had roughly 30 seconds of text, all of which was on TelePrompTer. So there we are, 15 minutes before show time, and Paul Newman … who has won an Academy Award, been nominated for another eight, and been part of nearly 60 film productions … is practicing.
I was quite struck by this. He’d had the text for weeks, was familiar with all 30 seconds of prose, and there he was, 15 minutes before the show, rehearsing. Of course, that’s part of why he’s Paul Newman, and a true professional in his own right. The lesson: No matter how great your talent, delivering a home-run performance in any public appearance, regardless of venue, requires practice. It’s what separates the pros from the amateurs, and unless you’re more talented at public speech than Paul Newman, it’s something to which you must commit time, energy, and attention if you want to succeed.
The latest edition of SalesForceXP includes an article about the importance of internal communication–and in particular, the importance of a two-way dialogue between leaders and their direct reports. (Read the entire article here…)
The more I speak with and read advice from top entrepreneurs, sales coaches and highly regarded business authors, the more it becomes obvious that communication is a top-three common denominator among successful sales managers, sales teams and sales channels.
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The emphasis on dialogue, however, doesn’t begin and end with salespeople and their customers and prospects. In fact, it’s a good bet that the quality of communication between a sales team and its roster of clients and prospects will mirror that of the sales team and the sales manager.
The author, Paul Nolan, describes the approach Pat Croce, former president of the Philadelphia 76ers, uses and calls Five-Fifteens.
Read the rest of this entry »
We like to say that everything sends a message. The Wall Street Journal’s recent The Small Stuff column discusses cost-cutting measures that say cheap rather than frugal:
The headlines go to the big cost-cutting decisions — moving production overseas, laying off workers or jettisoning certain businesses. But for many corporate employees, it’s the smaller, less-visible moves that have the biggest impact.
And most annoying. For while plenty of the small cuts make sense — eliminating lavish company outings, say, or country-club memberships — some small cuts accomplish little more than to point out to people that there is a fine line between being frugal and being cheap. Indeed, when the consequences aren’t fully considered, moves like putting timers on lights and even taking away small perks like free coffee can turn out to be as grating on customers as they are on employees.
As we all know, changes to benefit plans—and healthcare benefits, in particular—are a reality right now. While some changes increase costs for employees, it seems that employees even view changes that will increase retirement contributions or flexibility with sick and vacation time as “takeaways” because of their negative perceptions associated with changes to their health benefits.
While reading FC Now, the Fast Company weblog, I came across George’s Employement Blawg…which lead me to this: More high prices ahead for healthcare benefits; some more innovative options for responding. George links to Workforce Management and four case studies related to managing health costs. The common threads throughout the case studies? Early and frequent communication and employee engagement.
Some internal communicators have added webinars to their vehicle portfolios as a way to increase the richness of their communications to dispersed audiences. MarketingProfs.com offers some tips on How to Host a Successful Webinar. While this is focused on hosting webinars for external audiences, there are some lessons learned applicable to planning, promoting, and following-up on internal webinars as well.
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The Learning Channel (TLC) started a new program last week that’s caught our eye: Now Who’s Boss? The premise…
“What happens when the ‘top dog’ descends from the boardroom to the mailroom? Find out if these execs can handle their employees’ workday.”
CEOs perform various front-line duties within their organization and discover the reality of the pressures their employees face every day. TLC has already taped episodes with the CEOs from Song Air Service, Loews Miami Beach Hotel, Club Med, Universal Orlando, California Pizza Kitchen, and Estée Lauder.
So, what do you think…dangerous or smart move on the part of these CEOs?
TechRepublic has posted an article that describes strategies for increasing awareness of IT security issues, a communication challenge which many of our clients currently face. The bottom-line recommendation is very basic—multi-element, redundant internal communication campaigns (and a predictable admonishment to “think fun”).
For the communication practitioner the piece is worth reading more for the perspective it affords of how “IT people” think about communication issues (and of how this writer attempts casts the issues for the IT audience). It also offers a few nice paragraphs on the role of language and metaphor in effective internal communication, a tack we don’t often see in the popular press:
“Most IT managers fail to realize that they speak a foreign language,” explained Hansen. “The language of IT goes over like a lead balloon with most of the corporate community. Oftentimes, people feel like the IT department is talking over their heads purposefully and actively resent it.
“One of the reoccurring issues we’ve seen is that security evangelists repeatedly fail to craft a message that inherently appeals to their audience,” Hansen added. The key problem is in the analogies they choose, she said.
“We have seen awareness programs wrap themselves around predominately medical and/or military analogies without understanding the impact that language can have. Not to borrow too heavily from Susan Sontag, but there is great power in metaphor. Using the wrong language can ensure that people will stop listening or, worse yet, start viewing security in a negative light—something to be avoided, rather than embraced.”
Read the rest.
