This recession has not been kind to marketers and other communications pros. Especially at the senior level.

Frankly, I’m not surprised.

Just look at how we typically refer to ourselves. Marketer. Public Affairs Specialist. Writer. Editor. Media Relations Manager. Videographer. It’s all task-based.

IABC has the word “business” in it, but our titles rarely do. And too often we haven’t made the case that storytelling is key to selling widgets (or sneakers, politicians, goodwill, or support for your cause). That communications is a core business function, as necessary to organizational success as product designers and the sales team.

We talk about transparency and authenticity. Our bosses care about sales, opportunity costs, and ROI.

I’ve heard a lot of hand wringing about how communicators don’t have a seat at the table. Yada, Yada, Yada. Feel better?

Now, what are we going to do about it?

The comments are yours.

Note: This post originally appeared on IABC’s Communication World blog.

Photo by Randy Son of Robert (Flickr).

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.

My latest column for IABC’s CW Bulletin is out, and it is about time: how we claim it as business owners, and how we can manage it to keep ourselves from being overwhelmed or letting critical tasks and projects slip through the cracks.

It can be a challenge for even the most organized. I’ve written before that it doesn’t take a superhero. While I wish I had a time turner, like Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter books, I live in a world where the wizardry is really just a product of hard work.

The column looks at 9 strategies for managing your business. They range from identifying the five business buckets to prioritizing the big stuff to understanding cash-flow cycles.

You can read it here.  Then come back and tell me: What would you add?

Photo by Laffy4k (Flickr).

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.

I wrote here about the secret to a great client relationship (hint: it’s about how you communicate). Now I want to talk about a related issue: understanding how your audience is listening.

For example:

• Have you ever had someone say, “Well, I tweeted about that”?
  Okay, but I didn’t see your random tweet at a random-to-me time in a sea of tweets from the 500+ people I’m following.

• Have you ever had someone tell you they posted the event to their LinkedIn Group?
  Great, except I get a weekly digest and your event was three days ago.

• Have you ever had multiple people send you Facebook notifications for the same event, even though you’re on the organization’s distribution list and so have obviously received at least one event invitation (and possibly signed up already)?
  Gee, now you’re spamming me.

Here’s the problem: When you do this, you’re making assumptions about my behavior and how I use various social media channels. Get it right, and we’re cool. Get it wrong, and your message is lost. You become irrelevant. Or worse, I unfollow, unlink, or unfriend you.

Whether you’re asking directly, monitoring online behavior, or accessing analytics, it’s important to understand how people consume information.

What strategies do you use to understand how your audience is listening?

Note: This post originally appeared on IABC’s Communication World blog.

Photo by cogdogblog (Flickr).

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.

For years I thought I was an accidental business owner. I mistakenly believed that I’d fallen into business ownership out of a determination to avoid bosses and office politics, which eventually led to an aha moment when I figured out that—yes!—I like the business of running a business.

What really happened was that I identified a market need and the appropriate universe of prospects, created services and pricing, developed a marketing strategy, and got to work selling. In other words, I had a plan.

And that’s the short secret to business success–and the topic of my latest column for IABC’s CW Bulletin. It features wisdom from Tim Berry, entrepreneur, founder of Palo Alto Software, and author of The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan, who talks about misconceptions about planning and offers three planning essentials.

Read the complete article here.

Photo by w00kie (Flickr).

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.

[Note: This post originally appeared on IABC's Communication World blog.]

I was checking my e-mail, tweeting with friends, and reading through a backlog of blog posts last Friday while soaring across the United States at 35,000 feet. It was a great way to feel connected after a week of airplanes, hotels, and day-long meetings. But then I came back, and my Internet service provider had a major outage—leaving me offline and disconnected for several hours on Monday.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t the tweets or my e-mail that I missed. It was Google. And Dictionary.com. I was working on a report for a client, and I’m so used to being able to fact check, decipher acronyms, and check for precise word usage that the productivity snag was making me really cranky, really fast.

That got me thinking about the tools I take for granted that help me as a multitasking communications pro, business owner, and blogger.

Here are seven programs and tools that help me to be productive every day:

1. Google has become my backup business hub. Plus I can sync my Droid so that I can access Gmail, my contacts, and my calendar on the go.
2. Google Reader is indispensible. Without a good aggregator, it would be impossible to keep up with 10-15 blogs, let alone the 100+ I read regularly.
3. Ever since I loaded that first beta version of Google Chrome, I’ve been hooked by the speed and simplicity of the browser. I’m particularly fond of the bookmark sync feature since I typically use two computers (one desktop, one netbook).
4. TweetDeck is my Twitter desktop client of choice. The Groups feature is invaluable; I also run Facebook and LinkedIn feeds. I typically monitor the notifications window at the bottom of my screen, and pop in periodically to chat during the day.
5. Evernote enables me to capture random ideas for blog posts and other notes and access them wherever and whenever I want.
6. Post-it Notes, Sticky Notes, and 1 dry erase board. I’m big on both to-do lists and capturing ideas and potential innovations. I use my dry erase board as a visual reminder of projects and deadlines and as a place to aggregate blog post ideas for Communication World, Workshifting, and this blog. I use the Sticky Notes program (which sits on my desktop) for nagging items. Post-it Notes is for one-off items, from checking on the status of an invoice to a phone call I need to return.
7. My Droid, with its crisp big screen and Android operating system, is rapidly becoming an invaluable business tool. Plus it has amazing turn-by-turn GPS navigation.

What’s in your toolbox?

Photo by Ali Edwards (Flickr).

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.

Should you be on LinkedIn? Plaxo? BizSugar or Open Forum? While it’s easy to be online, the vast array of options can leave even the social-media-savviest business person overwhelmed. At last check, my AddThis button linked to over 230 separate platforms/sites.

Because time is a finite resource and we can’t be everywhere, I recommend applying a simple three-pronged business test for social presence:

• Will it help me be found?
• Will it help me connect with my audience?
• Will it help me identify new business?

I explore these questions in some detail in a new IABC CW Bulletin article, Bringing Social Media to Your Business. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Photo by jenny downing (Flickr).

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.

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?

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.

[Note: This post originally appeared on IABC's Communications World blog.]

One of the questions at last month’s IABC/Washington panel discussion on 2010 trends was on core competencies. What skills do communicators need to have today?

Panelists cited several, including:

• the ability to identify influencers
• knowing how to tell a story
• tech skills and proficiency (including a working knowledge of WordPress)
• thinking more like journalists (accountability and transparency)

And, of course, writing skills.

But are writing skills still important? In an age of fragmented attention spans and 140-character tweets, there’s a battle going on between communicators who believe the AP Stylebook still has its place and those who think grammar rules and style points are so 20th century.

What’s your take? Is writing a core competency? And what other skills must communicators have to succeed?

Photo by karindalziel (Flickr).

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.

My first podcast is out!

I was interviewed by IABC’s Natasha Nicholson for CW Radio, and the topic is lessons learned in 20 years of business. The premise: the fundamentals of running a business haven’t changed in the last 20 years, but pretty much everything else has.

The 12-minute podcast looks at:

• how I got started
• how technology has changed business
• what the current economic climate means for small business
• tips for starting up

Take a listen, and then come back and let me know what you think.

Note: I’m trying to get the podcast uploaded to this post; hopefully I’ll be able to quickly sort out a file size limitations issue.

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.

Apparently I had too much on my plate when the IABC Research Foundation study on information overload was released last year because I missed it completely. Big mistake, because it contains some useful takeaways–which Julie Freeman discussed in her Heritage Region Conference session.

The authors highlight six paradoxes that can help us shape our communications efforts to reduce overload and “get attention, comprehension, and retention”:

1. Familiar Surprise–communicating in a novel yet understandable way (i.e., intriguing graphics, visual metaphors)
2. Detailed Overview– telling readers what to expect (i.e., executive summaries, word clouds)
3. Flexible Stability–using standard structures, formats, and terminologies
4. Simple Complexity–reducing messages to their essential elements (i.e., maps, step-by-step animation, or just picking up the phone)
5. Concise Redundancy–making a message accessible to different people in different ways (i.e., using facts, diagrams, numbers, models, and/or stories)
6. Unfinished Completeness–leaving opportunities for people to respond (i.e., polls, comments, or leaving your readers with an open-ended question)

A couple of other takeaways from the conference:

Bob DiBiasio talked about the way “the reduction of uncertainty” is guiding how the Cleveland Indians communicate internally and externally (including getting bad news out quickly, avoiding self-inflicted wounds, and communicating directly with those who matter most). He also stressed that “it has to be an absolute mindset of a company” to communicate with stakeholders.

Tim McCleary did a terrific session on how to stop telling people what to do and instead start involving your employees to foster change. There was music, cinnamon, garlic, basil, and a green tricycle. Storytelling matters.

Photo by TonZ (Flickr).

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.