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.

As I shared in a previous post, we’ve had quite a few conversations lately about org structure (and have many more in our immediate future).  Interestingly, we’re hearing less about large-scale restructuring and more about the injection of new Comms roles to drive the existing system’s performance.  These roles are often focused on cross-group coordination, with some positions expressly designed to “socialize” information—both within the Comms team and across the company.

One of the examples we liked best comes from Deloitte. Like many companies nowadays, Deloitte is keen to promote its thought leadership in the marketplace; unlike most, the Deloitte Comms team has invested in a specific position—the Senior Manager of Thought Leadership—to propel this strategic objective. This individual has two primary responsibilities:

• Harvest: Uncover and document thought leadership around the organization, and make it more accessible, internally and externally
• Brand: Leverage and brand the organization’s premier thought leadership pieces

This staff member works with a variety of functions (some revenue-generating) to capitalize on the best thought leadership opportunities for Deloitte. It’s still early days, but the Head of Comms believes that it’ll eventually be possible to demonstrate a connection between the function’s efforts and revenue generated.

CEC members can find more information on Deloitte’s innovative concept—among many others—in our brand-new release on Communications org structures.  And everyone can check out Rick’s new post, “A Sense of EnTITLEment,” for more on the subject of emerging job titles in Communications.

Folks, speaking of Rick: he’s leaving his fellow CEC bloggers in the dust with his number of blog comments—including one from the Chairman of Southwest Airlines.  So, why not hook a sister up and share the most interesting Comms title that you’ve heard lately?