Grumpy Old Communicator

Reading the blog post that I wrote over the past few months, it struck me that I have been writing a lot about what is wrong in our communications profession, or what needs to be improved. Why is that, I asked myself? Don’t we have great jobs? Every day is different, we get to be involved in all parts of the organization, we can be creative, can organize fun events, our jobs are becoming more and more important in organizations.

So, to all my readers (and I can see from the statistics that they are spread all over the world), I am sorry if I came across as a grumpy old communicator. Hey, being in communications in 2011 is a ball! Never in the history of mankind have we been using so many different media. The social internet is revolutionizing our jobs, but the old communications rules still apply, so we are in the middle of a revolution.

Why then, was I so grumpy? After some thorough soul searching, I came up with two possible answers to that question:

1 I am in the middle of a mid-life crisis…

2 As our profession is changing, our scope becomes very unclear: what is, and what isn’t corporate communications? These questions bothered me, and I just wrote them down.

I leave it up to you to decide, but I promise to cheer up!

Students don’t use social media

In the past two years there have been numerous discussions on social media forums about the use of social media by the younger generation. People come up with all different kinds of statistics, showing one day that teenagers, students, generation x,y, or z are not using Twitter (for example), and the next day that a different research outcome shows exactly the opposite. Very often these researches have no scientific backgrounds or methods whatsoever, and what makes it worse, is that people use these very shaky statistics to prove their point for whatever cause they want.

I wanted to share with you a few recent experiences I had with students from both Western and Eastern Europe. I had groups coming to my workplace, and I gave some guest lectures and presentations about the subject of social media. Before I started, I would always ask students if they use social media themselves. An average of only 5 to 10 % would raise their hand! Now, what an amazing outcome. One would expect a score close to 100%, right?

Interestingly enough, after this first question, I would always fire a few more questions at them: ‘Who has a Facebook account, who has uploaded a YouTube video, who uses Flickr, who shares music, who has worked with a wiki’? Well, eventually, all fingers were raised… They just told me that they were not aware of the fact that they were using social media.

Here is the thing: we, the older generation, need to make a distinction between the old media, and the new media, between 1.0 and 2.0. For these students, and most certainly for the generations even younger than them, the term social media is not relevant. They are just using the media that they know, and they are not aware of the underlying revolution. Nor do they care about the term social media.

So, I wonder what happens when I tweet the title of this blog post: students don’t use social media. It might trigger some interesting discussions. Hope people take the time to read this post, as clearly, my point is something else.

Wiio’s Laws, or why communication always fails

About 10 years ago, I was a part-time lecturer at the Business Communications Faculty of a university in the Netherlands. The subject I taught was Communications Research Methodology. For the students it was one of the last subjects in their final year, before they would start to work on their Master’s thesis.

To set the scene in the first lesson, I always kicked off with a presentation of Wiio’s laws. Osmo Wiio is a Finnish researcher, who wrote these laws as a bit of a joke. Although these laws are a clear exaggeration, I always told the students, that once they would start their career, this might be a good framework to always keep on hand.

These laws typically received mixed reactions from the students. Some loved them, others were puzzled by them, and some even became almost angry with me, as they thought that my view on our profession was for too negative. This mix of reactions was – of course- exactly what I was looking for, as it would spark of a nice discussion about what communicators can and cannot achieve in an organization.

To this day, I always have a copy of Wiio’s laws on the wall of every office I work in. It serves as a reminder to me to never underestimate the difficult job that we as communicators have.

Wiio published his laws in 1978, but I think they are still valid today, or even more valid, probably. Well, judge for yourself, here they are: communications’ own Murphy ’s Law or Wiio’s laws*

1 Communication usually fails- except by chance

· If communication can fail, it will

· If communication cannot fail, it nevertheless usually does fail

· If communication seems to succeed in the way intended, it must be in the way which was not intended

· If your are satisfied that your communication is bound to succeed, it is then bound to fail

2 If a message can be understood in different ways, it will be understood in just that way which doe the most harm

3 There is always somebody who knows better than you what you meant by your message

4 The more communication there is, the more difficult it is for communication to succeed

So, next time a communications project fails, you can now explain that Wiio’s Laws were to blame.

*In this version, I left out some of his laws that refer to mass communications, and I have seen some other versions with minor changes.

Keep It Simple Stupid!

A few years ago I came across this thought provoking statement for the first time. It was used in the context of a communications plan, and it was referred to as the KISS principle (the first letters of Keep IT Simple Stupid, obviously). It is such a nice phrase to use in discussions about communication plans, as it always provokes a reaction; it always puts people off guard. I have noticed so often that people really started to pay attention when this principle was thrown into the discussion.

The great thing about the KISS principle is – of course- that everybody immediately knows what you are talking about. In the corporate environment we often tend to make things far too complicated. Managers often feel that their messages need to show that they really know what they are doing.

So often does this tendency lead to phenomena like what I like to call ‘PowerPoint Body Building’. “Hey, look how complicated this chart is. I manage this, and I know all the details”. So, OK, you got muscle, but what was it that you were trying to say to us, because we are totally lost here…

Another issue with many managers or project leaders is that they just want to communicate too much. You don’t need to cover all your areas, just focus on what is important to your audience. Communication is very much about what you don’t say!

When I make a communications plan, I usually try to get the KISS principle (spelled this way, and just explained once) in the communication strategy part of the plan. It is a great phrase to refer to whenever people make things too complicated. Everyone knows immediately what you mean when you give feedback.

Anyone any other examples of principles that they use? I’d be curious to hear about them.

Sorry, we don’t speak English here

English is the business language in the corporate environment, no question about it. I hope my German and French readers don’t feel offended, but this is reality in the global village that we call world.

If we were to look at the communications profession as a toolkit, language (so, in the corporate world, the English language) is our most important tool.

O.K, this is a given, but I’d like to point out two things that we sometimes tend to forget in our daily practice.

1 Native English speakers have a huge advantage over non-native speakers. I am Dutch, so I spend most of my days communicating in a foreign language. My English is in reasonable shape, but clearly, I miss many nuances as a result of the fact that I am not communication in my native tongue. If you are a native English speaker, please take into consideration how difficult it can be for a foreigner to communicate in a foreign language.

2 I think we, as communications professionals, should stress more and more that we need to train people to master the corporate language. It never fails to amaze me that we keep hiring people in a corporate environment that don’t master our preferred language at least at a basic level.

Well, I hope I did not make too many mistakes in this blog post. Native speakers, please forgive me, and if you want to see a real funny example of what I just wrote, just watch this hilarious video.

A communications plan is not a communications calendar

It is the core of our job: a communications plan. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you might recognize that I challenge current practices every now and then. Here is one that you might recognize. Too often I see communication plans that have just two elements: a stakeholder analysis and a communications calendar. I have seen some (well, many…) consultancy firms in my day doing just that.

The element that is too often missing is the communications strategy. OK, so we have this project. Do all project members agree on the core messages? Given the stakeholder analysis, what should our strategy be? Why do we come up with the media mix in the communications calendar? I have seen numerous plans state that they want to engage their stakeholders. Then, when I read the calendar, there are newsletters, intranet pages and kick-off meetings planned. You don’t engage people using digital media and presentations... OK, I know many of these consultants just copy and paste from their previous assignment. If you are a consultant: use a better template! If you want to hire a consultant, check if their communications plans are more than just communications calendars. Our profession is becoming mature, you know

Feel like a child again, start a new job

So I started a new job. Gone are the days of warm goodbyes (thanks Océ colleagues, what a great way to part), back to reality and the beginning of a new exciting journey. One of the first differences I noticed is the use of social media for external purposes. The pharmaceutical industry is very different from the printing industry. This business is all about quality and safety. Everything that distracts people from these two key performance areas is more or less irrelevant. Moreover, this is a highly regulated business. Companies are very restricted in what they can say or do in the outside world. So, more than ever before, I need to stress that this is a personal blog. I will keep following trends in internal communications, but I will not share any information about my present company.

I noticed first hand now how digitalized our world has become. Fortunately, I have kept up with the trend, but consider all the new things I need to learn: a new phone, a new operating system, a new teleconferencing tool, a new intranet, a new navigation system in my car, you name it. When you need to change all these things you suddenly become aware of how depended we have become on digital communication tools. I felt like a little child that first week, and I am still figuring out Vista, but at least I can answer my phone now ;-)

One of the greatest things for me to pick up will be the staff engagement program (volunteer work, sports, theatre, staff celebrations, you name it). There is a lot available, also from the corporate HQ, but good ideas are more than welcome.