Strategic Business Communication

This post originally appeared on Paul Barton's "Just My Type" blog and we received full permission to re-run the content on this blog. 

Over the years, Paul Barton has become a great friend of mine. We originally "met" via Twitter, but have since reconnected several times at IABC World Conferences.

In this post, he pulled together 20 objectives for employee communicators that I thought were simply brilliant. I'd like to see if anybody can put up an argument against any of them. Check out Paul's 20 guiding principles for employee communications. 

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.

Pretty great, eh? Truth be told, each of these principles could be its own blog post. And maybe I'll do just that.

If you'd like to learn more about Paul, you can follow him on Twitter (@PaulBartonABC) or connect with him on LinkedIn. He is a proud Iowa St. Cyclone, but more importantly has tremendous experience with internal communication, having worked at Hawaiian Airlines, PetSmart and America West Airlines in his career. 

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This content originally appeared on JTPR's Spread the Word and has been reposted with permission. 

It happens over and over. We ask new clients about the audiences they need to reach in order to achieve their objectives, and they quickly zero in on potential clients and customers. Then they talk about collaborators and marketplace influencers. Then, as an afterthought, they might mention employees.

Usually, this isn’t because there is some desire NOT to communicate with employees. It’s just that, when these clients focus on making sales and closing deals, they too often take their own people for granted. They assume they’re onboard and now what they need to know.

And then they wonder why their people say things like, “I don’t know what our company’s strategy is,” or “I really can’t say what our priorities are now.”

1. Tell employees everything you can when you can.
2. Don’t lie. (This might seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many organizations justify lying to employees, or at least not telling the full truth.)
3. Tell employees first – before anyone outside the company’s walls – and never let them learn anything about the organization through the media unless it is absolutely unavoidable (for public companies, for example, legal or SEC regs sometimes dictate timing, and all organizations could encounter a rare exception based on business developments or relationships … however, even in those cases, employees must be informed as soon as is legal and feasible).
4. Never put out vague or incomplete communications – you’ll raise more questions than you answer.
5. Never leave employees to draw their own conclusions.
6. Understand that any information void will fill quickly with rumor, speculation and gossip.
7. Treat employees like adults – give them bad news as well as good news. Be clear, don’t sugarcoat, don’t try to sell them on a particular point of view.
8. Always assume that a question raised by a number of employees is on the minds of many more – but don’t respond on a global scale to a localized problem – and always be prepared to answer calmly and directly the most cynical questions.
9. Overcommunicate … but remember that burying employees in useless information will dull their senses to real information.
10. Consider: Is there a chance I will regret what I am saying? Will I have to eat my words, or explain myself later?

I'll be the first to admit that I do not make New Year's resolutions. But people making promises and commitments to themselves is a good thing. Melcrum published a piece about 8 New Year's resolutions for internal communication pros. 

Some are weak, but some also have a lot of value. I added my two cents in italics. Here we go...

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. 

Did you establish any communication resolutions for you or your team?

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'Tis the season of giving. But do you have that hard-to-buy-for employee communicator in your life and are struggling with what to get them for Christmas?

To help you with ideas, I reached out to several of my employee communication friends on Twitter to see what they thought every communicator needs on his or her Christmas list. Some were serious. But most were not. 

Dana Leeson A suit of armor to protect you when delivering honest feedback to the CEO about their approach to an employee briefing to deflecting missile launched laptops when you remove the coveted cafeteria menu from the intranet. 
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Colleen Hawk An extra large bottle of aspirin, an additional two hours in the day, and clients who don't try to do your job.
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Paul Barton Starbucks gift card (caffeine is our lifeblood), kitchen sink (we do everything), hat rack (we wear many hats), & a CPR course (we bring dead copy to life). 
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Steve Crescenzo The Kodak Zi6 HD Pocket Video Camera with a microphone and cord for better audio. 
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Rachel Miller Mine would be scissors to cut through red tape & silos to enable conversations to happen. That or a fabulous pair of Jimmy Choos!
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Sean Williams Three things: subscriptions to Melcrum's IC Hub & Strategic Communications Management magazine, plus a course in knowledge management.
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Christy Loerzel Advil. No really - a case for iPad/old school notebook. Nice pens and notebooks rate with me!
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Dave Meyer Evernote Premium for papers (and a Fujitsu Scansnap to import their papers)
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Jenni Wheller Honesty... So we can understand more and support our colleagues better
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Christopher Swan I'd go with the external communications experience. Consumer marketing and social features can translate to the internal world. Stretch your ideas!
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Jeremy Schultz I recently bought the Tascam DR-05 digital recorder…light years better than my old one.
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If you have your own gift idea, please share it in the comments and I'll add them to the list. Or better yet, post them on Twitter with the hashtag #icgifts. 

_____________________
Image via Kevin Dooley

Rather than bother everybody's Twitter stream with updates, I thought it would be better to provide presentation thoughts here (and serves as good note-taking for me).

Sebastian White, JetBlue Airways: “How Culture Drives Business Performance”

• JetBlue is now the largest airline in New York City. 
• Focus on service starts inside with a fanatacism toward culture: Safety, Caring, Integrity, Fun and Passion. 
• To combat declining JD Power scores, they created a "Culture is Service" to drive improved business results. 
• JetBlue asked front-facing employees what's getting in their way of providing magnificent customer service to employees. 
• In the summits, employees had to write an essay about why they should attend these working sessions to help provide effective business communication. 
• JetBlue uses NetPromoter to provide a score that impact employee communication. 
• All 14,000 employees at jetBlue have email access and the intranet is the hub of all internal communication activity. The intranet is available outside the corporate firewall and it's open to comments. With the relaunch, employees were told to stop sending email. 
• JetBlue's intranet site also features industry news from other airlines. 
• They use videos and podcasts, even as responses to crisis communication, so that employees can stay in the loop. 
• JetBlue's recommendation: "Throw in a contest and people will pay attention." They even name their jets with the "blue" name in them. 
• They encourage customers and employees to post pictures on JetBlue's Flickr page. These photos then get used internally. 

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Rather than bother everybody's Twitter stream with updates, I thought it would be better to provide presentation thoughts here (and serves as good note-taking for me).

Mark Mills, Nationwide Insurance: "Connecting Employees with the Brand"

• Using a powerful brand can most definitely help drive engagement. 
• 68% of customers are turned away by an employee's indifferent attitude. 
• Corporate reputation is how you are perceived. A brand is how a company wants to be perceived. 
• Social media has brought about brand hate. So easy for customers to leave reviews and potential customers become reactionary. 
• Employee communications must be helping to deliver the brand promise to employees so that they become brand ambassadors. 
• A company's culture is the collective behavior of all employees, some of which will be good and other parts will be bad. 
• When the brand says "On Your Side," employees must live that. 
• "I Care" is a customer outreach effort that puts the brand "On Your Side" in action. 
• Nationwide has launched a mobile app (currently just Blackberry) so that remote employees can access the intranet on their smartphones. They are doing 10-12 stories a week on the intranet. 
• The company has embraced the user of Yammer (but it does require employees have an email address and Internet access). 

6 steps to inform inspire and engage:

1. Align and clarify principles
2. Ensure employees truly understand
3. Regularly articulate the brand
4. Create a sense of community
5. Attrack the right employees
6. Inspire, train and reward 

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Rather than bother everybody's Twitter stream with updates, I thought it would be better to provide presentation thoughts here (and serves as good note-taking for me).

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. 

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All this month, we've been sharing 31 reasons not to be afraid of digital signage. And given the rather spooky month October is, we thought it was a great time to share this information. It was a lot of work but also a lot of fun. 

We know it can be intimidating launching a network, but that's why we're here. We try to take as much fear out of the equation as possible through education and awareness (hence, this blog). We are open to having as many conversations or demos as needed to help you get your project off the ground. 

So in case you missed any of our 31 reasons or want to stroll through memory lane, here they all are:

1.  Networking
2. Cellular
3. WiFi
4. LAN
5. Scalability
6. SaaS
7. Unlimited users
8. Cost of installation
9. Complexity of installation
10. Variety of file types
11. Scheduling
12. Digital signage hardware
13. Content management
14. Content expansion
15. Component players
16. The Cloud
17. Touch screens
18. Training
19. Digital signage content creation
20. Custom-branded templates
21. Video
22. Security
23. IT involvement
24. Custom training
25. Support
26. Content best practices
27. Screen placement
28. Project management
29. Return on investment
30. Enterprise deployments
31. Roles and permissions

We hope everybody has a safe and fun Halloween. We'll leave you with this spooky message. 

In light of October being a rather scary month, we thought we would highlight 31 reasons not to be afraid of digital signage. We hope you enjoy them.

Reason #28: Project management

When you are ready to kick-off your digital signage project, the management of said project can feel like a whole other job on to itself. MediaTile offers to manage your entire project from start to finish through our MediaServices team. We will work with your primary internal digital signage advocate starting with the kick-off meeting, then concept creation, establishing timelines, approvals, testing, roll out, and reporting. In the case you want to keep the project in house, here are a few suggestions to help your engagement go as smoothly as possible:

• 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.

If you have any questions about a new project or management of existing one, MediaTile has the experts to consult or inherit the engagement and increase the likelihood of another digital signage project in your future.


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In light of October being a rather scary month, we thought we would highlight 31 reasons not to be afraid of digital signage. We hope you enjoy them.

Reason #27: Screen placement

42" digital signage screens, check.

Awesome, eye-catching content, check.

Training, check.

Now please make sure you put your screen where your audience can see it! I know..."the CAT 5 line only reaches so far" or "if I put it here, my WiFi network can't reach it and provide connectivity." Poppycock, MediaTile boasts the benefits of a cellular connection per media player and that means all you need is power. Your audience moves, the floor plan changes, you need to send a digital signage panel to an event - just provide power and your MediaCast supported screen will deliver the right digital message, to the right people, at the right time. 

Screen placement can also be effected by what type of content you put on your screens. If your content is more aligned with traditional digital signage - rotating Jpegs or repeating MPegs videos - then keeping your screen higher than eye-level is fine. However, if you have or may start to use touch screen interactive content, then you screen needs to come down on the wall so your audience can easily touch to navigate appropriately. 

Lastly, if you can't decide, then ask. Onsite visits are the norm in digital signage industry. Whomever your provider is they should be able to advise you on where to place your screens to maximize impact and ROI.

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In light of October being a rather scary month, we thought we would highlight 31 reasons not to be afraid of digital signage. We hope you enjoy them.

Reason #24: Training

As with any new hardware or software, users are going to need to be trained. Digital signage is no different. But what can be horrifying is that amount of training that's needed for some systems. I've heard scary stories of people going to two- and three-day trainings just to get oriented with the signage platforms. And that's just the first step. 

With ours, it requires a basic 2-3 hour web training with our customer support team. That's it. Most of our users are up and running immediately after. And some even before. Built right into our MediaCast software is video support. Once logged in, users can watch helpful videos about some of the more basic tasks. 

We ask new customers to watch these even before going through our training. It allows them to become familiar with the software and then they come armed with questions to the official training. 

But the best training of all is using the digital signage software. The more you use it, the better you will get at it. And for those who want more, we offer custom advanced training for our power users. 

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In light of October being a rather scary month, we thought we would highlight 31 reasons not to be afraid of digital signage. We hope you enjoy them.

Reason #18: Training

No Halloween monster parallel required here – training on how to use your digital signage screens can be flat out scary. Never mind what the majority of providers require from an installation standpoint– on site servers, hard line connectivity – their content management solutions can be like learning a new programming language. Should you want to use a jpeg already created, you will probably have to contact your IT representative and have them re-create this asset using your provider’s complex content management system.

MediaTile’s cellular connected, SaaS-based content management system – “MediaCast” – eliminates many of the costs and complexities of initial installation. Additionally, MediaCast allows you to simply upload common media assets (mpegs, jpegs, etc), easily create a playlist, and schedule this content to play in a matter of minutes. There is no need to learn a new “programming language” and no need to bother your IT counterparts with pushing content to your digital signage network. MediaCast is so intuitive that training only takes a few hours and can be done remotely, versus spending a few days at an offsite location, which is required by other digital signage providers.

Don’t believe me? Contact MediaTile today and we’ll be happy to demonstrate MediaCast to you directly, live on the web at your convenience.

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I woke up this morning and checked Twitter (like I do everyday) and this Tweet from @AllThingsIC was the first one I saw. 




What?! So in a room full of people practicing internal communication, only half of them feel it's a real profession? This is so disappointing. Last month, Melcrum released survey results that revealed only 7% of internal communicators think companies will realize the value of employee communications in the next 10 years. 

I work with corporate communicators every single day. For some, all they do is employee communication. For others, employee comms is one of many jobs. They might also be responsible for public relations, marketing communications and so forth. 

But for half of the people attending a conference dedicated to internal communications to feel that it's not a "profession" is truly mind-boggling. 

Now I will be the first to admit that I sort of bumbled my way into it. I didn't come out of college and say, "Hot damn, I want to communicate to employees." But times have changed since then and so has the role of a corporate communicator. 

My hope is that this is just a strange anamoly and doesn't hold true across the entire profession. . . does it?

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Earlier this week, we held a free webinar with Dominican Health (one of our customers) about their digital signage installation. Mike Lee, the Director of Marketing & Communication, shared his knowledge and lessons learned on how Dominican Health has used the technology to improve communication with doctors, nurses, patients, visitors and the general public. 

I came across this post which talked about even more use cases for digital signage inside healthcare organizations. The author identified 8 main ways:

1. Wayfinding applications can direct visitors from point to point within facilities, thus speeding-up the process of finding a patient room or check-in area.
   
2. Content can be delivered dynamically within check-in areas providing patients with important information that is relevant to them (such as expected wait times).
   
3. For friends and family members, patient treatment status can be delivered in real-time, thus alleviating the fear of uncertainty during a surgery or procedure of a loved one.
   
4. Relevant entertainment can be tailored and delivered to a patient room based on a demographic profile captured during the patient check-in process.
   
5. Better facilitation of communication with staff. Digital signage solutions can replace the typical whiteboards found in areas such as nursing stations, emergency and operating rooms, improving the overall coordination of care.
   
6. Improved collaboration. Doctors, nurses and administrators can use digital signage and software collaboration tools to improve relevant workflow communication.
   
7. Automation of the patient check-in process. Digital signage, when deployed with the right content management system, has the potential to streamline wait times and improve the capacity to service a greater number of patients and to improve the patient experience.
   
8. Awareness and demand generation related to the gift shop or cafeteria. Digital signage can be deployed to promote specials and promotions, thus increasing sales and profitability tied to concession and hard good sales.

Without a doubt, this was one of the better overviews I've read of digital signage in healthcare. And even though these are all great use cases, great content will ultimately be what determines how viewers interact and respond.  

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For any retail brand that struggles to maximize their sales reach due to a limited store footprint or for an organization that wishes their outstanding customer service team could be literally face-to-face with customers instead of being distanced by a telephone, the HumanKiosk™, powered by
MediaCast^® Video Presence, is a 4G enabled interactive digital signage solution that revolutionizes user engagement and brand-to-consumer relationships. 

The HumanKiosk delivers a live, 2-way video session between a consumer and a remote expert agent over a cellular-connected, cloud-controlled touch screen digital signage system that can also run pre-scheduled interactive digital promotions to attract users. Now you can add a human element and experts on demand where and when it matters most taking customer engagement to a higher level.

The technology solves problems that traditionally required placing trained personnel in store. For customers, it allows them to pose questions directly to the product expert and have their questions answered immediately and correctly. 

For brands and other authorities, their benefit is three fold:

1. It puts them in direct contact with the buyer, eliminating inaccuracies in information transfer, and helps build brand trust.
2. It keeps retail sales associates continually up to date on products and services.
3. It gives brands the flexibility, and lower cost benefits, of not having to staff every store location with a highly trained product expert.

The HumanKiosk boasts all the benefits of MediaTile’s award wining digital signage solutions which can be deployed anywhere and only require power, but Video Presence now can intelligently route customer’s video calls based on the information entered on the touchscreen end-point and ensure the video experts who answers video call is the most qualified based upon predetermined qualifications set by the retail brand.

With HumanKiosk, brands in retail experience the following business value and advantages:

•  A new level of customer engagement while delivering product and service expertise across more locations, faster
• 5x market reach at 1/5 the cost of traditional staffing
• Direct face-to-face conversations with highly qualified experts, based on on-screen selection criteria such as product selection or language choice
• On-demand experts can now act as human middleware to facilitate complex business transactions or support, eliminating expensive systems integration
• Integrate with text-based and QR-code marketing activities and programs to extend the brand to consumer relationship beyond the initial interaction
• Unique and delightful experience generating extensive customer recall making them more likely to buy and more brand loyal

The HumanKiosk delivers the only intelligently routed video call functionality on a digital signage platform in the world. It is this ground breaking technology that allows brands to meet and exceed what their customer’s expect – accurate information on demand and respect for the value of the their time.

I've worked at big companies. I've been a part of or led the charade they call employee engagement. And I'm writing to tell you they've got it all wrong. 

Employee engagement is NOT the once-a-year or every-other-year survey (to save costs) that employees are supposed to fill out. And even though that's not employee engagement, companies are calling it such. It amazes and saddens me at the business decisions that are made off of this impersonal and random survey. 

Basically what companies are doing is taking an employee's temperature on one day and making expensive and strategic business decisions for years to come off of one multiple choice question. The only thing worse than that is when they've asked the same question repeated years and see an "improvement."

That's employee engagement? Really?

Let me tell you what I think employee engagement is. It's internal communication. It's listening. It's responding. Not once every two years. But every single day. You want a solution? Ask the people who are experiencing the problem. And when you ask a question, ask an open-ended one. 

In a talk I had with a communicator recently they shared, "Our employee engagement score went up." Me, "What does that actual mean?" Communicator, "I don't know but it has to be good right?"

I recently spoke at an IABC Phoenix luncheon and showed the picture featured on this post. I asked the audience, "If this is one of your employees, is he engaged?" Hell yes, he's engaged. He knows exactly what he wants. Now is he engaged on the right thing? I hope not. (I think the image even made a few squeamish.)

So companies need to figure out what engages employees and then make sure it aligns with business goals and objectives. 

Years ago there was a Gallup study that talked about three levels of employee engagement: 

1. Engaged
2. Not engaged
3. Actively disengaged

You're fighting an uphill battle right away when only one out of 3 is good. And from what I've seen, this challenge typically falls on the shoulders of employee communications. Employee comms has a vital role to play in engagement, but shouldn't carry the burden. 

There's nothing wrong with polling employees to see what they think about various topics. And maybe that's part of employee engagement, but it's not properly measuring employee engagement in my opinion. 

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With the dangerous weather that has hit many parts of the Midwest and South in the past month, I'm sure (and hopeful) that many crisis communication plans are being dusted off. 

Crisis planning is one of those efforts that most companies do but hope they never have to enact.  I've been a part of many crisis and business continuity teams where everybody has the classic red binder that nobody thinks will ever get used. 

But do employees know what to do? And what about environments where you might have customers on site. Will employees know what to tell them?

I was at a coffee shop once that lost power during a dangerous thunderstorm. Their "policy" was that if the store lost power (for whatever reason) customers had to leave. So they sent a dozen or so customers out into the storm instead of sheltering them. 

We've already had one manufacturing whose facility was damaged by a tornado. They are a customer of ours after the fact. Fortunate for them, nobody was injured during the strike. However, they recognized that they didn't have a quick and visual way of notifying employees of dangerous weather on the way so that everyone could be prepared. 

One of our healthcare customers have put several of their digital signage onto their emergency power network. So this way if the hospital loses power, the screens can still operate and communicate vital information to employees, patients and guests. 

Now of course, digital signage will never prevent nasty weather or any emergency but it should become a part of your crisis communication activities. This works for corporate communication environments, for those where the network serves internal needs, as well as even retail, banks, etc. The same signage you use to promote products and messages can then be used to provide emergency information. 

I fully appreciate what I'm proposing here is not ground-breaking, but it just shows one more example of how digital communication can dynamically change the environment and keep people safe.

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Photo credit, Jeff Attaway

I just recently came across this post from a few years back but the 11 laws of internal communications that Ken Milloy identifies are still relevant today. 

So many times, professionals back their way into employee communications, without ever intending that to be a career. I know because that's what happened to me. And while I'm the last person to suggest there should be strict guidelines or procedures on how to implement a solid internal communication plan, Ken's 11 "laws" make a lot of sense. 

Even taking a look at his first law - The Law of the Myth of Internal Communications. Ken proposes that while many companies believe they are communicating, in fact they are really just sending information out. Communication is a multi-direction process. Sending out information is just one step of the process. 

There is not one single perfect communication tool for an entire company. Digital signage isn't perfect. Newsletters aren't perfect. Intranets aren't perfect. Town halls aren't perfect. But finding the right balance of all of these vehicles is when true employee communication comes together. I talked about this in an Infocomm article. 

I applaud Ken for pulling these together, as they will provide great blog fodder for me down the line. 
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Flickr image courtesy of Carl Loven



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Since the 2011 IABC World Conference is after all a conference full of communicators, it should come as no shock that many of us were Tweeting away during the event. So in previous posts, I showed the daily efforts. So how much Tweeting was done during the main four days (Sunday through Wednesday)?

• 4379 Tweets using the #iabc11 hashtag
• These Tweets reached 322,264 people 
• And provided 5,099,217 impressions
• Thanks to the 580 contributors (three times from Sunday).

Let's take a look at that last number (and I'd like to hear your thoughts). Now not all of those 580 people were on site. Some could have just been Tweets saying, "I wish I was at #iabc11." I'll make up a number and say only 75% of the contributors were at the event. We're now to 435. And I read estimates of 1,400 attendees. 

Do the math and that's now about 1 out of every 3 attendees used Twitter at the conference. Does this sound about right to you? The Pew Research Center released numbers saying that 13% of online Americans "use" Twitter. So the participation is above the Pew's number BUT it does go to show that not everybody is harnessing the power of "The Twitter." And with an event filled with corporate communication pros, this is often the question we get asked. 

But there were those accounts who were in fact quite active during the conference. From Sunday through Wednesday, here's the top 10 based on number of impressions. 

1. @IABC (859,736)
2. @IABC_Phoenix (479,823)
3. @JessicaLHansen (365,937)
4. @chuckgose (300,497)
5. @DonnaPapacosta (240,713)
6. @SJohnson85 (137,387)
7. @BasiaV (126,228)
8. @kdpaine (119,048)
9. @shelholtz (112,550)
10. @PRNewsonline (110,652)

For what many consider the first day of the IABC World Conference, it kicked off early with a series of Idea Jams. I chose to attend the session on digital plagiarism because I know this is a complicated topic for corporate communication pros due to the mess of web content available. And as we all know, content comes in a variety of formats. It's not just the words on a screen. It's also pictures, video and music. 

The issue with this session is that we raised a lot of issues, but came to no conclusions because none of us have law degrees. We created a great list of "what ifs" and "how abouts" but we weren't able to resolve any of them. Had an intellectual property lawyer been in the room, that would have made the session a huge success and a real learning experience. 

I then attended the internal communications session labeled "Defying gravity" and it was all about the role communicators now play in business and the pros and cons of communication cascades. The key to a successful cascade is to keep the message simple. If the cascade is too long, you lose the timeliness of the message. 

I more compare them to the telephone game we all played as kids. One person will hear a message different from others. And then we apply our own filters, further altering the message. This is where digital signage can help deliver the cascaded information without supervisors carrying the full burden of the message. I sense a longer post about cascades coming on. 

I also attended Cindy Crescenzo's session on the top 5 reasons communications plans fail. It was a packed house for the session. Her message, which is very similar to ours regarding digital signage, is to keep it simple and focus on your key messages. 

I did not attend the Gold Quill Awards, but I do want to take the time to congratulate those that submitted, as well as the winners. It takes a lot of hard AND courage to put your communication activities under a magnifying glass. 

See you all for Tuesday's events!