by Daria Steigman on March 2, 2010
I was listening to the UStream feed from Hawaii on Saturday. While I was generally impressed with the state’s emergency preparedness planning, there was one piece of advice that I think needs revisiting. When asked where people should turn for evacuation details, officials advised checking the routes printed in the phone book.
With more people ditching their landlines and even more of us relying on the Internet and smartphones for information, just assuming people have a phone book seems out of touch.
Do you have a phone book? And where would you turn first for advice in an emergency?
Photo by Ed Kohler (Flickr).
Tagged as:
Hawaii,
UStream
by Daria Steigman on March 1, 2010
Remember the Deck of Cards that the U.S. military unveiled after the 2003 invasion of Iraq? In addition to Saddam Hussein, it featured a who’s who of the regime’s inner circle. If you’d diagrammed it, you would have been ended up with a traditional hierarchical chart with Hussein at the top and the lines going down from there.
But that’s not how the military found Saddam Hussein. Instead, Col. Jim Hickey and his colleagues developed a social diagram to understand the Iraqi leader’s network of family, close friends, and tribal ties. (Stick with me here, I promise this post isn’t about politics or military strategy.)
At a recent New America Foundation panel discussion on Social Networks and Modern Warfare, Hickey stressed that filling in the pieces and capturing Saddam Hussein was the result of tremendous teamwork–not just by his troops, but in conjunction with special forces and others operating in Iraq.
Hickey also stressed that:
- everyone worked together to exchange information
- there were no silos
- they worked together to pursue opportunities
- no one asked for permission or ran decisions up the chain of command (i.e., they just went with it)
I’m going to suggest that the way the military pursued its objective offers three lessons learned for businesses:
1. We need to rethink influence. Hickey and his colleagues understood that family structures, not government officials, were the key to finding their man. We still over-rely on traditional org. charts rather than looking at how information truly flows within organizations. This has huge implications not only for how companies operate, but also for how we identify good business intelligence.
2. We need to do, then ask. Best Buy’s Results-Only Work Environment is a good example. The people who developed the strategy didn’t ask permission to implement it; they tested it and proved it worked–and then sought permission to roll it out more widely.
3. Silos have to go. I’ve written about silos before. Hickey did something atypical of many hierarchical organizations: he shared information, and shares the credit today. Companies also need to let go of their fiefdoms.
What would you add?
Photo by striatic (Flickr).
Tagged as:
Col. Jim Hickey,
New America Foundation,
Social Networking,
teamwork,
Workflow
by Daria Steigman on February 24, 2010
So you want to know the secret to a great client relationship? Ask them how they want you to communicate with them.
Maybe they like phone calls (office, mobile, other number?), or perhaps they respond better to e-mail. If they’re on Twitter all day, they might want you to DM if it’s urgent. Or maybe they love text messages, Skype, or some other tool. If they prefer face-to-face, in-the-room-together meetings, then you need to know that too.
The point is that it’s our job to meet and/or exceed their expectations. And we can’t succeed if we don’t customize our approach to them, much as we’d design the right approach for them to talk with their employees, clients, customers, and so forth.
When was the last time you asked your clients how they like to communicate?
Photo by Peter Kaminski (Flickr).
by Daria Steigman on February 23, 2010
The challenge in any broad-based membership organization is to provide value to all your members. IABC traditionally does a great job of programming for mid-level communicators; less so for its senior-level members. To address this challenge, IABC/Washington some years ago founded a Senior Communicators Council to provide more targeted programs and a place where senior-level members could network with each other. Past programs have included “how being a communicator helped me be a better CEO” and “Walmart’s diversity initiatives.”
But is the organization hitting the mark? The Senior Communicators Council kicked off its 2010 schedule yesterday with a program entitled simply: What Do Senior Communicators Want? My friend and colleague John Clemons surveyed 60 senior communicators in three large IABC chapters (Washington, Chicago, and Houston) on how well the association’s programming resonates with senior communicators. Of the 44 respondents, 61 percent had been in the profession 20 or more years; 30 percent had 15 or more years of experience.
Some key findings:
- A split on whether IABC’s International Conference is programming to senior-level attendees (48.7 percent said yes; 51.2 percent said no). An informal poll of participants at yesterday’s event trended toward a resounding NO.
- Top 2 categories of interest for programs: best practices (76.1 percent) and breaking news|topical (61.9 percent). “We want to hear real stories,” said Clemons, who suggested that people think about such topics as bringing in someone from the White House to talk about communicating around health care reform or the spokesperson for USAIR to talk about communicating around a a crisis.
- A split on whether people would pay extra to join an IABC program specifically for senior communicators (i.e., something akin to IABC/Washington’s SCC). While 51 percent say yes, 49 percent said no. As one person yesterday put it, “My dues should already pay for that.” Another pointed out that the difference in responses might be due to location; in Washington, there are a lot of other resources and opportunities.
- Top 2 specific program suggestions: social media and crisis communications. This was followed by staff management and development, and case studies linked to ROI. Attendees at yesterday’s meeting also expressed a real hunger to tap into our collective wisdom and learn from each other, such as perhaps holding moderate discussions around a key topic. (My suggestion: corporate blogging and personal brands, especially in light of Forrester’s decision to ban its employees from maintaining personal blogs.)
Wrapping up his findings, Clemons said that senior communicators want face-to-face meetings and programming that goes beyond how-to sessions, and that IABC and its chapters have an opportunity to better meet the needs of its more seasoned members–as long as no ones ask us to pay more. [Note: IABC/Washington charges for SCC meetings; but there is no separate fee to join the special interest group (i.e., it is a benefit of membership).]
If you’re a senior-level communicator, do these findings gel with what you want? If not, what would you add?
Tagged as:
Forrester,
IABC,
Wal-Mart
by Daria Steigman on February 22, 2010
Oh really? Glad to know I want brake problems.
This turned up in my mail on Saturday. Inside was a shiny brochure about their hybrid vehicles. Don’t you think Toyota should have put off this print campaign until after they fixed their cars?
Tagged as:
advertising,
marketing,
Toyota
I was listening to the UStream feed from Hawaii on Saturday. While I was generally impressed with the state’s emergency preparedness planning, there was one piece of advice that I think needs revisiting. When asked where people should turn for evacuation details, officials advised checking the routes printed in the phone book.
