MyEverything

On Friday, I received an invite from Eileen Burmeister (Ragan Report writer extraordinaire) to join MyRagan.com — a “facebook for the PR and Communications industry” started by the genius folks at Ragan. If you have tried any of the social networking sites like Friendster, MySpace or even the professional networking site, Linkedin, you will find MyRagan easy to use. What I like about it is that it provides a place for communicators to go to find other communicators and share great ideas, ask for advice/help or get a restaurant recommendation while attending a conference in a different city. Polish restaurant in Chicago, anyone?

What I also like, though, is that it reinforces what I have been thinking lately. Large corporations are like small countries — often their sales eclipse the GDPs of small countries, but that’s another story. Inside these small countries are many different provinces (locations around the world, departments, business units) — there are so many different ways to slice large corporate structures, they are a pain to navigate. In doing focus groups with my former company, the number one expressed communication need was, “How do I find the right person to direct an issue to?” Many employees thought organization charts were the answer, but it was not company policy to post organization charts on the intranet and so we settled on a “beefed-up” searchable employee database, which only partly addressed the problem.

Which gets me back to social networking. Many large companies have offices in over 30 countries and employees who are team members on projects working across multiple time zones and regions. Many of these people will never meet each other in person, but they are expected to work with each other to success on these cross-ocean and cross-continent projects. I think social networking could be the answer to creating close, effective employee communities around topics that help people problem-solve inside these large organizations.

If MyRagan can do it for dispersed communicators in many different companies, why can’t companies do this for their 10, 20, 30, 100 thousand plus employee populations? If the next generation of employees are the “me” generation — why not embrace this mindset and give them tools that start with “My” and help them own solutions to business issues? Maybe this is the way to employee engagement in the 21st century?

 

Cubs and Communication finally together!

So, Peat and I will be in Chicago in early May and if I adhere to one rule my whole life, it’s this one — never visit a Major League Baseball town and miss a ballgame. In fact, it’s such a strict rule that I often have a hard time visiting a Major League Baseball town when baseball is not in season — it doesn’t seem right to be in the same city as a dormant stadium.

In my most orthodox ways, I will be getting tickets to go to the Cubs game on May 10th and yes, it is a day game. Isn’t it kind of a crime to see the Cubs in the dark? Forgive me for being old school, but I still can’t accept the Designated Hitter, which is why I refer to myself as a National League girl. So, Peat and I will hopefully be somewhere at Wrigley (the best place to watch a game on earth — new stadiums got nothing on this place) on May 10th cheering for the Cubbies!

So how does communication play into all this? Well, we are attending the game with none other than Steve Crescenzo, Chief Hallucinator of Crescenzo Communications. He and his wife Cindy already have tickets to the game and Peat and I have already devised some Social Media tactics to have a networking meeting from our side of the stadium to where they are sitting. Twitter anyone? I could see the conversation on my chat program now:

TwitterIM: Nova: Just spilled beer on one of the bleacher bums. Told them I loved the Cubs — all was good.

TwitterIM: Steve: Writing notes on hot dog napkins for my next blog…will the Old Style beer make these illegible and incoherent tomorrow?

TwitterIM: Peat: I could build some software using algorithms to calculate the amount of hot dogs purchased when the Cubs are down versus when they are up.

TwitterIM: Steve: Trying to find a way to explain to Peat that Cubs fans are enthusiastic regardless of the score. Note on napkin — write to MLB and explain that it would be historic and symbolic for the Cubs to win in 2008 (100 years after the last World Series win) and can’t they make something happen?

Okay, so maybe Twitter wouldn’t be the most efficient way to interact during a baseball game or to interact in general (is the jury still out on this one?), but sometimes when you are navigating the corporate world, it feels like you are sitting in the bleachers, while everyone else is sitting behind the dugout. When you are behind the dugout, you get to hear all the action — the crack of the bat, the ball hitting the glove. Out in the bleachers, you have to keep one eye on the beer stand line and you have to scream and wave like a madman in hopes that one of the fielders might throw you the ball. When talking to employees, does it ever seem like they are waiting for someone to throw them the ball? Lots of motivated people who get lost in the crowd. It’s up to us communicators to get employees in on the action — convince our management teams to throw them the ball — they shouldn’t have to act like madmen to get it.

Oh! And never fear — we’ll be catching up with Cindy and Steve before or after the game…remember when face-to-face meetings were all the rage?

 

Silver Tongue

Rob Abramovitz of Skutt left some great questions in the comments section of my Web 2.0 workspace entry, but I wanted to make sure that everyone had access to my response. In his comments, he mentions some work issues that he struggles with (scheduling meetings with colleagues with opposite schedules, tracking projects and tasks and linking those to good tools and then finally, he asks how to keep track of the strategic plan and how Chatter Mill can contribute to achieving the goals of this plan. My thoughts on his last two points are below:

Regarding your final two questions about strategic goals and how Chatter Mill plays a part — I think these are linked. It’s all about communicating strategy to employees and then making sure they have a way to funnel information back to you. It’s about the two-way conversation. Have you made it easy for employees to know how the company is doing on the #1 priority? A dashboard with performance metrics that is posted online or on a bulletin board is the best way to make sure employees can stay focused on the goal. Make sure it’s not too many measurements or a thick report. It’s about priorities — no one can prioritize successfully if everything in a 20-page report is a “#1 priority”.

Finally, Chatter Mill provides the channel for employees to dialogue with management about the business. First and foremost, it is a communication tool. The rating system, though, allows you to get a Snapshot read of the pulse of the organization. The reports can then help you drill down into the problem areas or even help get people past a particular area of pain so they can get focused back on strategic goals. Or even better, Chatter Mill helps illuminate employee ideas on how to meet these goals.

I return to the age-old adage that employees truly are a company’s greatest asset — if that’s true, how come we don’t listen more to what they have to say? When you do, you will see employee engagement increase, retention improve and if linked with a clearly communicated strategic plan, Chatter Mill helps employees tell you immediately and directly when something hasn’t gone according to plan (not weeks later as it makes its way slowly from the water cooler to your office). Chatter Mill isn’t a silver bullet — think of it more as a silver tongue…for your organization.

 

Corporate Communicators Conference

Blue Hill Solutions is a featured exhibitor at the Corporate Communicators Conference in Chicago in early May. This is the 16th year of this event hosted by Ragan Communications. The conference offers a wide variety of internal communcation tracks covering print, online, social media, senior communication and more. Sessions will be led by communication experts like Steve Crescenzo and Shel Holtz and from practitioners from leading companies such as AAA, Siemens and Southwest Airlines to name just a few.

We will be there talking with internal communicators about how Chatter Mill can help their senior leaders start a healthy business dialogue with employees and measure it! If you are going, stop by our table to hear more about what Chatter Mill can do for your communication strategy. We will be there May 8th, 9th and the morning of the 10th. See you in Chicago!

 

Web 2.0 workspace

As I wrangle my way through launching Chatter Mill, I have been thinking a lot about how Blue Hill Solutions can contribute to the future of the employee workplace. The more I think about it the word “workplace” is part of the issue — “workspace” seems more appropriate. More and more, people are working from home or remotely. And that trend will continue as the traditional top-down corporate structures are further flattened by access to information and technology.

But companies don’t need to fear those days — they need to adapt to them. Web 2.0 is the near standard on the internet and it’s slowly edging its way into internal communication strategies as well. But no one has really put the whole package together. I am interested in what people think are the key headaches when it comes to your every day work tasks? Is it getting good up-to-date information? Is it finding the right people in the company? Is it understanding certain operating procedures and processes? Is it knowledge management in the ever-revolving door of today’s corporate careers?

What do we need to create a workspace for the future? The generation that has never used a typewriter is coming soon to an office near you.

 

Chatter Mill is here!

My business partner and I have been in Las Vegas the last couple of days to attend the New Communications Forum hosted by the Society for New Communications Research and Ragan. At the conference, our company Blue Hill Solutions launched an innovative new platform called Chatter Mill.

It’s exciting to see the product come alive. The people who attended the session yesterday were really energized about Chatter Mill’s potential for their company. We had so many people participating in the discussion about it that I had to cut off the conversation on more than one occasion to get through the material. I wish we had more time, because the questions people had really added to the case for implementing Chatter Mill.

I am thinking about putting together a running list of tips for answering employee questions. Communicators, what are some of the toughest questions from employees your executives face?

 

2007 New Communications Forum

I will be speaking at the 2007 New Communications Forum & Expo taking place March 7-9 in Las Vegas. My session description is below. Learn more about the conference or register.

Kill the Water Cooler: An experience in electronic Town Halls

Confidentiality is a core concern for corporations, so much so that executives often keep critical information from employees to protect it. Everyone knows the scenario. A department is being reorganized, but it’s not yet time to announce it. Still the rumors are out there. The buzz starts at the water cooler and creeps around hallways, lunch tables and appears in whispered tones in cubicles. Misinformation, paranoia and fear are all benefactors of the rumor mill, while facts and real decisions are left for the official announcement. Learn how to kill the water cooler and free your information in this informative hands-on demonstration of an electronic town hall.

==> See the town hall tool in action in a live demonstration
==> Embrace the idea of anonymity to solicit frank feedback from employees
==> Learn how to coach executives to answer employee questions right the first time, so that they don’t have to ask it again
==> Sustain the town hall tool through criticism
==> Sell it to even the most skeptical executive

Nova Newcomer is a freelance communication consultant who helps companies develop internal communication strategy and deploy communication tools for employees. Nova helped a multi-billion dollar global business launch and support an electronic town hall that is still going strong almost five years later. www.novanewcomer.com

 

200 slides in 90 minutes

From the boardrooms to the classrooms, we have all been there. I remember back in my school days before powerpoint, I would have 75 notecards to present in the 15 minutes I was given by my Global Studies teacher to talk about the history of violence in El Salvador. Somehow I thought that by the time we all made it into the “real world”, our expectations of ourselves and our audiences would have become a bit more realistic. Of course, what I have come to learn is that as our experience in that ever-so-real world grows, our expectations become ever-so unattainable.

Let’s meet Charlie. He’s a well-intentioned senior manager at a consumer products company (any similarity to real events, real people or companies is purely accidental). He wants to give an update to his team on corporate priorities, communicate brand strategy and talk about a specific initiative he needs the group to focus on. Oh! And he would like a Q&A session. So, like any diligent manager, he schedules himself 2 hours. 90 minutes for his presentation and 30 minutes for questions. Charlie comes to me for some support on his presentation and, as I watch in horror, goes through the 200 slides he has prepared for his epic speech to the masses.

What’s the first thing I tell Charlie? You’ve got 30 minutes, no more. In the world of pause buttons, Tivos and 1000 cable channels, 90 minutes of listening to the same person talk just doesn’t fly anymore and except for maybe 19th century political rallies, I am not sure it ever did. There’s a reason sitcoms are 30 minutes, 17 of content if you subtract the commercials. People can only concentrate for so much time on one topic and one speaker. And unless they are taking a crash course for the SAT, can’t remember loads of detail either.

“But…” Charlie says, “I only see this part of my group 1 or 2 times a year. They need to hear this from me.”

And the truth is, they do need to hear corporate priorities and brand strategy from Charlie. And they need to know how that new initiative will affect their daily work. However, the sobering reality is, they just can’t take it in all at one setting. And when you multiply 90 minutes by the 150 people Charlie was going to have in the room by an average yearly salary 0f 50,000, that $5000 better be focused on results.

So a few tips for those of you who, like Charlie, just finished slide 199 for their 90 minute presentation:

• Less is more — simplify your message and your audience will leave with a clear directive
• Most people take 2-3 minutes on each slide (practice, though, because some people take 10!)
• Always start with motivation — why is it important that the audience listen?
• Seek out feedback — find out what you did well and how you could improve
• And…follow up your talk with helpful reminders to your teams over the next couple of weeks

And my favorite three words of advice for presenters:

• Prepare
• Rehearse
• Revise

Your audience will thank you for it. Stay tuned for more presentation advice. Next up: 10 slides I never want to see again!

 

Don’t believe in one-stop consulting

In my hometown, I grew up with the store Fred Meyer. The store advertises itself as a unique one-stop shopping experience. Now, I have learned over time that the “one-stop shopping” slogan is applied differently depending on which neighborhood you live in. Currently, I live near the second-worst Fred Meyer in town when it comes to selection. A recent shopping trip where I couldn’t find decent containers for storing pasta got me thinking. Is one-stop shopping even a good thing for consumers?

As a consultant, my clients depend on my expertise. It’s okay to want to be the alpha and omega for your clients, but sometimes that doesn’t mean all the work should go to you. I am going to go out on a limb here and implore you: “Don’t believe in one-stop consulting!”

Would you buy a cake from a doctor? Or enlist a carpenter for your knee surgery? Expertise is worth its weight in gold in any project. A couple of years ago, I needed external help in building a communication strategy for the company I worked for at the time. I contacted multiple communication consultants for bids. Only one of the bids came in where the consultant wasn’t proposing a one-stop consulting extravaganza. Apparently, all of these firms can bake cakes, perform arthroscopic surgery and help build communication strategies. But Consultant X knew how to speak to me. He clearly explained what his expertise was and outlined how he could connect me with survey tool providers, graphic support and other potential communication needs in which he wasn’t a specialist. Not only did I have a consultant for this project, but I felt confident I had a professional whom I could rely on for future needs as well.

So, how does the multi-stop approach to consulting work? By being a consultant with a diverse network of professional and dependable experts, you can act as a full service agency without the overhead and make your clients’ needs come first. And who benefits? I firmly believe that in this scenario, there are only winners. First of all, you connect your clients with service providers who deliver, including yourself. Your clients are satisfied and are richer for the experience. When they need a similar service in the future, they will think of you and want that contact information again. Or if they need a totally different service, they may say Consultant Y always seems to have an expert in their back pocket, let’s ask him/her who they would recommend. Being a successful consultant doesn’t mean that you book all proceeds from an opportunity for your own business. Satisfying clients is what makes us successful and having return clients who keep coming back to peruse our network of expertise is far more rewarding than one-stop consulting.

So, don’t believe the hype! One-stop shopping is the box store approach to business. It works when we are in a hurry, but we often end up settling for less than what we want because it’s all in one place. When you are looking for a consultant, think of the European approach to grocery shopping. You get your meat from a butcher, your bread from a baker, your fruits and vegetables from the produce stands and your cheese from a cheese shop. When I lived in Germany, I would have gladly paid to have a grocery shopping consultant who developed a roadmap for my shopping experience and connected me with the expert bakers, cheesemakers and farmers! Expert referrals are probably the greatest service a consultant can give to his/her clients.

If you are a service provider in the field of communication, contact me about the services you provide.

Or share your multi-stop consulting approach in the comments below.

 

Free your information and the rest will follow

No, this is not a reference to a no longer relevant early 90s R&B group (good song, though), nor is it a nod to that famous line in Field of Dreams (good movie, too). Rather, it is my philosophy when it comes to internal communication. In my experience, many executives and managers spend too much time worrying about what not to communicate, while the corporate masses are so desperate for information, leaking information is the last thing on their mind. So, terminally, we find ourselves in a situation where management, doing what they think is their best to protect the company, are unkowingly doing their best to keep vital information from employees.

Having spent the last 5 years as a communicator in a corporate environment, learning the ins and outs of working within a global organization, I decided last spring that more people needed to experience the words, “free your information”. And I say experience, because it’s all about action. When employees start understanding the whole picture, your company’s greatest asset moves into high gear. I am excited to share more of my ideas about internal communication and would appreciate anyone who wants to add to the discussion. So, post a comment or send me a mail. In the meantime, start talking about what information needs to be free.