Black Belt Dojo

The best laid plans

I caught up with Sam Hodlin at Centrica for coffee earlier this week. As is normal when I'm on the hunt for case studies for the latest Melcrum research report he had to suffer 20 questions along the lines of 'so, what are you doing to commmunicate with remote workers?' 'Got any examples of super fast translation?' 'How do you manage your comms network?'

When I asked how he co-ordinates messages and plans across the global group (Sam's head of group internal comms) he pulled out an excel spreadsheet. It showed all the major comms events for the months ahead on one A3 page. If I wanted to know when the next company magazine was due out, he could tell me. If I wanted to announce my vastly exciting project to the world in August, he could advise me not to - there were other equally exciting projects being announced and my messages would be drowned out.

I asked how the comms team keeps up to date with it all.  He pulled out another one pager - an A4 copy of an email - showing me the planned communications for the next two weeks. All the operating companies send in content for the main plan, and Sam pulls it all together and makes sure everyone knows what's on the near (the fortnightly summary) and far (the A3 spreadsheet) horizon.

Finally, he pulled out another sheet showing me the group communications objectives for the year and explained how every entry on the excel sheet was coded according to which objective it linked to. 'So', he said. 'If I look at this objective here, we're suppose to have delivered XYZ by June.  And if I look across at the plan, we're on target - here's the linked activity'.

The funny thing was that he was really apologetic because it was all so simple. Nothing hi-tech or on-line, just a couple of excel spreadsheets, an email and regular dialogue across the team and with the business.  They obviously work and get used day in, day out. He didn't know I was going to ask about them - he always carries them with him, so when anyone asks about forthcoming activity or wants to plan something in, he knows exactly what else is going on. And in case you're thinking 'I'd never get everything for MY audiences on an A3 spreadsheet', his audience is about 34,000 people.

Maybe I'm just a simpleton, but I like simple answers, so that one's going on my list. Thanks Sam, and sorry for the grilling!

Any other good planning tools anyone wants to share?

Sue

PS Sam's also been arranging CIPR Inside's Managing Internal Reputation Event on 22nd May - it's a good line up and there's still time to book!

When bloggers turn bad

Did anyone catch this story about Edelman and Wal-Mart?  Apparently, in an attempt to get publicity for their client, Edelman (publishers of the Edelman Trust index) set up a fake blog about a couple who were touring the States and just happening to camp out in Wal-Mart parking lots.

Red faces all round when they were rumbled and howls of protest. 

I fear that the public is coming to expect this sort of behaviour from a profession that brought us lies to the US congress, fake TV news and 101 other scandals.  Looking at the writings of the US Center for Media and Democracy will make your hair curl.  As will this article from US PR newsline BullDog.

I guess one of the risks of running a large consulting business is that it's very hard to legislate for the errors of judgement of individual practioners in your firm.

Yet, the reputation of professional communicators as a whole is in need of some TLC or some tough love.  In the UK, the Chartered Institute of PR (of which I've been a proud member for well over a decade) has just announced a more tough stance on professional misconduct .  Interestingly CIPR President Tony Bradley touches on the issue of promoting higher ethical standards in his blog (which is always highly readable).  At the same time he mentions the potential for growth of communications as a profession in China (where attitudes to freedom of information are little different).

Which brings me to the point of my ramblings... who is defining ethical standards for internal communicators?  And would we benefit from having a clear professional code which we can call upon to shield us when we're asked to do things at work which make us uncomfortable.

There is an IABC code, and most national PR associations have something in place.  However, as many IC people struggle to see a connection between themselves and PR, these might not always resonate.  Maybe we could look to HR associations for guidance but I suspect that wouldn't be a perfect fit either.

Even so, I wonder how many of us are either aware of the codes that might apply to us or know of instances where they have been enforced. 

Liam