Comms Offensive 325

Reaching 10,000…and looking back

As you can probably tell, having promised to do a recap of the major pieces discussed in CommsOffensive325 a couple of months ago, I’ve been resisting the idea of looking back, critiquing my previous work, and re-presenting it back to my readers.

But with the 10,000th StatCounter page hit set to come within the next week at the current rate of readership, I figure it is finally time to plumb the archives and highlight what’s still potentially relevant, and also to identify one area where I was wide of the mark.

Essentially, there have been five major themes discussed here:

·                     Engaging Engagement: Along with social media, the biggest topic of discussion in the industry has been “employee engagement.”  But while it is a popular concept, it is not one with a common definition, and the lack of rigor around how the employee’s role in engagement is defined runs the risk of it being yet another top-down-one-size-fits-all (TD OSFA) exercise that could further alienate employees rather than harness their engagement effectively.  CommsOffensive325 offers an alternative approach to considering employee engagement here, and even identifies a multi-dimensional engagement model.

·                     Externalizing Internal Communication:  For much of its history, internal communication was seen as a sideline or even a poor relation of the external communication/public relations domain. But the spread of the Internet and the increasing connection between stakeholders prevents an opportunity for strategic practitioners to claim certain ‘external’ stakeholders as part of the internal universe.  This can be particularly powerful in businesses and industries where there is a clear boundary between those who care and those who are indifferent.

·                     Challenging The Culture and Priorities of the Profession:  The role and orientation of the internal communication profession has also received some attention here.  Should the profession raise competence as its highest virtue, or should the highest virtue be the effectiveness which communicators champion organizational outcomes? And should the profession be more inclined towards challenge than complacency and politeness?

·                     The Communicator as Advocate:  Much has been written elsewhere about the optimal role of the organizational communicator as either a journalist, facilitator or channel manager.  CO325 outlines an alternative perspective, that of the “advocate.”

·                     IABC:  Finally, and least wisely, much ink in CO325 was spent on challenging IABC, its approach and its methods of governance.  Having spent the last year as a board member at the Netherlands and European level, I’ve become convinced that those involved in IABC—at the headquarters under President Julie Freeman—and among the volunteer leadership—have their hearts in the right place and have a solid idea about where to take things.  More to the point, rather than showing resistance to bold ideas, they’ve shown a reasoned receptivity to alternative views—including a reshaping of the upcoming regional Leadership Institute in Europe, which will be a subject of a July posting.

Of course, there is more in the archives.  In all CO325 has published 56 items of varying lengths over little more than a year. 

For the most part, these items are still of reasonable timeliness—and ultimately, aside from social media (an issue for further discussion), the fundamental dynamics of internal communication have not changed in years.  The fundamental understanding, on the other hand, improves by the day, thanks to readers like you who are willing to take the time to consider an alternative perspective.

For those of you who’ve been part of CO325’s 10,000 page views since December 2006, a heartfelt thanks.