Internal-communication | Bertrand Duperrin's Notepad

Internal communication and the available brain time syndrom

December 15, 2011 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Summary : the recent evolution of intranets make internal communication face many new challenges. First they have to broadcast their message on a information system that’s more and more split and where their own media will be less and less a mandatory landpage, capture users’ attention while everything (and even the interest of the enterprise) make the latter focus on more productive activities. Internal communication will have to reinvent its cornerstones on concepts like “sense”, “contexte”, “split media” and “attention”. Successful communication will be the one that will find its place in a decentralized and contextualized digital universe.

The purpose of internal communication is to deliver the corporate message, to inform employees. The purpose of employees is to do their job. One of the enterprise and managers’s biggest concern is to prevent key resources wasting, people’s time and attention being one of them.

The way internal communication, employees, managers and the enterprise try to meet their goals, each of them paying very little attention to the others’ concers is quite funny to observe from an external standpoint. It’s more worrying from an internal standpoint.

Communication communicates, everywhere it can, where it has the more chances to meet their audience. So, logically, on the intranet when internal communicants makes anything to be sure their message is well placed, occupy most of the screen. A little bit like brands fighting to have to best place to display their ads in cities.

Messages are hierarchized in a way that’s logical for any headquarters person : the most important is the corporate news, then branches news, then business units new etc…

As for them, employees focus on what matters to them. To such and extent that, when an intranet is mainly dedicated to corporate communication, the first thing the do is to close the window that automatically opens when they launch their browser because it’s been used as a mandatory home page. They focus first on what’s related with their word, then their close environment, then what’s happening elsewhere in the organization and, last, the far and neutral corporate message. In short that’s exactly the opposite of the way internal communication is hierarchized. There’s another funny side : when internal communication says something that really matters for a given employee, the employees seldom manage to find the information.

Hence surprises when one have a look at the “transformation rate” of corporate news even if they are pushed on employees’ homepages. Wide broadcasting, mandatory display…and few reading.

Managers can have a different analysis : communication tries to capture employee’s attention, what is resource they try to protect from any distraction that’s not immediately useful and productive.

In the end it seems that the goals of the ones are contradictory with the goals of the others and that the success of needs the failure of the others. But, from a global standpoint, it’s essential to reconcile all parts. Yes, employees should focus on their mission and businesses need to deliver their message and news because it improves engagement, understanding, situational awareness etc… But is it possible to find a balance ?

Welcome to communication departments 2.0 (or social com’ depts)

October 13, 2011 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Summary : with new generation intranets coming in the workplace, many departments will have to redefine their role in these new systems…and even acquire one. Among them, communications departments. Intranet has been their prerogative for a long time but its new nature leads them to share it and redefine their own strategy. Embarrassed, they’re struggling at taking the lead or do it in a clumsy way. “Social” communication departments will need to master new lever that are, among others, viralization, information lifecycle, new ways of sourcing and take into account a factor that’s been ignored till them : employees’ attention at work.

Among the corporate departments impacted by the emerging new ways of working and the tools that come with, communication departments are in front line. We often talk about HR, management (middle or not), considering, even wrongly, that their job is to do a top-down business and that they have nothing to do in 2.0 things. This is a huge mistake because they are often in charge of driving things that go beyond their dedicated field without having been prepared for that or are been told that the brand new social intranet 2.0 is coming and that they need to find their place in. In short, as I had to witness these last months, even when they have the power, communication departments are often left alone in this change process.

They have to quickly face a challenge that’s both clear and complex : position themselves, their business, strategy and operating models in this new environment that is coming, whether they want it or not.

Some jumbled hints….

• What role ?

The role of a communication department is to ensure that the corporate message is broadcasted to employees and is understood by them. This is something that won’t change.

• What field ?

With the next generation of intranets coming, the game field is becoming much wider. And communication departments are wondering how they’ll drive all these things. Their field will stay the same (corporate message), the social networking part being more for people in charge of collaboration, business units and teams. To quote a sentence I recently heard : “ok….the range of the tool is wider…I need to find what my zone is and what I have to leave to others because even if I own the intranet, a part of it is out of my competences and goals”.

That doesn’t mean that a smart communication department should not use the social networking part in a direct (sourcing) or indirect (virality) way.

• What operating models?

This is a domain where things are moving fast, for two reasons. The first is that the coming of new intranets combining traditional communication tools with social networking ones makes new things possible. Second is that’s a good news because the way things used to be done was not relevant anymore.

Broadcasting a message does not mean putting it in front of employee’s eyes to consider the job has been done. First because it does not mean the message was read. Employees attention being limited, if the message does not meet a present need they move to something more important. Then because reading the message does not mean understanding it. Last, the message could be of no interest for some people today but become essential tomorrow. What makes new way of operating necessary.

First, why remove a message when another one comes ? Haven’t you heard about the long tail ? That’s not because something has to be said that what was said before becomes irrelevant, useless. Instead of removing let the archives accessible and when employees will search a matter not only they’ll find this content but a “like”-like button will help them share it with their network.

The “like” is the bridge between corporate communication and social networking. It will help those who have read your message to share it with their contacts that did not (or did not want) and will pay more attention to it if a trusted person says it’s worth. Doing this you add virality to your toolbox. Before you could only force a message on people’s home page, now you’ll be able to use your readers as promoters and reach people who seldom have a look at what you say.

Note that with these two systems you’re discovering two concepts that are quite new in internal communication : longer lifecycles for you content and better broadcasting through virality.

Now comes the problem of having the message understood. It needs feedback and conversation mechanisms. “What ? People will be able to react to corporate contents ?”‘ Why not. In fact they’re alreay doing but in you back. The question is to know whether your goal is to display the message or make sure people get it. More and more organizations are doing things that way and no one has died…

Internal communication and social media : move the filter !

May 3, 2011 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Summary : with the coming of social media in the workplace and the need for internal communication teams to let go and don’t care about what is not their responsibility, the question of information filtering is more important than ever. With the increase in the number of information sources and the need for communication team to fall back on their core duties, information has to be managed at the user lever on both a qualitative and quantitative standpoint. So filters will have to move : formerly set at the publishing level, it needs to move to the receiver level and rely on two pillars. A human one in order to make the concept of social filtering fully operative at a wide scale in the workplace (what is also a major issue in terms of training…). A technological one then because, until today, the social filter has not worked as expected and, moreover, the increase in volume of information will imply the use of intelligent tools to compensate for humans. Filtering is not about authorizing people to publish anymore but about filtering what they receive based on relevance in context.

Before, everything was clear : communication in the enterprise was the job of a dedicated communication department who decided what people needed to know and didn’t care about how employee reacted to this information. Today, this department is not the only source of information and any employee, team, unit will have its own voice.

Please notice that it’s a significant improvement. For what I can see, 2 or 3 years ago, most of the communication departments were more likely to fight against this uncontrolled form of information broadcasting while, today, most of them seem to have understood they need to share the power. That doesn’t mean they are very comfortable with this new challenge, what is is quite logical, but they’re now trying to find how to go with change rather than block it. Remember that it’s not obvious at all for a traditional BE2 team to support an E2E approach and that, instead of criticizing them, helping them to deal with this transformation is a more constructive approach.

It raises two questions : the first is about the place of the communication department on a socialized intranet and the second is about controlling the global information flow.

On Intranets 2.0 : one person but several roles and attitudes

February 3, 2011 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 1 Comment

Summary : There’s, in the 2.0 mythology, a belief according to which tomorrow’s intranets will be nothing more than social networks and where individuals will be more important than the traditional organic components of the organization. It raises an important question : are social networks the right place for corporate communication. That’s a nice and attractive concept but that’s not much realistic. It’s important to distinguish discussions from official communication (even if this latter can be the subject of a discussion) and, most of all, the person from the position. As a matter of fact, people change and pass while the position and the corporate identities need a continuity of digital identity.

We know that one things that’s peculiar to intranets 2.0 is to make exchanges possible everywhere, on any subjet. We hear, and for good reasons, that intranets are getting networked. But does it means that they’ll become social networks. I don’t think so. As a matter of fact, networks put people on the same level, regardless to hierarchy while this situation may not be desirable in all conditions.

The difference between a social network and a traditional intranet is that, in the first, people represent themselves while in the second they embody a function. Let’s take the example of John Smith, head of communition, and Jenny Jones, a new hired junior who just joined John’s department.

On the traditional intranet, when John speaks, it’s as the head of communiction. His words are the words of the organization, he’s delivering a kind of truth (at least a corporate one). In fact he does not always sign with his name because it’s the department that’s speaking and, even if John may leave tomorrow, the words have to stay. That’s a situation where a person temporalily embodies an impersonal reality. Tomorrow, John may either leave of get a new position within the organization while the department, that has been existing before him, will still extist after him. In some ways that’s a role that’s lent to hum by the organization and he has to return it in good state when he leaves..

If John speaks on the social network, people will, of course, have in mind who he is when they’ll discuss with him. But, on the network, he’s John Smith before all and embodies his own ideas. He can join discussions, share his opinions but, unless he comes to make the corporate message clearer, he represents nothing but himself. Such a person that “goes down” to the network is respected because of his position but will need to go further and contributes “as himself” to gain recognition form all users. Moreover, on the network, he can join discussions about anything that interests him and is not locked into communication issues.

Confusion may be risky and misunderstandings worry organizations. So, thinking that the organization will officially communicate on the network does not look relevant. When John speaks on the intranet, his voice his the voice of the organizations, when he’s on the network is rather looking for conversations, insights, ideas. He can ever use the network to discuss and listen before making a decision.

The case of Jenny is even more interesting. She publishes on the “‘official” part of the intranet but never in her name because she only edits and shares texts that are validated by the hierarchy. The “authority” of her texts does not rely on her position but on her role. Once on the network, what she says only have as much legitimacy as the recognition she’s given on a given topic, based on her previous contributions. What has nothing to do with her position.

Two kinds of authority, two roles but one person. Being able to distinguish the one from the other is essential.

One may make me remark I recently said that even the official part of the intranet should be open to comments and discussions. I still belive it should. My point here is not about “socialization”, but about making people’s voices clearer. Depending on the context and the nature of the message, people will not react the same way, with the same voice, as diplomatically.

We can also try to find subterfuges, like saying that “Communication Department” or “Innovation” department, are members of the network as if they were real people, what would help them to exist regardless to the person in charge. We can also notice that on Facebook, some people have one account for their friends and one for their business contacts. But I don’t think this would respect the spirit of what we’d like to achieve.

Of course, everything should be done ta favor interactions and have less and less “unembodied” messages, but some compromises have to be found depending on the nature of the message, the person who carry it, its “legal” force etc.. Everything is social, everything can be discussed but it seems obvious that intranet needs a special section in order to clearly identify official contents and those that, even if issued by the same person,

Bien sur il faut favoriser les échanges et l’incarnation des messages mais il y a toute une gamme de compromis à trouver en fonction de la nature du message, de son émetteur (entité officielle ou personne), de son porteur, de sa force dans la “légalité interne” etc…. Tout est social, tout est discutable…mais penser que l’intranet ne peut se passer d’une zone “officielle” afin de baliser de manière indiscutable certains contenus me semble indispensable.

Filed Under: Intranets and digital workplace, Management & HR Tagged With: Communication, internal-communication, intranet, intranet 2.0, socialization

A central corporate department is in charge of your enterprise 2.0 project ? Some traps to avoid

January 5, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

An enteprise 2.0 project (or whatever the name it’s given) can be carried by many different kind of people or departments. A dedicated joint team (what is ly prefered choice), HR dept, Communication Dept, IT dept… This is something that has to be thought about upstream but in many cases someone takes the leadership and starts the engine. There is no perfect solution but some traps to avoid when a central corporate department is in charge.

So sum it up in one line : B2E professionals struggle to do E2.E. Don’t worry, it doesn’t matter and it’s logical. The only things to do is take the necessary precautios and everything will be fine. Beyond this abstruse formulating, let’s see what’s the reality behind…

Let’s consider, for instance, a project driven by the communication department or the HR department. They are B2E departments, what stands for “Business to employees”. These departments usually address employees in a vertical and one way fashion. If these departments take the lead on the project that’s often because they can see the limits of their current model and try to improve their efficiency. For instance the Com’ Dept can think that wat matter is not to deliver the message (what is a means) but to ensure that it’s understood by all. Explaining things supposes to know if the message was understood, what are employee’s concerns. This implies a feedback channel and the ability to enegage conversations : hence the interest for 2.0 things when they understand that expressed or not doubt is a doubt and the easier way to correct and react is to let the signal come to them. Of course, the scope of the project can be wider but this is the kind of concerns that are often at the beginning of an E2.0 project.

These depts are here for doing vertical stuff, and it’s necessary. The 2.0 logic is a part of a PDCA-like approach that helps to adjust and react in real time to improve their impact on the organization. That’s no that hard to understand provided people know have a clear vision of the expected results and what will happen, what is the best way to avoid last minute fears.

So everyhting is fine….until the day when the project blocks. The reason is known and foreseeable : the question of the possible use of tools par employees, at their initiative, for their own needs arises and, suddenly, projects leaders feel like their loosing control, that their project is running away from them. That’s normal : as I wrote above, their role is to do “B2E” things, and, even in a 2.0 approach, to keep the lead, the initiative, in one word : keep the process under control even it they try to democratize it. On their side, employees also need “E2E” stuff (stands for employees to employees” in order to facilitate their workaday work. So it should be an employee-driven process, for their own problems and, necessarily, practical-things-oriented on subjects on which, logically, and HR or Com dept does not have neither any hold nor any expertise or competence since that’s local management’s call.

How to understand and position enterprise 2.0 in the real enterprise

December 1, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 3 Comments

It’s time to sum up all the thoughts I had these last months. I tried to start from both the concerns expressed by C level managers asking for a global vision and ground managers who needed a “hands on” vision because they don’t have time to waste to try to understand such nebulous things. Having to focus on day to day delivery and short term objectives, many see such a fallen-from-the-sky (and on their head) gift as a source of misunderstanding and discomfort.

These concerns are not surprising at all : what is it, what does it bring, how does it work, how to position it and integrate it in the organization as it is today… Talking about a new discipline, lots of things were learnt from early adopters who worked on a “try / fail / improve” model and, in so doing, helped to build a knowledge and know-how corpus. As a matter of fact this corpus was build upon failed and successfull implementations that helped to refine some presupposition that were prevailing at their beginning. The whole helped “followers” to benefit from these experiences.

But we still have to be aware that that’s not by saying “that’s that, that’s not that, one must, one must not” that things will improve. Businesses need to undersand the path that lead to these conclusions to make them theirs, and we all know what happens when one content himself with copying a result without understanding what reasonning often leads to : lack of self-confidence, fear of the unknown, defensive attitude….then failure.

Rather than proposing an attractive future at the end of a vague road, let’s start from what actually exist to build the future. This will also help to explain the “why”, relying on what can be learnt from past experiences.

Why email isn’t so good

September 28, 2006 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Email has become the real company’s killer app. Easy to use, no teaching needed, quick delevery…really a great tool isn’t it? In fact if email can be good for some things it may also have a negative impact in your organization. Let’s see why and, possibly, find alternative solutions.

A real killer app

I think my introduction’s enough to prove it. In fact email is the minimal level of IT use, everyone now master it. It’s also a tool we use at home so we’re very familial with it. No need to learn, inexpensive, quick… that’s perfect! It’s so perfect that we often neglect its negative side, perharps because we don’t see it, perharps because we’re to lazy to try to communicate other ways, perharps because we don’t have alternative tools.

Beware of email abuses

You surely know risks due to email’s content: confidential information, personnal mails in a professional context… but we also have to consider risks due to the use of email by itself.

1°) I send, you receive

I send you an email, y receive it..and so you treat it. Considering that is a big mistake. Email’s recipient have his own job, his own planning and may be very busy at the time he receives the mail. Plus, I’m not the only person who mails him. And if I’m used to sending mails for any reason he may consider that there’s very few chances my mail contains something interesting…so he’ll read it later…if he has time.

If my mail is very important I can affect it a “very high priority”. But, as everybody does it, I’m not sure it will be very usefull. I also may call him to say “Hi, I’ve someting very important to ask you…it’s in the mail”. So no need to mail since you have to call.

2°) It’s just a mail

I’m often stunned when I see in wich ways emailing has made people neglect their communication. When you phone or write a letter you try to be polite, at least to be human. “Hello, how are you…how about…Ah! I’d like you to do something very important…”. Now you can find messages without any “hello”, neither any “thanks”…only a “do this”. Or only an attached document or a link to a document without any explaination. What am I suppose to do? Make a report, acknowledge I now know this information?

Consider also that the recipient receives at least..50…100…150 mails a day. Imagine you send this message “hello Bob, I’d like you to……please call me if you have any question or comment about it or if you’re too busy. Thanks. Jim.” Now, compare it to “please to that”. Sometimes there’s even no “please”.

Which task do you think the guy will make in priority? And would you be surprised if he was less motivated to treat the second mail, and if he would not be very pleasant when he will physically meet the sender of the second message?

3°) Wonderfull! I can send my message to a lot of people at the same time!

So you can be sure of two things. First you’ll bother a lot of people. Second you’ll forget people who would be interested…just because you don’t know them. What’s important is that the message is known by people who need it, not less and not more.

In these case, people ofter answer using the “reply to all” function…so that make hundred emails to read to known if you’re concerned or not.

As a conclusion, the stake of email abuses does not only impact information’s delivery but also productivity and interpersonnal relationship. So, what to do to be more efficient in information delevering? [Read more...]