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July 26, 2005

Less is more, especially now

If you can’t remember the day when information had value because it was so rare, then your 42-year-old boss can. And the 47-year-old VP of communication can, too. Not to mention the 55-year-old CEO.

And unfortunately, those folks—who grew up in an age when a memo was a big deal, worth stopping work to read right away—have the power to guide your communication strategies. I say unfortunately, because although those 40-, 50- and 60-somethings may have their hands on today’s technology, some part of their heads is stuck in the past.

They still believe that:

• Facts have power. That the right information, articulated in the correct way, will not only catch people’s attention, it will also convince them to act.
  
• Everyone wants all the details. You can’t leave anything out.
  
• There’s no such thing as communicating too frequently. If people don’t get it the first time, do it again.
  
• People should pay attention because it’s good for them. They should read because it makes them smarter. They should take the time to learn about a certain issue because it’s important to the company.

Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong again. Go out and talk to any employee and you’ll find out misguided these assumptions are. And if the people you’re trying to reach are, say, 25, being trapped in the past means you’re even more out of touch.

By contrast, your employees say:

• “Facts are fine, but I don’t take them at face value. Tell me what something means to me.”
  
• “I don’t have time for a lot of detail—unless I really care about the topic. Then I want access to all the information.”
  
• “It seems like I am constantly bombarded with tons of stuff on the same topic. Tell me about it when it really matters and when I need to do something about it.”
  
• “I’m smart enough to make my own decisions about what matters to me. I’m not going to waste my time because some senior manager tells me I should.”

What does this all mean? Just this: Many employee communication programs are based on the false assumption that information is power. What today’s employees know is that information is plentiful and cheap. The power is in context and meaning.

We should not be spinning out more and more and more information, we should be paring communication down to its essence. In other words, now more than ever: Less is more.

Posted by Alison Davis at 12:18 PM

July 19, 2005

Don’t waste employees’ time

Let’s pretend that I’ve waved my magic wand and you no longer work for the Senior VP of Blah-Blah-Blah, but for the 500, 5,000 or 50,000 employees in your organization. They’re your bosses now. Your sole mission is to use communication to make their jobs easier and help them succeed.

There are probably 87 things you would do differently (like eliminate those stupid organizational announcements), but let’s focus on one in particular: You would make sure that, from now on, communication doesn’t waste a moment of employees’ time.

How to begin? I know, let’s start with the intranet. You’d explore the answers to these questions:

• Is the home page and every other aspect of the web site as clear and as easy to navigate as it could be?
• Can employees find exactly the information they need when and how they want it? Is the intranet an open door to useful and relevant information?
• Can employees access the intranet anywhere—at work, at home and while on assignment in Copenhagen?

I ask because far too often, the answer to these questions is “No.” For example, a new study, “2001-2005: Research Study Reveals Dramatic Changes Among Information Consumers,” conducted by research firm Outsell, uncovers some disturbing statistics about how professionals find the information they need to do their jobs. Among the findings:

• Only 15% of professionals today rely on corporate intranets for job-related information (an increase of 5% in 2001). By contrast, 67% search the Internet.
  
• There’s an increase in using non-electronic means to get information. For example, 9% consult colleagues for information they need (up from 5% in 2001).
  
• Today’s professionals spend 53% of their time seeking information. The time professionals spend gathering and looking for information translates to estimated 5.4 billion hours per year for United States corporations.

What an incredible opportunity. If we could construct our intranets in a way to help people do their jobs, save their time, and make their lives easier, then we’d really be adding value.

Until then, it’s back to drafting the organizational announcement. The Senior VP of Blah-Blah-Blah says the e-mail has to go out to all employees today.

Posted by Alison Davis at 09:15 AM

July 12, 2005

18-year-olds, new media and you

Do you know anyone between the ages of 18 and 24? Then you also know that it’s unlikely that people in this age group are reading an 800-page Dostoevsky novel, watching a network television show all the way through, or poring over every section of the newspaper.

On the contrary: Young people are most likely to be early adopters—and avid enthusiasts—of new media, according to a recent survey by BIGresearch.

New media, of course, includes the Internet, instant messaging, blogging, cell phones/picture phones, personal digital assistants (such as Palm and Blackberry), MP3 players/iPods, satellite radio, TiVo/replay TV, and web radio.

According to Joe Pilotta, BIGresearch’s VP of research, “The 18- to 24-year-olds have adopted new media more readily than any other age group. Not only do they use new media more, they are influenced by it much more . . . when it comes to making purchase decisions.”

Even if you’re not particularly interested in reaching this audience, there are four reasons you should pay close attention to this phenomenon:

1) What 18- to 24-year-olds do today, other age groups will do tomorrow. Take instant messaging, for instance. It was once the exclusive province of teenagers, with their wacky secret language (ALOL for “actually laughing out loud”) and emoticons ( : - !). But more and more companies are introducing IM as a workplace communication channel, meaning soon we’ll all be saying, “GTG!”

2) New media are communication forms of very few words. Yes, blog authors have been known to hold forth, but almost all other new media on the list require boiling messages down to their essence. New media demands you get right to the point—and it’s probably not a coincidence that 18- to 24-year-olds have almost no tolerance for long content.

3) These new communication channels are extremely customizable. For instance, instead of requiring viewers to watch an entire television show at the scheduled time, TiVo lets them choose when and how much they watch. Another example: web radio, including podcasts, allows listeners to create the equivalent of personal radio stations.

4) New media are also highly interactive. Not only are users experiencing media their way, they’re also participating and engaging with others.

It all gets back to a point I’ve made before: Expectations about internal communication are influenced by the media they use externally. So if your communication is still too word-based, static and one-way, it’s not keeping pace. And if your workforce includes a significant percentage of 20-somethings, you’ve got an even bigger problem.

For more information about the BIGresearch study, visit www.bigresearch.com click on “News” and on the 6/22/05 new media item.

Posted by Alison Davis at 11:37 AM

July 05, 2005

Fascinating facts

At least once a day, a fact comes across my desk that offers a glimpse into how people experience communication—and therefore leads to insights about how to make communication more compelling. This information is readily available—in the business media, from companies that advise advertisers, even from several non-profit organizations—you just need to be on the lookout. Here are four quick examples:

Fact #1: Radio is a preferred source of information for two important demographic groups in the United States. On average, Americans spent almost 20 hours a week listening to radio in 2004, according to Arbitron. Men 35 to 44 years old represent the largest share of listeners; this group is likely to listen at work or away from home. The largest share of female listeners is also in the 35- to 44-year-old age group; women are more likely to listen while at home. The demographic group that listens the least to radio? Teenagers, especially young men.

Implication: If you need to communicate to these groups, rather than only relying on the written word, consider an audio format.

Fact #2: It’s a myth that only teenagers play video games. The average age of game-console players (like Xbox and PlayStation) is 24; if you add in people who play games on computers, the average age rises to 29, according to NPD Group, a market research firm.

Implication: You don’t have to create a new video game to appeal to 20-somethings, but consider the fact that video game players come to expect a high level of interaction and control from all their communication experiences.

Fact #3: People under 30 are getting their news from places other than mainstream news media. For example, 21% of people under 30 said they learned about the 2004 Presidential campaign from satirical sources like “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart and late-night television talk show monologues, according to a Pew Research Center study.
According to cultural critic Neal Gabler, “Young people get the attitude, the deflationary truth-telling attitude of these shows because they can’t find it anywhere else.” And former “Daily Show” correspondent Mo Rocca adds, “They premise of any joke delivered by oddball newscasters is that they’re making fun of the media’s treatment of news as much as they are the subjects of the news.”

Implication: If your communication has an official “journalistic” tone, it may well be a turn-off to 20-somethings.

Fact #4: Major newspapers are increasingly converting their format to tabloid, which was once the province only of low-end media. For example, in October The Wall Street Journal will convert its European and Asian editions to tabloid formats. The Journal is following the lead of many European newspapers, which have converted from broadsheets to tabloids in order to attract younger readers. “The readers of The Wall Street Journal are smart and savvy and impatient, with less and less time for reading,” said Mario Garcia, a media consultant. “They want the quick read, and at the same time, they want the depth.”

Implication: Format plays a big role in how accessible people find your communication—in print, but in other venues as well. If your vehicle seems hard to digest, people may opt out before they even pick it up.

Want to know where you can find more information like this? Send me an e-mail at alison.davis@davisandco.com and I’d be glad to tell you which e-newsletters I’m subscribing to and which web sites I visit most often.

Posted by Alison Davis at 12:58 PM