Inside out

Dear Senior Manager – please play nicely in our social channels #internalcomms #intranet #socialmedia

richarddennison — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:43:13 +0000

If I had to give a senior manager a bit of advice about how to be successful in using social channels on our intranet, it would be something like this:

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The critical success factor for engaging in a social channel as a senior manager is getting the tone of your engagement right. You need to ensure that you maintain the right balance between being authoritative as a senior manager and being an individual engaging in a conversation with another individual. Influence in social channels is something you earn over time by engaging in the right way and not something automatically conferred upon you because of your role in the organisation.

Influence comes from being part of the conversation, not part of the establishment.

It is also important to accept that your people need to collaborate in social channels to be effective in their jobs – they need to trust that you endorse this activity and that they are not being judged negatively for being active participants. Your early interactions, as a senior manager, will be critical to the health of social collaboration by your people going forward.

The following points should help you find the right tone in your responses. When responding to an individual in a social channel, you should never:

preach at them or talk down to them
hide behind quotes from company literature or use management speak as a surrogate for authentic engagement
use jargon, abbreviations and marketing/business language
throw your weight around and act in a heavy handed manner because of your position in the company.

You should always:

listen first
be honest, open and authentic in all your responses – which includes owning up to mistakes as quickly as possible
deal with negative sentiment head on – ignoring negative sentiment inevitably results in it spiralling out of control – remember … negative sentiment almost always comes from an un-met need which you can probably meet
stick around and follow-up on comments you might make in a given conversation – making a comment and then leaving is not engaging in a conversation.

What does a healthy internal comms ecosystem look like? #internalcomms #intranet

richarddennison — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 09:35:46 +0000

This is a bit of a basic diagram, but something like this I think:

Back from blog black hole …

richarddennison — Tue, 01 May 2012 13:01:51 +0000

It’s been a bit quiet around here recently … sorry about that. Inspiration has eluded me … smothered by the thick woolly blanket of work!

We’re *still* in the midst of an intranet migration to SharePoint 2010 … which actually means we haven’t really started yet but have done the ground work – the only small nut to crack now is how to get tens of thousands of pages out of existing content management systems into SharePoint 2010 while causing everyone – users and publishers alike – the least amount of pain possible … answers on a postcard, please!

I’ll probably share more about this over the coming weeks …

The impact of social media on internal communications seems finally to be creating some buzz about the place … which is great news. On that note, I recently made a small contribution to a free eBook about how internal comms is changing in the modern workplace – it’s a light read and I think worth a browse.

I’m also speaking at the annual conference of the Institute of Internal Communications (May 23-25) which I’m really looking forward to … although I seem to be the last speaker of the whole event just before lunch on Friday … not sure what to make of that! If you’re going, please say hello …

Anyway – just thought I’d pop-up for air to reassure myself that I still exist … more soon … promise … maybe …

In conversation: social media and corporate culture

richarddennison — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 08:33:06 +0000

The fourth in the series of in conversation with Red Sky Vision talking about social media and corporate culture. It’s quite long (6 mins: 53 sec) but I think it’s quite interesting (I would wouldn’t I ).

In conversation: the impact of social media on internal comms #internalcomms

richarddennison — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:25:09 +0000

The third in the series of in conversation with Red Sky Vision talking about the impact of social media on internal communications. The conversation weaves around the changing role of internal comms and how and why internal comms people can thrive in the social space.

In conversation with Richard Dennison – Social Media and Internal Communications from Red Sky Vision on Vimeo.

In conversation: social media and the BT Intranet

richarddennison — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 10:03:12 +0000

The second in the series of in conversations with Red Sky Vision – this time a short sound bite or two about why we introduced social media onto the BT Intranet (this one is much shorter … only 1 min 20 sec ).

In conversation with Richard Dennison – Social Media and the BT Intranet from Red Sky Vision on Vimeo.

In conversation: the importance of social media in a business context

richarddennison — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:59:05 +0000

Following the great feedback received for Red Sky Vision’s fantastic Social Media @ Work video, I was looking through the interview footage of me which didn’t make it into the final film (there was quite a lot of it because when you get me started on social media it’s impossible to shut me up!) … and wondered if it might be possible to make these cuttings into a series of short videos – it seemed a shame to waste them and recycling is so important these days!

So, Red Sky worked their magic and the result is six short films entitled: In conversation with … in which I get to stand atop my soapbox and spew forth on various topics. The films vary in length and, because they are swept up from the cutting room floor, they are a bit bitty at times. Nonetheless, I hope you find time to watch and enjoy them …

The first video is some of my random views on the importance of social media in a business context.

In conversation with Richard Dennison – Why is social media important in a business context from Red Sky Vision on Vimeo.

[If for any reason you can't see the embedded video above, you can view it on the Vimeo site]

Social media at work video

richarddennison — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 08:47:20 +0000

Last Friday, Red Sky Vision launched a video about social media at work. Amazingly, I was asked to be part of it! It’s very well produced and the key strength of it for me is that it’s not about hyping up social media and creating a frenzy. Rather, it’s a well-balanced and calm assessment of the issues and benefits of social media in work – with a particular focus on internal communications. It’s about 15 mins long – so grab a coffee and a chocolate biscuit and take 15!

As well as me, you’ll hear from the following:

Marco Forgione, IVCA
Rebecca Richmond, Melcrum
Stefan Stern, Edelman London
Helen Dunne, CorpComms magazine
Neil Gibbons, Communicate magazine
David Ferrabee, Able and How
Madeleine Kavanagh, Deutsche Bank
Livio Hughes, Headshift
Neville Hobson, Communicator and entrepreneur (from whom I stole this lits of participants – see his blog post).

Enjoy! I’d be interested to know what you think of it …

[If you can't see the embedded video - you can watch it on the Red Sky Vision site]

Wondering about intranet evolution …

richarddennison — Tue, 24 May 2011 15:47:20 +0000

Following a lively conversation on the Thought Farmer blog, I was wondering about the relationship between the thing we call the intranet and the digital workplace. Which model below looks right to you?

Enough about the technology!

richarddennison — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 12:52:53 +0000

As intranet managers and communicators, we fought long and hard for many years to become technology agnostic and rather than talk in terms of specific technologies we fought to talk in terms of user requirements and user/business needs. Amazingly, we won!

SO WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED!?

Today, the world seems only to be talking about technology (99% about SharePoint) and we’ve ditched our agnosticism. While I understand that for many of us SharePoint IS the solution we are having to digest, we should still be talking about user needs and not technical functionality – even if we know we might have to compromise in some instances.

By focusing on the technology we are giving carte blanche to IT teams to present functionality/capabilities to us based around technical paths of least resistance for them and their platforms, rather than testing the technology to its full extent to meet business needs. As a result, conversations are almost entirely focussed around what the technology can do and not want the business needs.

PLEASE … before it’s too late … enough about the technology!