Inside the Cubicle

Internal Communications Channels Study

Today, Edelman Change and Employee Engagement (my practice) publicly released the third annual "New Frontiers in Employee Communications" study (If you don't want to read 32 pages, you can check out the main findings in the release).

Let me get several things out of the way:

1. I was heavily involved in the research and writing of this work. This is one of the few times that I will ever use this blog to discuss work that I have done. (The disclaimer on the right still applies here)
2. The purpose of this study is to examine the use and effectiveness of internal communications channels; although it spends a great deal of time discussing new media tools the hope is to provide a comprehensive picture of the different channels available to corporate communicators.
3. This is not a scientific study. While we concentrated on a small sample (Fortune 500 and large, global companies) in hopes of being able to generalize to that group, we probably received a disproportionate number of participants from companies engaged in new media initiatives. Also, because so few companies have implemented new media, the sample size for some individual questions is relatively low. In other words, do not take these results as gospel; draw your own conclusions based on the findings and methodology.
4. Like most studies that have looked at corporate use of new media, the answers tend to be biased toward a neutral response. In other words, a lot of people say "I don't know," or rate things as a three on a five-point scale.

What I think is important from the study:

• Corporate communicators need to become better educated about the variety of channels available to them. It is not enough to leave it up to the self-proclaimed "new media" experts. In a year or so, this stuff will not be "new" anymore.
• A lot more organizations are using new media than you would think - only they are doing it internally where the risks are lower and there is a more immediate and tangible effect on the business.
• If I were to put my money on the channel that will have the greatest impact on businesses it would be wikis, as they are the most dynamic of the tools.
• It is critical that all communications channels be viewed as part of an integrated communications strategy. When this occurs, employees get relevant content with context. When communications are fragmented, employees just get a lot of noise.
• Internal communications strategy will be a key differentiator for organizations as they battle for the next generation of talent.

How does this study stack up?

Previously on this blog, I have been critical of other studies of corporate new media use. I stand by those comments, and make no claims that this study does not contain many similar flaws. This is a fast-moving space that is hard to effectively track and measure. In order to provide context and let you draw your own conclusions, here are some other works that examine similar issues:

• Makovsky 2006 State of Corporate Blogging Survey (May 2006)

• Northeastern University & Backbone Media Blogging Success Study (November 2006)

• Corporate Blogging Survey 2005: Is It Worth The Hype? (Backbone Media)

• Cymfony and Porter Novelli Corporate Blog Survey (July 2006)

• Weblogs and Employee Communication: Ethical Questions for Corporate Blogging (Institute for Public Relations, June 2006)

• Organizational Blogs and the Human Voice: Relational Strategies and Relational Outcomes (Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, January 2006)

• 2006 Workplace E-Mail, Instant Messaging & Blog Survey (American Management Association and e-Policy Institute, July 2006)

• Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki (Socialtext, last updated in October 2006)

• Fortune 500 Blog Project Wiki (Directed by Teresa Valdez Klein of Blog Business Summit and Easton Ellsworth of Know More Media)

• The Hype is Real: Social Media Invades the Inc. 500 (University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research, January 2007)

• The Voice of the Blog: The Attitudes and Experiences of Small Business Bloggers Using Blogs as a Marketing and Communications Tool. (Jeffrey Hill, unpublished master's thesis,  University of Liverpool, 2005)

• NewPR Wiki (contains lists of corporate blogs and executive bloggers, ongoing)

• Socialtext Customer Stories (case studies of wiki use from companies such as Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Nokia, Ziff Davis and Kodak, ongoing)

If you know of any others, please let me know and I'll add them to the list.

Lastly, my hope is that this study will serve to spur conversations among corporate communicators about how to strategically use internal communications channels to drive business goals and what the role (if any) for new media may be in that mix.  As always, comments, questions and criticism are welcome and I will do my best to provide helpful responses.

Cleaning up your online identity

Interesting article today on NPR's Morning Edition about company's sprouting up to help people manage their online reputations.

They mention two companies, Reputation Defender and Naymz that will monitor your online identity and assist in dealing with unwanted information.

Great quote from Reputation Defender founder Michael Fertik, "This is sort of a PR service for the everyday person. Celebrities have been using PR services at the cost of thousands of dollars a month for decades. Now we can do that for every person for less than $10 a month."

Why does this matter?

According to a recent survey from Careerbuilder.com:

• 26 percent of hiring managers say they have used Internet search engines to research potential employees
• 12 percent say they have used social networking sites in their candidate screening process

AND, more importantly...

• Among hiring managers who used Internet search engines to research job candidates, 51 percent did not hire the person based on what they found
• Of those who used social networking sites to research candidates, 63 percent did not hire the person based on what they found.

Have you checked out the average MySpace or Facebook page? They are filled with pictures of drunken escapes. Candidates in the recent elections came under fire when MySpace pages they started were linked to inappropriately dressed teens.

Is all of this fair? Probably not, considering the fact that one drank in college likely has little relevance to his or her ability to perform in the workplace.

But whether individuals think this is fair or not is irrelevant. Organizations are in the practice of protection - protecting themselves from employees who may perform poorly, expose them to liability, or simply reflect poorly on the organization.

Employers have limited information when they hire someone and given the choice between someone who has no online profile, and someone who has some questionable pictures on the Internet, they will go with what they perceive as the safer choice. 

My take:

The irony in all of this is that organizations should be looking for employees who are comfortable with social networking, as that is a valuable business skill in today's environment.

When employers (specifically in the communications field) run a Google search for an applicant and can't find anything, instead of being relieved they should be disturbed. After all, if you haven't accomplished anything worthy of at least getting a mention online, what exactly have you been up to?

That being said, like it or not employees are representatives of an organization and its brands - and the actions they take off the clock can have real consequences.

However, maybe the best answer if for companies to use this trend as an opportunity to have conversations with employees about appropriate online behavior. Instead of disqualifying an employee based on what you find, hire him or her based on skills and qualifications - and then talk with them about what you found and what expectations are going forward.

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Technorati Tags: Myspace, facebook, identity, hiring, employee

Employees are a leaky lot

We all know you can get fired for what you write on you blog (there is even a word for it) and fired for what you write on MySpace.

In fact, if you are careless about what you post online, you likely will not even get hired.

Fellow Edelman-er Alexandra Levitt pointed me to a newest trend that is likely to keep management up at night- sharing unauthorized information or rants on YouTube.

As the situations with the Department of Veteran Affairs and Coca-Cola this summer demonstrate, leaks by employees can be the result of carelessness, maliciousness or freak accidents.

One thing is for sure, breaches in security policy happen a lot more than we care to admit.

According to a recent study by Ponemon Institute, more than 79% of companies said that at least one security breach goes unreported.

The report also reveals:
"More than 61% of the survey respondents said that accidental data leaks occur 'frequently' or 'very frequently' because employees or contractors lack sufficient knowledge about preventative measures or because employees or contractors are careless. Almost half of respondents, or 48%, claimed that corporate sabotage, such as the deliberate destruction of IT equipment, occurs 'frequently' or 'very frequently' because employees or contractors are malicious or disgruntled."

Don't believe it? Take a look through the hundreds of internal corporate memos available for anyone who can scrap up a little dough.

What does this mean?

1. Make responsible behavior a topic of conversation - As I have said before, the purpose of guidelines for online activity is not to be restrictive, after all the gist of any guideline is "don't be stupid." However, what is important is to keep this top of mind for employees. Most employees do not want to get fired or even cause harm to their company. Most of the time, they don't even realize they are doing something wrong. Employees should encourage participation while educating employees.
2. Focus on people, not on policy - On balance, security breaches are not a failure of technology or policy, they are a failure of people. Don't want employees to carelessly leak data? don't hire careless people. Don't want disgruntled employees taking revenge? Make sure you are gauging employee attitudes and engagement. Sure this is an oversimplification, but it points to the fact that when looking at whether employees are the right fit, one needs to consider a lot more than operational competency.

Social media makes it easier for employees to share data. When used appropriately these tools result in a more productive and efficient workplace. However, the flip side is that when used improperly these tools can send sensitive information around the world in seconds.

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Technorati Tags: blogs, MySpace, YouTube, employees, leaks, security

Is that a ghost on your blog?

Debbie Weil, who has established herself as one of the premier sources on CEO blogging, instigates a healthy debate on whether it is appropriate for CEOs to have others ghostwrite their blogs, which may be a more popular practice than you think.

There are two questions which she poses on the International Association of Online Communicators blog.

Question 1: Is it okay to ghostwrite a blog
Commenters take - Most thought it is fine to ghostwrite a blog because it is no different than ghostwriting a speech or a letter from the CEO. However, there was concern that blogs are supposed to represent a more genuine form of communication and that this somehow flies in the face of that principle.

My take - Having a ghostwriter publish a post, respond to a comment or leave a comment on another blog on behalf of a CEO, without the CEO directly approving the content as coming from him or her is unethical. It violates the Word of Mouth Marketing Association's guidelines on honesty of identity. This is a bad idea for several reasons:

1. You will likely be outed, which will be embarrassing and make you look silly
2. One of the fundamental aspects of the online space is transparency of identity. It is a key to trust and credibility.
3. It serves little purpose, as a blog by a middle-manager can carry as much weight as that of a CEO (see: Scoble)

Questions #2: Should the ghostblogger reveal him or herself
Commenters take - Probably not, as this would defeat the whole point of having a ghostblogger.

My take - See answer to question #1. If you are going  to have someone write about the CEO's thoughts, he should write, "So I was talking to CEO X the other day..." or some sort of variation of that.

Conclusion: There are reasons why there are not a ton of CEO bloggers. The things that make the blogosphere thrive - candid conversations, rapid responses, interaction with critical audiences - do not led themselves well to the requirements of the position. (See current issue with McDonald's CSR blog involving executive Bob Langert)

The is little to gain, and a lot to lose by trying to fit a CEO into the mold of a blogger by using a ghostwriter.

Here are a few alternative options:
- Have a blog for official statements by the CEO, or a blog that tracks actions of the CEO (visits to sites, interesting meetings). It could be moderated by a staff member who could provide context. Sure, this would not have the personality usually associated with a blog, but any beat reporter would be obligated to pay attention (and subscribe to the RSS)
- Have an executive team blog. This spreads the responsibilities around, provides a diversity of opinions, and makes it easier for people to fully participate
- Don't have the CEO blog. Mid-level or front-line employees are likely to be viewed with less skepticism anyway and they do not carry with them the potential legal and financial consequences of a CEO blogger. In short, they offer less risk and an easier ROI.

 

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Technorati Tags: CEO, blog, Weil

My company almost gets it

Some of you may have noticed that my employer Edelman is working to do some nifty things with its employee-generated social media offerings, putting them all on one landing page.

Time for me to weigh in.

I think this is a great idea in principle. It showcases the thought leadership of individuals in our organization. It helps draw people to the site and helps build relationships with individuals who otherwise may not be aware of a public relations company.

BUT........they are only part of the way there.

Why are there only 17 blogs featured? (full disclosure: my blog will likely be added to the list). There are more than 2,200 employees around the world at Edelman and I refuse to believe that these are the only bloggers out there (In fact, I know they are not.) Who decided what blogs would be featured and what type of outreach did they make to employees?

Ideally, when they decided to move forward with this they would have let all employees know about the idea and invited all bloggers to join. They still have a chance to do this and I hope they do.

The whole point of this should be to build a community of bloggers and showcase the collective voice of the organization, the way the Sun does, or even the way that Edelman competitor Hill & Knowlton does.

Also, the homepage should feature the latest posts, not just descriptions of the blogs. Or maybe, the landing page could feature some type of rating/voting system and the top-rated articles could be pushed up to the homepage.

Additional thoughts:
- The blogs all seem to be written by senior-level employees. While this provides access to some of the great minds in our organization, I'd love to see more middle and entry-level voices.
- I love the global representation. I think it will be interesting to see the issues that arise from different regions.
- It will be interesting to see what happens in terms of post frequency, considering that most of the bloggers are rather sporadic in their posting. There is an increased accountability now as these bloggers represent the company more explicitly. It will look rather silly if they don't update the blogs, link properly or generate comments.

Conclusion: Building a community around social media is not all about the technology. It is not a tool that you turn on and let the magic happen. It involves communication. It involves asking EVERYONE to take part. It involves showing people what you are going to do and explaining why.

I think my employer got a little trigger happy in launching this initiative. This is not a bad thing....it shows a passion for this space, an interest in practicing what we preach, an interest in advancing the field. It is not a bad thing, as long as they listen to what the community has to say.

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Technorati Tags: Edelman, blogs, employees

When they leave, what goes with them?

Bosses on your back to show them the ROI of new media technologies within the enterprise?

Ask them to think about all the money they have spent paying, training, educating and generally investing in employees. Then think about what they get when that investment leaves? The answer is likley very little. In fact, the largest cost of turnover is not the costs associated with severance or recruiting, but the indirect costs of lost organizational knowledge.

I was listening to a Webinar a couple weeks ago on which Robert Scoble mentioned that when he left Microsoft, he left more than 1.5 Gigabytes of information in his email alone. What happens to this information now? It is archived for a couple weeks and likely lost forever. Even if someone were to try to sort through this, there would be no context for the information.

What if this information were on internal blogs and wikis? What if employees were encouraged to post there tricks for unjamming the copier or gave tips for closing a sale with the client?

Most of this information is useless or irrelevant on its own, but within its proper context and for particular individuals it would be invaluable. It is not about knowledge management, but rather about creating a community of information that allows employees to solve their own problems and find new solutions.

If organizations do not provide new media tools within the enterprise, employees will go elsewhere (del.iciio.us, flickr, MySpace, Blogger) to do what they want to do.

It is not so much that employers lose control over employees behavior in these situations, but that they lose any proprietary benefits associated with the information an employee develops, encounters or aggregates.

Presumably, you hire individuals because they are talented and are able to provide some value to your organization. If you engage them through new media technologies, you will be able to access, leverage and retain the information they possess, and it will become a competitive advantage.

(to give credit where credit is due, David Carter of iUpload, who I had the pleasure of having lunch with today, mentioned to me that he discussed this idea with Scoble a while ago)

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Technorati Tags: Employee, turnover, blog, Scoble, iupload

An intern leaves a mark (and it's a black-eye)

When we think about blogging policies for employees, we generally think about guidelines for posts.

However, a recent controversey developing between A-list blogger Jeff Jarvis and a commenter points to the need for communicating policies regarding commenting.

The full story is over at Jarvis' blog, but the summary is that Jarvis has a history ofvoicing his displeasure with Dell, and someone claiming to be a Dell employee left a comment critical of Jarvis. The story takes an interesting turn when it's revealed that the IP address of the commenter, who simply left his name as Chris, did not come from Dell, but instead is from GCI Group, Dell's PR agency. (Yes, they are a competitor of Edelman).

As my boss points out, this is a big no-no, and a blatant violation of the Word-of-mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) Code of Conduct. Naill Cook of H&K also weighs in to condemn the behavior.

What can learn here?

• Chris was likely acting on his own, without direction or approval of his company...but that makes no difference. From now on, this episode will stay on the internet to be Googled and generate discussion on the blogosphere.
• Internet does not equal anonymity. When you post something online (i.e., MySpace, facebook, blogs, etc.) work under the assumption everyone can see it and they can find out who you are
• There will likely be increasing ambiguity about about transparency and disclosure as the line between employee and consumer get blurred. What one may see as a conflict of interest, another may not even consider.(for instance, the e-mail used for this blog is jtreem@gmail.com, my personal e-mail. However, I say at the top of my blog I work for Edelman. Is this enough disclosure? After all, my blog is encouraged, but not financed by my employer. I am open to thoughts here)
• Lastly, the number of employees who have no idea what is appropriate online behavior is startling. What is even more sad is that these discussions do not seem to be occurring within agencies.

Why are engaged employees so important? Because engaged employees see the bigger picture, how they are their actions affect the business as a whole. Because employee behavior, even online and off-the-clock has real consequences.

- The credibility of rank-and-file employees is on the rise
- This generation has more loyalty to peers and less to their employer
- Individuals are consulting online sources more for important decisions

Sadly, we are likely in for a lot more of this type of behavior as individuals look to game the system.

It is critical that organizations generate discussions with employees about these issues. This stuff isn't rocket science, it is about being honest, straightforward and having something relevant to say.

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Technorati Tags: Dell, Jarvis, ethics, comments, GCI
 

I am not quitting yet

ABC News asks "Should You Quit Your Day Job to Blog."

The answer for 99.9999% of bloggers is no.

However, the larger point is that bloggers are finding that their ability to create relationships has real value. This is value that employee bloggers can bring to a brand or corporations.

One interesting theme that emerges in the article: The real money is in video, not text. This is something you will see increasingly with internal communications as organizations realize how easy and cheap it is to broadcast audio and video media.

In the end, it is all about telling stories, and stories are often more compelling with graphics.

This article also represents a shift in mainstream media. It seems that they finally understand the fact that social media may be around for a while.

Maybe it will take the loss of talent for organizations to realize how powerful individuals with social capital really are.

I have no plans to quit my day job just yet, but if someone wants to through me a few thousands in ad fees, I'm willing to listen (as long as it isn't a conflict of interest...of course).

 

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Technorati Tags: blogs, vlogs, video, employees, quit

Looking for community, use your own

Ben McConnell at Church of the Consumer Blog says what I have been saying all along.

What is the best way for your company to get involved in communities?

"Start internally. The affordability and ease of social media tools make it easy to launch community experiments. Get thee to a wiki. Bless thee with a blog!"

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Technorati Tags: community, internal, employees

Blogging safely and smartly at work

Computerworld has a nice article giving tips for employee bloggers.

The suggestions are:

1. Tell the truth - This includes both honesty and transparency.
2. Find your voice and stick to it - Blogs are like any media, the most engaging ones are the most popular.
3. Be professional at all times - Everything you do on a blog represents you and your organization, regardless of whether that is your intention or not.
4. Craft a corporate blogging policy - Employees are already blogging, companies already have communications policies; drafting a corporate blogging policy helps employees tie the two together.
5. Know your tools and use them - Take advantage of ways to increase you blog traffic and tracking tools. You don't have to be a programming expert to use blogs.

(thanks Phil)

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Technorati Tags: employees, blogs, rules