Making Water Interesting

"The Water Blog" makes government communications captivating

Did you know there were 20 interesting things about the Portland Water Bureau? Think I’m joking? You haven’t met Jennie Day-Burget, Public Information Officer for the Bureau. Public information was never this engaging.

Armed with a successful blog and a growing Twitter following, Day-Burget provides a fascinating window into the life of city government. While the public sector is often late to catch on to tech trends due to tight budgets and old-fashioned bureaucracy, Day-Burget is taking advantage of the free and inexpensive social media tools available to anyone with an internet connection.

Whether it’s highlighting a water main during a winter freeze or posting a picture of the cutest koala bathing in a bucket, Day-Burget is doing to government communications what President Obama’s team did for political campaigns. Smart, edgy and informative, public information becomes must-read content in Day-Burget’s hands.

Portland Tap Water Sticker snapped in front of Chicago Water Tower

In December of 2007 when Day-Burget took over the blog, it had about 30,000 hits per month. One year later, hits had more than tripled to over 100K per month and January numbers had grown to 120K. But it’s not all about numbers either, it’s about exposure. Not only has the local paper, The Oregonian, started linking to “The Water Blog”, water conservation website leakbird.com is a fan and the blog has also been linked to in the New York Times Online. This kind of success with social media can be contagious.

 

Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard has Day-Burget to thank for his recent Twitter conversion. Her boss can be found twittering about his new tie right alongside talking about his official blog and other important city issues. And she isn’t stopping at the edge of her bureau’s domain, either. Day-Burget recently organized what she calls a “support group” of other communicators in municipal government. She explains, “We are all doing it, but not talking about it. Many of us are flying under the radar with our social media outreach.”

So, how much time does this public information officer spend keeping up on this outreach? Day-Burget says she spends about 3-4 hours a day on social media, but she finds that she can be stingy and make a bigger impact with traditional communication pieces like news releases, now that she has so many other ways to reach constituents on a more regular basis.

The next time you find yourself with a topic that seems too boring to communicate about, it’s possible that it is. It’s also possible, though, that you just need to breathe new life into it. Check out “The Water Blog” or follow @portlandwater on Twitter and you’ll discover a new way every day to make the run of the mill captivating for your audience.

 

Social Media for Small Business

I have become obsessed lately with the idea of social media for small business. Maybe it’s because I have many friends who own small businesses. Maybe it’s because the economy is in such turmoil and I want to support local business. Or perhaps it’s because I am also a small business owner and I know a lot of the ins and outs of living and breathing your business all day every day.

But if we are going to live and breathe our businesses, shouldn’t some of that energy go to increasing our reach and influence? And that’s what social media can do. There’s no silver bullet with social media. Whether you are sending out a mailer, newsletter, blogging or sending a Tweet through Twitter — you still have to draw in your audience and engage them. But when you have them engaged, the speed with which you can increase your reach with social media outpaces traditional media. How else do you think a dorky guy dancing in different places around the world can get 18 million views?

Of course, the dorky dancing around the world in different places has been done, so don’t book your round the world flight yet. And just like the lottery, don’t use social media for investment purposes. Seriously, though, using social media to try to get something to go viral (millions of views) is the quickest path to disillusionment. Rather, set yourself some achievable goals like the ones below and watch the every day magic that can take place in your business.

Social Media Goals in Small Bites

* Connect with 5 new people a week on your social network

* Start a blog with posts about my business linking to other relevant content (linking to other content in a blog post is one way to increase your reach beyond your own audience)

* Get a Twitter account and post twice a day

* Follow 5 new people on Twitter per week (often times, they will follow you as well!)

* Don’t let your marketing speak seep into your social media activity — people can sniff this out from a mile away

More tips to come: In the meantime, here’s John Jantsch’s take on social media for small business. Though I would put some things in a different order and break some of his rules, it’s a good introduction to the idea of social media for small business.

 

The Importance of Giving Feedback

It can be nice to find out you were ahead of the times. Of course, many of the people who were ahead of their own times were only recognized posthumously. However, if finding out you were ahead of your time means that now that everyone’s caught up, more people have a voice even if they didn’t find it through me, so be it.

With the transition of the new President-elect comes many changes, but one of the best changes in approaches I have seen is how the Transition team is modeling good communication. There is always a time and place for top down communication — if you are the President, the people look for that kind of leadership from time to time. But one of the basic tenets of good communication is good listening. And President-elect Obama’s team have the right idea. They even have a great name for the tool they are using to listen to constituents — “Open for Questions“. Imagine if the Bush Administration had offered such a tool?

Of course, it’s one thing to put up a tool for people to provide feedback, it’s another to act on those ideas and questions in a meaningful way. Chatter Mill (the feedback engine I developed) is just one of the many suggestion-box style of tools that are popping up as social media becomes the norm. Uservoice and Google Moderator are others. I have been working with employee audiences using these types of feedback tools since 2002 and it’s great to see the importance of giving feedback gaining traction.

 

Why I suck at social media…or I am back!

I couldn’t figure out the best way to come back to my blog after a much too long hiatus. It’s not that I have been sitting around trying to figure out what to do these past 11 months. No, as a female professional with dreams of having it all, I took the plunge (with my husband) into parenting this past year. So, if I didn’t blog enough before Elliott entered this world, his arrival ensured that I wouldn’t for several months.

The little angel (he doesn’t talk yet, you see) is sleeping next to me right now. The delicate sounds of my furious typing lull him into napdom quite easily. This boy will have social media down by the age of 2, which gets me back to the title of this post. The reason that I suck at social media is that I am a child of the pre 100% digital world. I came about in the late 70s. Things were still mechanical then — polaroid cameras were magic! So as much as I adore my MacBook, I am still largely an analog gal. Yes, 75% of my Christmas presents are bought online and I have chat open all day and I check Facebook and MySpace several times a day and I get Twitter withdrawal, but when it comes to social media, I am still largely a consumer rather than a captain of industry.

As someone who speaks on social media tools, I feel compelled to blog. Hence, I am back. But I fancy myself a serious writer. My blog post about Egg Nog on my personal site is truly moving. All jokes aside, I want to write when I feel I really have something to say. I hear my contemporaries talk (or blog or tweet) about the need to stay relevant in the blogosphere or twittosphere or whatever “osphere” is cool these days. Relevancy , friends (or followers) and links are the key to social media supremacy. And I do believe them. The people who are read have a high quotient in each of these categories. I strongly believe, though, that a critical ingredient is often overlooked — the burning platform.

The burning platform is not just content for content’s sake, it’s the passion, the drive, the urge to be heard and to say something that means something to someone. It doesn’t have to be deep, it can simply be letting off some steam or paying someone or something a compliment. But whatever it is that makes you want to communicate, make sure it’s not to meet a quota. If 11 months go by between posts like your friend here, your chance to be heard isn’t all lost. You just may need to discover a new way back in. For me, it came from a repeated push from my brother-in-law to start writing. He basically said, “Stop pontificating from the couch and get these ideas down.”

So, I can’t say that I will always have that deep, driving desire to say something, but here’s to hoping I will!

 

The intranet spectrum

I was quoted in a recent article entitled, “Corporate intranets are in deep trouble, expert says“. Don’t worry, I am not the expert in the title, so this post is not a big pat on the back for myself. However, it did prompt me to share something that has been incubating for a while in my communicator brain — the intranet spectrum.

I have tried this concept out on two different seminar audiences and received good feedback. The best feedback, is of course, when your ideas are integrated into the way someone talks about a subject. And “the intranet spectrum” seems to do just that. It gets people talking about the intranet with a unified vocabulary and a vocabulary we are all familiar with.

I will be talking more about this spectrum in reference to the tools I feature here on my blog, so let me introduce you to the concept. Talking about the intranet (the intranet’s primary purpose is to distribute information effectively) using an analogy of government systems (a government’s primary purpose is to distribute resources) allows organizations and communicators to place their own intranet and intranet tools along a continuum which can be easily mapped to culture development within the organization. So just as government systems use varying methods and political ideologies for distributing resources, so can organizations use varying intranet tools and communication philosophies to distribute information to employees.

In my seminars, I have asked participants to place their own intranet on the spectrum. When doing this, the most important thing to keep in mind is that none of the points on the intranet spectrum are “bad” or “good” — where your intranet falls on the spectrum should relate directly to the kind of culture you are trying to develop inside your organization. And remember that the spectrum can also apply at the tool level. Your overall intranet might be “democratic”, but you may have some tools that are still “autocratic”. For example, perhaps  you have instituted forums with anonymous comments for employees to engage in dialogue, but all of your corporate articles are still vetted through an approval process through senior management.

The spectrum can also give you a strategic roadmap for convincing your leaders to share in your vision for developing your intranet. You can bridge their plans for development of the business culture, by using a shared vocabulary for talking about your plan for the intranet and how your communication strategy can help them achieve their vision for the organization.

Helpful tip!

Don’t feel tied to using the political system labels if they might turn off your leaders. Some leaders may not be able to see how an “anarchic” tool would work in their organization. If you are concerned about the labels, use the descriptions to guide your discussions with your leaders about intranet vision. However, I think a good shock to the system a la anarchy might be just the jolt corporate leaders need to get on the bandwagon for the intranet of the future!

 

One small tool from the Internet…a giant step for your intranet

One of the greatest things about running your own business is the ability to have some choice over the kind and variety of work you get to be involved in. My most recent project is a great example of this. While presenting in Dallas about the great advancement of interactive web tools in the past decade and how company intranets need to come out of the dark ages of 1995, my fellow colleagues at Blue Hill Solutions were busy working away on a client’s external website.

Yes, my friends, it’s important that one who teaches also do. So, while my passion is internal communication, I keep my web brain sharply tuned to the trends of the capital “I” Internet by managing external web projects in addition to my work on intranet tools.

Just today, Blue Hill Solutions, the company my husband and I founded in mid 2006 launched a brand new shiny e-commerce site for a local accessories company called Queen Bee Creations. And the amazing part is that we all (clients, design firm and Blue Hill) worked together to pull this off in 8 weeks. Now I am not one to toot my own horn, but I am sure you are asking yourself, “How did they do it?”

There’s a magic word that I spend a lot of time thinking about when I am at work, trying to understand the person at the drive-through window or just asking my husband what he’s thinking about when we are both silent while riding in the car (I will give you a hint…I am not thinking about rockets, but he is!). Anyway, the word I am talking about is C-O-M-M-U-N-I-C-A-T-I-O-N!

A successful project will always come down to a bit of a hard work and a LOT of communication. And communication comes in many forms. There are the typical ways: face-to-face meetings, phone calls, an e-mail or a hundred here and there. But what I found really helpful with our project was the use of this online tool called Basecamp. We use it inside of our company for our internal projects as well, but what really made Basecamp a critical business tool for this project was that it brought together people (clients, designers and our software project team) who worked in different locations under one roof so to speak. If we needed to track a conversation on an issue we could without digging through e-mails and forwarding them on. We tracked milsetones and we were able to share images, documents and screenshots whether we were in Portland or not — all through the cooperative power of the Internet.

And this is what I mean when I talk about utilizing the power of the Internet to transform your company’s intranet. Your intranet should be a place that employees come to get information that helps them get their jobs done or make decisions or find the right people to involve. Using Basecamp for our project is just an example of the kinds of tools that are out there waiting for you. I will try to continue to highlight Internet tools here in this space and help you relate them to communication challenges. It’s time for the intranet to be more than just a company newsletter…let’s build that vision together.

 

Summer break’s over…let’s rendezvous in Dallas!

It’s not often that one has the opportunity to say they were inspired by the government in Iraq. But I guess I finally get my chance after taking the summer off from blog postings. Now I imagine some of you were saying, “I am out here doing all this work to keep the communication industry in business and there’s Nova Newcomer taking the summer off from blogging as if we aren’t relying on her for her genius!” Or something like that. And I said “imagine” and “some,” so I am off the hook for those who didn’t notice my absence!

The good news is that when I take time off, I come back with a vengeance. The kind folks at Ragan have again provided me a chance to impart my theories on the intranet to unsuspecting communicators. So, if you have some continuing education budget left, sign up for the Communications Roundup hosted by Southwest Airlines and Ragan.

My session is titled, “Remake your corporate intranet to match the power of the Web.” In the session, you will:

• Learn how today’s Internet advances can transform your intranet into a critical business tool
• Discover creative uses of web technology that deliver the information and experience your employees need
• Find how to bridge the gap between your intranet today and what Generation Y employees will expect tomorrow
• Get a glimpse into the future of intranets
• Apply online tools to real communication challenges
• Make the case internally for the intranet of the future

Hope to see you there!

 

Give ‘em what they want!

I just moved into a new house over the weekend. About the only thing that went our way during the two days of heavy labor and maneuvering very large objects out of tight spaces (yeah, I’m talking about you awkward, heavy washing machine!) was the cable guy transferring our cable to the new digs! Have you ever moved before? If so, what are the chances that the cable is the only thing that goes right? It was that kind of weekend.

Our POD gets picked up at 7:30 am sharp on Saturday before we have had a chance to secure the items inside it or fill it up for that matter. I cut my finger on the serrated edge of the tape gun. We decide to move the heaviest item (tv cabinet) we own to the den on the second floor and risk the lives of my brother and brother-in-law in the process, just so we can hook up the tv and play the Nintendo Wii — only to find that we were all too tired to play. And as the 2 hour window for the cable guy to appear winds down, I think, of course! There’s no way the cable guy shows up on time. So, at 2:30 (half hour late), I am starting to wonder if I got the appointment wrong. Then, enters Rudy. In no more than 45 minutes, he seamlessly had the cable hooked up, the internet running and gave me a $20.00 discount for the installation because he was late — all adding up to me being able to watch this very funny Hillary ‘08 spoof video this morning on the series of tubes we call the internet!

In the video, a faux campaign manager, Sean shakes up the staff a bit with some new ideas and perspectives on the candidate. I couldn’t help but think back to the Corporate Communicators Conference I was at last week. The unofficial mantra of the event seemed to be, “Give ‘em what they want!” If campaigns actually gave voters what they wanted, we might actually be able to get this country moving behind a united vision again. But instead, these campaigns consistently take the safe route — just like our executives do. And we let them! We let them get away with corporate-speak. We let them tell us that employees can’t be given the freedom to use social networking tools because it will be a time-waster. We let them tell us that employees can’t be trusted to blog about critical business issues, because of the risk of breaking confidentiality. All the while, employees are dying for a richer exchange about the business with their leaders and colleagues.

Now, I was never a John McCain fan, but remember when he used to be the engineer of the “Straight Talk Express”? Who got to that guy — the campaign gurus of the Republican party? Don’t give in to the party operative when it comes to coaching your executives on how to engage employees. Give ‘em the “Straight Talk Express.” Give ‘em what they want!

 

KISS

No, I am not referring to the silver-panted, platform-shoed tongue waggers that want to “Rock and Roll All Night.” Instead, I am referring to that oft-abused, but ever-relevant adage: Keep It Simple Stupid! Or Keep it Simple Silly as I have often seen corporate trainers use in trembling fear of offending someone. I always found that when someone used the word “stupid” and directed it at me, I listened, but maybe that has more to do with self-deprecation than the validity of the word itself. And”silly” just sounds condescending — offend me, but please never be condescending.

Peat and I just closed up shop today at the Corporate Communicator’s Conference. Yesterday morning, I had been panicked. The conference started at 8:00 and it was 8:15 and no one had approached our booth yet. I started telling Peat how I wasn’t cut out for this and asking him if he would edit my resume right there at the booth! Peat, of course, being far more cool and collected simply pretended he didn’t hear me. Of course, it never occurred to me that I don’t like talking to people at 8:00 in the morning, so why would it surprise me that other people would want to get their chocolate filled croissant, collect their thoughts and hear Steve Crescenzo sing before coming over to our booth? I know that’s a lot more like what I like to do in the mornings, except my preference is that all days would start after 9:00 am and end by 12:00 in time to go to a day game at Wrigley. (Today was close to that except it started with a 7:00 mimosa brunch…you can get me up early for champagne drinks any day of the week…too bad the Cubbies couldn’t pull it off in the 9th.)

So, people did finally start coming over to chat with us once they got the bearings and we had great conversations about what their challenges are in their different industries — health care, banking, automotive, airlines, etc. And I got to share with them what I was able to accomplish at adidas and now what I am trying to do with Chatter Mill — give employees a voice to management in a safe way. One of the core values of our platform is to keep it simple. Communicators have a ton of different channels to provide information to employees, so we don’t want to reinvent the wheel. Chatter Mill is a question and answer tool with a rating system that provides simple reports. Nothing more, nothing less.

The best gift from this conference was learning that we were right when we KISSed Chatter Mill. When it’s simpler to understand, it’s more likely people will get on-board — and this is true for any communication tool.

 

Live at the Chicago Hyatt

Peat and I have landed, if only a bit woozy from a red-eye flight from Portland. The Chatter Mill booth is ready to go and looking good. For people looking for more information about implementing Chatter Mill, we have our sexy Chatter Mill Toolkits in Blue Hill colors to hand out. Also, we are raffling off an iPod Shuffle to anyone who drops off a business card and tells us a bit about their company and communication challenges. We are excited to meet as many of the over 400 people who are here at the conference to learn new ways to rock Corporate Communications. Thanks to the folks at Ragan for putting this 3-day communication extravaganza together. Pictures soon!