By Lisa Schievelbein

Here at CEC, the irony is not lost on us when we fail to practice what we preach to communicators.  For example, our team has produced some pretty cool insights about intranet management, yet few of us visit our parent company’s own “digital landfill” for anything but the cafeteria menu. (Like many CEC members, we wistfully covet information-sharing platforms like SabreTown and The WaterCooler.) But in the last few months, as Kayleigh and I shifted our primary focus from intranets to org structures, I’ve been encouraged by the potential for “human” solutions to make a real impact on information sharing.

Read More »

A big thank you to the 100+ Heads of Communications and staff who responded to our 2010 quick-poll, sharing their current strategies for external stakeholder engagement.  Were the responses interesting? Yes.  Did they make me feel warm and fuzzy about the state of Communications? Not especially.

Let me explain why. On the one side, it’s great that communicators are focused on proactively engaging stakeholders in the current climate—not just attempting to manage negativity. It’s more of their approach that worries me.  Here are some of the poll highlights:

I’ll add some quick thoughts on a few of the data points that stood out for me:

• Communicators are on the offensive—49% of communicators say that differentiating their company is their primary objective for 2010, and 39% are focused on directly supporting sales and marketing efforts.  This strikes me as Communications taking positive steps to help their companies get ahead in the ever-aggressive battle for stakeholder support and market share.  We’ve heard a lot of our members facing real pressure to get closer to the bottom line as budget and scrutiny tightens, which seems to be playing out here. Read More »

What’s your dream title?

If you envision your career as an ever-ascending climb, begun at sea level on the day you were first called “Intern” and continuing to rise ever-loftier toward some dare-to-dream pinnacle, then it would have to be true that your arc will peak on the day you finally get to take your rightful place as [fill in dream title here].

In the Comms world, I’ve been seeing interesting titles lately that might fit nicely into your parenthetic bracket.

Here’s a title I’d never heard of before—a new CEC member has recently joined the network as our first-ever VP, Communications and Change Management. That critical linkage between Comms and change is a theme we’ve been studying for the past year, and we’re really excited to see it reflected so blatantly in one company’s org chart.  Some other intriguing titles I’ve seen recently: Read More »

I am not a journalist (but I blog and tweet). And in most cases, I am not a shareholder (but I could be once my next bonus comes in.) But, one thing I am is a consumer—of information that is. In the last few years of my life I’ve been transitioning from my old, academic self to my real world, professional self. The old me enjoyed debates over issues and theories. The new me craves information about the products I buy, the companies I support, the trends of industries I care about, and, oh yeah—trying to keep up with the political world of Washington DC right outside my window.

The NYT is my homepage and, after Facebook, Google is my most visited site. And let’s say this time I’m looking for information about you. What are you? My cable company? My energy provider? My favorite retailer? It doesn’t really matter, but let’s pretend earlier today I had an interaction with one your frontline staff and said to myself, “Hm, haven’t heard much about them recently. I wonder what they’re up to.”

You didn’t make the NY Times this month and I haven’t seen you in my Twitter feed, so obviously I go to Google—“Company name, news.” Great, first item, Company name—Newsroom. (I really hope it doesn’t say ‘Company name—Pressroom’ and you’re hoping I’ll find information there. I’m not the press. It must not be for me.) Read More »

By Lisa Schievelbein

In my six years of serving the CEC membership, I’ve learned one truly fail-safe technique to provoke conversation among communicators (which admittedly is not that hard to begin with). To wit: if I’m ever hosting a lunch-table of members at an executive retreat where, after a while, the conversation is getting a little dry…some BlackBerry action is happening under the table…all I have to do is ask a single question: “Do you think it’s still important to be a great writer in the profession today?” [Insert passionate declarations, high-fives, generous exchange of business cards, etc.]

So, the fact that communicators tend to be passionate about writing is something of an understatement. Whether you’re on the cutting-edge of the profession or just trying to keep the lights on in a 1-woman shop, everyone seems to agree that writing skills are the most important characteristic of a top-notch communicator.

That said, the mark of a great writer in Communications today is about as stable as the ground moving fast beneath our feet. With apologies to other Strunk & White acolytes, it has to be said: effective writing today is about SO much more than the mechanics of language—at the end of the day, it’s about getting your message heard. And in today’s networked environment, that often depends on people wanting to share your message with others.

Read More »

By Mike Wellman

In retrospect, it seems pretty funny that social media’s permanence was debated in the not-so-distant past.  (“It’s a trend.” “This will all blow over.” “Make it stop.” Etc.)  It’s clear today that social media has created a paradigm shift in how people communicate—and consequently businesses as well. It’s important for Communications to evolve with the times, of course, and CEC has seen quite a few members make fantastic use of blogs, video, Twitter and wikis both internally and externally.  That said, I’m personally fascinated by the notion that communication behaviors originating in social media can create a ripple effect on in-person communication.  So why not get creative in adapting our in-person employee communications to better tap into the same motivators that draw people to social media?

In that spirit, here are 3 social media features that can be re-imagined for the “real world” of any employee—wired or not:

Read More »

By Rebecca Canan

As communicators, we often have to deal with snippy and critical comments from others in social media, yet stick to the high road in speaking for our organizations.  But what happens when the urge to snark back is just too tempting?  Nestlé’s recent experiences offer up a case in point.

Here’s what happened:  Nestle posted a status update on its Facebook “fan” page, requesting that people refrain from using altered versions of the Nestlé logo when posting on the company page; otherwise, the posts would be removed.  Not surprisingly, a few people complained that Nestlé was acting overly authoritarian for an open social media forum.  Now, this in itself would not be a huge deal—a lot of brands are concerned about their logo usage and brand integrity.  But here’s where the plot thickens.  Rather than letting a few unfavorable comments go or respectfully acknowledging them, the company moderator got into a petty, sarcastic, and heated comment battle with fans.  Read More »

Where exactly does the smartest, most progressive thinking in Corporate Communications come from?  The ivory tower of some big F500 headquarters? Some ivy-covered hall of academia?

Turns out some of the most progressive Comms ideas I’ve heard in the last year were first developed…in the underground rock & roll scene. Wendy Harman got her start in “communications” promoting local bands in Washington, DC—before she was hired by the American Red Cross as their first-ever Social Media Manager. (You may have seen Evelyn’s post last week about the Red Cross’ extraordinary response to the crisis in Haiti.) And among these progressive communications ideas is…how to create strategic results using social media outlets like Twitter.

So…to the question at hand.  Twitter. Channel, or not? Read More »

One of the best lines I’ve heard from a CEC member lately was a quote about brand guidelines from their CEO:

“I don’t care what they call us, as long as they call us.” 

It’s not a bad sentiment from executives focused on quarterly profits, but it’s questionable for communicators trying build the long-term value of the brand.

Two issues immediately arise: 1) what’s the point of brand guidelines as long as they “call us”? and 2) if we agree that the brand guidelines have value, then what can Communications do to enforce them—particularly in relatively decentralized organizations?

Read More »

By Rebecca Canan

Over the last year or so, we at CEC have seen social media participation become far more common among member companies.  That said, we’ve also noticed a tendency of communicators to jump on social media opportunities without applying much strategic discipline—that is, they weren’t matching up social media’s unique capabilities with their business needs, audience behaviors, and industry dynamics.  In response, CEC developed a social media diagnostic that helps members pinpoint their best opportunities for social media use.

As part of this diagnostic, we ask a few benchmarking questions of participants: for example, how many people work on social media at your company?  What channels are you using?  How confident are you in the value of your efforts?   We’re pleased to share the top-line data from our 60+ participants thus far:

I was surprised by a few things in this data set: Read More »