Executive Communication

This post originally appeared on Paul Barton's "

1. Strategic communications help a business achieve its objectives. That is their purpose.
2. Effective communications are those that produce measurable results and they can be a competitive differentiator.
   
3. There are costs associated with communicating, but there can be costs associated with not communicating as well. Internal communications seek cost-effective and creative solutions to solve complex communications challenges.
4. Employees are drowning in information, but starving for understanding. Our job is to make the important interesting.
5. Credibility is the foundation upon which effective communication is built. Unless it is believed, a message has no worth.
6. Face-to-face communication is the most desirable form of communication because it is immediate, personal and interactive. Most employees say their immediate supervisor is their preferred and most credible source of information about the business.
7. Communication is, by definition, a two-way process. Feedback mechanisms must be part of every employee communication.
8. Communication is a management responsibility. Internal Communications supports leaders by serving as consultants, facilitators and resource partners.
9. As in any effective strategy, form should follow function. The medium is the message.
10. Employees should learn of important events affecting them and their company from an internal source rather than an external source. Well-informed employees can serve as informal ambassadors of the company.
11. The more important the information is personally to the receiver, the fewer exposures are needed to make an impression. Make your communications relevant.
12. True effectiveness in communication is the ability to influence and change behavior. Changing behaviors is a long, slow process and therefore measurement of effective communications must be taken over time.
13. The case for change should be found in the marketplace. For change to occur, employees must move through these stages: awareness, understanding, acceptance and commitment. You cannot skip a step. Formal communications (particularly written communications) are most effective in promoting awareness and understanding. Informal communications (leader behaviors, unwritten rules, management decisions, openness, risk-taking tolerance, etc.) are necessary to reach full commitment.
14. External sources are defacto employee communications and therefore external messaging should be aligned with internal strategies. Likewise, employees are informal ambassadors of an organization and therefore internal messaging should be aligned with external strategies. Every internal communication should be written as if it will be read by the news media.
15. Rumors are created to fill communications voids. Fill those voids with valid information. A phrase like “Unfortunately, we have more questions than answers right now but we’re aware of the problem, we’re working on it and we’ll keep you updated with any news” goes a long ways to keep the rumor mill from grinding out of control.
16. Well-defined communication processes and procedures are the foundation for creativity. Key message libraries, templates, crisis plans, etc. free up time for creativity and continuous improvement.
17. The overall tone of employee communications directly reflects the relationship an organization has with its employees. The best tone for strategic communications is the Voice of the Brand, which is primarily what the company is but also what the company is striving to be.
18. With better information, better business decisions can be made. Employees need to understand the “what” and the “why” to be fully engaged.
19. Well-informed employees are more satisfied, more creative, more productive and more committed.
    
20. A common trait among successful companies is open and honest communications with all their key audiences, especially their employees.

In arguably its biggest show ever, CES allowed consumers and companies alike to see what the future holds in the consumer technology marketplace. From Ultra-flat panel 3D TVs to Justin Beiber, CES delivered the goods.

MediaTile was prominently featured in both the Verizon Wireless and Alcatel Lucent booths in the form of The GameTime Media Table. After winning the 2012 DIGI Award for "Best New Content Management Software/Web-based”, absent was “The HumanKiosk” featuring Video Presence. But born from the same value propositions of being cellular connected and cloud controlled, The GameTime Media Table delivered the rich on screen content and unique experiences over 4G LTE that drew visitors to both booths consistently over three days. This is super-powered cellular digital signage. 

The GameTime Media Table showcases multiple interactive features including the ability to upload and display pictures instantly from your smart phone, play music, watch movie previews and the coup de grace: playing video games (single or multi player) where smart phones act the controllers. So if you are thinking to yourself, ‘MediaCast can deliver media like movie/music files, streaming videos, live intelligently routed video calls, interactive gaming and everything in between!’ your thinking would be spot on. Verizon’s network and Brass Monkey’s video games deliver the blows, but it’s the MediaCast muscle that ensures maximum impact (also in attendance at CES was UFC Heavyweight Champion Alistair Overeem, hence the metaphor). Gaming on digital signage... and then some!

It was great to be part of CES and MediaTile is honored to partner with industry leaders like Verizon Wireless and Alcatel Lucent to launch solutions that will steer the industry and delight users for years to come…or at least until CES 2013.

1. Think of outcome, not output

   Focus on business outcomes, not simply on producing communication collateral. Use communication as a means to an end, not an end in itself. There’s a big difference between saying “who’s got some stories for this month’s team brief?” and asking “what’s the most important challenge for our organization this month? How can we use the team-briefing time to address it?” Resolve to ask your internal customers what their most pressing business goal is for 2012. Next, ask what employees need to know, feel and do differently to help meet that goal. Then, work out what you as a communicator can do to help increase people’s knowledge or understanding, influence their opinions and motivate them to take action.
   
   The big takeaway here is asking what employees need to know. Typically a lot of companies will determine this for employee instead of hearing from employees. 
   
   
2. Be a better business person
   Find out more about your industry, your organization’s plan for the coming year and the opportunities and challenges that may lie ahead. Get to know the most important performance measures and make sure you’re up to date on the results. Increase your business knowledge and you’ll enhance your credibility too.
   
   Simple things like understanding a balance sheet, income statement, productivity reports, etc. can help improve your street cred with your bosses. 
   
   
3. Choose tactics that’ll actually work

   Think about the last time you changed your opinion about something. Or a recent occasion when you were motivated to take action. Were you prompted by reading a web article? Or were you influenced perhaps by conversations with trusted friends or colleagues? Perhaps you heard a personal story that made you think? Next time you choose the tactics for a communication plan, don’t just fall into your usual habits. Think about what you can do that has some chance of impacting attitudes or behaviors.
   
   This is what I call the "how about" conversations. Stop doing the status quo and determine what will work best. Or better yet, create your own solution. 
   
   
4. Get to know employees better
   This year, resolve to spend less time at your desk and more time out there understanding what employees care about, who and what they listen to and trust, what’s getting in the way of them doing their jobs and how you can help. Ask their advice when you’re choosing communication tactics. Test out approaches before you put them into action. And get to know when a one-size-fits-all approach isn’t good enough.
   
   See #1. 
   
   
5. Speak like real people
   Please let this year be the one where we stop spouting meaningless corporate jargon. Talking about “streamlining operational propositions” or “moving forward with world class efficiencies” will only serve to drive a bigger gap between leaders and employees. Be the person who asks the stupid questions about what things really mean. And be aware when you really are becoming a spin doctor, in danger of fudging the facts and trying to put a positive slant on events, when the right thing would be to tell it as it is.
   
   We all know better than to speak in corporate lingo, but we still get sucked in. This year, don't get sucked in. Avoid using the word "paradigm." 
   
   
6. Measure something that matters
   So employees like your newsletter and you know what the hit rates were on your last intranet article. What difference does it make? Go back to the business goal you were trying to achieve. What actions were you trying to influence people to take to move the organization nearer to the goal? In what way were you inviting them to reconsider their attitudes? Where were you aiming to increase their knowledge? Find out whether you succeeded and how much of a difference you made. Measure activities that actually have an impact on business results.
   
   This is one of those "easier said than done" situations. Measuring internal communications is important but also very tricky. Work closely with your managers and leadership to define "what matters." Get their buy-in. 
   
   
7. Ask what you can do differently to increase your influence
   Next time you find yourself complaining your leader isn’t listening to you or won’t do what you want, don’t focus on that list of 10 things you wish they’d do differently. Ask yourself what you’re doing that’s contributing to the situation. Find at least one thing you could do differently to improve it. Start by looking at things from their perspective. If you were them, why would you be behaving this way? What would be leading you to think as you do? And what could that person in the internal communication team do to help make things easier?
   
   Having executive support is important. If you don't have it, go get it. The right leader can be a trail blazer for you.
   
   
8. Make this year count

   Probably the biggest thing I’ve learnt over the years is that there’s a difference between “being busy” and using communication to achieve a result and actually getting a result for your organization and the people in it. If your leaders question whether you’re adding value, to be honest, there’s probably a reason for it. Make this the year you can say you made a positive difference.
   
   Now's the time to start over with a clean slate. If you want to do things differently, no better time to start than now. 

• Under the ServiceMaster umbrella are brands like TruGreen, Terminix, and merry maids. 
• They have 24,000 full-time employees & another 5,000 seasonal, with no work PCs, no email and no office phone. 
• Producitivity drives revenue, which is why it's a tough conversation to invest in employee communications. 
• Only 58% of employees agreed that leadership communicates a vision that motivates them. 
• Face-to-face communication is vital to internal communication at ServiceMaster. They have a mandatory monthly branch meeting for one hour "on the clock." 
• The meetings were key for employees to be able to share what the customers were telling them. The feedback loop became very important. 
• Like Volkswagen, ServiceMaster still sends home quaterly newsletter mailing to sales and service employees' homes. This highlights the "spouse factor." 
• The company is dipping its big toe in the social media water. They are encouraging employees to listen to the online conversation as part of improving communication. Yammer is also part of the strategy. 
• In a company that's operation-focused, they need to provide basic communication tools (ride-alongs, town halls, podcasts, etc) to hear back from employees. 
• They rely on 3-way communication, and the the most important "way" is employee to employee conversations. 
• ServiceMaster has to use paper-based communication and face-to-face to tell employees about the information available online. 

Renee Kopkowski, Mars Chocolate North America: “The Power of Intentional Conversations”

• 82% of employees are manufacturing associates and there are more than 3,500 across the US at 10 different sites. 
• Business is based on 5 principles - quality, efficiency, freedom, responsibility and mutuality.
• In 2007, company noticed that employee engagement scores were very low (17% engaged).
• Started fresh, laying a new groundwork for internal communications.
• I really like that Mars features employee stories on their external site. 
• Mars did an employee "trade show" were leaders could share their messaging & stories in a unique environment. 
• In 2009 & 2010, Mars started measuring the percentage of associates who described internal communications as good, very good or excellent. And there was improvement year over year. 
• Discovered that the vision and objective are clear and that employees have an intense pride. However, employees aren't sure how to achieve the main organizational goal and trust in managers is spotty on the manufacturing side. 
• Mars discovered that employees felt they were being communicated TO and not WITH. 
• Setting up a communications calendar by channel, site and senior leader is important to do early. 

1. Streamline messages and eliminate noise. 
2. Increase senior leader visibility. Have them speak up and show up. 
3. Encourage dialog and feedback. 
4. Emphasize manager communication - emphasize the frontline. 

Tom Walter, Tasty Catering: "Engage or Entangle? How to Link Communications Objectives That Result in Employee Entanglement"

• Tasty Catering has a unique approach from other companies with regards to hiring. They bring people in to train them on the culture at a young age (high school and college). 
• 2010 Gallup Poll said that the average company has 49% not engaged and 19% actively disengaged. Those numbers total 33% for "world class" companies.
• "Collegiate" employees are engaged versus "Olympic" employees are entangled. 
• Engaged employees use transactional relationships, higher ROI and remain stable. 
• Entangled employees use transformational relationships, drive the organization, are peer leaders and have a high emotional intelligence. 
• Tom realized that the "command & control" approach to management was no longer working and HE needed to change. 
• The key to employee entanglement is discretionary thinking. It goes on beyond the workplace. The human mind processes 60,000 thoughts. A company only gets 8% of those. 
• Discretionary thinking is a result of an antecedent causing a consequence. Leadership + Culture + Human Capital + Systems/Processes + Recognition = Organizational Success. 
• Systems and processes are for companies. Recognition and rewards are for employees. 
• Every company has a river of culture, some are healthy. Others are toxic. 
• If employees are always moral and ethic AND treat others with respect, you can throw out the employee handbook. 
• Internal communications are employee centric, generating from employee TO employee. Also includes personal notes. 
• Really impressed by their newsletter. Not only is it simple to read, but clearly effective at getting employees engaged in employee communication. Big part of the newsletter's function is to help educate employees on the company's financial success. 
• The "Green Team" promotes environmental responsibility. But as a result, not only is the company saving money but Tasty Catering is generating new clients. 

• Dedicate a project leader to oversee the processes and make sure it is moving.
• Come up with clearly defined goals for your digital signage network.
• Have a single provider contact so any questions or issues that may arise only require a single call.
• Come up with content designs and templates that maintain a consistent tone with your existing brand messaging (whether your audience is internal or external)
• Have a list of all the hardware and software components you'll need to deliver an individual installation point.
• Schedule your team's training and testing well in advance and encourage "playing" with the content management solution.
• Once your project goes live, make sure either the project leader or some other vital team member is checking on the network daily to ensure success and gather usage data.

How big will the screens be? What content will be shown? How will you manage all the screens?

As your engagement process moves forward and experts help steer your vision, one topic is rarely discussed proactively – how much will it cost to install your digital signage screens? The answer to the cost of installation question is often times the equivalent of costs related to purchasing hardware, software, and content development combined.  Whaaa?

SOP for traditional signage installation consists of the following:

1. A third party installation vendor conducts a site visit to determine how connectivity will be established, where and what it will take to mount the screens ($$)
2. Your screens are shipped to the third party installation vendor ($)
3. The third party installation vendor in-field tech reps take your screens to predetermined locations, and at an hourly cost, integrate with or install any required onsite servers, provide connectivity, mount the screens,  and test to ensure content is reaching the screens ($$$$)

Today is a big day for MediaTile, our customers and our partners.  But it’s an even bigger day for the digital signage industry as a whole.  This morning, we officially launched our HumanKiosk Solution, powered by the revolutionary MediaCast Video Presence system.  With this solution, we are fulfilling consumers’ demand for personal service and contextually relevant and accurate answers exactly when and where they want it: at the point of sale or point of service.  Just as importantly, the solution allows businesses and organizations to provide this service easily and economically. With our innovative solution, marketers are able to humanize brand interactivity, improve the customer experience, and deliver their messages with absolute control and precision.

Marketing and communications is undergoing a fundamental shift across all industries;  it is the transformation of B2C communications into B2Me engagement.    This transformation does not surface merely where messaging is specifically tailored to individuals, but also where engagement and dialog is triggered by a customer – and where he or she is then rewarded with courteous and knowledgeable service; even in their native languages.

It is this B2Me paradigm shift to which we are responding with the launch of the HumanKiosk Solution and MediaCast Video Presence.  A growing number of us in the digital signage industry believe that the fusion of interactive digital signage, with live, on-screen customer service attendants, will significantly expand the addressable market for digital signage.  This is what makes the HumanKiosk truly exciting.  For background, here is the story that appeared in Digital Signage Today regarding our announcement and the B2Me transformation; you can also watch a short video introduction on YouTube.

This is a very important milestone for MediaTile, and according to the article above, may well also be for the industry.  I believe today’s launch is as significant as our announcement made back in 2004, when we unveiled the industry’s-first “cellular digital signage” turnkey solution.  It is simple to deploy and easy to use.  This created a leadership position for MediaTile in the world of Digital Signage, SaaS-based CMS systems, and the use of cellular-based networking.  At first we made it simple, now we’ve made it personal.  Today, we offer another innovative and revolutionary breakthrough in marketing and communications, again extending our industry leadership.  It’s time for Digital Signage to “Get Personal”.

• Yes, employee engagement is all our CEO talks about.
• We're definitely getting there and internal communications is heavily involved in developing a strategy to link the two.
• Somewhat but senior leadership is working with HR on this rather than with internal comms.
• No, there's a long way to go before anyone truly understands this link.

(Today's guest entry comes from Mike Foster,
CMO and Co-Founder of MediaTile)

The MediaTile team is very excited to participate in this week’s InfoComm 2011 show in Las Vegas. This year we’ll have “presence through partners” and an exclusive focus on our digital signage cloud-based “software” offerings. And we’ve got a big announcement in the works with one our partners, DFI TECH, who will be unveiling two brand new interactive digital signage systems that use MediaCast Video Presence to deliver live, 2-way, face-to-face video over 4G networks. 

If you haven’t seen cloud-based customer service systems in action before, stop by booth #4583 (DFI TECH) and check them out – and catch our CEO, Simon Wilson, or Andy Lu from DFI TECH. You can read the pre-release announcement here on the blog, and stay tuned for the real announcement on Wednesday this week.

DFI TECH, a leader in design, manufacturing and integration of custom solutions, along with MediaTile, will be showcasing two new MediaCast Video Presence-powered hardware platforms: a portrait mode 22” and portrait mode 42” system.  Both systems are based on MediaTile’s HUMANKIOSK® HDRP (hardware design reference platform), and deliver a breakthrough in cloud-based customer service for brands, banks, retailers and other markets.

(Today's guest entry comes from Mike Foster,
CMO and Co-Founder of MediaTile) 

Today is another big day for MediaTile, MarketStar and VerizonWireless. From the NAB 2011 show floor in Las Vegas in the VerizonWireless booth, we announced that HumanKiosk and MediaCast Video Presence pilot programs are now available for brands, retailers and other companies who need the unique and revolutionary services that this solution offers. 

Our HumanKiosk solution, powered by MediaCast Video Presence and 4G LTE, and staffed by MarketStar OnCall Experts™ enables brands to live test this breakthrough cloud-based customer service solution with their own products and services in their retail venues.  

Dave Treadway, CEO of MarketStar, the recognized leader in field, voice and digital sales and marketing, had this to say: 

“With OnCall Experts™ personally available at the touch of a button from anywhere, we now have the ability to provide experts in more locations, on demand, significantly lowering the cost of each customer interaction.  The HumanKiosk is an extension to our current offerings as it enables us to cover our clients’ secondary and remote markets with an equivalent level of personal service and expert knowledge with the addition of multi-language support.”