Saturday, July 31, 2010

The internal unconference

Internal conferences occur regularly in organizations. Members of a team—usually one dispersed geographically or among business units—come together for a day or more for presentations, networking and teambuilding. In many ways, these internal conferences aren’t much different than any other conference. Most attendees sit in a room and watch a presentation, either from outside experts or team leaders.

I’ve participated in a few internal conferences in the last few months that ignored the traditional approach, opting instead to put employees at the center of the get-together and encourage higher levels of engagement.

In Prague, members of Deutsche Telekom‘s communication team convened for a best practices review. Marketers and communicators from country operations submitted efforts, with the best selected for presentation. The presenters stayed in a room to present the session multiple times while everyone else rotated through the rooms to catch as many of the presentations as they could.

In Canada, managers working for the City of Mississauga convened for a World Cafe, rotating through three rooms, each of which was dedicated to one of three major themes (communication, innovation and change). A facilitator drove the discussion while participants made notes on paper tablecloths that the next group could see when they rotated into the room.

And last week, some 200 Dell employees whose jobs include social media activities got together for an unconference. The day began with a panel discussion; this was the reason I was there. I was joined by Christopher Barger of General Motors, Kelly Feller from Intel, Chuck Hemann from Weisscomm Group, Katie Paine from KD Paine & Partners, Amber Naslund from Radian6, Andy Sernovitz of the Social Media Business Council and Jordan Williams from REI. Dell’s Richard Binhammer moderated the panel, but all the questions he asked had been submitted in advance by employees participating in the Social Media Community (SMaC) Talk event.

The highlight of the day was the unconference, which worked the same as all such gatherings. There were eight rooms and a couple of tables. Some of the rooms were equipped with digital projectors. A dry mark erase board was divided horizontally into five time slots and vertically by the number of rooms and tables. Employees jotted the topic they wanted discussed onto sheets of paper that they attached to an empty block. As each session began, the participants scanned the topics and chose a room or table. If the conversation wasn’t to their liking, they switched to another session.

The day ended with remarks from CEO Michael Dell, a significant display of support for the company’s social communication and marketing activities from the highest level of leadership.

In each of these three instances, employees walked away far more energized and equipped with ideas and information than I’ve seen from any of the hundred or more traditional internal conferences in which I’ve participated.

Pulling off an event like this requires, more than anything else, trust that employees have better information to share with each other than managers or outside experts can bring to the table. (At Dell’s SMaC Talk event, the involvement of outside experts in the breakouts added dimensions of context and non-Dell examples to the conversations.) If your organization has that level of confidence in your eemployees, it’s worth considering putting the content of your next internal conference in their hands.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Dell Augmented Reality tool lets you see a Streak in your hand

On Wednesday, I joined a number of other guests and some 200 Dell employees in Austin for SMaC Talk. SMaC is Dell’s Social Media Community; the meeting pulled together the employees who work in the social media space in business units and staff functions from throughout the organization for an unconference. (More to come on that.) At the end of the day, the team was invited to hold the soon-to-be-launched Dell Streak in their hands—virtually. The Streak—an Android-powered tablet with a 5-inch screen—is the subject of considerable buzz inside and outside Dell. Some wonder about the size, not too much bigger than some of the larger smartphones (like the HTC Evo) and considerably smaller than the iPad. To give people a sense of what it would look like in their hands, Dell has developed an Augmented Reality tool set to go live sometime today(Friday, July 30) on Facebook. Print out the marker, fold the paper into the size of the Streak and hold the marker up to your webcam, and you’ll see the Streak in your hand. There’s more to the Streak Simul8r (as it’s called) than just the AR tool, but it’s another example of the practical application of Augmented Reality.

I had the opportunity to hold a real Streak. While I’ll probably wait for a 7-inch model, I found the Streak to be an elegant little device that offers a viable alternative to the big, heavy iPad. I still believe the best place for these devices will be the family room coffee table.

Monday, July 26, 2010

FIR Interview: Augie Ray, Forrester Sr. Analyst, on Social Media ROI

Augie Ray speaks with FIR co-hostShel Holtz about “The ROI of Social Media Marketing,” a new research report that goes beyond the financial measures to address a variety of ways to assess the impact of companies’ social media efforts. According to Forrester, “Social media marketing delivers a wide range of benefits to organizations that are beneficial in the short term and long term in ways both quantitative and qualitative. To properly value the impact of their social media marketing investments, interactive marketers must align their objectives, metrics, targets, and strategies across four perspectives — the financial perspective, the digital perspective, the brand perspective, and the risk management perspective.” The report is free to Forrester customers and can be purchased by anyone else for $449.

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About our Conversation Partner

Augie Ray is a Sr. Analyst of Social Computer at Forrester. Since joining Forrester, he has researched and reported on social topics including mass influence and the ROI of Social Media. He is a leading expert on social media strategy, organization, and consumer behavior and has been quoted in publications such as the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek.  Just last week he was named one of the 10 most influential analysts on Twitter.

Share your comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for future shows, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

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This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

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The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #557: July 26, 2010

Content summary: Contest continues for free FIR iPhone app; next FIR Live is August 14 with panellists that include Steve Rubel, Scott Monty and Jennifer Cohen; new FIR Interview with the Smithsonian’s Michael Edson posted, another one to come this week with Forrester’s Augie Ray; no report from Michael Netzley this week (get well soon, Michael!); listener comments discussion; 5 minutes on… BP’s carrier pigeons, the Social Media Club hits 100,000 members, why Facebook will never add a ‘dislike’ button, Coca-Cola porn Facebook and kids; News That Fits: The new world of crisis PR, the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop, social media doesn’t have a place in Metro Bank’s ‘revolution’, Dan York reports on high school reunions and more; music from New Bomb Turks; and more.

Get FIR:

• Download the MP3 file (25.9Mb, 64:41)
• Subscribe to the RSS feed
• Get the show at iTunes
• Get the new FIR app for your iPhone

Messages from our sponsors: FIR is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years, www.ragan.com; Save time with the CustomScoop online clipping service: sign up for your free two-week trial, at www.customscoop.com/fir; and Pollstream: helping you transform your communications goals into exciting strategies that will enable you to engage, educate and inform your customers and employees online, pollstream.com/fir/.

For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, for July 26, 2010: A 65-minute podcast recorded live from Concord, California, USA, and Wokingham, Berkshire, England.

Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are posted to the FIR Show Links pages at The New PR Wiki. You can contribute - see the show notes home page for info.

• FIR #557 show notes at The New PR Wiki

Share your comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for future shows, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

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So, until Monday August 2…

Sunday, July 25, 2010

FIR Live set for August 14 on Facebook-focused campaigns

FIR Live is back!

Is it wise for companies to direct consumers to their Facebook pages instead of their websites? That’s the subject our panel will discuss on Saturday, August 14, at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern and 6 p.m. London.

The panel will include…

• Steve Rubel, Senior VP and Director of Insights, Edelman Digital, who wrote about the trend in his March column for Forbes.com
• Scott Monty, head of social media at Ford Motor Company, which will use traditional advertising to drive consumers to a Ford Explorer page on Facebook
• Jennifer Cohen, co-founder and president of Something Creative LLC, which contributed ideas to a Facebook-focused campaign for a popular brand (which Jennifer discussed in a recent FIR interview)
• Dominic Sparkes, founder and Managing Director of Tempero, Europe’s leading interactive community management company, which has teamed with iPlatform to launch Conversocial, the first tool to allow full management and tracking of Facebook page activity.

As always with FIR Live, you can be part of the discussion by calling in to +1.347.324.3723 to ask a question or share your views, or by commenting in the chat room.

On the day of the show, you’ll need to log in to BlogTalk Radio in order to participate in the chat room.

Join us for what promises to be a stimulating discussion!

Friday, July 23, 2010

FIR Interview: Update from Michael Edson, the Smithsonian’s Director of Web & New Media Strategy

Michael Edson returns to FIR to introduce the prototype of the Smithsonian Commons, an interactive tool for digitally sharing the Smithsonian’s assets and enabling social interaction about them.

You can also see a video that explores the use of the Commons by a teacher, an enthusiast/citizen scientist and a millennial.

Get this podcast:

• Download the MP3 file (11.0Mb, 27:33)
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About our Conversation Partner

Michael Edson is the Smithsonian Institution’s Director of Web and New Media Strategy. Michael has worked on numerous award-winning projects and has been involved in practically every aspect of technology and New Media for museums, including content development, digitization, blogging, gaming, public access to collections, information architecture, networking, place-of-business applications, programming, project management, graphic design, animation, audio and video production, mobile platforms, and citizen-created content.  In addition to developing the Smithsonian’s first Web and New Media Strategy, Michael helped create the Smithsonian’s first blog, Eye Level, and the first Alternate Reality Game to take place in a museum, Ghost of a Chance. Michael has a BA from Wesleyan University.

Share your comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for future shows, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, subscribe to the full RSS feed.

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

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Should good writing be a core skill for professional communicators?

Update, July 27: I’ve added a statement I just received from Anne Wiley at the bottom of the post.

Early this month, Liam FitzPatrick, who manages Change and Internal Communication for Bell Pottinger, argued in a post titled “Who Cares About Writing Skills?” that good writing should not be a requirement for professional communicators. Specifically, he wrote:

To be honest I don’t think being a good writer matters –- I’ve met plenty of great comms people who couldn’t write to save their lives and I know a few fantastic writers who I’d never trust to give communications advice.

I wasn’t alone in finding myself aghast at FitzPatrick’s claim. While being a good writer doesn’t by itself qualify someone to lead a strategic communication effort, I would never hire someone to manage communication who can’t write, nor would I hire anyone into a front-line communication job who couldn’t tell a story in words.

FitzPatrick wrote, “I’m not sure I’d appoint a director of comms on the basis of their ability to win a Pulitzer prize.” But there’s a lot of room between not being able to write to save your life and writing a Pulitzer-winning article.

David Murray and Reuben Bronee have already shared their thoughts on FitzPatrick’s post. I was about to join them when it occurred to me that it might be even more interesting to collect responses from some of the best strategic communications professionals I know:

Julie Freeman, ABC, APR
President, International Association of Business Communicators

Well chosen words—whether they are written or spoken—have the power to inform, to persuade, to evoke emotion. But there is extra pressure on the written word.  Even in the YouTube era, writing is still more permanent. And often it has limits.  Think of the Proctor and Gamble directive that no memo could be longer than two pages.  Or word limits for articles in the employee newsletter.

Because of these pressures, the basis for good writing is not a great vocabulary or the ability to craft elegant sentences.  Instead, the basis for good writing is sound thinking. James Joyce might have been celebrated for stream of consciousness, but those writing in the business world need to think through their ideas, how to organize them and how to link them. They need to know what their audience knows or thinks about their topic and how to address those perceptions. I don’t see how writing skills could ever be considered anything but essential. Aren’t sound thinking and understanding of stakeholders skills that every manager, executive and strategist needs?

Don Ranly, IABC Fellow
Professor Emeritus
Missouri School of Journalism

Several of (those contributing observations to this post) reflected what (H.L.) Mencken said, “The reason politicians can’t think clearly is that they can’t write clearly.”

You don’t have a clear thought until you can write it down clearly.  You know you have done that when others have understood you clearly.

Writing demands that words follow words, sentences follow sentences, sentences follow paragraphs.  In other words, writing demands sequence, structure, the stuff of logic.  Being logical is essential, but being human also means expressing emotion.  Writing is one of emotion’s great instruments.

Oral transmission can get lost and convoluted.  The written word is permanent, there for all to comprehend—perhaps forever.

Artists (painters, musicians and such) can use other media to communicate, and managers should know and appreciate what they do, but these other media cannot substitute for the skill of clear writing.

To say that solid writing skills should not be a required skill for a job in communications is to say that communications skills are not required.

Roger D’Aprix
Vice President at ROI Communication
Formerly VP at Towers Perrin
Author, “The Credible Corporation” and “Communicating for Change”

The ‘outstanding communicators who can’t write a decent sentence’ are like carpenters without hammers and nails. They both build rickety end products.

I attribute this sad state of affairs to the equally sad state of public and university education and to the patronizing notion that all any audience requires is flashy images and fragments of thought. That’s why we have attempts to address serious institutional communication problems with videos, half-baked ‘executive’ blogs and internal PR campaigns (complete with posters and themes) directed at distressed adults who live the circumstances trivialized by the ‘solutions.’ Sadly, the ‘excellent communicators who can’t write a decent sentence’ are often the villains of this piece because they have so little regard for the intelligence and sophistication of their audience.

Tamara L. Gillis, Ed.D., ABC
Professor and Chairman, Department of Communications
Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania

Last year I did a research project that included the analysis of about 500 job ads and position descriptions (international in representation). I was looking for patterns in competencies and expectations of communicators at various career levels. Overwhelmingly the top skill employers expect across the board from entry-level to senior-level communicators is quality writing. Many descriptions went as far as to expect proficiency in AP style. (If you’d like a copy of the executive summary, drop me a line.)

Let me put on another hat – my educator hat. Writing is one of the greatest weaknesses of the first year students. We spend a lot of time working with them on the basics (spelling, grammar, punctuation) before they take entry-level journalism courses. I have a number of theories about why writing skills have decreased in quality over the last 10 years, but that’s a conversation for another day.

We’re living in this digital age where literacy is a requirement to participate in local and global discussions. Today it’s impossible to expect to be in a communication role and not be expected to write messages on behalf of the your client or employer. Getting it right the first time and being able to reinforce business strategy and commitments is key to success in that social contract. And when times are lean and employers cut staffing, these basic tasks fall back to those remaining in the office; in many cases that’s the middle and senior communication staff. So we can’t let those skills get rusty just because our work has progressed more toward strategy and less on the tactical elements.

Christy Leonhardt
Global Planning, Employee Communications
Intel Corp.

I, too, have observed a diminution of writing skills among communicators at all levels, which saddens me. I worry that writing skills will soon cease to be a requirement for a job in communications, for two reasons:  a) the hiring manager didn’t learn standard grammar and composition in school, so won’t recognize poor writing when he or she sees it, and b) our writing muscles are atrophying in this new age where brevity trumps thoughtful insight.

Here is my bias: Good writing should continue to be the differentiator when hiring, period. The ability to compose a tight, well-structured and correctly punctuated paragraph under a deadline is a pretty darned good indicator that the candidate under consideration is literate, well-educated, can think and execute under pressure, and can convey a message with impact. All desirable attributes for anybody’s workforce - especially a communications professional.

D. Mark Schumann, ABC
Past Chair, International Association of Business Communicators (IABC)
Former Principal at Towers Perrin

I love to write because, at one moment, it’s the most logical thing I can be doing; at another, the most free and creative. At every moment, it’s the opportunity to think and explore and reason and conclude. Every time we write we take a journey; sometimes the destinations actually make sense and a contribution.

In business, for any leader, manager, contributor, writing is essential because writing illustrates the progression of thought. Without narrative, how can business reason its past and forecast its future? Without clarity, how can organizations engage? Without facts, how can institutions govern?

Before new media challenged the standards of clear writing, we entered the PowerPoint era; all of sudden we found ourselves presenting ideas that didn’t necessarily make sense, but looked great; didn’t certainly make a contribution, but neatly fit into boxes and circles and arrows; and didn’t clearly tell a story, but could make us look very smart. And now, with new media, the narrative risks extinction as shortcuts and abbreviations and symbols become the rule.

Writing is at the core of excellence in business, well beyond the contributors of a communicator. Clarity in business leadership requires clarity in business thinking. And unless we write it down, how can we ever think with clarity?

Lester R. Potter, MBA, ABC, IABC Fellow
Senior Lecturer
Department of Mass Communication & Communication Studies
Towson University

Writing skills are the fundamental and critically important core competency for communication management. One of the most important functions communicators provide for organizations is to take complex topics and boil them down into clear, easily-understood information for the organization’s audiences. Writing skills are fundamental to accomplishing this. Clear writing indicates clear thinking.

Brad Whitworth, ABC, IABC Fellow
Communications Manager, Strategic Alliances
Cisco Systems

I see the de-emphasis of writing skills as fallout from the huge “rush” that rules our world today. “Short” and “fast” trump “thoughtful” and “clear.” “Now” beats “later.” We expect instant access to our friends, to entertainment, to news from anywhere at anytime on any device. Text messages interrupt our dinners, tweets prove to everyone that we’re on top of our game.

Sadly, our collective priorities have changed. When speed is the ultimate prize and a 140-character limit is your biggest obstacle, the writing basics of clear, concise, correct, complete, consistent, creative and coherent (thank you, Don Ranly) are shoved into the back seat.

Anne Wylie
Wylie Communications Inc.

Good writing can cause audience members to pay attention to,  understand, remember and act on our messages. As long as those outcomes are not among your objectives, then no, writing skills are not essential.

Also, with a nod to Don Ranley’s comment, I love Flannery O’Connor’s quote, “I write because I don’t know that I think until I read what I say.” The best compliment I ever received at a writing workshop came from a Finnish engineer who arrived just KNOWING that marketing writing was all fluff. At the end of the program, he said, “This isn’t writing. It’s thinking.”

As we say in Missouri, “Yup!”

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A few of the people I queried haven’t replied yet. If they do, I’ll append the post with their observations.

What do you think? Should writing skills be a requirement for a communications job?