The answer's social media - now what's the question?

Another cross-post from insideleapfrog.com

Last week I read a request for help on LinkedIn that so vexed me that I’m still thinking about it a week on.

A member of an IC interest group wrote: “I’m struggling to engage a specific group of employees who are reluctant to embrace social media any suggestions on some new innovative ways?”

My response was: “Do they have to embrace social media? It would seem that whatever the question is for IC pros at the moment, the answer is ‘social media’. Sometimes, in its many and various forms, it is the answer – but not always. 

"We seem to be losing the art of face to face communication and the appetite for traditional comms. In the rush to embrace the electronically-driven social world, that could be a very costly error. Have you talked to this group? What’s their take on comms? Are there channels and media that they appreciate and respect? What’s worked for them in the past – do you know the reasons why they’re not embracing social media?”

“Without knowing that side of the story, it’s tricky to suggest a way forward. But, the newest, sexiest, shiniest forms of comms aren’t always the best for any particular group, and the worst mistake we can make is to impose what we like onto a group with a different (and perhaps just as valuable) perspective.”

The debate has gathered almost two dozen comments, with a group suggesting various options to draw this non-specified audience into social media, while others have either supported me, or in the case of Jim Shaffer, moved the debate on a little. Jim’s point is that we shouldn’t be arguing about traditional v social, but, as he said: “The question and a lot of the responses here are about process versus results or outcomes. What results are you trying to change? What outcomes do you want from “embracing social media?” It would seem that if people 1) had access to a solution that would improve a business outcome, 2) if it was in their best interests to make the improvement and 3) it was their idea to adopt that solution, they would.  Or that’s what usually happens. Asking people to embrace social media is like asking them to embrace posters.”

For me, Jim’s hit on an issue that’s worrying me more and more as I engage with comms pros here in the UK. There’s a distinct band-waggoning on social with the result that any discussion of strategy or tactics that doesn’t involve the latest application of digital wizardry is kicked out the door in double-quick fashion. There’s an assumption that social is some kind of magic bullet – and that the likes of Jim or me advocating an approach that looks at audience needs, business outcomes and the best way for comms to enable such an outcome must be something akin to walking with dinosaurs.

It’s worrying to me in that we seem to be knocking back a good decade of internal comms evolution – the decade that took us from output to outcome and brought leaders across organisations out from behind their emails. To me, there’s a real danger that too much emphasis on social will push our leaders back behind their electronic walls – while too much emphasis on social media will over-dignify the technology, while underplaying the need for solid comms that brings people together in the right way to achieve the right outcomes. Too many people are getting a little too excited about the outputs again – without considering if they’re achieving the right results.

There’s so much talk of social media democratising business – but do you know what? Businesses aren’t democracies. And unless the principles of capitalism are about to fail, they’re not about to become democracies. I am immensely in favour of social’s ability to enable collaboration; to break down the barriers of geography and time zones. But it’s not a panacea. Surely it will enhance our communication offering, not replace all that has gone before?

Not according to Gartner, apparently. Last Thursday I headed up to Milton Keynes to listen to the very excellent Rachel Miller talking about ‘putting the social into communications’. In a really informative and entertaining presentation, she raised many points I agree with – and a few I’d take issue with.

Of course, the first slide above is Gartner’s interpretation. But really? 80% in two-and-a-half years? That may well be true in the largest organisations or ones that are staffed largely by Millennials. But it most certainly won’t apply to the pick and pack barns I work with, or the leave-your-own-device-in-your-locker call centres; or even among the care workers who regard their phones as something to use voice to voice.  We’re getting a little too carried away by the social wave – and I’m not sure enough people are holding it up to scrutiny.

To be fair to Rachel, she absolutely is – and was at pains in her talk to balance social media with other tools in our comms toolkit.  She emphasised strongly that social is a state of mind – it’s fit for purpose for some, but not all, and should be dialled up and down depending on need.

She raised another point though that I don’t want to agree with. It’s about the changing role of comms professionals.

   

Okay. I’m still with those dinosaurs. I’ve gone through the stage where IC ‘owned’ comms. We were the creators, shapers, packagers, and postmen; measurers, reporters and crank-the-wheel-againers. Rachel suggests that time has passed. The role of IC pros now should be to manage the display to ensure it’s as effective as it can be. The new tools and channels are placing comms in the hands of everyone in the organisation, and our role is to ensure everyone has a voice.

I’m not so sure for two reasons. First, that rapid evolution hasn’t reached most businesses yet. Even the largest organisations I work with are still operating in an old paradigm. Take up of the new-comms mantle is patchy, and the demand for good creative content from the comms team remains strong. Second, the curatorial model could invoke anarchy. Could you apply it to other functions?  Should we all do a bit of accountancy or a bit of IT. Shall we just use HR for a bit of window dressing while we do all our hiring and firing and people management team by team?  I like the idea in principle, but IC must do more than curate. We still need to take the lead. As much as the accountants are the experts (and not to be messed with) in Finance, we have to be seen to be the experts in comms. Yes, it’s more about facilitating, enabling and coaching than packaging – but this is not the time to abdicate responsibility.

I’m wondering if some IC pros are leaping towards that abdication because they don’t actually have the solid grounding in content creation?

As Rachel said last Thursday night: “Content is king, Queen and Jack.” Sure, we can’t own it all and nor can any IC Pro be an expert across all content fields. But actually, some of the old-paradigm dinosaurs have that expertise in bucket loads.

Perhaps the holy grail is about breaking the false divide. Social should not be separate from traditional. Everyone in IC should be focused on enabling the right business outcome – the process of how you get there is important – but what matters most is asking the right questions in the first place.

EC in EE 2013 - update

Responses to the 2013 EC in EE Survey are coming in steadily - though we're probably a shade down on the same stage in 2011. It would be great to get numbers up!

What's gratifying is the geographic spread - plenty from the UK/North America as expected, but new responders from continental Europe, New Zealand and most recently, India - surely set to be the next IC/EC powerhouse.

Some of what the early responders have to say is interesting - but perhaps pointing to employee engagement - and employee communications' role in it - not having moved very far in the last two years. Of course, more survey responses could change the picture entirely...

However, as of yesterday:

•40% of organisations still don’t have an engagement strategy, while
•over a quarter of organisations responding don’t differentiate between EC and EE.

HR ‘owns’ employee engagement in almost half the organisations responding so far, with the HR Director most likely to be responsible for managing the day to day engagement agenda.

•While intranets are all-pervasive, one in ten responders no longer use email as part of their communication mix in support of engagement.

• Almost three quarters of respondents are using social media in their comms mix, with blogs, yammer/chatter being the most popular tools.

•Twitter is coming up fast with over a quarter of respondents using it within their internal comms mix.

Early responders sees the key challenges for the next 12 months as two-fold: getting management buy-in to social media and more generally, having to do more with less.

Interested in contributing to the 2013 picture? You'll find the survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ecinee2013

What's in a name?...Or, do the terms we use limit us more than they should

Much of my life at the moment is involved in aspects of employee engagement as I try and get myself around some of the knotty problems organisations are involved in as the economy all too slowly emerges from recession.

The problems are pretty-much common to all: keeping the best performers; continuing to drive productivity; growing market share; attracting the right people.....and for those already there, doing more with less.

For my clients at least, a return to profitable business doesn't mean a return to the business costs of pre-2008. Their internal teams are leaner, budgets are meaner but the expectation of success is as high as ever.

The great thing is that many more organisations than before have realised that the best way to deliver on high productivity demands is by having an engaged organisation. The Macleod report defines this as being underpinned by four enablers:

• Leadership
• Engaging Managers
• Voice and
• Integrity.

I agree that they're all absolutely vital yet feel they're very difficult to achieve if we continue to use the term 'employee engagement'. I can see why it's used - not least the fact that it's been the common currency term among communicators and HR people for a number of years.

But thereby lies the problem. It's a term used almost as a throw-away by business leaders and given to HR or Comms (or often a combination of both) as a transactional task to deliver. The assumption is that with the right 'corporate hygiene' and internal comms we will draw everyone into the business to deliver far more than the 'competency' people are recruited for.

But MacLeod - and anyone with any sense would see that engagement has to begin at the top. While boards may be beholden to shareholders and analysts, only they can set the tone for the organisation: only they can create the environment and role model the behaviours that set the tone for the whole organisation. They must be engaged more than anyone else in the organisation. Employee engagement implies a top-down, traditional structure and some kind of paternalistic benevolence from the top.

But engaged organisations aren't like that. My definition of engagement is simple: it's creating the right culture to keep your best people longest. That means having the right behaviours, beliefs and ways of working to ensure that everyone knows what their role is within the organisation and are confident to give of their best in delivering on expectations. But it goes further: it's about creating an environment where everyone works collectively to drive the business forward - that means having leaders at all levels who listen, lean and apply great thinking irrespective of the thinker's job title.

Talking to David MacLeod last week, we agreed that colleague engagement is probably a better term. However, that's still a little limiting to me as to my mind it still implies a group of people who work directly within the organisation. But businesses, government departments, charities and any other functional community tends to have tentacles winding out in all sorts of directions that remain within that community.What about the contractors? What about the outsourced functions working in your building? What about those suppliers you work with every day, without whom your job could not be done? Aren't these all a part of the community that needs to be engaged to drive the organisation forward? Shouldn't we be investing in the tools to bring these quasi-internal stakeholders on board too? Surely it's by embracing this wider community that we'll achieve real engagement.

So what to call it? A large part of me wants just 'engagement' - but possibly that's too vague a term. Business engagement's a possible: but doesn't that exclude the public and third sectors?

At the moment, the best I can come up with is organisational engagement - still a mouthful but a more encompassing, less one-way and less top-down term. But does it have legs?

Will the market change forever?

Apparently the first green shoots are appearing in the UK: house prices are inching up, unemployment has peaked and the demand for talent is beginning to increase. But I have to say I haven't felt the uplift yet in organisational communications. I'm sure it will happen, but I suspect what will emerge is a leaner, more professional model where more of the key work is handled in-house. The impact on the food chain that feeds off the big organisations will be marked. I suspect many businesses will be fighting for survival. Strangely, I don't think that's a bad thing.

In the boom years, I noticed a new breed emerging in my specialism: internal communication. Many great managers moved into senior in-house IC roles. But what they were great at doing was managing. What it meant for me and people of my ilk was that we had a say in developing these organisations' communications strategies, and once the comms strategy was in place, these managers were content to outsource much of the delivery of that strategy to external partners. The demand on in-house folk grew which meant the function grew too - as did the amount of work pushed out into the food chain.

An awful lot of 'communication' happened in a lot of organisations - some great, some pretty dire....and a lot that really was 'nice to have' rather than necessary. Every new project had a team and a campaign around it; every little initiative fought for share of mind......and those of us on the delivery side did very well thank you very much.

The last 15 months has been very different. First the hatches were battened down and nothing happened. Then organisations realised they needed to communicate their way through the financial crisis and called on their in-house teams to up their game...but cut the cost.

The result has been a fundamental shake-out in internal communication. For the first time in a decade or more, in-house teams have been asked to 'do the do' rather than relying on external expertise to deliver the goods. The poor performers have been found out and moved out of key roles, while those we always knew were good have shone - taking on the end-to-end process from helping to shape the business strategy to feeding the media channels directly. Sure, external people have been involved, but fewer; and doing only the things that really can't be done by the in-house team. Frankly it's something I'm also seeing in IT, in HR, in fact across all the centralised functions.

Those teams who do have the skills have really proved their worth - and there's a direct correlation with the organisations who are riding out the recession best. Look at an organisation where employees are engaged; where the brand is secure; where the direction is well planned and where leadership is clear and you'll undoubtedly find some great internal communication. Meanwhile managers who've been content only to manage have found IC a very tough place, and many have left their organisations.

The interesting part is that some have joined the ranks of agencies, consultants, micro-businesses and freelancers battling for an overall smaller pot of good IC work. As a pool of talent we're currently swollen. The high quality performers are there, but there are a lot of 'me too' practitioners around as well. And with a squeeze on budgets from within our client organisations, coupled with many new entrants prepared to work for less, there's a growing tendency for clients to commission solely on price rather than insisting on the right fit/best quality/optimal solution that we were getting to back in 06/07.

In some ways (he says through gritted teeth), this isn't a bad thing. Some consultancies and agencies were certainly charging ridiculous rates a couple of years ago - there were similarities to the worst excesses of management consultancy days when consultancies were happy to sell us our own watches so we could tell the time. So a euphemistic 'price correction' is probably overdue. However, the squeeze is rippling through the food chain to a point where there's a real danger that 'low bidding' wars will pull down the standards across IC and lead to some very good practitioners moving out of organisational communication, and some very poor work being delivered. This threatens to damage the already fragile reputation IC has built up in recent years.

Actually, I'm already seeing some move back in-house when the opportunities arise. There is a demand for highly skilled senior practitioners who can talk to the top team in their language and deliver the goods in a way that's truly engaging to their stakeholders. But I'm also seeing long-standing independents moving on completely - I now know a teacher, a trainee lawyer and a property developer who were all very solid IC pros less than two years ago.

So what kind of market will we see in 2010 and 2011? Increasingly, in-house teams will be more senior, better skilled but also leaner. They'll have to get to grips with Web 2.0 and release their tight grip on 'owning' communication since the emerging tools will democratise communication across organisations more than ever before. There will be a greater need for compliance driven from the centre, but also a greater need to really upskill line management to be communication leaders. We've all talked about it for a long time. Now it must happen.

Where in-house teams are staffed by skilled practitioners, they simply won't be allowed to grow big budgets any more. So there will be a greater focus on identifying what will drive the organisation forward and building communication into those drivers . A lot of the unnecessary stuff has disappeared already. It won't be back for a while.

There will still be a demand for external services, but it will be more focused on specific skills (social media; line management coaching; the comms end of cloud computing are just three areas where externals should be sharpening their skills) with less general demand for the extra pairs of hands. As external suppliers, we'll also have to deal increasingly with Procurement teams rather than the direct client. Initially this may drive down cost further, but longer-term should actually up the game for supplier who will have to justify costs through the value we create much more comprehensively.

A world-wide financial crisis has placed IC centre stage: a key resource for helping to ride out the storm. As a function, IC has been battered too, though the harshest effects have probably been on suppliers who've become too dependent on the bigger organisations for too long.

We'll never return to pre-2008 days, and if externals want to thrive in the upturn, we need to be as lean, as focused and as able to identify and deliver value as any of the upskilled internal teams we'll be supporting. It's going to be positively Darwinian out there.

Communication confidence is crashing

Some scary figures on the latest poll on the CiB website......And perhaps the scariest is that 3.8% of those people polled feel very secure in their jobs!

While it's sad to see that 13.3% of people polled have already lost their jobs in this recession (there's now a network of more than 100 'resting' communicators already on Linkedin), the concern is that 40% of respondents are feeling insecure about their jobs.

The poll asked: How secure do you feel in your job compared with 12 months ago?

About the same 24.6%
Quite insecure 21.3%
Quite secure 18.5%
Very insecure 18.5%
Have been made redundant 13.3%

Very secure 3.8%

At times like this, great communication, great engagement and great leadership are all vital for business. Yet our industry leaders haven't got the confidence to make their communicators feel secure. Is that because they still don't understand the value of effective organisational communication, or is it because some of our communicators are being shown up as lacking the skills necessary to thrive in a tough environment? I suspect it's a combination of the two - and the next few months will be very telling.

Love me, hate me, but please don't take me for granted.

The freelance law states quite clearly that work only comes in when you're busy - and the busier you are, the more people want a slice of your time.

That's how it definitely feels at the moment. I already have enough work to see me through to my summer holiday - with a regular project due to kick in as soon as I return. Within weeks, I'll then be back into my MA studies, and the careful balance I just about managed in the last academic year between work and uni.

So, I haven't been looking for new work recently - yet it seems to be looking for me. Yesterday I was offered two new projects - one I'm taking on this side of the holiday - and I hope I can pick up the other one too, although that's subject to the client negotiating a start date with their client for mid-August. A third client also contacted me yesterday and I just had to turn them down - and that didn't go down too well.

They're an IC consultacy/agency I've worked with occasionally in the past and seemingly had sold my services into their client without actually letting me know anything about the project. The first I knew was a call yesterday afternoon from an Account Manager asking me to come to a meeting this morning with the expectation I could pick up a project and run with it over the next month. Now in the past, I've done that - and that seems to be my reputation in the agency. Yesterday, I just had to say 'sorry can't do it......and perhaps next time you could check with me before promising me to your client.'

I thought that was the end of it, but today the MD called. At first, she was polite and positive, telling me I could probably get the work done in the next fortnight and suggesting that a bit of extra evening and weekend work could be quite useful in the run-up to my holiday. I still declined - and quite politely too. She got on a bit of a rant after that, and wasn't to be placated by me telling her that I knew nothing of the project before last night, and that I'd never have agreed to it anyway as I'm away over the fortnight that the main effort is planned (and who plans IC work in August anyway!??!?).

I'm feeling a tad hard done by now, the agency's fed up with me and their client must think that they - and me - are mad. And all because the business development person and account manager didn't actually check my availability before selling in my services. Just because I'm freelance, why should they assume I'm always available for work?

I hope people like the work I do and the way I work. I can live with it if they hate everything about me. But PLEASE don't take me for granted.

Nothing new - but plenty to renew

I'm feeling a bit flat today - the natural come down after completing the fifth of my six essays for this year's modules on my MA. There's no chance to cruise though, as essay six - and it's a biggie - needs to be submitted in just 14 days, while there's also a research proposal to write and a dissertation to get moving.

But while the course is taking me into new areas of thought and really stretching both my knowledge and capability to learn, I'm not quite getting that same buzz from work - well, this last couple of weeks at least.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for the projects I have and will put heart and sould into them, but my current pattern of work is a bit formulaic, and with a certain sense of deja vue.

Like others of my experience, I've come to the conclusion that there's nothing new in IC. Despite what the gurus and consultants might say, and no matter how it's dressed up, it's about organisational leaders building relationships of trust with their teams that enable everyone to do their jobs better. We don't all need to be best mates or even to share the same beliefs, but we all need the right information to do our jobs effectively brought to us in a timely and relevant way; and the right channels to be heard. Frankly, that hasn't changed since January 1989 when I moved from straight-forward journalism into my first in-house role at Nationwide.

We may be talking about engagement and involvement rather more than reporting these days, and there may be slightly more emphasis on two-way communication, but the essentials of the job remain the same. The so-called revolutions that have exploded the box around social media and broken the barriers between internal and external communication are important: but 15 years ago I was working on issue-based communication. True, our tool kit has changed, but the underlying skills and experience required are far less changed.

Where those of us with a few grey hairs have to adapt and indeed renew is in our cultural referencing. This strikes home to me every time we kick off a debate at university. The background to my life was the fall of Saigon; breaching the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The recent intake of undergrads were born after the fall of the Wall and have never known a world precariously tottering on a balance of power. While the icons of my youth are the heroes of punk, new wave....and yes, even new romanticism, my colleagues on my postgrad course come from an age when R&B is dominant; where schoolwork is conducted on the net and where meeting your mates happens through MSN.

It's not quite 'jumpers for goalposts' stuff, but it's totally unfair and wrong-headed of us as communicators to assume our audiences share our values and references, or that we should impose what matters to us onto them. We can't always hark back to the good old days - some of them were pretty shitty - and we can never assume we've got nothing to learn.

I'm doing the same-old same-old in terms of the process of communication; but my tools are a little different, and my outlook has to change a little too.

Do a few things well

I've had no new work in for the last two days. Now, normally that would be a fairly usual state of affairs, but work has been non-stop since June, and it's actually nice to have time to lift my eyes from the screen now and again without the expectation of another phone call, meeting or even a vital email just around the corner.

Project juggling has been fun but tiring over the past few months, and has reinforced my underlying communication philosophy: whatever comms challenge you're faced with, the best response is to do a few things well.

In recent weeks, I've had requests around projects for new newsletters, blogs, websites, assemblies and even a picnic lunch. Most have been very well-meaning attempts to move an agenda forward, but most haven't been thought through. The emphasis has been on the event rather than on what it's trying to achieve.

So, in each case, I've gone back to the client with pretty similar advice:

• Think audience
• Keep it simple
• Keep it focused
• Use the comms tools that people already use; and
• If you have to bring in a new tool, make sure it's one that your audience is happy to use.
• The middle of a project is no time for grandstanding, and the most important communication isn't necessarily a knee-jerk response to those who shout loudest.
• The communicator shouldn't be seen as the face of the communication - that has to come from the people who will bring whatever policy, change or advance to the business as their everyday role. As soon as we communicators are perceived as the 'voice', the message is already one step removed from the reality of the audience.
• Whatever you do, make it easy to comply with the process - and ensure it delivers the right action for you. We don't communicate just to be heard.
• Finally, don't do too much. Assess the outcome you want to achieve - and do a few things well to ensure you achieve it.

Funnily enough, the less can definitely be more message seems to have got through...perhaps that's why the phone hasn't rung today?

Several steps away from the board; working for HR or Corporate Comms....but the budgets are getting bigger

CiB are running a survey to gauge where in house communicators sit in terms of seniority, budgetary control and to look at the kind of work they're involved in. The survey's also looking at the relationship between CEOs and IC.

I've had a look at the early results, and while it's too early to draw too many conclusions, the function still seems largely split between Corp Comms and HR control; no-one so far is operating at board level, and there are a fair few loan IC-ers out there.

What's encouraging is that there seems to be more budget for IC than a few years ago and, most encouragingly, more budget as a proportional spend when compared with external comms.

The survey's set to run for a wee while yet, so if you haven't had a chance to complete it, why not give it a five minute whirl now?

In-house in IC - make your views known

The CiB IC Index survey is now live. If you're an IC practitioner, working in-house, make sure you complete it so that we can establish the latest trends in terms of earnings, budget and responsibilities for the current crop of IC professionals.

The survey's also looking for your views on your boss as a communicator - and on how the rest of your organisation views you.

So, grab a coffee and your mouse and get clicking here.

Do you do, or do you manage?

I've been developing some survey material for CiB this month looking at trends in internal comms - and particularly who's currently involved in-house.

One of the questions fascinating me is around whether today's in-house communicators are actually doing the communicating or managing others to do it for them.

The trend across the board in organisations is to slim down and focus on core business. That means organisations employing fewer, more skilled people directly who are involved in the heart of the business, and outsourcing non core services to specialist suppliers.

I'm beginning to see this more and more in IC where the traditional in-house agency is being slimmed to one or two professionals. They haven't the time to plan, craft, disseminate and measure the impact of the corporate message day to day, so are becoming more and more reliant on 3rd party support to make IC happen. It's great for people like me - but does it mean that in-house communicators will merely become managers of the word, unskilled in actually bringing it to life?

Call me old-school, but I believe great craft communication skills should be the start point for any corporate communication manager. It's not enough to be able to sweat suppliers and bring comms in on budget each year. That way, blandness, dumbing down and poor communication lies.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see if this particular perceived trend is borne out in the survey findings.

Apathy rules!

Let's Go CiB!........Or not.

A couple of months ago I wrote a piece in CiB's monthly journal - Communicators - on the Catch 22 facing the organisation. We have around 1200 members, though fewer than 5% or truly active in the sense of doing something to move the organisation forward.

We need to move the organisation on to a platform where it is the first stop in the UK for all issues related to internal communications. To do that, CiB needs to be seen as the leader in continuing professional development (not just for IC pros, but for all managers with a foot in IC). We also need to be seen as a credible home for leading edge research - whether that's as a research sponsor or publisher.

But with only about 60 proactive members - and most of those in agencies where involvement comes with a tacit aspect of business development (and I'm very much in that space) it's hard to get anything moving. So I put out a plea or a challenge or even a request for more people to get involved. The response? A very big, fat nothing. Well, almost nothing. One person has sent me some information on membership recruitment and retention. But that's it.

Then last week, I found out I'd been elected by my peers for another year on council. Out of the successful candidates, I polled about in the middle. So far so good until you realise that i got 46 votes. Out of an electorate of 1200, 79 people voted. That's pathetic by any standard.

I don't know what it will take to light the fire for CiB, but for whatever reason, it's not happening at present. Too many people seem happy to sit and wait for professional accreditation and high class research to land in their laps without putting anything other than their membership fee back in.

without putting more in, CiB will not grow. And if it doesn't grow it will not be able to deliver what communicators want or need. If that's the case, someone else will fill that gap and CiB as an organisation will be redundant. That's rather depressing.