December 2009 Posts

Everyone’s talking about how companies are stronger for trimming expenses in 2009 and figuring out bow to do more with less. Thinking small is a good exercise.
But an even better way to think is how we could get bigger. Ways we could expand to serve other types of clients than we have in the past. How we could fill some new need that’s not being met. What we could do next that would make us wake up excited about getting in to the office.

I recently spoke with Karl Roche at IBM about social media and internal communications. Here are a few thoughts that emerged from our discussion. Social media is about letting employees consume information in the way they want. There’s not one [...]

I recently had a chance to speak with Alan Richardson, a Digital Communication consultant with Ibis Communications who I was able to connect with through our LinkedIn group for social media for internal communications. Here are a few takeaways from [...]

The crucial elements of cutting payroll while retaining employees are 1) giving them something back, i.e. time, in exchange for giving up some of their salary, and 2) giving them the choice of making that trade or not. Asking employees to help suck up your losses by getting paid less for the same work week is only going to hurt the company in the long run.

I came across this case study, and it’s too good not to share. Except that it is about tampons, and that’s sort of a taboo subject, even for consumers of the product. This Procter and Gamble case study is a [...]

networking, online etiquette, building business relationships

When you’re recruiting, developing or leading Gen Y, it’s important to recognize that they work a lot differently than you, and their way is no better or no worse.  OK, so Gen Y loves technology. I don’t believe that’s a [...]

These Christmas elves are magical for the kids, but for the parents, it’s hard work. Night after night, you have to come up with trick after trick after trick. Often, I find myself heading upstairs for bed when I suddenly remember I haven’t done the elf. Wouldn’t it make things easier if parents had a whole bunch of tricks all figured out ahead of time?

Why have so many national and global companies launched internal-facing blogs? Because it’s one of the most cost-effective methods of building employees’ trust in management. Here are five reasons to consider a leadership blog: 1. It allows the CEO to [...]

Measuring the effectiveness of social media can be challenging, particularly from an internal communications perspective. The issues you measure internally – like trust in leadership, employee morale and productive collaboration – aren’t easy to track or interpret. Of course, this [...]