When classroom meets cubicle....
Bob's Anderson was insightful and effective, even when I with Best Buy every day. It is not every day that we are able to experience the client discuss openly the failures and successes of his career.
I found his discussion to be interesting, but I valued his analogy for deploying processes by coining it "cookbook process." Whether it is a new technology, a new process, or a new communication, it is essential for implementers to test and follow the process before implementing in the new environment. Too many changes in the environment can cause chaos and confusion- however if you follow the cookbook process to assure that it is a successful implementation.
Anderson stressed that the process affects the bottom line of the organization – from its financials to its employee engagement, more so the support of vendors and the importantly the internal support structure and executive support is essential.
Anderson revealed successes and failures in his discussion, however a good testing process and following the cookbook and having the key ingredients makes a successful adoption and implementation.
I thought more about my recent post to the discussion board- if you followed the cookbook process (the joys of implementing technology into the workforce) - for implementing communications- would the process seem as seamless?
Not all cultures are receptive and open to change and especially change in how they receive communications - so it is as easy as checking something off a list? We can control the implementation of technology- to an extent- watching the environment, anticipating the process problems, preparing the team for the changes- but communications is much harder to anticipate. It thrives from the its recepients so if the recepients reject it, it's much more difficult to "fix" than technological climate changes.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Distance makes the heart grow fonder?
Classroom
Thursday’s class allowed for us to research and examine the crisis communication involved in a pandemic flu. We discussed possible solutions, planning and best and worst case scenarios, but ultimately decided that regardless of how the information is disseminated to the campus, it has to be timely, accurate, credible information tailored to the specific audience.
Regardless of the scenario, of the atmosphere, in these cases, isn’t that information tailored successfully and delivered successfully because there is someone or in some cases something that is trained to handle crisis communications—trained in that it’s reliable, and dependable.
We resolved as a class that any planning should be organized in buckets- technology, organizational and ethical processes- all of which have the same goal in mind. It’s about change management because even through the process planning, it’s about the people and having people trained and prepared to handle this situation with or without technology.
Among the discussion about pandemic communication planning, we discuss distance learning and telecommuting and the accessibility of the intended audience. Is distance learning a model we should leverage for pandemic communication planning?
Cubicle:
I began to think if we had a crisis communication plan in place. I assume that I would be the party that would be trained to handle and distribute these communications. I know that a phone tree does exist and in fact that is how we would disperse critical emergency information. It seems like it makes communication even more delicate. I am charged with sending messages from the internal email mailbox- if a system outage occurs- I am contacted and I distribute to the 3000 employees.
We need to work on our crisis communication or even our support system for internal communication. But besides this – how would my client site handle a pandemic communication? Employees already complain about too many emails sent- I believe that it may be highly likely that if someone received an email from the internal mailbox- that some resources would probably delete it.
Distance learning is similar to “telecommuting” – it seems there is a stigma surrounding both. If you are not in the classroom, you are not learning. If you are not on the work site, you are not working. Disregarding those stigmas and ignoring the network issues that may occur (ie site access), you could really leverage these aspects for crisis communication/ even crisis situations.
Thursday’s class allowed for us to research and examine the crisis communication involved in a pandemic flu. We discussed possible solutions, planning and best and worst case scenarios, but ultimately decided that regardless of how the information is disseminated to the campus, it has to be timely, accurate, credible information tailored to the specific audience.
Regardless of the scenario, of the atmosphere, in these cases, isn’t that information tailored successfully and delivered successfully because there is someone or in some cases something that is trained to handle crisis communications—trained in that it’s reliable, and dependable.
We resolved as a class that any planning should be organized in buckets- technology, organizational and ethical processes- all of which have the same goal in mind. It’s about change management because even through the process planning, it’s about the people and having people trained and prepared to handle this situation with or without technology.
Among the discussion about pandemic communication planning, we discuss distance learning and telecommuting and the accessibility of the intended audience. Is distance learning a model we should leverage for pandemic communication planning?
Cubicle:
I began to think if we had a crisis communication plan in place. I assume that I would be the party that would be trained to handle and distribute these communications. I know that a phone tree does exist and in fact that is how we would disperse critical emergency information. It seems like it makes communication even more delicate. I am charged with sending messages from the internal email mailbox- if a system outage occurs- I am contacted and I distribute to the 3000 employees.
We need to work on our crisis communication or even our support system for internal communication. But besides this – how would my client site handle a pandemic communication? Employees already complain about too many emails sent- I believe that it may be highly likely that if someone received an email from the internal mailbox- that some resources would probably delete it.
Distance learning is similar to “telecommuting” – it seems there is a stigma surrounding both. If you are not in the classroom, you are not learning. If you are not on the work site, you are not working. Disregarding those stigmas and ignoring the network issues that may occur (ie site access), you could really leverage these aspects for crisis communication/ even crisis situations.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Mission, Vision & Values of..... second life?
Classroom:
Last class we spent some time watching a documentary on the "game" Second Life, which is invading more than the virtual game space, as we learned that more and more businesses and corporations are leveraging this virtual world. While it was interesting to see this well developed clever world, it didnt seem like something you could just decide to do some day. It is thorough, and complex but in a way that challenges our society and is an opportunity for people to be explorative and imaginative and none of that is bad, right?
I found an interesting youtube clip - second life introduction. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b72CvvMuD6Q- and discusses busines exploration and it is much more brief than Thursday's video.
Among the avatars and the islands, there was an important message portrayed in this video. One of the gamers talked at length about the shape of Second Life, the collaboration involved and the mission of the tasks involved in the collaboration. For instance, when building on property, there needs to be collaboration and a mission.
Cubicle:
Whenever I think mission, vision, values- I think about every employer I have had. Ithink about what it means to have a company's mission statement. In the business in which work, we tend to "align" with our client's values, vision, mission. Thinking about further, does that mean that by aligning to another company's mission statement, do we forget our own. Right now I can tell you my client's mission statement, but honestly I had to research my own. I know we teach our employees the core values, which revolve around emerging leadership and stewardship of our own people.
Official Company Definition: To help our clients become high-performance businesses and governments.
Now that I have researched and found my mission statement, you can apply these ideas from Second Life to the implementation to ICTs. Prior to implementing a communication vehicle, it is key to established its mission. We have several mediums which overlap in messaging but the mission of each seems to vary enough to justify their existence. Maybe what matters just as much as mission is the delivery and the frequency- maybe it's the entire communication package which affects its success and its failure.
Right now I'm processing how I can in fact find out not the mission of my newly redesigned enewsletter but how to gauge its success and its relevancy to our audiences.
Maybe I should experiment my mediums on Second Life- where all my explorative and creative communication tools can be implemented in a click!
Last class we spent some time watching a documentary on the "game" Second Life, which is invading more than the virtual game space, as we learned that more and more businesses and corporations are leveraging this virtual world. While it was interesting to see this well developed clever world, it didnt seem like something you could just decide to do some day. It is thorough, and complex but in a way that challenges our society and is an opportunity for people to be explorative and imaginative and none of that is bad, right?
I found an interesting youtube clip - second life introduction. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b72CvvMuD6Q- and discusses busines exploration and it is much more brief than Thursday's video.
Among the avatars and the islands, there was an important message portrayed in this video. One of the gamers talked at length about the shape of Second Life, the collaboration involved and the mission of the tasks involved in the collaboration. For instance, when building on property, there needs to be collaboration and a mission.
Cubicle:
Whenever I think mission, vision, values- I think about every employer I have had. Ithink about what it means to have a company's mission statement. In the business in which work, we tend to "align" with our client's values, vision, mission. Thinking about further, does that mean that by aligning to another company's mission statement, do we forget our own. Right now I can tell you my client's mission statement, but honestly I had to research my own. I know we teach our employees the core values, which revolve around emerging leadership and stewardship of our own people.
Official Company Definition: To help our clients become high-performance businesses and governments.
Now that I have researched and found my mission statement, you can apply these ideas from Second Life to the implementation to ICTs. Prior to implementing a communication vehicle, it is key to established its mission. We have several mediums which overlap in messaging but the mission of each seems to vary enough to justify their existence. Maybe what matters just as much as mission is the delivery and the frequency- maybe it's the entire communication package which affects its success and its failure.
Right now I'm processing how I can in fact find out not the mission of my newly redesigned enewsletter but how to gauge its success and its relevancy to our audiences.
Maybe I should experiment my mediums on Second Life- where all my explorative and creative communication tools can be implemented in a click!
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
feedback non-loop
Classroom:
Kathryn posed an interesting question for our class discussion board.
How/when is ICT interfering with our face to face connections? What are the negative or positive effects of this?
Our discussions around culture and signs seems to run parallel to these questions. We discussed in class the adoption process of ICTs, particularly the role of management and the culture's adoption readiness. For example, does there seem to be a "me too" (bandwagon) culture or is there a hesistation to change to accept new technologies? Culture can perpetuate face to face connections whether it be with the extreme " no email fridays" or simply with managers encouraging face to face weekly check-ins. Cutlure creates connections via mission, vision, values and/or the workforce that comprises the culture.
Cubicle:
Thinking about ICTs and culture- I think about feedback loops. Regardless of what the survey concerns, ie leadership or a recent event, it seems to a congruent theme that surveys are not widely accepted nor considered to be effective, particularly those existing online. To mimic the trend of social media's from the bottom to the top communication, surveys are the easy way to receive feedback, but there is nothing easy about getting someone to take a survey. At a previous employer, one of my clients gave incentives for surveys. "Take this survey and we will give you $10. "Take this survey and you could win an ipod." Even with these incentives, the participation still does not equal to what would be considered "effective feedback." Even thinking about my health plan, I coudl take a survey that took me minutes and I save 25 dollars on my health plan - I cannot imagine how someone wouldnt take it.
It is in this instance that I too believed that ICTs hinder connections. At an community town hall meeting in November, we used a paper survey and received double what we recently received from a January event. The same amount of participants; the similar content; nothing exceptionally variable occurred between the two meetings- yet by merely counting the number of survey participants, it seems that people feel safer with paper than on the internet.
Perhaps there is a fear using electronic survey will incriminate them and paper is non-traceable- however, with this notion perpetuating in my work culture- we will never have a loop of feedback.
Kathryn posed an interesting question for our class discussion board.
How/when is ICT interfering with our face to face connections? What are the negative or positive effects of this?
Our discussions around culture and signs seems to run parallel to these questions. We discussed in class the adoption process of ICTs, particularly the role of management and the culture's adoption readiness. For example, does there seem to be a "me too" (bandwagon) culture or is there a hesistation to change to accept new technologies? Culture can perpetuate face to face connections whether it be with the extreme " no email fridays" or simply with managers encouraging face to face weekly check-ins. Cutlure creates connections via mission, vision, values and/or the workforce that comprises the culture.
Cubicle:
Thinking about ICTs and culture- I think about feedback loops. Regardless of what the survey concerns, ie leadership or a recent event, it seems to a congruent theme that surveys are not widely accepted nor considered to be effective, particularly those existing online. To mimic the trend of social media's from the bottom to the top communication, surveys are the easy way to receive feedback, but there is nothing easy about getting someone to take a survey. At a previous employer, one of my clients gave incentives for surveys. "Take this survey and we will give you $10. "Take this survey and you could win an ipod." Even with these incentives, the participation still does not equal to what would be considered "effective feedback." Even thinking about my health plan, I coudl take a survey that took me minutes and I save 25 dollars on my health plan - I cannot imagine how someone wouldnt take it.
It is in this instance that I too believed that ICTs hinder connections. At an community town hall meeting in November, we used a paper survey and received double what we recently received from a January event. The same amount of participants; the similar content; nothing exceptionally variable occurred between the two meetings- yet by merely counting the number of survey participants, it seems that people feel safer with paper than on the internet.
Perhaps there is a fear using electronic survey will incriminate them and paper is non-traceable- however, with this notion perpetuating in my work culture- we will never have a loop of feedback.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
End All Be Email.
Classroom:
A few weeks ago I posted an article on our class discussion board regarding no email Fridays. This notion that management eliminated the use of email on one day shocked me! I went through the discussions regarding that post and thought more about the idea of elimination emails or even elimination meetings on Fridays, as one classmate suggested.
Here is the article for reference: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2939232
I guess what startled me most about this article was not that 2 million emails were sent a day but that the workplace was seemingly improved by this elimination. The articles relays that "workplace relationships were improved." My surprise dervies from how such a tool that seems to solve our communication problems, alleviates some personal engagement ones.
I sat today and pondered what my work place, what my work day would be like without email. While I find it to be a resourceful tool and effective, I also find it to be our crutch. Why pick up the phone and call someone when I can shoot them a quick note? Why go walk over to someone's desk when I can stay in my own? It's not lazinesss that hinders social workplace interactions. I believe it's convenience that does. Email is convenient because it's immediate as a phone call and we are able to have doucmentation of that outreach. And that's what we really need, right? Documentation, documentation, documentation.
What we have learned in the classroom is that communication technologies can negatively affect an environment. We have also learned that communication technologies are tricky to implement and to be adopted by the workforce.
Cubicle: While email is adopted by my workforce, I do in fact believe it is too heavily relied upon. There are times when it is necessary but on the opposite of that, there are times when it is not. We discussed our communications vehicles and discussed eliminating the e-newsletter which is produced and distributed weekly. Before redesigning and investing in what we saw to be a "dying cow" we tested its absence in the workforce and not only is there a need for a weekly communication- ie to deliver account events, happenings, news, etc, but there was a notice of its absence. Upon the relaunch of the new e-newsletter, we received some positive feedback, receiving any at all to me is great! But it seems that this vehicle which is not new in theory or practice, brought new and refreshing content. My point here is that email sends to be the end and be all of communication in the workplace, but I really am interested to see what happens when we start to eliminate it to improve the workplace and furthermore what the next end all and be all communication technology may be?
A few weeks ago I posted an article on our class discussion board regarding no email Fridays. This notion that management eliminated the use of email on one day shocked me! I went through the discussions regarding that post and thought more about the idea of elimination emails or even elimination meetings on Fridays, as one classmate suggested.
Here is the article for reference: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2939232
I guess what startled me most about this article was not that 2 million emails were sent a day but that the workplace was seemingly improved by this elimination. The articles relays that "workplace relationships were improved." My surprise dervies from how such a tool that seems to solve our communication problems, alleviates some personal engagement ones.
I sat today and pondered what my work place, what my work day would be like without email. While I find it to be a resourceful tool and effective, I also find it to be our crutch. Why pick up the phone and call someone when I can shoot them a quick note? Why go walk over to someone's desk when I can stay in my own? It's not lazinesss that hinders social workplace interactions. I believe it's convenience that does. Email is convenient because it's immediate as a phone call and we are able to have doucmentation of that outreach. And that's what we really need, right? Documentation, documentation, documentation.
What we have learned in the classroom is that communication technologies can negatively affect an environment. We have also learned that communication technologies are tricky to implement and to be adopted by the workforce.
Cubicle: While email is adopted by my workforce, I do in fact believe it is too heavily relied upon. There are times when it is necessary but on the opposite of that, there are times when it is not. We discussed our communications vehicles and discussed eliminating the e-newsletter which is produced and distributed weekly. Before redesigning and investing in what we saw to be a "dying cow" we tested its absence in the workforce and not only is there a need for a weekly communication- ie to deliver account events, happenings, news, etc, but there was a notice of its absence. Upon the relaunch of the new e-newsletter, we received some positive feedback, receiving any at all to me is great! But it seems that this vehicle which is not new in theory or practice, brought new and refreshing content. My point here is that email sends to be the end and be all of communication in the workplace, but I really am interested to see what happens when we start to eliminate it to improve the workplace and furthermore what the next end all and be all communication technology may be?
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
What is social media?
Cubicle:
While sitting at my desk today, typing away on our weekly newsletter to be distributed shortly, a visiting consultant pops her head over and asks me. "What do you call things like Twitter, Facebook, etc. Interactive media? Networking tools?"
"Social Media" - I answered her, confident in my response.
"Is that the technical term?" she asked me.
In fact it is. So I looked up what social media. According to my favorite wiki, Social media are primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).
The above picture I found to be clever. Get your twit on. I laughed out loud.
I digress. I continued to research and although I practice social media- I wanted to assure that I was preaching was in fact the whole truth and nothing but.
It is vast and somewhat scary the endless tools and the power of social media. See what I mean by these startling facts: (like 60% of All AMERICANS use social media)
http://thefuturebuzz.com/2009/01/12/social-media-web-20-internet-numbers-stats/
While sitting at my desk today, typing away on our weekly newsletter to be distributed shortly, a visiting consultant pops her head over and asks me. "What do you call things like Twitter, Facebook, etc. Interactive media? Networking tools?"
"Social Media" - I answered her, confident in my response.
"Is that the technical term?" she asked me.
In fact it is. So I looked up what social media. According to my favorite wiki, Social media are primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).
The above picture I found to be clever. Get your twit on. I laughed out loud.
I digress. I continued to research and although I practice social media- I wanted to assure that I was preaching was in fact the whole truth and nothing but.
It is vast and somewhat scary the endless tools and the power of social media. See what I mean by these startling facts: (like 60% of All AMERICANS use social media)
http://thefuturebuzz.com/2009/01/12/social-media-web-20-internet-numbers-stats/
So of all my research in my effort to describe what is social media- I found this. Social Media in Plain English. By the people for the people. http://www.commoncraft.com/socialmedia
It's a great clever video and by far my favorite interpretation of this phenom called social media.
Monday, March 2, 2009
You Push...I pull....
Using another ICT to define the Technology Push – Market Pull Strategy discussed a few class sessions ago. Wikipedia defines it as:
The business terms push and pull originated in the logistic and supply chain management[2], but are also widely used in marketing.[3][4]
A push-pull-system in business describes the move of a product or information between two subjects. On markets the consumers usually "pulls" the goods or information they demand for their needs, while the offerers or suppliers "pushes" them toward the consumers. In logistic chains or supply chains the stages are operating normally both in push- and pull-manner.[5] The interface between push-based stages and pull-based stages are called push-pull boundary or decoupling point.[5]
Because I am a visual leaner, there is a diagram, courtesy or Wikipedia.
At first thought when I think about a strategy that pushes and pulls I think about a grade school bully, taking lunches and pushing children in the dirt. Isn’t that what we sometimes imply anyways? The consumer is bullied into pulling goods towards them, while the suppliers are seen as “door to door salesman” pushing the consumers towards the lure of a new product, a solution to all the workforce problems.
In our class discussion, we examined which aspect pushed and which aspect pulled. Is new technology introduced because there is a need or is new technology introduced because consumers crave it? We discussed the highlights of this strategy along with the negative effects of implementing pushed technology.
Cubicle Experience
From a bird eye view I have experienced both push and pull of the discussed strategy. I have been a part of the workforce that must change its process in order accommodate a new time entry system or a new system to expedite the proposal submitting process.
Regardless of experience in this push pull strategy, I have found without support and proper implementation it is costly and frustrating.
Currently, my work revolves around internal communication. With that said, communicating to employees can be daunting- they are already swamped with emails and visit enough websites that communicating to them must be effective for both recipient and sender. So in order to do that and appeal to short attention span mentality, we decided to use video messaging, however, with the consumer pull of having a video camera, there lacked a part of the process. There was no pull- because of the restraints we exist in- we are operating and selling a medium with ineffective software.
For as negative as the notion of push pull tends to imply, it seems that one needs to exist to propel technology into the workforce.
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