Are your office communications making A list?

Classroom:

Our class discussion last week revolved around Chapter 6 of our text book. We discussed accessbility of technology communications: the user friendliness involved in implementing and the its expanding use. If something is easy to use, going to make my job easier, and just relieve stress in my life, then I'll use without a peep regarding change. It brings me back to my point from a previous blog. Why should we reward employees for giving them a tool that makes their lives subsequently easier? I probably wont ever agree with our last guest speaker who really drove that point home. "Reward employees" for using new technologies. As an employee it's my job to not only know new technologies but assist with their implementation at our workplace. Where's my reward? Knowledge is. But I digress.

We discussed the theory of social presence. I thought of mediums being ranked and rated like celebrities on a red carpet. So this is what I walked away with from that discussion: the richer the media experience, the more personal situation. So is there more social presence with a blog entry vs. a newsletter brochure? Your channel decides your choice of media? leading to what is lean media vs. what is rich media? (i'll devle into this more in another entry)

Cubicle:

When I think of rich vs. lean media, which I will address at a later point, the first thing that comes to mind is how it affects the end user. But really though if you take a step back, maybe it's the entire process which makes it rich, makes it lean? Social media has the perception that it's rich because it's new, it's trendy, it's as our professor would note, from the ground up. I found this graphic, speaks to how many touch points social media hits. It's pretty impressive.

But there is a counterpoint to this thought that a blog entry is much more rich and personal than a brochure (which I stand behind my enewsletter which I create every week-newsletter just sounds traditionalist and not cutting edge but it can be!) If someone else is writing your entry or tweeting for you, doesnt that take away from the social presence? the richness? I know a CIO who has a twitter and simply does not update it. He may be writes a list of his tweets, provides an outline but the act of using this "bottom up" created tool is not his. Does that take away? I think on some level it does and it leads me to be more inclined to stand by the idea that the richness or the presence of a social media may all be in the process. Like Bob Anderson said, it's a cookbook process, take all the steps and you will have a successful implementation.