media

What can communication professionals learn from the NYT Innovation report?

Media as an industry has an ability to cannibalise itself. Journalists are by nature inquirers and investigators. They look for the story and have a need to present it. It is not surprising then that a mountain has been written about the NYT internal Innovation Report. The leak of report, along with the executive departure drove a lot of speculation, commentary, opinion, and tweetage.

That a major media organisation would prepare a strategic thought-paper on the future impacts of their market should not be surprising. The Innovation report is a significant thought piece with real lessons for industries well beyond its implications for the paper itself, media and publishing.

Nieman Lab does an excellent job of examining the implications from the media industry perspective.

Beyond the media

There is also some excellent analysis of the content of the report from other commentators, looking at it as a call to action for an organisation needing to reinvent in a changing market.

David Armano’s perspective is a standout, categorising the insights into the four topics of agility, culture, talent and customer-centricity.

David Armano’s dissection of the strategic elements of the NYT Innovation Report

 

Ezra Klein at Vox highlights the report’s excellent explanation of distruption. This diagram explains the three modes of disruption in the clear style you would expect from NYT writers.

NYT Innovation report’s explanation of disruption, via Vox.

Australian workplace and digital analyst Paul Wallbank extracts three lessons for businesses: being digital first, breaking down the silos, and ensuring your business is discoverable.

Six lessons for communicators

The full report is worth the investment of time to read by any communicator, change agent or strategist.

There are a number of change studies that demonstrate that effective context-setting is an important part of enabling employees to sense-make during change. By providing clear background to the market your organisation operates in, you are preparing the field for proactive or reactive initiatives in the future. The NYT Innovation report is an interesting and important model of what that contexualised call to action can be.

There are six themes outlined in the NYT Innovation Report that provide a very simple compass for internal communicators considering how to reach employees who are time poor, information-laden and who have different needs.

1. Discovery

“We need to think more about…packaging our work in more useful ways” With the volume of information growing, reduction and control become limited-success strategies. How do you ensure your content is discoverable, at the right time?

2. Promotion

Ensuring information is promoted means not just ‘publishing’ but by sharing, by amplifying, and by use of peers. There is a fine balance between push and spam. Segmentation becomes critical, as does understanding the needs of the employee to target promotion of relevant, useful content.

3. Connection

Seeking ways to ensure audiences – employees – can participate, comment, create and contribute is an essential component of communication, engagement and change. Whether though user generated content, internal ‘crowdsourcing’, communities, and networks, connection is the the key to relevance and ultimately the path to engagement.

4. Experimentation

Promoting active experimentation, the capacity to fail fast, iterate and learn is a core skill and critical to building the agility of any communication function. Experimentation and connection can work in partnership, through the use of pilot groups, advisory communities and user experience (UX) work.

5. Influencers

In complex environments, the role of the subject matter expert, the thought leader or the process lead extends to filtering and amplifying key information, themes and messages relevant to their specialisation. Collaborative platforms and enterprise social networks enable this.

6. Market context

The competitor cheat sheets in the report are succinct and frank. Do you provide employees with concise information about the others in your market? Is this information purely product and service comparison, or does it go deeper into comparative strengths and weaknesses.

Your view

I’m interested in communicators views on all aspects of the report – the content, the format, the debate and analysis surrounding its leak. Join the conversation by leaving a comment.

 

Release Control of the Corporate Narrative—and Reap the Rewards | IABC World Conference

What lesson does Disney’s Frozen have for internal communicators?

In the lead up to the IABC World Conference, this came up in the conversation with Natasha Nicholson, Executive Editor of IABC’s CW Magazine about how transmedia storytelling is changing the game for internal communication.

We discuss the difference between stories and story worlds, seeing the corporate story from multiple perspectives and the idea that sometimes, communicators need to ‘let it go’ when it comes to trying to control the message.

A good story is still a good story, but the ways in telling it are now very different and the ways of sharing it are a lot more open.

Release Control of the Corporate Narrative—and Reap the Rewards | IABC World Conference.

The full interview runs 14 minutes and is available here.

IABC World Conference Banner

What communication channels didn’t exist when you were born?

A brief history of all things internal communication, part 1. Channels.

A history of communication channels

What channels didnt exist when you were born?

I have started developing an interactive timeline of the history of internal communication. The finished product will include developments in organisational theory, management practice, technology and key thought leaders and their impact on communication.

Part one of the timeline includes some notable milestones in communication technology and channels. I’ve included an overlay of the birth years for boomers, gen Y and millenials.

What communication channels didn’t exist when you were born?

Are there any channels you think should be included?

Next – key management theory and practice that influenced the development of internal communication.

Stepping into the conversation

One of the benefits of not being a bleeding edge early adopter is that there is much wisdom and experience to be drawn from the pioneers who have learned the hard way. It is the equivalent of being at a busy intersection and choosing the right time to merge. There will never be a complete break in the traffic, but at least you know what you are joining.

Experienced tweeps are going to find this post a case of stating a range of obvious observations, so apologies to you in advance. You are the people I am learning from, so thank you. However, I know a number of communicators who think they may need to do more to understand these channels but are not quite sure of how to step in. For you, here are some of my early observations.

Working within an organisation, I had been a passive observer of twitter for over two years, had researched best use and had even been involved in the formulation of social media policies. I had been waiting on the kerb.

It was not until the 2010 Federal Election that I found my stride, began exploring applications such as hootsuite and tweetdeck, learned some of the etiquette of hashtags, and how to create lists to wrangle the growing sources of information and ideas. In trying out these tools, I am finding that my twitter use has grown in recent weeks. 

I have been watching behaviour. One of my main interests during the election was the degree to which these tools were being used authentically, only to observe the range of pollies who jumped in, uncomfortable and managed. There seem to be an equal number of businesses who have a twitter account but clearly don’t know why (“everybody else was crossing…”)

Over the past few months there have also been some notable public train wrecks and PR disasters amongst journos, sports stars and others who have struggled with the public/private nature of the medium, and with businesses who have applied the communication practices of the past to the new world and damaged their credibility in the process.  

I have also begun to see how many NGO and other dot orgs are using these tools to enlist, engage, enrage and encourage. Then there are the companies who have already ‘got it’, who are intelligently conducting business with their customers by being in the dialogue in an authentic way.

As illustrated at the Media140 conference last week (#media140) (and in today’s twitstorm arising from the outing of an anonymous blogger by the News Ltd paper the Australian #groggate), the acceptable norms of behaviour are still being defined in this medium.

Within the communication industry, there has been a substantial growth in the range of eduction, consulting, and ‘expertise’. There are many good resources and these are questions that professional communicators are taking seriously. (I follow many of these in my range of lists). There are others who don’t know whether to join the traffic or not.

For me, twitter is an opportunity to get prompted about a diverse range of ideas, sources and interests. I hope to take the lessons of those who have become expert at sharing information that is useful with their communities, to be succinct and relevant, to occasionally be a little irreverent. I hope to join conversations and start discussion. I have decided on a strategy. 

I’m stepping in.