IABC 2011 World Conference Recap

Communicators talk a lot! And that’s a good thing. 1400 communication, marketing and social folks chatted, networked, learned and saw some sights in San Diego last week. The IABC World Conference was full swing in and offered much of the same things in the past, a place to share and learn. I was lucky enough to co-facilitate a session on Sunday sharing three hours of open space to collaborate hot topics and network our butts off. I stayed for the rest of the conference and took advantage of sessions, interesting keynote speakers, and my favorite part of any major event, meeting new people, like-minded or not. 

So what did I get out of the event? I’ve categorized my experiences in bite-sized nuggets for your scanning pleasure. But don’t just read and close the page. Share a few highlights of your own in the comments section. Isn’t that half the point of going to a conference? Share the wealth!

Best lines I heard or overheard:
“Your brand is what your employees say it is.”
“Value is in the eye of the beholder.”
“…prune your garden.”


Takeaways and Reminders
These are key points that resonated with me in the sessions I attended. Most are not new. But they are terrific reminders to be true and stay on point for successful approaches.

• Biggest theme: Make it simple (write in plain, simple language) 
• Integrated communications: Focus on blending plans and tactics vs. a singular approach to marketing, social media, executive communications, etc. 
• Emotional connections: Connect with employees emotionally to drive overall engagement and passion. Make it personal. 
• Drive traffic: Want better adoption? The best way to drive traffic to your site is to put the must-have items on it. i.e. pay stubs, schedules for hourly employees 
• Multiple approaches: One fit does not work for all regions and employees. For example in a sustainability program, employees in Asian Pacific markets prefer group contributions vs. employees in the US which usually prefer to contribute individually. Know the audience and be nimble in your approach.
• Offer outcomes: Understand the outcomes of your communication plans and services so you can focus on offering a service with an expected outcome to clients. This addresses that problem or situation a client wants to tackle. Clients too often are focused on services and something fun without understanding the best approach to solve their problem. 
• Think big about your brand: You really only have one brand. Or at least you should. Even sub-brands are okay as long as they deliver on your brand and promise. Everyone that touches this brand is now part of a brand system. Connect these people and initiatives to drive one brand message. If everyone is working together in a brand system, the message stays clear. And a clear message helps employees understand the company and their role. 
• Find the gaps: Communicators are in the perfect position to spot the gaps in strategy plans. We can look at it from all angles (employee, leaders, and consumer). Find the gaps and point them out. This is usually when communications can connect plans and ideas. 

Happy Improvements
I wrote a post last year recapping the 2010 conference including a few things I’d like to see changed. Guess what, people listened. Here are a few of those things as well as others that I believe worked nicely.

• Case studies: I was happily surprised to see more case studies and real experiences vs. an onslaught of vendors. I walked out of sessions with not only some knowledge, but most of the time with a new contact to share future ideas with. 
• Social media: There were session about it and a lot more attendees using tools while attending the conference. This was the first year I didn’t feel like the ugly duckling (swan…get it?) because I was tweeting and not many others were. Yay for embracing a current technology and rhythm. 
• Digital copy: It was nice to see a digital copy of the schedules and programs. I will admit, I actually do like the printed brochure. But digital was a step in the right direction. By the way, the right direction is listed below in the mobile app bullet. 
• Vendors: It was nice to see a few new vendors. I always like to know about new options. Maybe think about getting a Foursquare, Jive or Yammer there. They make perfect sense! 

Thoughts for Next Year

Call it what you will, challenges, learnings, whatever you do don’t do this again, or just plain that could be even better – all ideas to make 2012 an even better conference experience. 

• Collaboration: I am so glad IABC attendees had the option of joining an online group to share and interact around the 2011 conference. Now I’d like to see a permanent place instead of a one-time instance. Sad but true, the current Ning site will probably fade away. Why not use a place that IABC folks are already visiting, like LinkedIn. Make use of the space and do not create another place to distract. Adoption will also be better. Or if Ning is the ticket, make it a on-going living space in the IABC website. Connect them!  
• Mobile app: Take the digital schedule and resources and turn them into a mobile app. A digital version of the schedule can only do so much. Let me tag my schedule, build one, connect to the online collaborative space, see the twitter feed and more. Build it and we will come! 
• WiFi: You knew I was going to say this, right? I was okay without it this year because we were in the US. But for our non US folks and the attendees with WiFi only tablets, WiFi is a must. Make some magic. 

I end with a big smile and a resounding, “I’m glad I attended”. IABC is evolving and I can see it. I look forward to sharing, learning over the next year and seeing everyone at the 2012 conference. Who knows, maybe I’ll even throw my name in the hat for a session I’m cooking up. Interested?

Keep sharing and connecting!
   

A New Communication & Social Media Adventure

The countdown is over. I've said goodbye and now I'm ready to start a new adventure to expand social media and interactive communications to a whole new audience. Yes this does mean my time with the Mouse has come to an end. 

I am happy to officially announce to the greater public, that I've accepted a position with Avery Dennison. In my new role, I'm tackling interactive communications and social media for the Company. I'll focus internally toward the employees through the Intranet and technology outlets like mobile devices, touch panels, and more. Additionally, I will focus heavily on social media platforms, best practices and campaigns for the internal audience and externally to consumers and clients. Once I jump in and become immersed, get ready to hear more about this exciting journey. 

About Avery Dennison
Avery Dennison continues to evolve while embracing trending communication practices and continues its strong commitment of innovation. Avery Denison is probably a lot more than you might think. Take a glimpse into our world and see how Avery Dennison is all about Inspired Brands and an Intelligent World: 2010 Year in Review

As I said farewell to the Walt Disney Company, I shared a brief video to Disney colleagues. Here's a copy of that video.

How to Build a Mobile Intranet Roadmap

Who's ready to redo their intranet again? Every couple of years, we communicators seem to take another stab at finding the right equation for the perfect intranet. I believe that 2011 will be a big another year for Internal Communication folks. This is the year we add real mobile access to our intranets.

Employees are quietly demanding access to their tools when and how they want them. Us consumers are doing the same thing with outside sources, like Facebook, newspapers, maps, etc. So it makes sense that employees expect the same experience at work. Since intranets are a lot more than just company news typically, including resources like employee directories, office maps, business applications, and commissary menus, employees will greatly benefit from mobile access. 

There are many ways to deliver a mobile Intranet experience. There are also many devices and ways to digest this mobile information. The variables and tools almost seem endless. Now let's take a dive into what information should be mobile, the tools available and important variables.

Should everything be available on a mobile device?

It would terrific to have all of our tools from the office in our palm, right? It would also be cluttered and time consuming. The beauty of a mobile app, they are easy to use, simplified and work well with our favorite mobile device. We can find what we need very quickly. Apply this same thinking and ask yourself, do I really need instant access to everything on the Intranet? Not really. Less features will allow for better usability. Use the following questions to help identify what top items should be on your list for mobile access:

• Will employees be able to take action on their device vs. having to go to their desk?
• Are there important messages employees need to know immediately? (i.e. safety)
• How will employees use specific information while away from there desk?
• Will access to specific resource or information make the employees job easier?

Need a head start? Here's a few must-haves:

• Employee directory
• Location directory
• Enterprise workflow approvals (i.e. travel & expense, purchasing, time off)
• Safety messages (think push notifications)
• Social interaction (if you have something like Jive, make it easy for employees to connect)
• Brief learning courses

All-in-one, separate site or individual apps?
There are a few ways to offer mobile solutions to employees. 

• Simple design: The first idea focuses on only one build with a very clean and easy user interface that allows for ease of use on multiple devices and browsers. This offers a consistent experience. For example, if you have a two column design, the site will be much easier to navigate on smaller devices and the full screen version will be less cluttered. Intranet tools are starting to add mobile options.
• Mobile site: If your intranet is brimming with resources and you're required to keep it as is, then a separate mobile site might be the answer for you. By creating a separate version of the intranet for mobile devices, a clean and unique design can be applied. They key here is make it feel easy and make it work on multiple devices and browsers. A possible draw back may be when you hear employees loving the mobile site and complaining about the full site.  
• Mobile apps: Most of us are familiar with mole apps now. If you have a smartphone, mobile apps have saved you time and delighted you with surprised ease. In this option, you can deliver multiple apps to allow your employees to access parts of your intranet. If you are a large company with enterprise workflow, you'll probably need an app just to manage this process. Then you can offer another app for directories and important contact information. Be smart about the apps you create and only add ones that make sense. There is a limit to having too much of a good thing.      

Variables aplenty

The explosion of smartphones and tablets is very exciting for consumers (employees) and businesses. There is also the variety of browsers, operating systems and security. Does your company use BlackBerry, iPhones, Android, Windows 7, or something else? Different devices have different browser options as well. When creating or reinventing an intranet, its important to build and design for the varied options. If your business only allows one platform today, will that be the case in a year? Chances are employees will bring their personally owned devices in to the office and want to connect to the intranet. Be smart and plan for multi-platforms. Do your homework and find options that can expand. Lucky for us, the enterprise app trend seems to be focusing on apps that can cross platforms.

Are you taking the plunge with a mobile intranet soon? Will it be a big bang launch or will you test the waters with a fun and ultra desired app? If you've had some challenges, share! Tell us your nuggets of wisdom or ask your questions here.

Happy building!
  
Portions of this page are modifications based on work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License.   
   
   

A New Twist on Social Media and Video

I recently stumbled upon this video of a guy (Todd) in NY that found a role of film in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. Not that interesting, right? But then he developed the film and was engagement by what he found - interesting black & white photos that spoke to him. Todd has now started an adventure by one single video, searching for the photographers and hoping to connect. This video was posted on 1/17/2011 and at the time I saw it on 1/25/2011 at 8:07 PM (PT), it had received 1,143,618 views. It seems Todd has created an adventure and an entire new community for more than one million people. Social media and the human spirit are clearly alive. Small actions can lead to large impact. Now let's find these people.

  

How Will I Communicate in 2011

2011 is just around the corner and my thoughts now move toward my next communication adventures. This new year brings new possibilities and challenges. I'm excited to jump in to new projects, share my knowledge, learn from others, and experiment with new styles. Since I'm a "list man", I've started a list of the key targets in my scope to help me plan my year. What can I say, "A type" personality suites me well. So dig in to my list and then share what your're doing to move communications forward. Excited about the new year as well? Then share your ideas and see where we can make changes together.

Work Projects (Disney)

• Launching not one, but three additional employee-focused web-series
• Developing measurement dashboards, capturing all forms of communications
• Creating a new over-arching brand; a stamp of approval; connecting with emotion
• Re-defining intranet sites, by reshaping the spaces, content and user adoption
• Piloting mobile apps and an app store internally - managing marketing and communications.
• Further development in community spaces - beyond just come and chat. Learn, laugh and share! 

Freelance Projects

• Developing a marketing/communications strategy for Willow Tree Bakery. Building brand identity and awareness.
• Who is Christopher Swan? Developing an expanded approach with video.

Speaking Engagements

• IABC/San Diego Chapter - March Speaker 3/16 : Creating An Engaging Communication Video Series
• IABC World Conference 6/12: Open Space: Communicate Now!  Co-facilitating an open forum and think camp for communicators, new ideas and real-life communication issues.

Getting Involved

• Social Media Breakfast Los Angeles is launching. I'm excited to share the word and meet other social nerds. Let's ramble and share the love.
• IABC Los Angeles - The chapter is getting better than ever and I'm excited to get further involved. Speaking, sharing and whatever else moves us.
• Internal Communications Community (at Disney) - This community is growing and I am leading the efforts to bring us together. Only as a community will we change and be a force for the better.  

 
Experiments & Styles

• New video styles: Interview, learning, and promotional.
• Using music and big Hollywood/Intranet-based styles in all new ways for Internal Communications. Entertainment is king!
• Flash mobs and/or real-time meets. Figuring out how employees of walks-of-life embrace unique events, challenges, contests, information sharing, etc. 

So there it is, the beginning of my 2011 Communication "to do" list. I'm excited and ready to do it all. Who's ready to start a new project, join me in a community or share their ideas and projects?  I'd love to hear from my fellow communicating junkies. Share the love!

Checking in at Work: Location-based Services in the Enterprise

Did you “check in” today at the office?  Or maybe it’s not your thing.  Guess what, it is your employee’s thing.  Employees around the world are curious, just like us consumers about location-based check in services.  Now folks everywhere are checking in to your office, retail store, warehouse, and break room. 

Let’s take a step back – why check in at all?  Consumers are finding different reasons - enticed by gaming elements (badges, mayorships), discounts, recommendations and another way to share the details of their day. If you're still new to location-based services, look up Foursquare and Gowalla for a few examples.  

2010 has seen location-based services and options jump in popularity.  At first it was just Foursquare.  As time went on, Yelp and others crept into the space.  Employees seem to be keeping up with the options and kept adding their work location into the mix.  Then real changed happened – Facebook added “Places” check-in with incentives.  Now Facebook users could receive benefits and share all of their locations with the world.  Let’s face it; Facebook is the giant gorilla that is bringing this nonmainstream check-in to everyone’s mother.  Soon mom’s visit to my office will probably show up in Facebook for all of her friends to see.

Why should we care?
An opportunity is presenting itself to connect and share our company culture and the many stories hidden within the halls of our buildings.  The challenge, harness the option and actions to actually mean something beyond “Hey, I’m here”.  I’ve been putting some thought in this new hot topic and have a few suggestions to test in your company.  I’ll be doing the same.

New hire orientation - Employees will rejoice with a new option of learning and interacting with a wealth of company information.  Sitting in a full day of orientation is overwhelming and let’s face it, a bit dry.  Let the employees roam around the company locations while gathering useful information all around them.  Create a challenge and let the employee discovery certain facts and bring it back to the group to share.  Many applications will let you add tips and other information per location.  Employees could learn about where departments are located, what they do, significant cultural points and emergency information. 

Team outings – It’s time to get the team out of the conference room and in new locations.  Lots of companies have outings for departments and teams.  Why not add a geo location scavenger hunt in the mix.  This would be great for team building and learning about new topics.  A product called SCVNGR, provides challenges, points, rewards, and can be customized for your company.  I am also looking at scavenger hunts and challenges to take online communities into the real world.   

Maps & Location – With geo location, comes maps.  Why not try to beef up the employee directory with maps and useful information.  If you’re on a large campus and need to know the name of the building you’re standing in front of, just check in to see the location.  Probably destined to be a favorite, provide suggestions to the best places to eat or host a lunch meeting near the office.  Even in the consumer world, recommendations are far underused. 

Who’s nearby – Imagine a new way to locate and meet nearby colleagues and employees.  If you’re in a large conference (or at another office location) and want to meet a few like-minded folks, just open an app and see who is there.  I easily do this today with Foursquare and Facebook at work already.  Why not step it up and frame it as a networking opportunity.  With some thought and planning, I think this area can be developed further.  

What are you doing? Share your thoughts.
Have you been watching what your employees are doing with these check in services?  Are you starting to think about a plan to integrate a service in to your communication or business plans?  What other ways would you use these services for employees and vendors?

Community Overload: Overwhelmed with Too Many Options

Finally there’s an online community at the office for me to share my ideas about employee benefits.  Oh nice, now there’s a community to talk about healthy options as they apply to my employee benefits.  Hmm, here’s another invite to join the community for employees to talk about work life balance.  So now I have three communities just to talk about benefits at work?  What about the other communities I’ll want to join to share my ideas about my job, or locating information and other work-related interests?  Will I end up belonging to a hundred communities just at work? 

Employee-based communities and groups are being created everyday around every subject at the office.  That is unless the company and the community/communication manager has a strategy for natural community growth.  That’s a big IF. 

If you’re a company that has recently implemented social media tools that allow for communities or groups, then you’re the prime candidate to be affected by this problem.  So let me dissect this community overload problem.  Companies (and certain employees – early adopters, mandatory participation folks) often jump in to the community space, building and creating without much planning.  There’s no roadmap, organizational structure, business function grouping, business flow grouping, etc.  All of the sudden, communities are created for anything under the sun and even worse, there’s no hierarchy or structure.  Companies literally end up with duplicate communities for the same discussions and sharing of resources.  Community creators mean well, but the magnitude of available communities ends up being overwhelming and many of the spaces lack interaction and useful information.  Sound familiar?  It’s the same story of a bad intranet from a few years ago that we all know so well - too many sub-pages with static information.

Fixing the problem before it starts

So how do you go about not letting this community weed patch overgrow and smother the real social garden you’ve dreamed up?

1. Get to know your organization:  Take a step back and holistically review your company to find the common and natural threads.  For example, if your company is segmented by different businesses, yet has HR Business Partners residing in each business, create a community for all HR Business Partners company-wide.  This way, all of the HR Business Partners can share and network throughout the company, not just within their business unit.  Remember, communities allow for great networking based on shared interests.
2. Create a plan:  Start with a long-term strategy and then create a plan for today.  For the long-term, think about what you want to see in a year or two from now.  Also, what value do you expect to grow from creating over-arching communities?  Once you’ve determined what you want in the long haul, create your short list plan of tactics to get you started.  Plans that include month-long objectives work best for me in projects like this.  I suggest starting one or just a few communities and getting those right first. 
3. Connect the dots:  Just like when you create organizational charts for your company, build a similar template for your communities.  Which communities will be on the top?  What will the sub-communities be?  Communities can be more than just connected top to bottom.  Connecting communities by relation is also helpful.  Related should be used when a community doesn’t speak to the same subject of another community, but may share some of the same ideas or concepts.  This will help employees find other spaces of interest.  Think of that phrase we always see when registering for a conference, “You may also be interested in”.
4. Who will create the communities:  There are two schools of thought here.  You can choose to let only a select few community managers own the process of setting up communities.  If you do, I suggest building in a process for employees to request new spaces to share and chat.  If employees are not involved in creating their own social world, you’ll have less engagement.  The other option would be to let all employees create communities.  The negative here is a giant mass of communities that may not work.  The positive to this option is possibly more employee participation.  I would challenge you to find a happy medium. 
5. Be nimble:  There will undoubtedly be communities that have not been set up.  In fact, it should be part of your plan not to know everything.  You should be asking yourself, how will these communities grow and stay current?  As community requests are received or the current community structure seems out of shape and misguided, take a fresh look at your social garden.  Maybe you need more of one thing vs. another.  It’s normal to adjust and tweak as you go.  Just like your company, your communities will take new directions.    

As you can see, it’s not rocket science at all.  Of course, these are my thoughts based on my experiences.  I’ve seen bad examples and I’ve seen some good successes.  The real trick is creating a strategy, laying out the community outline before you start to build, and be part of the success.  Repeat after me, plan and be nimble.

The Intranet: Communication Portal or Employee Toolkit?

Over the last year or so, I’ve seen a quiet war waging between communicators and employees.  Communicators passionately want to share breaking news, org changes, evergreen stories and the not so timely letter from the CEO.  On the employee end they say yes, keep me in the know.  But there is another want, not yet verbalized. They are really asking for a place to find what they need.  Employees want to get their hands on the ever elusive employee policies, org charts, and all of the tools that will help them be good company citizens while allowing them to focus on the job they’ve been hired to do.

Yesterday’s Intranet
The typical intranet seems to have all the basic offerings with obvious issues.  Your navigation may look good, but at closer inspection one will notice the cryptic link definitions based on departments and project areas.  Somewhere in this labyrinth lies useful information. But first you have to figure out the department that manages the form you need.  Now throw in a dash of the public and internal (if you’re lucky) company news.  Then there's a showcase of a new employee or new project in the company.  As you scroll down further you’ll find hidden gems like about us, bad clip art, a pointless integration of SharePoint or similar tool, and way too many animated graphics – all not updated in months. Lastly, if you’re a larger company, you may have invested in an enterprise software that allows employee self service via your intranet. These functions will be somewhere clickable in navigation, hopefully.

How about search? Do you suffer from a case of badsearchitis? Have you ever surfed the intranet looking for an HR form or IT policy?  Or maybe you need to use the enterprise system to log in your hours worked, file an expense report, or view your paycheck.  These and many more tasks have filled company intranets for the last few years.  No longer do employees log on to the company homepage just to find out the company stock price or view the world clock.

We communicators have worked diligently on our editorial calendars, giving departments a voice, and creating a home for employees.  But that was yesterday.  Today came a while ago and it’s time to take the best of our world and combine it with enterprise software, collaboration apps and tools “to get the job done”.  It’s time to make the shift to an Employee toolkit.

Employee Toolkit – key essentials
Admitting the need to evolve from a communication portal to a blended approach is the first step of bringing real business value to your intranet real estate.  It’s time to load your space with all of the key essentials.  Here’s a list of the core basics that companies may find useful.  Based on the needs of your company, you may need to cherry pick the options.

1. Easy to use navigation & organization – make it simple, make it clear, and make it meaningful.  Do away with department pages and define the links by subjects.
2. Search – It should work!  This is the starting spot for most employees.  Make sure your meta data is correct and that your search tool is crawling all of your spaces (intranets, SharePoint, etc).
3. Resources – Group key forms, policies, guides, finance information and the like.  Imagine having a one-stop shop for all the things you need.  Life would be amazing. (It’s ok to have separate sections for benefits and large categories as long as they truly are large – remember, simple navigation)
4. Enterprise tools – This is an important one. If you use something like SAP or Oracle for self service, make it easy to find and use. Have a great user interface – it’s so important.  Employees want this to be a no-brainer and they will love you for it.
5. Company News – Share important news and share it timely. Employees shouldn’t have to read about key company changes in the external news.
6. Interaction/Collaboration – Create a space (as part of the Intranet) for employees to have a voice in the news, resources, and to also continually shape their intranet. Plant and tend this garden.
7. Mobile – Everything is becoming mobile. Your intranet should be the same. If you can’t make it all function on a smart phone or tablet, aim for core tools like highly used self-service functions, company news, and collaboration. More and more, employees are bringing their smart devices into the office.
8. Customizable – Let employees choose what is important to them. I’m a big believer in providing framework and the main elements. But let employees have a voice in their home. As consumers (yes, employees are consumers), we see this everyday with iGoogle and MyYahoo.
9. Help – Share contact lists, phone numbers, and email addresses for your help groups – HR, IT, Legal, Finance, etc. Employees will call the IT help desk if they do not know who to call. Talk about frustrating for everyone.
10. Emergency Information – If you’re company is large, you’ll need a space to share what’s happening if an emergency arises. Think real-time and easy to see. Employees should and need to be safe.

The trick here will be in placement and design. If you make 3/4 of the page news, then you’ve lost the Employee Toolkit idea. Intranets should not be the CNN of your company.  Design the page so it’s truly the place to find the tools and information employees need to stay informed and get their job done.  Your home should be a resource employees want and need to visit daily.

Questions to stir the pot

What other essentials would you add to the list? What are your barriers in making the right intranet change? What has worked and what has failed?

Filtering Through The Social Media Noise

I've been hearing a lot of chatter throughout different companies lately. It's not just happening down the hall. It's online and it's noisy. 

Have you noticed the noise that accompanies social media? There is a lot of good, even great information to be shared in the social space. But to find it, one still has to find their way through the chatter maze. When I started seeing this happen behind the firewall, I realized that this is going to impact employee adoption and make the all important executive buy-in, nearly impossible to obtain.

So how do we filter through the noise and find real business value? It's best to organize the approach by a few categories and tactics.

• Take an assessment of the tools in place for social medial. Find out where the noise is coming from. For example, are employees micro-blogging on tools like Yammer? Do employees share blogs and photos on an internal social networking site? The noise may be in different places or in just one place. Employees may be sharing lots of information in a big way. But is it organized?
• Discover what employees want. Do employees want to collaborate on creative work? Do they want to find job opportunities? Maybe they want to stay connected to real time changes. Assess their needs and use these real-life examples to teach. This will also please the executives since you'll be better able to connect these needs to business goals and ROI. 
• Document and share the best practices and education around the tools in place. How about creating a course for your employees to learn the ins-and-outs of Yammer? Teach them how to use tags/hashtags, topic groups, and narrowing the viewable feed. Each tool offers ways to manipulate the data and it's visibility. Help employees find what they want and teach them to organize their sharing.

Are there methods you've tried that have quieted the noise? Are you offering official training in social media? If so, what do your classes look like? Are they in person or online?

If You Build It, They Will Come

You just finished the final preparation to launch your company's new intranet. Even better, you've built it with all the social media functions, including employee blogging, status updates, discussion forums and the list goes on. You're beaming with excitement for the world to see your hard work and to finally give employees what they've been asking for. Confidence will lead you to flip the switch, send the welcome email, and see employees living on their new site.

Two months later, blogs have been started and stopped, status updates are stale, employee profiles are still incomplete, and all you can think is, employees lied - they are not using what they've asked for.  

Sound familiar? Maybe it's not the same project for you, maybe it was the creation of a company event, an upgrade to a company tool, a new communication vehicle, etc. I've seen it happen a lot and I've even experienced it. Just building or delivering social media to our employees, even if it's great, isn't enough to get them to engage. 


The culprits

• Strategy: For a few different reasons, you may be launching your project without a complete strategy or plan to support this new space. Maybe it's because your executive has told you, "we just need to get it out there" or "we just need to deliver on time". The only answer here is, strategy is a must. Otherwise how can you answer the question, why am I doing this project and what will it solve?
• It's not social: Have you ever compared internal social media to Facebook and Twitter? If so, stop. Leaders and employees both usually think of these platforms as social. As in, for fun,  to keep up with family, friends, share memories - nothing to do with networking and employment. Try explaining the new social media tools with real examples. Speak to the power of networking, breaking down company hierarchy barriers, extending knowledge, and collaboration on documents with a larger audience. Employees need to understand why social media is not extra, it's part of their job, just like email. Help them learn the "why". 
• Guidelines: Employees need to know more than just what's new. They need to know how to interact. A lot of companies are publishing social media policies. These are great to tell employees what not to say. But how about teaching employees how to say it. Help them answer the question, what's the difference between a blog and a forum. Teach them the tool, share the best practices and build easy to understand guidelines.
• The company says it's OK: While some employees are early adopters and embrace technology change, not all feel the same way. I've heard from employees that they are not comfortable sharing information so publicly when the company hasn't officially said it's OK to do so internally. Yes, send the email sharing the news that the company embraces their opinion. But also, get the executives in the space. Employees are looking for their voices as an OK to proceed.    

These often overlooked ideas will help guide you in the right direction. Mark these off on your project planning and you'll be a step ahead. 

Of course, there are many other factors to think about. So I ask these questions of you:

• What has helped you reach your communication goals in a project or launch?
• If you've rolled out social media for your employees, what's been the biggest challenge?

The 2010 IABC World Conference Wrap Up

I've been home from the 2010 IABC World Conference for a week. Yet my mind is still swirling from the amazing people I met, the unconference session, and the powerful engagement from my fellow speakers and attendees. As I've been pondering the nuggets of wisdom I gathered and while I stare at the stack of business cards I need to follow up with, I have tried to mentally document my communication adventure. I present to you, my mental list of bullet points - things that made me smile, the challenges and the, file under somebody may care.


What made me smile

• People! 1,400 communicators sharing, learning, networking and partying down like no others. With the different events, planned and not planned by IABC, there were plenty of opportunities to create new relationships. I even made a few friends out of this experience. Dear new friends - Please expect me coming to visit your country soon!
• Keynote speakers - I was moved and inspired. I especially enjoyed Craig Kielburger and Guy Kawasaki. Great job IABC with finding these innovation leaders.
• Location - Toronto was a great city to explore and navigate. The hotel space worked for the sessions, but not for internet access.
• Social media - I was very happy to see an increase in social media use from IABC. There was an official blog, Twitter feed, and a hashtag.
• Organization - All of the events, sessions and more felt very organized and smooth. Not having to overly think about locations or the logistics was a nice stress reliever. 
• Unconference - How can I not give a shout out to my co-facilitators, Jeremy Schultz, Linda Johannesson, and Bryan Person. I had a great time assisting in the creation and delivery of the new event for IABC. Not only was I pleased that IABC welcomed us, but they helped with great effort to make sure we would be successful. During the unconference, the attendees were very engaged, supportive and provided important feedback. Another unconference next year?!    

Challenges

• Wifi - Ugh! For us that do not live in Canada, wifi was ever so important. Data feeds on our mobile devices turn into highway robbery when traveling out of our home country. No wifi limited our real-time interaction, updating non attendees on the conference news, and created a lot of frustration. I'm really hoping for free hotel wifi coverage in San Diego for 2011!
• Internal communication and social media - Where were the social media sessions for internal communicators? I especially didn't see anything on the docket for advanced knowledge, next steps, and best practices for us internal folks. I already know what social media is and am using it. But now what? This area felt like a real gap.
• More case studies, less vendors - I'd love to see more of the real stories from communication leaders. I want to know how and what they have done to resolve the communication concern. A session from Wm. Amurgis regarding his new intranet was exactly what I we needed to hear. Hearing from a speaker in a session that wants me to sign up to his website for a free evaluation is not real help. It's just frustrating.
• Social media - Let's make next year the banner year for social media integration. Ask for attendees and volunteers to get involved. This shouldn't just be in addition to the basics. Its time to just make it a norm.

File under, somebody may care

• Help me make better decisions - The session descriptions need extra detail. I'd love to see a skill level assigned to each session, i.e. beginner, intermediate, advanced. This will help attendees gauge expectations and get the right people in the right session.
• Mobile conference guides - I'd like to see apps for the iPhone, Blackberry and Android that include general conference and session information. Less paper equals more money in the bank.

In all, IABC was worth my time and money. I am pleased in the efforts everyone made to create a powerful learning space and a space to let down my hair and shake my groove thing (thanks for the dance Heather!). Now it's time to start planning for 2011 in San Diego!

Next up, pictures, memories and the unusual from my trip to Toronto.

Communicators invade Canada!

Over 1400 communicators are headed toward the great Maple Leaf this weekend. It’s time for the annual IABC World Conference where communicators gather to share, collaborate, create and enjoy a fun city.

With so many great minds and opportunities, what am I expecting? Here’s my list of top “to dos”.

• Share and learn in a three hour unconference focusing on emerging technologies, trends and the future of communication. (shameless plug for a session I am co-facilitating)
• Develop new relationships that will inspire me and allow me to help others.
• Discover the next big communication thing – social media 2.5?
• Plant the seeds for greater interaction between IABC chapters.
• Reconnect with IABC folks met at past conferences.
• Dive into Toronto culture and enjoy great food and sights. A few things on my cultural list.
• Try Lee on Kings Street for a delicious meal!
• Harry Potter fans will enjoy a special exhibition at the Ontario Science Centre. $5.00 audio tour is a must. Great gift shop too.
• Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) for great architecture and all things cultural.
• Hop on the metro to compare the difference between other subway systems. It’s also a great way to get to know the city.
• The CN Tower of course. Views galore.
• Shopping throughout the different districts.
• Check out the IABC Reception after-party, O Canada Party. I hear it could be crazy fun.
• Start the conversations for next year’s conference.
• Swap my international souvenir at The International Souvenir Swap (TISS) Tweetup 5-6PM on Jun 7.
• Have a blast in all that I do and all that I connect with!

What’s on your agenda? How will you make the most of your time at the IABC World Conference and in Toronto?

Sifting through the numbers

It's a jungle in there. Where? In the Apps store of iTunes of course. Did you know there are more than 10,000 applications available for the iPhone? If you've surfed the app store, you realize how overwhelming it is to find something meaningful. Especially if you're expected to pay for it. Seriously, how many digital clocks, lighters, fart sounds, or light saber applications does one need? Then you find something that looks great. Yet, there is a price associated with it. AKA, not free. Should I splurge and pay for it? The screenshots look ok. But $4.99? Just to keep track of my nail clippings? Hmmm, tough call.

Worry no more friend. The folks over at LivingSocial have created a place to share the apps you use and offers your likes and dislikes. It's hopefully going to be the place to read all about the apps that you are thinking about purchasing. You do have to join before adding or reading information on their site. Alsol know this section of their site is new. So not a ton of members yet. But worth a look. You will definitely be a hit the next time you're at a party and you swamp iPhones and compare apps. You're gonna have the best and newest apps there. Trust me.

livingsocial iphone apps

More iphone info:
reviews by video
iphone arm
iphone atlas
doggy treats
hacks