At CEB, mid-year performance review time is here.  Seven busy and slightly hectic months of 2010 have flown by (how is it already August?!).  I have lots of stories to share.  A few things I’m proud of.  A few goals to achieve in the next half of the year.  But how do I put the right story together to truly demonstrate my impact to my manager, let along my manager’s manager???  I doubt newsletter metrics or download numbers for my research pieces will do the trick.

Communicators, have you recently tried to demonstrate your team’s effectiveness?  One of the top cries for help we hear from CEC members is: “Metrics!  We need help with metrics… how to define them, how to present them, and how to link them to the business goals that senior leaders actually care about.”

In a recent poll about Communications dashboards, only 31% of communicators said they have a dashboard they present to senior leaders to demonstrate Communications’ effectiveness.  Of those, only 50% said they are satisfied with their current dashboard. However, this “satisfaction” is questionable if you look more specifically at these respondents’ satisfaction with their dashboard’s ability to do the following: Read More »

Among the past month’s most prominent images have been thousands of “fan boys” lining up for the iPhone 4; Lebron James jerseys burning in effigy; fanatics obsessively watching soccer worldwide; and politicians escalating their attempts at anger toward BP.  Given how intense passions drove all those activities, few members were shocked when CEC found that emotional connections (over experiences or trust) drives the active support an organization needs to penetrate today’s networked environment.  While agreeing with the theory, many have argued that their categories are too rational, regulated, or conservative to build such bonds.

While we’re not all Apple, I don’t buy that this finding doesn’t have immediate applicability for every communicator worldwide, and to try to prove it, I’m listing below 10 highly accessible steps to develop more emotionally resonant content.

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By Laura Newman

“What’s the most resilient parasite?”  Moviegoers will recognize this question from Christopher Nolan’s recent psychological thriller, Inception, and respond, “An idea!”

Perhaps it’s indicative of a London summer turned dreary (yes, I know, I shouldn’t be surprised!), but living in Leonardo DiCaprio and Marion Cotillard’s dream world for two hours in the Chelsea cinema this past Saturday was, I’m not ashamed to say, my weekend highlight.

Despite criticism that the film was either too complex or not deep enough, the fast-paced, action-packed drama was entertaining.  Nolan captivates his audience with a world in which it is possible to share dreams – that is, enter into another person’s dream while you are both sleeping – and steal deep secrets metaphorically locked in a safe or other secure location.   But extracting knowledge isn’t enough for the ambitious cast in Nolan’s film; instead the group is challenged to perform inception – to plant an idea in someone’s mind.

This is a particularly dangerous – some say impossible – task because, as one character explains, “the subject’s mind always knows the genesis of an idea.”  In other words, it is not enough to give someone an idea; for them to truly believe and act on it, they need to consider themselves the originator of that idea.

And here is where I can’t help but notice a link to Communications – we can no longer be successful if we solely focus on cascading our messages through channels to reach our audiences.  If the goal is for  stakeholders to act on our messages, we must find a way for them to feel they discovered these messages (and by consequence, discovered us). Read More »

By Mike Wellman

Unlike some of the folks I work with, I feel like I’ve always been a “math” guy.  Numbers speak to me, motivate me, and make sense to me.  It’s one of the reasons my colleagues decided I would be a good fit for handling the day-to-day of our diagnostic and communications benchmarking efforts, and probably the reason I’ve been given the nickname “Dr. Frugal” by my family –hey, I love budgets, okay?  Before you start commenting and calling me names like “philistine,” “Hamlet hater” or “the great non-communicator,” hold on a moment.

After spending a fair amount of time with you communicators, I’ve become a convert and learned to appreciate the true power of words.  It’s IMPOSSIBLE to not appreciate the art of communications and how you’re able to move markets with a 5-minute message, let alone a 5-word message.  The pen is truly mightier than the sword, and it’s fascinating to hear stories about how a smart tagline, crystallized brand, or clear and personal strategy was ultimately responsible for a company’s success.  In my experience, there are three words that organizations can use, but often don’t, to effectively motivate their stakeholders to act.  I’ll give you a hint – it’s not “We’ve Got Booze,” “Want More Money?” or “Free CEC Insights.”  (Though that would be nice!)…. Read More »

In my life, I’ve known a few people who’ve struggled to overcome various personal demons (smokeables, drinkables, snortables).

In fact, I had a college roommate who was so heavily into the sauce that he regularly overslept his 4:00pm classes.  (A gifted baseball/softball player, I watched him play center field during one game in which I personally KNOW he was at least 3+ sheets to the wind—and wouldn’t ya know it, with the game on the line, the final play was a high fly to dead center.  As he was weaving to position himself under it, my other roommate shouted to him, “Earl! Just catch the middle ball!” Amazingly, he did.)

(BTW: How do you suppose he celebrated afterward?)

While I have concern and empathy for anyone struggling with a chemical addiction, I don’t feel like I have any kind of expertise to help people who are in that kind of mess.  Dr. Drew, I defer to you.

But just recently I’ve had two separate conversations with long-time friends, who’ve each told me, “I can no longer escape the fact that am ADDICTED to email/my Blackberry/iPhone/Facebook/Twitter.”  And since they know I’m a life-long communications professional, there’s some expectation that I should be able to help, somehow. Read More »

I am as guilty as anyone of listening to the rumour mill. Information just seems so much more exciting when it’s a little bit illicit.  Whether it’s while you are making a cup of coffee (or tea for us Brits), grabbing lunch, or passing each other in the corridor, these informal exchanges with colleagues are the most powerful flow of information in your company. So, who are the most influential nodes in your employee network? How can we leverage the conversations already going on for our strategic advantage?

CEB has been partnering with Rob Cross, an expert in all things to do with social networks, to better understand the answers to some of these questions. Rob has developed a scientific approach of mapping influence across organizations and highlighting those individuals who hold disproportionate power – those who excite and build energy, and those who kill it – within employee networks. We are excited to host a webinar with Rob on the 20^th July to share some of the themes from his work.  CEC members can register for the webinar today.

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When LeBron James finally joined Twitter during his week long free agency, many predicted the announcement of his new team would come in a 140 characters, representing another blow to the role of “traditional” media in reporting the world’s events.  Instead, fans were treated to “The Decision,” an hour-long ESPN special ostensibly to raise money for the Boys and Girls Club.  The backlash to both LeBron and ESPN was swift and intense as viewers saw a media organization ceding privileged access to accommodate the figures it’s supposed to cover and the corporations that back them – all perhaps just to stay relevant in the world of Twitter.

But the immediate revulsion of the public to ESPN’s highest-ever rated softball game suggests that Americans may have seen the future of journalism and decided they don’t like it. Read More »

I’m a strong believer that Corporate Communications should lead a company’s intranet strategy.  Unlike other possible leaders in IT, HR, or the business units, communicators highly value—and are measured on—employee engagement.  The intranet has quickly evolved into a key instrument to achieving this engagement through functionalities that promote connectivity, collaboration, and productivity among employees.

That said, in most organizations, the Communications function has yet to embrace the mindset and activities necessary to transform the intranet from “digital landfill” to “employee productivity tool.”  Communicators may say they want the intranet to boost employee productivity and engagement, but then focus on superficial fixes, primarily improving the intranet’s function as an internal news distribution service.   Sharing internal news is important, yes.  Optimizing the intranet to do only that, however, is short-sighted.

How do you know if your heart is in the right place, but your activities are not? Ask yourself, “Do we…

• Focus improvements on the “look and feel” of the intranet—such as logos, layouts, typefaces, buttons, boxes, menus, etc.?
• Rely on annual “intranet satisfaction surveys”?
• Track and depend on broad metrics such as clicks and views on news stories? Read More »

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues to generate no shortage of commentary.  Not only on the environmental, political, and economic consequences of the disaster, but also on a topic much more personal for corporate communicators: BP’s communications strategy.  If you’ve seen such commentary from activists (e.g., James Hoggan) or from news outlets covering the broader story (e.g., CNN), you’ve likely noticed a certain schadenfreude that permeates these remarks.  Of course, this makes them interesting, but mostly irrelevant to corporate communications professionals, aside from the minority who are responsible for crisis response in companies capable of major industrial accidents.

For the rest of us – and even for that minority – there are a couple lessons to be gleaned from BP’s handling of the Gulf Coast oil spill.  Lessons that are more subtle than the prevailing commentary and much more relevant.  Read More »

As the English football team returns home with their tail between their legs, you can hear a collective sigh of relief from most of us tortured fans. We no longer have to go through the anguish and frustration that is watching a team of individually talented (and very highly paid!!) footballers fail to gel as a team.  The World Cup has yet again reminded me of how important teamwork and peer support are in driving success.  The anxiety felt by the millions of England supporters on sofas and in pubs everywhere is probably a similar anxiety employees have felt with all the cuts, layoffs and change companies have been going through over the past 2 years—a sense that everyone is looking out for number one and not each other.

So how are engagement levels faring as we start to see the first green shoots of recovery in the economy? I took a look at CLC Human Resources’ engagement survey across over 145 organizations and 204,000 employees worldwide and picked out a couple of trends that show that we’re not out of the woods yet:

• Engagement is still at risk—With 21.6% of employees in the “disengaged” category, it’s clear that this is a problem with real roots. The low levels of discretionary effort coupled with high levels of intent to stay are causing very real performance issues for a lot of companies. Read More »