Black Belt Dojo (Australia)

Black Belt by the sea

Well hi all,
Here we are at Mt Eliza, enjoying a fun filled module 2 of the Black Belt Program. A great bunch of participants, with a diverse range of talents.. Let me add it is amazing how much trivia some retain, as we found out at our over-dinner game of 'Scene It'. It was very hard to drag ourselves away from the screen as we finished the game and just kept playing film clip after film clip... We just could not go to bed until we had a movie question we could all answer. Not competitive at all....!

Now let me share a mug shot of this beautiful group of Internal comms professionals.. and I will update you soon on some of the discussion points that came up during the program.

Congratulations to our newest group of Black Belt graduates.. Hope to see you on the blog soon.

Innovative ways to get your message across

Well, we’re under way with our third group of Aussie Black Belters completing module 1 of the course in Mount Eiza last week. We had a yet another wonderful group of people and some amazing discussions and conversations about all sort of challenges for internal comms professionals.

One of the great little items we came across to share was this fantastic Deloitte Film Festival behind-the-scenes film on You Tube. It's a great take on an employment branding campaign that used a really different approach - getting their own employees to talk about the organisation and what it's like to work there by making short films. You can watch all the winning films on You Tube too. One of them, The Green Dot, has been watched more than 15,000 times. I don't know about you, but not only do I love the idea I think the execution is amazing.

I also think the Green Dot hero can teach internal communicators a thing or two about telling others what they do for a living. (Cape optional, of course!)

Measuring your effort

Thanks Melissa for the lead in

Well it is about time I wrote a few words on the Dojo and very soon we will be looking for guest bloggers on the site, so any volunteers?

Melissa is quite right about setting SMART objectives, some of our biggest failures is not planning out our measurement strategy as part of our communications strategy. You know their is nothing that can't be measured 'so Angela Sinickas keeps telling me!' But I am yet to give her a tough one she can't crack. The simplest thing is to turn any comms effort into something that is tangible 'numerical' so you can apply some type of financial return to it. Lets face it that's how we get runs on the board in our companies!

Let me take an example.. Say you are doing a comms campaign on safety in the office.. Your company has witnessed an increase in accidents caused by people tripping over people bags left on the floor near desks.. Firstly you need to check what measure is available to you, this could be some stats and associated costs of workcover from your HR department. You now have a baseline measure.. set yourself a realistic target (SMART), run your campaign to encourage safe practices of putting bags away in lockers etc.. Then check back in with the HR department to see what effect your communications have had.. If the amount of claims have gone down post your campaign, simply take the credit and celebrate:) If you find you have a senior team who usually don't believe you, when you show your worth.. Simply trial your campaign in one area of the company and do some comparative measures.. There is always more than one way... Anyway more on measurement later!

I also thought I would share the picture from our last Black Belt Program in Melbourne.. 20 wonderful people from around the country.. It is only a couple of months ago now.. But we had a wonderful hot 4 days in beautiful Mt Eliza.. Hope you are all completing those actions.

Objectives, schmectives...

Having just returned from judging the Gold Quill awards in San Francisco (an amazing and invaluable experience) as well as preparing for the upcoming Blackbelt Strategy and Planning Masterclass, I’ve had cause to think seriously about communication objectives.

Back at uni we were all taught that objectives MUST be written using the SMART principles (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound) and when I’ve lectured in the past I’ve said the same thing. So why don’t we do it as practitioners?

Of course, I know some people do, but from reading through award submissions, it’s not as automatic as we might think. And, I must admit, I certainly have been guilty of writing some pretty fuzzy objectives at times.

The thing is, if we want to show the value of internal comms, we have to set targets for ourselves. The frustrating thing about reading some of the Gold Quill entries, was that some fabulous work had been done and some great results achieved. But if you achieved a $1m cost saving without setting any target, how do we know that’s any good? What if you should have achieved $10m? What if you set out to achieve $10,000? How can I, as a judge (or your CEO or senior management), know whether you’re worth it?

I'll leave Adrian to wax lyrical about the measurement side of things. My point is, set objectives. Set SMART objectives. Measure your results. Learn from them. It's the only way to prove your worth to the world and to yourself.

Who moved my chair

Hi All,

Well I am not sure what is happening around the world, but here in Australia everyone seems to be relocating their companies. Now be it cost associated with lease arrangements or a nice new environment to inspire employees (yeah right!). with it, comes some very clear examples of a need to start communicating change early.

I am surprised how many companies think that relocation change is being supportive, by providing the right amount of boxes for staff to pack their stuff in.. How wrong they are! I did hear moving is one of the biggest stresses, yet i am finding companies consider change communication during the actual move, and not in the strtaegic planning phase of the relocation project...

As communication professionals we must be involved in the loop, much earlier than, only when the communication issues appear.. I think it is called proactive change communication.

Facebook is still hot in social networking

Mashable.com has released some figures showing who’s hot and who’s not in social networking right now. Facebook is still going strong, with a 102% growth in audience figures year-on-year. However MySpace is still holding its own – its growth isn’t anywhere near as spectacular, but they are seeing existing users spending more time on the site. On average, MySpace users spend twice as long on the site as Facebook users.
 

So how long do you think the average user spends on these sites per month? I’m a regular Facebook user – don’t have a MySpace account – and I would have found it hard to guess. On Facebook it’s actually just over an hour per month, on MySpace it’s just over two hours.
 

Some of the newer social media sites – which, I admit, I have yet to explore fully – are growing at astonishing rates. But it’s interesting to see the time spent on those sites, some are less than 10 minutes per month. I wonder if that’s an indication of novelty factor – signing up and then never returning.

 
Still, all very interesting!

Welcome!

Welcome to the brand new Black Belt Dojo for Australian Black Belt Alumni.

We hope that we’ll be able to create just as close and useful a network as our UK colleagues have been able to and – hopefully – even create some create linkages between the two! We'd love to hear from our Black Belt Alumni out there – there’s only a few of you at the moment, but we’ll be graduating a course of 18 in a few weeks time.

The idea of the Black Belt Dojo is to keep you updated with relevant and interesting information in the world of internal communication, especially when it relates to the topics and issues we discuss in the course. Just as Sue and Liam do in the UK, we’re happy to offer guest blogging spots to Black Belt alumni, so drop us a line if you’re keen to have a go.

The Dojo also exists as a way to keep in touch with your fellow Black Belt Alumni, so please leave comments so we can continue the important process of sharing our knowledge and experience.

Look forward to hearing from you!

Melissa and Adrian

The Black Belt Dojo – Australia

This part of the Black Belt Dojo is dedicated to the Internal Communication Black Belt Program in Australia, where courses and masterclasses are now regularly being held in in Sydney and Melbourne.

For more information on the Australia Black Belt Dojo and the Black Belt trainers, head to the About Page.

For more information on the Australian Black Belt Program and masterclasess and to download a brochure, visit Melcrum.com.