simply-blogging

I've seen the lite & I think I like it

As we prepare to unveil our new redesign this month, another site has also received a face lift of sorts: say hello to Facebook Lite - a sleeker, cleaner version of the popular social networking site.

Launched in the U.S. this week, Facebook Lite has now reportedly become accessible to European users as well - which could explain all the page load errors I'm receiving.

Judging by the buzz around the trimmed down site, looks like it's catching on fast. A few of my Facebook friends have already given it the thumbs up, and from what I've seen, it definitely appears much less cluttered than its parent site. There are far less ads and the information/categories are more condensed, resulting in a lay-out that's easier on the eyes.

If you're not a champion of instant messaging (much like myself), then you'll definitely like Facebook Lite since it does not offer the chatting option. Is that the sound of productivity I'm hearing?

One critical aspect to keep in mind is that there doesn't appear to be a way to navigate between the original Facebook and Facebook Lite; it's either one or the other. In my case, I think I'll keep things "lite".

-Kelly

An easy way to save money and engage employees at the same time

I recently attended a morning seminar in London called Employer branding is dead, so what now? hosted by SAS Design – the design agency, not the design arm of the elite special forces regiment (nor the airline or software company for that matter). I’ll be posting an in depth review of the event, which featured very timely and interesting presentations from Coca-Cola and BT, in the next edition of www.simply-communicate.com, but I wanted to share something mentioned briefly ahead of the keynotes that was very interesting to me.

Every company is looking for a way to reduce costs right now. If you can increase engagement in a positive way at the same time it’s a bonus. “Flat is the new up/growth” as I’m sure you’ve heard, and will continue to hear, many say. However one top four professional services firm has saved thousands of pounds that went with its internal marketing and probably increased engagement at the same time.

How did they do it? It stopped using stock imagery in internal communication and marketing material and started using photos that its staff had taken and uploaded to an internal version of photosharing site Flickr they had running instead. It makes sense doesn’t it? There are plenty of budding photographers in every company, taking more and more photos of anything and everything with their cameras. Why not give them a place to upload shots that they’ve taken at work (and ones that they haven’t too) and use them both internally and externally.

It means that you get a unique photograph that's probably more relevant to whatever it’s beside than the stock image you would have run instead, and people will get a kick out of seeing their work published. Engagement and money saved all round.

Daniel

By the way, if you’re not following us on Twitter, please do. You can find us at www.twitter.com/simplygroup

Empty out that inbox

Came across this interesting article the other day on how to better manage email overload:

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/163073/how_to_kill_email_before_it_kills_you.html

-Kelly

History of IC

Saw this interesting site which contains quite an interesting analysis of how and why IC has evolved in the last few decades.  It leans heavily on the concept of disruptive technologies - the idea that some technologies or innovations have the capacity to completely redefine a sector or craft....

http://communicationinsider.com/internal-communication/tired-of-trying-justify-social-media-with-execs/#more-893

The powerpoint show takes about 3 minutes to view and is quite thought-provoking.

And for a good friday smile take a look at this presentation about the real dangers that lurk in communications....

Liam

Lessons in employee recognition

Yesterday Captain Chesley Sullenberger and his US Airways Flight #1549 crew were awarded keys to the city at a ceremony at New York's City Hall.

During his speech, Capt. Sullenberger was quick to point out that his heroic efforts were not alone, setting the record straight by saying that it was a crew effort that made the dramatic rescue possible.

While some might say he was just being modest, I think his words are something that every company manager or leader should live by, demonstrating the importance of giving praise and recognition to your team.

During these difficult economic times when people are seeing colleagues being made redundant or are perhaps taking on a greater workload while pay rises and bonuses are a distant memory, it is important to keep the morale up of the employees who do remain in a company.

If someone is doing a great job, tell them. Or even if a project needs improving, by taking a few minutes to provide thorough feedback, it shows that you care about their work and are supporting their endeavors.

In the middle of churning out report after report or document after document, try not to neglect the human aspect of communication. A quick exchange of 'how was your weekend' or 'how are the kids doing?' can be a nice respite from the daily grind and help lighten the mood around an office. Try to show you value your employees as people, rather than as 'machines' just cranking out the work.

Upon completion of a project, why not take five to congratulate the key participants rather than immediately delve into the next phase?

Having recently completed three successful videos in a week, a Producer friend of mine was thrilled to receive kudos around the company. She said it made the hard work and long hours pay off in a situation where she had to do most of the work herself on an extremely tight budget. And after the praise, she's now more motivated than I've ever seen her.

As Editor of simply-communicate, I frequently dole out praise and express gratitude to our contributors who have taken the time to write us some really good pieces. Whether the articles are 800 words or 1200 words, their efforts must always be noted and appreciated especially since they are providing useful advice for our 16,000 readers around the world.

-Kelly

Are we learning anything from surveys

This morning I came across the Edelman Trust Index survey for 2009 and it's worth a look.

On the face of it, there are some interesting findings.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the survey found that people have less trust in corporations than they did last year. Banks in particular have lost 'trust'.

The survey seems to show that there are marked regional variations - people in the Far East have different attitudes to US or European respondents.

There is also a section on the surces of information that people trust.  It seems that we trust the media and senior business people less and less.

I've only read the executive summary and I do recommend the excellent Edelman website which shows an impressive use of new media.

However, I am increasingly dubious myself about the trustworthiness of surveys such as these.

For a starter, Edelman (and large PR firms in general) don't exactly have a glowing track record in the the field of trustworthiness.  You may remember the furore about the fake blog they put together for Walmart 

(you can read their response and acknowldegement of the issue here).

Like most PR firms they do not fare well if you do a Google search tagged with the words 'dishonesty' or 'lies'.  Clearly PR's detractors like the Center for Media and Democracy will have more to say on the subject.

Yet the main thing that concerns me is trying to work out how robust the research is.

A look around the website tells me that "The 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer survey sampled 4,475 informed publics in two age groups (25-34 and 35-64). All informed publics met the following criteria: college-educated; household income in the top quartile for their age in their country; read or watch business/news media at least several times a week; follow public policy issues in the news at least several times a week. "

I am not sure what an 'Informed public" is - I wonder if it is an individual person?  Elsewhere they say that they approached 'Opinion Leaders".  So if we are talking about individuals, 4,475 seems quite a small number of people world-wide on which to draw strong conclusions.  Over 20 countries, we may be drawing conclusions based on the views of 200 people.

Of itself, this is not necessarily a bad thing.  If it's the right 200 people, then its an interesting set of results.  So it would be nice to know what proportion of the total universe '4,475 informed publics' is?  If there are only 5,000 of these people out there it's a pretty telling and robust sample.  If it's 5 billion, the figures are much less impressive.

Last year's report has a much more helpful breakdown on methodology and seems to imply that the sample is about 18% bigger this year.  It would be interesting to see what else has changed before relying too much on the messages about change.

Maybe I'm becoming more cynical in my old age but I do get a bit concerned about these big news stories citing amazing trends.  I've recently become a fan of the BBC Radio Show More Or Less which examines the basis on which figures get quoted in the media (the podcast is really excellent) which might be why I've started to think about this sort of stuff.

Perhaps most alarming is the thought that people might change their behaviour or how they work because of what they read into these things.  I think there is no substitute for doing your own research into your own audiences - relying on the PR survey from a PR agency selling its services as an advisor may not be a smart move by a communications professional.

Liam

 

More news from the land of crisis

Following up my spam post the other day, what should drop into my mailbox but another mailing from Ragan.  I have to admit that I do love their daily posting - if you don't subscribe, its worth a look.

I particularly liked this story - they surveyed communicators to see how the current crisis was impacting people.

In short, it says that everyone is worried but that people are looking to comms for help.  Jim Ysela sums it up with his thought that ten years ago people might not have seen comms as having much of a role during a financial downturn.  This time around they have higher expectations of their comms function.

I hope Jim is right (and that people are up to the challenge)

Liam

Why do communicators talk like idiots?

Just found this excellent posting which says it all!

Liam

Ethics

I have found myself in several conversations recently about job losses and how best to communicate them - hardly surprising eh?

Inevitably people say that you have to be "open and honest" and tick off all the reasons why being secretive or economic with the truth is a very bad idea.  Which I don't disagree with.

However, practice is somewhat different for most commuicators.

There are the stockmarket rules that govern timing and managers who don't want to give the impression that cuts are being made because the company is going broke (even though that's exactly why cuts are being made).

Then you have to contend in international companies with the uncertainty caused by different regulatory regimes governing job losses.  You mmight want to give people some idea of when thier employment will cease, but its pretty hard to predict it in Germany, Italy or France...

Finally, the awful truth can be that HR is in such disarray that they can't actually work out the figures or Finance are driving the timing so that the job losses have the best whole year effect on the balance sheet.

Under these circumstances openness can be foolhardy in the extreme and 'honesty' becomes a rather wooly, subjective concept.

But if IC doesn't keep true to some values where will it all end up?

I have found two things to be useful recently.

Firstly, getting in early in the conversation and setting out the options with pro's and con's clearly spelt out.  Painting a clear picture of the risks faced by the company has been really useful and it moves the conversation from wishy washy hand-wringing to a sensible management debate about how best to manage internal and external reputations.

Secondly, find a test of what's right.  My working code is "is this fair?"  - if you can't be completely candid or the bluntest interpretation of fact is too damaging at least you can ask if what you plan is fair to all concerned.

The idea is that trying to see the best interests of employees is the minimum that a communicator can do.

I wonder how other people approach the issue?

Liam

Just Plain Nuts

Reading HR Magazine this week I came accross this great interview with the HR boss of Cable & Wireless in which he mentions a feedback campaign called "Just Plain Nuts". 

Apparently you can tell your boss about something at work that is driving you mad and see if it can be fixed....

But best of all... in this edition is an article on HR Metrics which opens with the phrase "Directors need to transform the airy cliche about people being their greatest asset into a guiding principle of business strategy."

Sound familiar?

I have been growing increasingly impatient with some of the waffle I've been seeing recently on the subject of metrics for IC.

My problem is that I can see that if you do x and have result y, then you can start building a measurement strategy but what if you can't show how Y results from X?  And that's what most of IC is like - although you wouldn't believe it from most of the stuff that seems to be written on the subject.

Last week I saw 3 different pieces of nonsense which went into great lengths to describe mathametical formulae for showing that as a result of superior communications some sort of amazing business result could be attributed.  In one case there was a particular emphasis on showing a specific ROI figure (which, if credible would have stunned any passing finance director).

The only difficulty was that cunningly hidden away was an assumption that communication was the sole or main causal factor at work.

So, for example, HR want more managers to conduct performance reviews and ask communications for help.  If suddenly the number of reviews increases five fold should IC claim the credit?  Of course not - well at least not until we've seen what else was happening by way of leadership, systems etc....

I have always taken the line that we shouldn't obsess about the figures - mainly because the energy involved in getting close to an accurate figure isn't justified by the marginal benefit it brings.  In short it is enough to know that you are moving things in the right direction and at the right sort of speed.

So, do you remember the scene in Dead Poets Society when the students are told to rip from their textbooks an essay explaining how to calculate the greatness of a poem?  That's just plain nuts isn't it?

Liam