September 02, 2010
The best communication is concrete
My colleague Jane Shannon and I have nearly completed our book on HR communication. (The manuscript has been edited and is going into production; publication is slated for next spring.) Since the project is coming to a close, I decided to clean up my electronic files—and came across this e-mail Jane had sent me last summer.
We were having a conversation about the importance of making HR communication simple and accessible, and Jane said, “Don’t forget concrete. Too often, HR people and communicators deal in abstractions, and employees have no idea what they mean. The more employees can picture what you’re talking about, the better.”
As an example, Jane shared with me a message she wrote for her community organization in Ancramdale, N.Y. The objective was to encourage residents to participate in an upcoming weekend event, Community Days.
We didn’t use this example in our book, but I’d like to share it with you now, because it exemplifies writing that is specific, tangible and concrete. (And, by the way, it was extremely effective: More people volunteered than had ever done so before).
Dear Neighbors and Friends,
Here are five ways you can help make Ancram Community Days a huge success this weekend:
1. Help set up at 5 p.m. on Thursday, August 13.
Help get tables and chairs ready for the weekend—meet at Town Hall.
2. Come help at the "Dive In" Movie sponsored by the Youth Commission at 5 p.m. Friday at Blass Park Pool.
No sharks. We promise.
3. Bake something wonderful and deliver it to Matthew Boice after 8 a.m. Saturday, August 15.
Matt is working to get enough money to create a Haunted House at the Fire House this Halloween. If you think about all that Matt's parents David and Jennifer do for this community, I bet you'll find the time to do a little baking to help Matt achieve his goal. (He's the one selling milkshakes at a vendor table.)
4. Volunteer for just one hour or just a few hours on Saturday, August 15, from 9 to 3 p.m. at Town Hall.
There's plenty to do—from collecting 50/50 raffle tickets—to collecting money for the Bounce House—to collecting money from the Dunking Booth for Public Officials—to enjoying the Tractor Pull while you're not helping out—to helping direct people to park their cars—or sitting in for a vendor while he or she takes a short break. Come meet your neighbors and friends and help make this community celebration a success.
5. Clean up at 9 a.m. Sunday, August 16 at Town Hall.
This special duty should receive special rewards—how about some free ice cream after the 1 p.m. all-faith service and potluck picnic? You can even volunteer to help serve the ice cream, too.
Please come participate in Ancram Community Days in whatever way works for you. Thanks.
Posted by Alison Davis at 08:38 AM | Comments (0)
August 23, 2010
E-mail is too slow, says the class of 2014
This week college freshmen start to arrive on campuses, ready to experience orientation, new romance, what happens when you drink too much cheap beer and . . . oh, yes, occasionally going to class.
What are these new students like? To find out, it’s time to check out the Beloit College “Mindset” list , the annual collection of facts about the incoming class that gives us insight into what 18-year-olds are thinking (and makes the rest of us feel old).
No surprise that my focus is on how freshmen experience communication. Why should you care? Because it’s valuable to step outside your own perspective and take a look how people in a different demographic see the world. Only then can you design communication that meets your audience’s needs.
Here are Beloit’s big communication insights:
- Incoming college freshmen will be using their smart phones for absolutely everything, and think that e-mail is way too slow.
- Few in the class know how to write in cursive.
- Unless they found one in their grandparents’ closet, they have never seen a carousel of Kodachrome slides.
- Computers have never lacked a CD-ROM disk drive.
- College freshmen never recognized that pointing to their wrists was a request for the time of day.
- The first home computer they probably touched was an Apple II or Mac II; they are now in a museum.
- Nirvana is on the classic oldies station.
- Having hundreds of cable channels but nothing to watch has always been routine.
Got any others? Feel free to share.
Posted by Alison Davis at 01:08 PM | Comments (0)
August 08, 2010
Great questions about email
(Sorry that I’ve been a little inconsistent with my blog posts lately; I’ve been busy working on my new HR communication book with my colleague Jane Shannon. The good news is we just sent the completed manuscript to the publisher. Whew!)
As you may know, I invest a lot of time learning about marketing, because I find that marketers spend their time trying to attract customers’ attention—so there is a lot we internal communicators can leverage from marketers.
I just read this fabulous Email Insider blog by Loren McDonald, which asks the great question, “Your Email Program: Time for a Tune-Up—Or a Blow-Up?” The idea is this: If you had to start your email program from scratch, would you run it the way you do today? (Another way to ask the question: Are you so focused on small improvements that you’re failing to step back and look at the entire program?)
The blog is aimed at marketers, of course, but many of the questions apply to using email to communicate to employees. Here are some to consider (which I’ve altered somewhat to make them more applicable to employee communication):
- What is the role of email in our company?
- Does the return we get on our regular broadcast emails justify the time and money we spend on them?
- Do we integrate email with other initiatives, including social, mobile, print, or broadcast?
- What are our company's business goals, and what role does email marketing play in achieving them?
- How do we best reach and engage our employee segments? What are their pain points, and does our email program address them?
- Is our program's frequency and cadence logical to employees, or do we need to move to a more customer-centric approach?
- Are we using the right metrics to measure and communicate email's ROI and value?
Consider these questions when thinking about how well your email program is working.
Posted by Alison Davis at 04:42 AM | Comments (0)
