Downturn.  Recession.  Unemployment.  These terms may be just as associated with 2010 as they were with 2009.  But what will 2011 look like?  Will we see an unemployment rate back near 6%?  Will fewer houses sit on the market for months and months?  Will consumer confidence be higher than we’ve seen in the past two years?  Will we start to see more “good” in the news?

The latest business barometer scores show that senior executives’ perceptions on revenue growth and cost pressures over the next 12 months remain slightly negative.

However, the latest 2010 resource allocation benchmarking results show that Communicators may have a slightly more positive outlook when they think about their own resources for 2011. Read More »

By Laura Newman

As I was boarding a British Airways flight for London the other day, I overheard a mother and teenage daughter having a heated discussion about the movie, “Thirteen.”  The mother was appalled and disturbed by the movie.  You could hear in her voice that she was concerned about the peer pressure her teenager potentially faces daily.  In the movie, one troubled thirteen year-old pressures a naive classmate into stealing, taking drugs, rebelling against her mother, and causing havoc.

There is no doubt that peer pressure plays a role in the growth and development of an individual.  But that got me thinking: What role does peer pressure play in a company?  Does it influence the formation of company strategy?  Of a company’s social responsibilities?

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Over the past four months, we’ve been having the most amazing discussion* with communicators all around the world as part of our ongoing Annual Executive Retreat series, “Influencing Stakeholders in a Networked Environment.” (Thanks to the hundreds who’ve taken part so far…BTW, it’s still not too late to join us…seats are still open for the upcoming tour stops in London, Toronto and DC).

* Discussion (singular) not entirely accurate. Turns out, it’s actually two very different discussions:

a) How ready are YOU to succeed in the current/emerging/not-too-distant-future world in which what we say is much less of an influence on stakeholders than what people are saying to each other via their personal networks?

b) If you are ready, then how ready is your CEO?

And, as you can imagine, discussion “b” then quickly breaks off again into two very different discussions:

b1) My CEO really gets it.  He (let’s just go with “he” for now — my apologies to 2.5% of Fortune 1000 companies) is totally aware of the rapid changes occurring in the social communications landscape and is keen to push us forward.

b2) My CEO is still kind of traditional/conservative/a bit of a dinosaur.

It’s a classic dichotomy.  Is he more modern or ancient?  Spaceman or Caveman?  George Jetson or Fred Flintstone? Read More »

As a part of CECs latest project around CSR and Sustainability, we’ve asked our members to tell us about their CSR programs.  Often, they tell us about their programs for philanthropy, and in many cases, they will spend up to 3% of company revenue on these programs!

Now, this seems like a staggering figure: if my company has revenues of $1billion, there’s a good chance that we’ll be spending $30million each year on philanthropic exercises.  Where progressive companies such as Nestlé look to “Create Shared Value” (CSV) for both themselves and for society (which method we’ll look at, below), others simply share the value that they’ve already created.  And what do they get in return?  Some cite a boost in employee engagement, whilst others cite intangible reputational benefits.  Few can quantify either gain very well. Read More »

I live at the epicenter of American politics just blocks east of the U.S. Capitol.  The Statue of Freedom that adorns the Capitol dome scrutinizes my morning commute.  As I scurry toward the Metro that will take me the enclave of the private sector for the day, she reminds me of the role and influence of government in our lives.

That influence is growing.  Don’t take my word for it or the collective voices of the masses that have coalesced in DC for various rallies and protests this past year.  Take instead the cold hard facts of the corporate communications budget.

In 2010 Communications’ government relations budgets increased by 7%, the largest shift in Communications budgets according to CEC’s annual Resource Allocation Benchmarking Survey.  CEC members can view the full survey on the website: 2010 Resource Allocation Benchmarks. Read More »

By Rebecca Canan

We hear it over and over again from companies in Insurance, Healthcare, Pharma, Energy/Utilities, and Financial Services:

“We want to use social media, but we just can’t! There are too many regulations and risks.”

We’ve been investigating this claim and how much of it is true…what CAN you actually do?  Based on conversations with social media pioneers/”survivors” from the highly regulated space and quantitative research from our social media diagnostic (CEC members, take the diagnostic here), we’ve come up with a few conclusions.  Check out our article on Forbes.com about six social media principles for companies in highly regulated industries!  Let us know what you think.

As companies seek to identify the most promising social media opportunities, CEC research consistently advocates the need for experimentation to identify the highest-returning channels and stakeholders against which to focus future investments.

But choosing the right experiments can be a daunting proposition on top of “day jobs” that seem to leave no time for new efforts.  That’s why your next event – something you are already dedicating resources to – might also be an ideal social media laboratory, whether that ends up being an employee meeting, a community event, or a trade show.  Events present great opportunities for social media experiments for two reasons:

1)   Participants tend to be natural “connectors” based almost by definition on their willingness to come together with other stakeholders (and usually for a similar purpose)

2)   The captive audience creates more opportunities for engagement and measurement Read More »

I just got back from a glorious ten days in Croatia (which by the way, I would HIGHLY recommend– totally beautiful and so far, unspoiled) and now that I’m back, I am noticing more than ever the constant bombardment of information, emails, & instant messages that distract me from doing any true thinking.  Matt Richtel has coined the term the “three-day effect” when you are away from all technology and distraction.  After three days you start to relax, sleep better, and lose that nervous twitch of checking your blackberry every 3 seconds.  This is probably why the average weekend just doesn’t feel long enough; you get close to relaxing and then get pulled back to reality with a thump.

The New York Times reports that the average computer user checks 40 websites a day and can switch programs 36 times per hour.  Think of what that means in terms of how much information that you are subjecting yourself to on a daily basis.  It’s no wonder we hear, “I haven’t had time to think” so often.  It is only when you actually stop reading and taking in new information that you can sit back and really think what it all means, and actually process it.  By constantly rushing from one idea to the next without giving ourselves the time to think, we aren’t giving ourselves time to know what we really think.  I’m probably not the only one who sits there and has revelations when I’m on holiday.  You realize opinions you never knew you had.  You make life-changing decisions (or at least come up with the ideas for them).  In short, you think.

So as companies are striving to add more channels to reach their employees from all angles– are we actually doing more harm than good?  Read More »

Where will you be spending your time and energy in 2011?  What might get in the way of your success?  Where could you value from gathering the expertise and best practices from over 8,000 of your peers??

As many communicators are in 2011 planning and budgeting mode, so are we  at the CEC.  Since we are an entirely member-driven organization, this is your chance to set our agenda – please take 5 minutes to complete a very quick poll about your priorities and challenges for 2011.  The guidance is invaluable to us in terms of making the right choices about where we provide support and solutions for the membership.

For context, here are the top choices that the CEC membership has selected over the past several years:

2007: Building Stakeholder Preference Through the Corporate Brand

In 2007, communicators were spending a lot of time trying to promote their corporate brands in ways that “stood out” and were truly unique.  Unfortunately, while 70% of companies saw their corporate brands as unique, only 2% of stakeholders perceived them as very different from competitors.  This study taught communicators how to create (and instill among their employees and other stakeholders) a truly differentiated corporate brand.

Read More »

By Mike Wellman

There’s a great scene in the first season of Mad Men where Don Draper presents a pitch for a new ad campaign to Eastman Kodak executives.  They had asked Don to emphasize a remarkable new technology used in their new slide projectors and, specifically, how the “wheel” would revolutionize the category.  In typical Don Draper fashion, he ignores those guidelines and instead provides a sentimental, personal pitch that touches on how the product would give people a new way to connect the present with the past.  His campaign doesn’t include busy scientists or tongue-in-cheek cavemen reinventing the wheel, but instead holds an emotionally provocative image of a carousel.  It’s a moving scene and a good reminder that to do our jobs well, we have to look past the blinking lights and understand how people’s lives will change as a result of that technology.

Recently, we’ve been trying to do just this by understanding how the availability of social media has changed consumer behavior and information preferences.  I’ll admit that as a member of Geeks Anonymous, I easily get caught up in all the latest social media bells and whistles.  Some are worth paying attention to, but I think most (Blippy comes to mind) probably aren’t worth the time.  Twitter’s changes are certainly worth paying attention to, as is the elephant in the room – Google Instant.

Read More »