Measuring manager communication

Measuring manager communication

The following question was recently posted to The Communicators' Network:

Q: How can you make managers better communicators?

A: "Why not give each manager a specific 'effective communication' objective, making it clear that their performance will be reviewed and measured against this as well as all their other objectives. One of the ways to measure this one specifically could be through 360 degree assessment, giving their teams, peers and superiors the chance to highlight which elements of their manager's communication could be improved."

Helen Johnston
Head of Internal Communications
Marconi Corporation

A: "It can be as simple as including the requirement for a set number of communication meetings, such as one-on-one meetings etc., to a scale rating the effectiveness of the manager's communication with his team. You would need to establish a benchmark so you can gauge improvement once your new measurement programs are in place."

Carol Cox
Senior Corporate Communications Consultant
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida

Workers "in the know" more motivated

Workers "in the know" more motivated

UK workers are bombarded with corporate-speak and are unsure what their organization stands for, where it is going or how their contribution makes a difference.

Communications consultancy CHA, which carried out over 1,000 interviews with UK workers, found that 60 percent of workers who are kept in the dark by their bosses plan to leave in the next two years.

That figure drops to just 23 percent among those who don't feel they're kept in the dark. But when workers receive clear communication, their motivation increases dramatically with 80 percent motivated to add value, dropping to less than 36 percent in organizations where the communication is confusing.

Workers who know what the company plan is are five times more likely to be motivated, while 65 percent say too much of the information they receive isn't relevant to their job and 39 percent say they are told too late about major changes in their place of work.

Source: CHA PR report, A little more conversation. For more information visit: www.chapr.co.uk

Prove the worth of communication

Prove the worth of communication

Not all managers are convinced of the argument that good communication not only improves employee morale but also business performance.

Alex Jaconelli, development manager at Scottish & Newcastle, has tackled the problem head-on by providing them with proof from their own workforce. He conducted a survey of 150 employees at a workshop, asking them to think of the best and the worst managers they had worked for.

Next they were asked to imagine that they currently worked for their best manager but were offered a promotion working for their worst manager. How much money would it take for them to move?

Those on the lowest pay scale said it would take at least a third of their current salary before they were tempted. Those on higher salaries said that no pay rise would make them move.

The team then asked the employees to describe real-life examples of what the best managers did. Unsurprisingly, they made them feel included and involved by communicating with them regularly.

In a separate exercise, Jaconelli took two similar teams with the same working environment, but one with a manager who was an active communicator and one who wasn't. It was easy to see from the teams' monthly performance results which team performed best.

Source: The Business Communicator.

Communication Measurement FAQs

Communication Measurement FAQs

Angela Sinickas of Sinickas Communications, Inc. answers your communication measurement questions.

How do you start developing a communication measurement strategy?
Besides readership surveys and focus groups, how else can a company effectively measure its customer communication?
How often should you measure communication?
How can I measure how well supervisors are communicating with their employees?

If you want to ask a question e-mail info@melcrum.com

Q: How do you start developing a communication measurement strategy?

A: Start with a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats). Consider such elements as how well your current communication program will:
Support business strategy;
Reach and meet the needs of various stakeholder groups;
Have an appropriate mix of channels (type of channel, direction of flow, timeliness, etc.);
communicate the right messages;
have the right organizational staffing, reporting relationship and financial resources to do all the above effectively.

As you brainstorm with others on your SWOT analysis, you will discover that on many aspects of your program, you don't know enough to categorize something as a strength or a weakness. You may not be sure of the distribution of many channels, you may not know what your stakeholders are interested in knowing about or how well they understand subjects that senior leadership might want them to know about. All of these will suggest content areas that should be included in your measurement process.

A typical communication measurement process starts with some objective assessments of what you are communicating. Objective analysis tools include inventories, content analysis and reading grade level tests. Once you are clear on what communication you are sending out, it's time to ask your audience for their input, using some qualitative research first (executive interviews and focus groups) to identify areas for quantitative analysis (typically surveys).

Q: Besides readership surveys and focus groups, how else can a company effectively measure its customer communication?

A: The ultimate measure is sales, but the trick is to find ways of tracking your communications against sales in a way that eliminates the effect of other factors. One way is to pre-test various approaches to communication with different, demographically identical segments of your customer audience.

For example, a California utility company had been sending out a brochure to encourage customers to call for a free home energy audit. (California energy utilities are required to reduce the per capita consumption of energy, so the audit finds ways for a customer to use less energy.) Response rates from the current brochure had started decreasing. The marketing communication manager pre-tested mock-ups of several different new brochures with focus groups. He then printed small quantities of the two most preferred versions and mailed them to different random samples of his audience. He mass-produced the brochure that resulted in significantly more customer calls.

Another approach is to measure the effectiveness of different types of communications in generating sales leads. A very simple way is to list a different phone number or post office box for potential customers to reach you in each different communication piece, news release, advertising, direct mail, Web site, etc. Your computerized phone system can track how many calls come through on different phone lines, even if all the lines are answered by the same group of people. You can then calculate the average number of leads divided by the cost of each channel of communication. If your tracking system is a little more elaborate, you could go a step further and also track what percentage of leads from each communication results in sales. You could then calculate the revenue generated from each type of communication divided by its cost. If your company has a system for tracking customer questions or concerns, you could monitor the number of customer calls on various topics, change your communications to better address those issues, and then track whether the number of questions on those issues goes down.

Q: How often should you measure communication?

A: The answer depends on what you're measuring, if you've had time to make any changes since the last measurement and how large your audience is. Typically, surveys are conducted no more than once every 12 to 24 months. However, if there are aspects of your culture or a publication you are actively trying to change, you may want to supplement the large surveys with mini-surveys on key measures administered to small samples of your audience more frequently, perhaps quarterly or even monthly. During a time of massive change, you might even survey more frequently to measure the impact of specific changes or announcements.

On the other hand, if you have a relatively small audience of only several thousand, conducting frequent surveys with a large enough sample to be statistically reliable would mean surveying the same people several times a year, which is not recommended.

Q: How can I measure how well supervisors are communicating with their employees?

A: First, be clear on whether you need "soft," qualitative findings or "hard," quantitative data. For example, if you want to track improvement or compare different supervisors, you will need the kind of statistically reliable results available from a survey. Even if you need hard numbers, initial focus groups with supervisors and employees will help you ask the right questions and pick the right measurement method. Focus groups might discover that the problem isn't communication skills at all, but that supervisors haven't been given the content to communicate. This information can be found by asking the supervisors themselves how well-informed they feel. Another thing to measure is the frequency of staff meetings. It's possible to have supervisors who know how to conduct meetings, but who rarely do. Track this by asking employees how frequently they have staff meetings and how often they should be conducted.

Second, determine the purpose of your information gathering. If the goal is to assess the general level of supervisory communication, you can include questions on an employee survey administered to a random sample of employees and use that information to prioritize communication training content. If you want to assess the communication effectiveness of individual supervisors, you would instead need to conduct a survey of all employees to obtain enough responses to tell how well supervisors in different organizational units are doing. Better yet, surveys can be administered in work groups to assess the skills of the group's own manager. 360-degree feedback on each supervisor from peers, subordinates and bosses is often used as part of the performance appraisal process. When conducting a 360-degree appraisal, it is important to ask managers to evaluate themselves as well. Comparing the results of how well they think they communicate with how their subordinates rate them often highlights very interesting and surprising discrepancies.

You can also ask employees and supervisors their perceptions of the relative importance of various supervisor communication skills for doing their jobs well. Different skills may be more important in some parts of your organization or for different types of jobs. The priorities for training will then be the skills that are rated as very important, yet are not frequently or well demonstrated. In addition, a statistical technique called regression analysis can help determine the relative importance of various communication behaviors.

Q: How will the results be fed back to employees and supervisors?

A: Typically, the results of a broad survey will be fed back to all managers at once, and then to all employees. However, if part of the purpose of the measurement is to improve communication within work groups, it can be even more useful to fee back results in a "cascade" from top management to individual work groups. First the president would share his or her results in a meeting with the vice presidents. They would also discuss what actions will be taken to improve weaknesses and make more use of the strengths. These vice presidents' direct reports feed back the results to their staffs. When the assessment cascades downward, each new group of evaluators feels safe in being candid because they have already experienced the benefits of providing this type of information to their own bosses in a safe environment.


This article was taken from Strategic Communication Management.

The Twelve Dimensions of Strategic Internal Communication

The Twelve Dimensions of Strategic Internal Communication
By Thomas J. Lee

Tom Lee, Principal of Arceil Leadership Communication and member of the editorial board of Strategic Communication Management Magazine, provides an overview of Strategic Internal Communication. With more than 25 years of professional experience in communication, Tom has developed innovative approaches to communication modelling, planning, and evaluation systems with broad strategic applications. In this section he shares his knowledge.
Strategic Orientation and Imperative
Integrity and Integration
Dignity and Respect
Flow of Strategic Information
Clarity and Power of Messages
External Perspective
Roles and Responsibilities
Listening and Visible Presence
Training and Support
Structure and Process
Measurement Systems
Continuous Improvement
Strategic Orientation and Imperative
Communication is an organization's lifeblood. The fundamental purpose of communication in an organization is to enable and energize employees to carry out its strategic intent. Organizations need the capability to rapidly identify, send, receive, and understand strategic information that is credible, sensible, and relevant. But successfully executing a strategy, or bringing about operational or cultural change, or achieving stretch or breakthrough goals requires something more: the broad awareness, understanding and acceptance of strategic intent by people as a foundation to their commitment. Decisions on strategy and policy must take into account the imperative and the challenge of communication, and the tools and talent of the communication function must be oriented to the organization's strategic priorities.

Integrity and Integration
Communication must, above all else, be credible. The cornerstone of credibility is integrity; the foundation of integrity is constant and complete consistency between communication and conduct. The challenge of building credibility is the work of integrating an organization's formal, semi-formal, and informal voices. The rhetoric by which an organization manages its affairs and presents itself to others is manifestly important, but its impact as communication is never equal to or greater than that of the organization's decisions and actions. For through such decisions and actions, an organization continually tests and defines itself.

Dignity and Respect
Communication thrives on mutual dignity and respect; together, these are the fundamental building blocks for relationships of trust and accountability. Organizations that are blessed by such relationships will, over time, develop greater internal commitment and thus outperform and surpass organizations that are not. An organization's success ultimately depends on the fully aligned, discretionary, principled, and inspired effort of its people. Communication characterized by mutual dignity and respect, because it builds relationships of trust and accountability among people, is foundational to such effort and therefore to the success of the organization.

Flow of Strategic Information
Information is the currency of communication. Just as the flow of money creates wealth, so the rapid and steady flow of strategic information enriches and empowers an organization. Organizations must nurture and sustain the systematic flow of credible, sensible, timely, and relevant information - up, down, and across their structure - so as to bring all their resources to bear on the execution of their strategic intent. That requires the full commitment of leadership, the application of appropriate technology, and the broad participation and support of employees. The upward flow of information is critical; leadership's receptivity to upward thrusts of negative information, especially, is a reflection of the trust it holds in people. For better or worse, the flow of strategic information through an organization is a barometer of its ability to compete.

Clarity and Power of Messages
Clarity is a hallmark of excellent communication. Its absence leads to confusion, complacency, even chaos. Clear and powerful messages are, first and foremost, carefully considered, so they do not conflict with other messages. Though often repeated, they are few in number. Clear and powerful messages strike a balance between simplicity and complexity; they are expressed with an economy of words but a wealth of meaning. Their language is the language of ordinary people in everyday conversation. Because clear messages address the concerns and needs of listeners, they naturally take the form of a conversation more than a lecture or announcement. Finally, clear and powerful messages are coherent, consistent, and complete; they acknowledge their own limits, they explain their rationale, and they speak to whatever questions they have raised.

External Perspective
An organization's internal communication systems require an external perspective and orientation. Strategy, of course, is the means by which an organization copes with its external environment - its customers, competitors, and suppliers, as well as the communities and governments where it operates. Individuals and teams in an organization seeking to implement a strategy must understand not only the strategy itself but also the reasons for it and the measures of its success. Only a communication system anchored in the company's external environment can provide that information in a compelling way and place it in a tenable context. The external orientation may include the arenas of public policy and philanthropy; in its totality, information with an external bearing must be balanced, strategic, and truthful.

Roles and Responsibilities
A high-performance system of communication depends on the timely, energetic, capable participation of employees throughout an organization. Each employee has a role in communication; some have multiple roles. All employees should have clearly defined responsibilities for vertical (upward and downward) and for lateral communication appropriate to their position. These responsibilities should explicitly address both receiving and sending information as well as building relationships conducive to rapid, credible, strategic communication. Responsibilities should specify what information ought to be communicated, to whom, when, how and why. Accountabilities should include the real consequences of fulfiling or not fulfiling these responsibilities. A healthy communication environment should encourage and reward employees for active communication within the organization regardless of the information or message they communicate.

Listening and Visible Presence
Listening is the fiber of good communication. The best communication resembles not so much an eloquent announcement or persuasive admonition as it does a balanced conversation and robust discussion. There can be no communication without listening, and there can be no listening without genuine receptivity and a real inclination to act in response to whatever information or message is being communicated. Good listening is more than polite silence and attention when others speak, and it's altogether different from manipulative tactics masquerading as skill. It is rather a high virtue, a value, a reflection of bedrock belief that learning what other people have on their mind is a wise investment of one's time. It requires intellectual humility and the willingness to learn from people at all stations of life. Through visible presence, one not only learns by listening but also establishes a welcoming rapport that builds relationships of respect and dignity, conducive to frequent, candid and rapid communication.

Training and Support
Recognizing each employee's vital role in communication, organizations must ensure that all employees have the capability, the tools, and the support to fulfill their responsibilities. Suitable education and training will depend on the nature of the industry and the particular needs of the individual and the organization; in any case it will furnish the capability for busy people to communicate competently and comfortably. Appropriate and adequate tools will include both the technology and the resources for Regular communication. Support for communication will include a stream of strategic information, time on the clock, channels of upward communication, and the physical facilities conducive to good communication; above all, it must include simple respect and the presumption of good faith, so as not to "shoot the messenger for the message"; Without this foundation, an organization cannot realistically expect people to communicate with the timeliness, clarity, and credibility that are essential.

Structure and Process
The structure and process of internal communication should reflect the fact that communication is a means, not an end, to success. The fundamental purpose of workplace communication is to enhance the business performance of the organization. Communication succeeds only to the extent that it enables and energizes employees to align their work with the organization's strategic intent. A preoccupation with artistry or diction may divert attention away from the business issues at hand. The responsibility and tools for strategic communication should be distributed throughout the organization, so that each employee is an integral part of the process. The communication function should build alliances with the management teams of operating units. Given a choice between centralizing and decentralizing the communication function, the latter affords more Regular contact with line managers, which in turn builds mutual understanding between line and staff functions.

Measurement Systems
Measurement is a vital aspect of a high-performance system of strategic workplace communication, but it must be undertaken with care and skill. It is a myth that everything of importance in organizations is measured; integrity, perseverance, teamwork, agility and other essential attributes of a vital work culture all but defy measurement. The importance or value of strategic communication is not an appropriate subject for measurement; by definition, it is always and precisely the value of the strategy or the change or the goal that it supports. Nor are the tactical and mundane aspects of communication a worthwhile focus of measurement. Rather, the measurement of communication must concentrate on its effectiveness with respect to strategic direction, so as to adapt it to changing circumstances, to engage management in the essential tasks of leadership communication, to establish a basis for accountability, and to chart progress. The best measurement processes address not only formal communication but also semi-formal and informal communication. They focus on outcomes, not outputs or inputs. They measure against a progression of awareness, understanding, acceptance, and commitment, and they reflect the fundamental purpose of communication as a bridge between strategy and its successful execution.

Continuous Improvement
More than just another management fad, continuous improvement is a never-ending quest for a better way. It is both a personal and professional habit, and an individual and organizational commitment, to change, progress, and growth. Without it we become stagnant, and we cease to grow. The philosophy, processes, and tools of the quality literature offer abundant means for improving strategic workplace communication, but they require a genuine receptivity to improvement. The time and resources devoted to a thoughtful, well-managed program of continuous improvement will return their investment many times over. Research into best practices should be undertaken from time to time with the understanding that each organization is unique and must ultimately find its own path to its own future. Above all, our processes must be driven by the legitimate needs of the customer, whose satisfaction is our reason for being.


This article was taken from Strategic Communication Management.

The Five Myths of Managers

The Five Myths of Managers
By Ed Robertson

There are five commonly held misconceptions about communication. These "myths" have a strong influence on how management not only view communication, but, more importantly, how they mis-manage the communication process inside their organizations.

Until these myths are exposed as false beliefs that obstruct true communication, managers will continue to repeat the same mistakes that have historically plagued organizations.

Click on one of the following items to dispel the misconceptions about organizational communication.

Myth #1 - Words Contain Meaning
Myth #2 - Communication and information are synonymous
Myth #3 - Communication doesn't require much effort
Myth #4 - Communication is a product
Myth #5 - Good speakers are good communicators

Myth #1 - Words Contain Meaning
Don't we wish it were that simple, that every time we said a word, the same picture we have in our mind would appear in the other person's mind. The fact that refutes this misconception about communication is that meaning resides in the minds of people. Words are merely cues or triggers that elicit meaning. All of us have our own personal meanings for words because we filter them through our varied frames of reference that originate in our widely divergent experiences and backgrounds.

I once asked a group of Canadian managers what came into their minds when I said "dog," People answered with pet names and obviously with the predictable answer: "cat." Then one participant blurted out "Georgia!" Having never heard this response before, I asked him why he associated the term "dog" with a state hundreds of miles across the border. His explanation was a real eye-opener for the other managers and myself on the enormous semantic variation in our language. What the manager heard from my utterance was not the word "dog" as it is commonly pronounced in Canada. My southern dialect and his intense interest in college football created in his mind the word "dawg." The mascot for the University of Georgia is the bulldog whose name in slang is articulated on bumper stickers and among chanting fans in the slogan "Go Dawgs."

Managers should never be so naive as to assume that because they said or wrote the words, their employee listeners grasped the meaning of their statements. That's why soliciting feedback is such an important communication skill for managers to learn and use in their interpersonal interactions.

Myth #2 - Communication and information are synonymous
Information is not the same as communication and communication is not the same as information. Many managers interchange the two words with little awareness of the vast semantic distance that separates them. Information is the raw product that is used in the communication process to create an output or result which is shared understanding and meaning. Information is not made meaningful to another person until it is processed. The mere act of disseminating information is not an adequate substitute for communicating.

Communication is a much more sophisticated process than transmitting or disseminating information because it seeks to produce a cognitive, and/or emotional, result and then determine how well it was achieved by acquiring feedback from the listener/receiver. Therefore, the feedback channel is an essential component of the communication process. In other words, "if it hasn't got feedback, it isn't communication."

Myth #3 - Communication doesn't require much effort
Poor, inaccurate, or ineffective communication don't require much effort. To truly communicate one must make a commitment to invest time, energy, attention and, above all, let go of some "self" in the interest of sharing understanding and meaning with another individual. As Stephen Covey states, "seek first to understand then to be understood." Communication between people who value their relationship is not a competitive sport where someone wins and someone loses. I like to think of communication as something you do with someone for the mutual benefit of both parties, rather than for the benefit of one.

The way in which managers communicate can make employees feel supported and affirmed or it can make them feel defensive and unappreciated. Think about this for a moment: "The act of communicating is communication." Managers can become so focused on the message or content in a communication that they lose sight of the importance of the method by which they are interacting. Managers should never underestimate the powerful effect affirming communication skills have on employees' attitudes, which can cultivate a climate of supportiveness in the organization.

Myth #4 - Communication is a product
Some managers view communication as a physical commodity like products manufactured on an assembly line. This pervasive false perception is perhaps the biggest impediment to improving communication in most organizations. Managers tend to be easily misled by what they see communication professionals "producing" in the form of publications and electronic media. They see these communication products as "the communications" in the company. Notice that when the term "communication" is made plural it automatically becomes a noun. And we all know that nouns describe things made of matter like newsletters, magazines, videos and this article.

What happens, if no one tells them differently, is that managers begin believing that when the message has been sent, in one of these communication vehicles, communication has occurred. How many times have you heard a manager say "let's get the word out" when giving the command to communicate? In this case "the word" represents the message produced in printed or audio visual formats that will appear in the corporate media.

One small, but very big, way we can stop perpetuating the "communication is a product" myth is by changing the corporate vernacular. By creating new terminology about communication that reduces management's over-reliance on making media and increases talk about improving the communication process, we can signal that our role and theirs need some upgrading. For example, the next time someone asks you what you do in your department, instead of saying "we publish the company newspaper" or "we produce the corporate videos" consider saying "we help management ensure that the communication process is working in the company." The more managers come to realize that communication is a process that is either working or not, the more likely they will see themselves as managers of that process.

Myth #5 - Good speakers are good communicators
From birth we are taught to talk. Our early "communication training" in school through to our formal training is almost totally focused on teaching us how to create and send messages, not receive them. Is it any wonder that when we become adults and enter the workplace where we must interact with others, we find ourselves asking why so many misunderstandings occur? Why are working relationships so weak? And why is getting work done through others more difficult than it should be?

Managers who are effective communicators and good listeners make good leaders. The reason listening is such a powerful communication skill is because it produces double dividends. It not only increases a manager's chances of accurately understanding what employees are saying, it also builds positive relationships with them. When managers listen to their employees they demonstrate their respect for them and their ideas.

Good listeners aren't born. Listening skills can be taught. One simple way managers can begin to be better listeners is by starting to give more verbal feedback to employees. Managers should paraphrase in their own words what they hear employees saying and then ask if their interpretations are accurate. Again, it's the observable act of listening that strengthens the manager/employee relationship.

Biography
Ed Robertson retired in April 2001 as manager, employee communication at FedEx after 25 years with the firm. He joined Western Kentucky University Department of Communication in August 2001 where, as professional in residence, he teaches courses in organizational communication and works with business leaders to help bridge the gap between communication scholastics and practices.


This article was taken from Strategic Communication Management.

How to prepare for a focus group

How to prepare for a focus group
By Angela Sinickas

You're considering staging a series of focus groups. Your organization is in the early phase of an environmental assessment that will have it polling employees for their opinion on a variety of performance-critical topics. The focus groups will start the ball rolling. What do you do to prepare?

Focus groups can serve a host of purposes, of course. Like panels filled with consumers asked to give advance feedback on some new product, employee focus groups can be a remarkably effective way to test-market key messages or communication strategies. They can be an effective way for communicators to put their ears to the ground and listen for what employees will say when asked open-ended questions. They can also be effective lead-ins for surveys in the early stages of development. For organizations facing serious performance issues, focus sessions are a useful means to lay the groundwork for asking the right questions in a way calculated to produce the best data.

1. Where to start
Start where any good consultant starts - with the client. Is there a principal figure (or group) in the organization asking for the data? If so, find out as much as you can about what has prompted the request. Educate yourself about the problem lying behind the request. You may find yourself talking with the CEO, or with the director of a division. Schedulean appointment and be clear about its purpose. Before you go, prepare a checklist for yourself detailing the ground you want to cover.

2. What you need to know
Remember that you may not always get the information you need on the first try. Consider the questions to ask again from another perspective. Above all, listen. What are the specific goals the client has in mind? Does the client have a pre-determined view of the outcome? Probe for the trouble spots, if there are any. What are you likely to hear about?

3. Find out who else you should speak to
Who else in the company, or division (or whatever the organizational unit that's to be the focus of the research) will have useful information to help you prepare? It may be a senior manager, or someone who's a long-time veteran of the organization. You may find yourself conducting several one-on-one interviews to help round out the picture. If you're a recent arrival in the company, consider whether anything else in the organization's history might be useful to know. Has the problem or issue occurred before? Has the program been tried earlier?

4. And now for the sessions..
Now that you've developed the background and sounded out the client, think ahead to the session (or sessions, if there's to be a series). Who should be there? How large should the sessions be? How long should they last? Where will they take place: off-site or in-house? Will they be open to volunteers? How many do you want to convene? How important is geographic or organizational coverage? How might the lack of cross-functional - or cross-sectional - diversity affect the outcome? What's a useful sampling? Where is the point of diminishing returns? Who will facilitate the sessions: a member of the communication team, an in-house trained facilitator, or a neutral outsider?

5. Widen your scope
The answers to many of these questions will partly be determined by the scope of the research. The larger the scope of the issues you're polling for, the larger the panel of groups you'll need to convene. At the same time, remember to ask yourself what you intend to do with the results. Will the sessions be taped, videotaped or otherwise recorded? What kind of qualitative data do you expect to get? Make sure to provide for the resources to analyze the results adequately.

6. Tear up the script, but not the agenda.
You'll likely not want to script the sessions. It's important that participants feel free to express themselves without being hemmed in by too much structure. On the other hand, an agenda is essential to make sure you cover the points you need to explore before thanking the group for coming. What are the goals of you and your client? What do you need to ask the group to make sure your survey is as effective as possible? Again, don't forget to listen well, and ask helpful follow-up questions.

Measurement tip
Focus groups provide a valuable opportunity for participants to talk to you. As they speak, be sure to listen to the language they use, and the way in which they respond to the language in the questions you ask. Think ahead to your survey questions. Are participants using words or terms that you can incorporate into a later survey and that would be more meaningful to them?

This article was taken from Strategic Communication Management.

How intranets change the way we work

How intranets change the way we work
By Paul Wright

Collecting and sharing information was once considered a job best left to librarians. With the advent of the corporate intranet, everyone has a role to play in that game. In a traditional library, it's the books on the shelves that serve as the central attraction. Intranet-browsers are as likely to be interested in what their colleagues know as any library reader might be in seeking out some rare text.

Indeed, this sense of collective resourcefulness that an intranet may stimulate offers a clue to what sets some corporate intranets apart from others, and underscores their dynamic nature. Intranets have acquired the reputation of being passports to magical new corporate behaviors. Confronting the myths that prevail about intranets can make all the difference between their becoming remarkable tools for knowledge management innovation and stultifying tangles of information overload.

Susan Wiener and Patterson Shafer, at Cognitive Communications (New York, NY), point out the traps that can derail an intranet. A paramount lesson, they stress, is the importance of addressing one's business before creating an intranet application or site because, says Wiener, "knowledge management means putting into action the knowledge that exists in the company so it can meet your business goals." Simply asking what an organization is trying to achieve by building an intranet can help avoid a lot of disappointment later. That approach also helps surface an awareness of some of the myths that can frustrate even the best of intentions.

Myth #1: An intranet is a product.
In fact, observes Wiener, it's a process, interactive, evolutionary, and without end. The hardware and software that support it are not what make an intranet function well, but rather the notion of carefully constructing the policies and guidelines that keep it moving and steadily integrating feedback and content. This links up with…

Myth #2: The infrastructure is the product.
The infrastructure may be mission critical along the way, stress Wiener and Shafer, but the real challenge comes with overcoming mindset and culture to tap into the potential of what the network offers.

Myth #3: Build it and they will come.
Says Wiener: "If it's not embedded in your work and if it doesn't scream value, employees may not come, and if they do, they probably won't come back." Shafer adds that by taking care to develop sound ergonomics and ease of use, and by stressing perceived value, return on investment can be impressive.

Myth #4: Intranets are inherently collaborative.
This myth goes to the heart of many an assumption of what an intranet can accomplish. Because a corporate web requires considerable focus and commitment, it reflects the culture that already exists. Without a collaborative culture, an intranet can do little to create one in its place. Collaboration comes about, in part, as an imperative of market forces: in a fast-paced world, it's crucial to respond ever faster to customer needs with new products and services. This means supplying information rapidly to your workforce, and putting in their hands the means to get it independently. Wiener and Shafer suggest that those companies interested in becoming collaborative consider using the intranet as a tool along the way as they re-structure, and develop in tandem a compensation structure that rewards information sharing.

Harmonizing information Post-Acquisition
Let's look at some examples of intranets that have evolved with some of these myths in mind. Platinum Technology, Inc. (Oakbrook Terrace, IL) faces the problem familiar to many of rapid growth and rapid-fire acquisitions. Glenn Shimkus, Platinum's director of worldwide sales enablement, reports that in the past five years the company has seen its sales reach $1billion from a starting-point of $50 million. Behind this climb lie some 70 acquisitions, resulting in a knot of 30 intranet sites, over 80 Lotus Notes—databases, and more than 1,000 network drives. Shimkus reports that this presented the sales force with a difficult challenge of sorting out where to find the up-to-date product and company information it needed to do its job. In 1997, Platinum began to untangle this snarl by developing an intranet to capture explicit data in document format from throughout the world. Its goal was to ensure that sales members in Singapore had the same information available to people two doors down the hall. The initial result, says Shimkus, was a productivity improvement of six to seven percent, or a minimum of one hour a week saved by each member of the sales force. The intranet base established has spurred the company to move forward to looking at ways to use the web to capture best practice sharing, in part through establishing chat rooms, bulletin boards, and rapid response e-mail.

Shimkus reports that as decision-making occurs increasingly in the field, fewer calls come into senior management for referral and advice. Weekly sessions convened on the intranet introduce company experts to their peers, and bring together people who would not ordinarily find themselves talking. A particular challenge is to monitor the age of content on the 'net. The company looks at how frequently content gets updated (content not refined for a period of time gets pulled for review). The intranet also allows for monitoring to determine how quickly feedback from users results in action, and a rating system is being developed to allow users to assess content and usability.

How USWest Avoids Reinventing the Wheel
Similar forces have spurred USWest Communications (Denver, CO) in development of its intranet. Daya Haddock, project manager for the company's Global Village Labs (Global Village refers to the USWest intranet), reports that the rapid changes unleashed by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 have driven the company to rethink its business. Leveraging its web technology with its legacy and mainframe information systems became a priority to move information efficiently and quickly to its employees. While much of its intranet effort has focused on eliminating manual processes enabling its work force to tackle more complex problems (say, rapid information exchange between work areas without the need for rekeying), considerable effort has gone into developing ways for employees to help themselves and one another. With 35,000 browsers on employee desks (out of a workforce of 50,000), the USWest intranet, says Haddock, reflects a certain self-service bias. Training, for example, has been converted to online self-paced tutorials; a unified help desk speeds answers to employee questions; an application deployed within six weeks to some 10,000 service representatives now offers current data on company services.

In addition, observes Haddock, work teams and project teams have clamored for web sites that enable them to mount and exchange information, "breaking down barriers to information sharing." A registration process grew out of this need, to design standards and guidelines for web-sites, paving the way for easier keyword searches. (Any business-oriented web-site is permitted without restriction.) One standard that applies to web-sites provides that each must come complete with feedback mechanism. Focus groups, held at least quarterly, also provide input for user-oriented refinements. Because growing pieces of the company's Global Village web represent grass-roots initiatives, says Haddock, information formerly housed in the company's silos is rapidly becoming distributed across the company. "We'd much rather beg, borrow, and steal than re-experience the pain of re-inventing something." That attitude, in turn, spurs the freedom to create anew.

How the Intranet Supports Work Processes at The McGraw-Hill Companies
Meanwhile, fifteen years ago, reports Jack Goodman, senior director of corporate communications at The McGraw-Hill Companies (New York, NY), the then-chairman envisioned (long before the supportive technology existed) an "information turbine" that, as a meeting place of sorts for goods and services from throughout the organization, would spur the creation of products in new permutations. This vision later took root as one of the company's five objectives for launching its intranet some four years ago. (Saving money, improving communications, expanding relationships within and outside the organization, and enhancing work processes rounded out the set of five.)

While Goodman points to demonstrable results in use of the intranet to cut costs and strengthen communications, assessing its impact on work processes and collaboration requires more care. In December 1996, The McGraw-Hill Companies launched two newsgroups on the intranet. (A newsgroup rates as an exercise in collaboration involving at least one employee outside one's individual business unit.) The newsgroups now number 40, and extend throughout the enterprise. As the web's "adopter" community expands, the network, suggests Goodman, approaches the frontier separating intranet as novelty from intranet as a tool essential to do one's job. The fact that The McGraw-Hill Companies is moving toward its third generation underscores this shift. (Goodman reflects that McGraw-Hill initially seeded the "intranet marketplace" by identifying and spotlighting those who would be its "early adopters." In hindsight, he voices a preference for top-down, as well as bottom-up, support to launch the web into the company's mainstream.) As the newsgroups provide a growing number of forums for employees to raise challenging problems, explore alternative solutions, and broach new ideas, the workforce no longer depends on offline mechanisms to validate their ideas. Employees can instead obtain rapid validation online through their colleagues' expertise.

In this sense, the collaborative potential of the web begins to dovetail with its capacity to alter the way people work. Goodman notes that, once people begin to use the intranet, they recognize many of its benefits right off—its ability to help one work faster, for example, by providing ready access to information. But an inherently collaborative tool it is not. The first generation of the McGraw-Hill web served largely as a publishing medium. The second generation, reports Goodman, focuses more on the intranet as a vehicle for "getting the work done," pushing to support work processes on a function-by-function basis. While the company hones its global business objectives, its senior management—now recognizing new ways in which the intranet can support those objectives—pushes its value while employees, understanding its usability, pull to expand its reach.

True Collaboration at Xerox Corp.
Perhaps few companies better demonstrate the collaborative use to which an intranet can be put by a committed workforce than Xerox Corp. (Rochester, NY). David Woodruff, program manager in the office of the intranet, reports that the company, like others we've seen, originally envisioned its intranet as a publishing medium. As studies showed that nearly 80 percent of users simply scanned for information, and feedback poured in that the web often presented too much text, content grew more concise. "There was a desire to interact with the content. When people scanned a document, they wouldn't get enough information to allow them to ask reasonable questions." Here is a case of less is more.

Interaction—questions, bulletin boards, team and individual web-sites—became the hallmark of the company's intranet, at the behest of its users, who knew what they wanted and how they wanted it to work. Some 8,000 web-sites now populate the Xerox intranet, with each contributor the arbiter of access and content. Woodruff notes that his ultimate goal is that everyone in the company become a contributor.

Guidelines and protocols for use of the Xerox web grew directly out of agreements among users, who understood the value in having uniformity for search purposes, as well as to facilitate creation for new web sites. Use of the intranet, remarks Woodruff, has now become a given in the company, with value demonstrated constantly. He cites the example of a team in Italy picking up on schematics published by a U.S.-based design team. When the Italians suggested design changes that would result in a better machine at less cost, it was a solid lesson in the value of broadcasting information beyond the usually accepted boundaries.

Intranets are fast teaching the lesson that they do not transform an organization's culture, and do not create collaboration where none existed before. As a key ingredient in a comprehensive knowledge management strategy, they hold pride of place. And with a workforce galvanized to share knowledge and appropriately rewarded for doing so, intranets can become remarkable hothouses of creativity that demonstrate true ownership among their users.

Paul Wright is a contributing editor to Strategic Communication Management .

Bond Like Super-Glue

How-To 'Bond Like Super-Glue' With Your Subscribers!

By Michael Green

Every successful Ezine editor knows one thing that all failing editors have yet to learn...

"If you're going to make 'real' money from your Ezine newsletter, by earning cash every time you hit the 'Send' key to dispatch your latest edition; then first you need to gain the undying trust and devotion of your list of subscribers in fact, you've got to 'Bond like Super-Glue' to each and every one of your readers!"

SOLD OUT!

But where does the average Ezine owner get their hands on that kind of 'Subscriber Bonding-Substance?'

The answer is that an Ezine editor has to make their own glue and it takes a little time, perseverance and effort!

You see people buy products once trust has been developed (not before) and too many list owners make the basic mistake of trying to put the kart before the horse. They attempt to 'hard-sell' products that they are affiliated to, right from issue number #1 of their Ezine. But unfortunately – they fail to realize that trust has yet to be built-up between the newsletter and its readers. And that is fatal!

GETTING IN CLOSER

Nobody wants to be hard-sold to by a virtual or complete stranger, and that's in the real offline world. You can multiply that old maxim by a hundred in the scam-rich online environment.

Now Ezine list owners who forget that they promised their readership quality, useful and informative information - when they first signed up - are then the exact same people who are most surprised when they discover that they're not making a decent return from their online efforts.

SHOCKED BY HIS OWN FAILURE

Recently an Ezine owner contacted me anxious to discover why his own Ezine (with a 5,000 subscriber base) was failing to make profits.

I asked to see a copy and when I did, the answer was shockingly obvious...

1. There was no original content of benefit to the reader.
2. EVERY link was an affiliate program he was signed up to.
3. The editor made no attempt to befriend the reader.
4. No sense of which angle the Ezine was coming from.
5. There was nothing to indicate who it was aimed at either.

The answer to why this list owner was disappointed by his Ezine income was very clear...

He had failed to 'bond' with his readership. In fact, he had forgotten to apply any glue at all!

So how do you insert glue between you and your subscribers?

It's easy -- follow these 4 SUPER-GLUE STEPS:

1. GIVE THEM QUALITY CONTENT
You have to make certain that there are benefits to the reader in subscribing and this means bringing them fresh interesting articles and perspectives on the subject that your Ezine tackles.

2. BE CLEAR WHERE YOU ARE COMING FROM
If you told new subscribers your Ezine was about how to "better work from home", then at least roughly stick to your subject matter. If you don't your Ezine will become completely defocused, confusing your reader.

3. BE CERTAIN YOUR READER KNOWS ABOUT YOU
Your task is to build trust. The only way we come to trust each other is to get to know one another first. So you've got to be bringing your reader up to speed about yourself as editor. Your likes, dislikes and views are all important. Don't hide them.

4. PROMISE AN ONGOING RELATIONSHIP
The glue dries stronger, if your readers believe that you will still be around next week, month or year. You can't develop a powerful relationship with your reader if they believe that you are a fly-by-night newsletter editor.

Do all this and guess what?

The next time you happen to mention the latest, greatest, hottest new product on the block and then proceed to give it your personal seal of approval, your readers will follow you to purchase that item - as if they were actually stuck to you.

That will be because you've taken the time to 'Bond like Super-Glue' With Your Subscribers before trying to sell them anything that moves.

Operating a directors' hotline

Operating a directors' hotline

The following question was recently posted to The Communicators' Network:

Q: What's the best way to establish an open forum that allows for anonymity?

A: We've operated a directors' hotline for a few years now with some success. We operate the hotline every Wednesday between 12 and 2pm and directors man it on a rota basis. The same phone number is used each week so we can advertise with ease and callers can remain anonymous (a difficulty with e-mail).

We have had to educate directors and employees that if the caller wants to remain anonymous then it may be difficult for any specific actions to be taken as a result of the call. Mostly we find that people don't mind giving their name but on occasion people want to sound off about an issue without getting involved personally.

In terms of usage, we average two or three calls a week. It's not massive, but we receive between 100 and 150 calls a year and the input from directors and running costs are low. We also tend to see big increases during times of major change so it's an established channel that comes into its own during these times, rather than having to create and advertise new channels.

Nigel Fitzhenry, Communication Manager, Romec

Creating a feedback culture

Creating a feedback culture

Adrian Cropley, CEO and principal consultant at Cropley Communications, lists five essential ingredients for two-way communication:

1. Link to business outcomes: It's important that every employee is completely clear how their role contributes to the overall business outcomes. A clear link to the business outcomes will ensure that when you communicate the business results, employees are listening.

2. Survey regularly: Establish a regular timeframe for your survey and stick to it, so it becomes part of people's mindset. To have the greatest impact on developing the culture, make sure your survey is sent out at the same time of year so that employees are expecting it and are prepared.

3. Feed back the survey results: It may seem simple, but actually taking time out to feed back the survey results is very important. Make the results available first to the management for analysis and then to all employees. Focus on the most relevant bits to each part of the business.

4. Take meaningful action and get buy-in: This is the most potent ingredient of all. Look at your top issues and create an action plan within the next survey period to take meaningful actions. Most importantly, get the buy-in by allowing employees to be involved in some way: through a workgroup or part of team meetings. Ask for input and involvement.

5. Feed back actions and show the link: This is probably the most overlooked ingredient, but is the difference between a good and great feedback culture. You'll have a number of people involved in developing plans and taking actions, but not everyone will be involved in everything. Make sure you communicate what actions have been taken and list the improvements. Also clearly show how this will impact the overall business outcome. After all, the first ingredient was the link to business outcomes, so simply close the loop.

Source: The Business Communicator.

TOP TIPS: Getting value from your measurement

TOP TIPS: Getting value from your measurement
If you want to make your employee surveys more effective, the interval between survey and feedback should be as short as possible. Use these pointers to produce even better results.

by Phil Askham, head of communications, O2 UK

1. Be clear why you’re doing it
Think through how your findings will add value – what important gaps in knowledge will they fill? Relate the study to other priorities, like brand analysis or customer research. Framed accordingly, it may help you gain entry to discussions on the future direction of the company.

Relate the study to other priorities, like brand analysis or customer research.

2. Get sponsors on your side
The board will release budget only if you can persuade them how a knowledge of workforce opinion will help them achieve company goals and strategies. Court their support, but beware of promising too much or compromising the integrity of the research (it may come back to haunt you).

3. Explain what it’s for
There’s no such thing as pure data collection. By asking employees for their opinions, you raise expectations that something will be done with the results. Explain to employees why you’re doing it and what will happen as a result.

4. Move quickly
Make the interval between survey and feedback as short as possible. Don’t wait for the next annual survey to test opinion – start now with a short, focused piece of analysis. Surveys designed in April that report in July and receive a board hearing in September proceed too slowly to keep up with the changes in employee opinion they’re supposed to be measuring.

Don’t wait for the next annual survey to test opinion – start now with a short, focused piece of analysis.

5. Be ready to act on the findings
Research is only as valuable as the action that results from it. Prime your sponsors and decision-implementers in advance to decide how they will communicate the findings, act on the recommendations and measure the progress that has been made. One great piece of research – admired for its role in rallying people around change – could create the demand for more.

http://www.internalcommshub.com/trial/measuring/whatsworking/getvalue.shtml

Web writing

The Six Rules of Web Writing

By: Merry Burns
Source: Executive Update, Feature Article
Published: November 2003

1. Create content for readers.

2. Show them the benefits.

3. Write to reach them.

4. Write more concisely.

5. Format for scanning.

6. Become interactive.

Your Web site is your business card — your front door — and the first view visitors have of your organization. A well-written, well-designed site tells visitors what you are doing for them and how you are addressing their needs and priorities.

People often make snap decisions based on what they see, and Web site content is no exception. Sometimes our decisions are erroneous. Associations that are truly member-driven may have sites that don't reflect it due to weak editing and editorial decisions regarding Web content and focus. Other sites look promising, with pricey designs, great visuals, and clever animation, but on second glance they have unreadable pages of dense text, a lack of reader focus, and myriad usability challenges.

Fortunately, associations can do a lot to dramatically improve that crucial first impression and position themselves for repeat visits by customers, members, and other site visitors. Web editing and writing are skills that anyone can learn, and the payoffs — well-informed members, loyal customers, impressed donors, satisfied media, and more — certainly are worth the effort. Here are six guidelines to get your started.

Create Content for Your Reader
Before talking to designers and programmers, you should recognize that developing a visitor-oriented focus is the most important item in any Web content strategy. Too often, overworked managers bury this critical element deep beneath the complex physical business of creating or relaunching a Web site, learning a content management system, or deciding who does what for the site. As a result, the reader — the very reason for the site — is missing from the process.

Perhaps the hardest part about Web content strategies is determining what's important to your readers as opposed to what's important to the organization. Your association's goals and those of your audience are sometimes aligned, but occasionally they may conflict.

It's tempting to think that what drives the internal workings of the organization — the processes by which things happen — are important and need to be prominently displayed on your Web site. But sometimes these internal issues are the ones least likely to demonstrate that you are thinking about visitors' needs, problems, and goals. They don't work at your organization; why should they care?

Look through the expansive pages of your site and ask yourself at each screen, "How well does this content address our visitors' questions and problems? Does this page show readers that we understand what's most important for them, or does it reflect primarily the meetings, processes, and tasks of the organization?"

Note that the question is not "Are we giving our readers enough information about the workings of our organization?" but "Do we understand enough about our readers to know what they need our help with, and are we giving it to them on our Web site?"

Show Them the Benefits
When placing informational content online — current events, association news, calendars, or e-learning opportunities, for instance — association writers must edit the information for maximum impact, so members can see immediately why and how the information benefits them.

Simply uploading information about an industry trade show and allowing members to register online are not enough. Tell them that attending the trade show will give them a unique chance to meet 500 potential buyers in their industry. Identify the specific ways the organization's event will meet their needs and desires. Share stories of real value gained from happy past participants. Analyze your content as you edit it to go online:

* Can your products streamline members' workloads?
* Will attendance at your next conference give people a huge discount on your products or a chance to interact with key speakers?
* Will your online classes give customers a jump on their competition in clearly defined ways?

As we increasingly rely on the Web for practical information, we're always looking for things that will help us work more efficiently, improve the quality of our jobs and home life, and keep us competitive. Showing your readers exactly how your information can help them achieve these goals is a good way to guarantee loyalty for your site.

Write to Reach Them
Text on Web sites should speak directly to the people you're trying to reach, so use appropriate language for the reader. Generally, Web writing styles are more conversational than in print, since we are, in effect, extending a friendly handshake to anyone who comes by and may be interested in what we're offering.

Jargon is a disaster on Web sites, since the audience is global. Your Web site is not your intranet, and outside readers can't possibly understand in-house terms. A pontifical tone and a pedantic writing style make pages seem canned and artificial. We all are annoyed by Web sites that appear to talk down to us, are filled with excessive marketing hype, or are clearly written from an insider-only perspective.

Writing for the reader in a more conversational tone also can ensure a clearer writing style, one that is more like the way we normally talk when explaining something. Clearer writing makes information more accessible, and readers are less likely to misunderstand what we're saying.

Direct, clear, and friendly writing also draws an instinctive, positive reaction from the reader. Informational text, presented in question form and answered the way we'd answer someone verbally, makes readers feel included, not excluded. We appear to be simply talking to them, happy to provide them with information.

Write More Concisely
Reading online is harder than reading print. Most documents we put online come from print versions. They're written to be read line by line, page by page. Unfortunately, people generally do not read Web pages that way. Sun Microsystems, which conducts usability testing on the way people read text on their monitors, determined that approximately 79 percent of readers skimmed through a Web page, and only 11 percent read online text line by line, as they would for a print piece.

Many physical reasons make online reading an uncomfortable experience. Staring at a screen makes your eyes weary, since you are focusing on fuzzy light. Indistinct text (much less legible than print) causes eye strain, especially when Web designers choose ridiculously small font sizes.

Because few people enjoy reading lengthy documents online, it pays to make your writing as concise as possible, whether you're starting from scratch or editing a print piece to go online. Include everything you need to say but try saying it with fewer words.

Writing more concisely allows the reader to get at the information with less effort, since less time is needed to read it. You may have read that everything you put online needs to be shortened by half. Not true. Sometimes just tightening the text a bit can make a huge difference. Writing with brevity online gets the meaning across faster and with greater impact and better reader retention. Usability tests show dramatic improvements in reader retention and comprehension with shorter text.

Format for Scanning
Those pages and pages of text on Web sites — each filled with long, unbroken paragraphs — are almost impossible to plow through in monitor-sized chunks. Too often, they are pulled straight from printed documents and "repurposed" as either a PDF document or a "Save As HTML" Web page.

Your reader is scanning those pages, seeing only a small piece of the document at a time, looking for something, anything, to let them know what the information is about. Your readers are busy, impatient, and focused entirely on getting at the nuggets of information in your document. Thus, they will profoundly appreciate a skim-friendly format.

Outline the ideas, concepts, points, or directions in your documents so readers can skim and retain the main points, understand any steps to follow, and grasp your most important concepts. Start the formatting process by thinking about questions your reader might have about the material:

* Where is the keyword I'm looking for? Any phrases here look like possible candidates?
* What's this page about? Do I have to read every word to find out what it means?
* How long is this thing anyway?

Use bullets, bold formatting, and spacing to create visual pathways through the material. Insert subheads over related paragraph blocks and make them shorter. It's a new way of thinking about processes you probably already know how to do. You also will need to thoroughly understand the document's content, because you may want to organize the information differently to create a clearer layout.

Become Interactive
The Web gives us tools that let us interact with our visitors in new ways. We can question, converse, and give instant feedback to members, customers, and others who want to do something on our site, whether ordering a book, registering for a conference, or finding directions for a meeting.

Visuals, even something as simple as a diagram, often communicate ideas more clearly than text alone. Web tools, including anything from forms to Flash, can show processes, substitute for lengthy descriptions, describe concepts visually, set moods, and sometimes improve usability.

Think of things that readers will want to do with your information. Can they do it online? From filling in forms or sending an e-mail query to selecting, buying, and evaluating products — all can be done online, saving time, phone calls, and steps.

Ask questions of your own material. Can they be answered online? Is everything adequately explained by the text, or would a diagram be easier and quicker to understand?

The degree of interactivity you choose varies according to your budget, goals, and information. Wise decisions at this stage will save you a great deal of money in the long run, and you won't be taken in by "cool tools" in the Web industry that are not all that useful.

Writing in a style more appropriate for reading online, editing your print material to go up on your site, and developing a strong audience focus are imperative to the development of good, relevant Web content. The process can take as little or as much time as you can afford, and frankly, any effort is worth it. But a careful analysis of your content, followed by a discussion of what's working and what isn't and fixing it, are not optional steps in the process of creating Web sites that truly communicate with readers, convince them that your organization is there for them, and enable them to move easily through your online material.

In the end, it all comes down to communicating, and the Web can be your biggest asset or a liability, depending on how you write, edit, and develop your site's content. The payoffs are true relationships with your readers and fewer headaches for your staff.

Tight Writing for the Web

Eliminate extraneous words and phrases that don't add much and that reduce retention and readability on a screen. The following three rules can help:

1. Trim synonymous words (basic and fundamental, true and accurate, each and every).

2. Edit redundant modifiers (each individual, past history, future plans).

Kill l-e-n-g-t-h-y phrases. ("Those engaged in the profession of teaching" = "teachers." "Information from written sources" = "written information." "Retains in memory" = "remembers.")

http://www.centeronline.org/knowledge/article.cfm?ID=2529&ContentProfileID=137787&Action=searching

Secret of Bloggers

The secret’s out: bloggers and companies don’t trust each other

A new survey reveals that bloggers trust each other more than information from corporate websites.

An online survey of 821 bloggers, which probed their views of corporate blogs and companies generally, has revealed that 63% find fellow bloggers a more trustworthy source of information than corporate websites (26%), corporate blogs (6%) or press releases (5%).

A huge 85% of bloggers view corporate blogs as only somewhat credible or occasionally trustworthy sources of information about a company or its products, with 8% finding them totally untrustworthy. Only 7% found them trustworthy. Thirty-five percent of bloggers would most like to interact with other company employees who blog, compared to company executives with whom only 19% said they most wanted to interact.

48% of bloggers have never been approached by a company or its PR representative.

The study, carried out jointly by PR firm Edelman and blog search engine Technorati, also focused on bloggers' attitudes towards being engaged by companies in the same way that PR engages mainstream media. It showed that companies and PR have been slow to establish proper contact within the blogosphere; 48% of bloggers have never been approached by a company or its PR representative. Only 21% of respondents report weekly contact from companies or their PR representatives and only 16% report that companies or their PR firms generally attempt to interact with them in a personalized manner.

Is the blogosphere unfairly sidelined?
The findings also revealed that bloggers feel the blogosphere as a whole has been sidelined by the corporate world. Forty percent said companies either don’t respond as often as they should, or not at all, to blog postings referring to them, and 42% complained that companies don’t realize the influential power of blogs. A further 28% said companies used blogs as a PR or marketing tool.

But perhaps companies’ mistrust of bloggers has been misplaced: 88% of bloggers say they correct themselves if they post incorrect information and 70% say they would evaluate product samples on their blog.

Personality in Newsletter

YOU'VE GOT TO GIVE YOUR PUBLICATION A TON OF "NEWSLETTER PERSONALITY".

Or to put it more accurately, you actually need to allow your own personality the space to shine through and dominate your written publication.

You see, when somebody meets you face-to-face they are quickly presented with (and pick up on) your personality traits and this makes you instantly memorable. Even when you have a conversation on the phone, you naturally give over a whole range of characteristics that mean that you'll likely be remembered in the future.

But once you're in writing, particularly if it's in the form of a plain text email, then you've got to fight
harder to have your personality shine through.

And the stakes couldn't be higher. If you fail to impress your readers, then they will quickly forget all
about you and move onto your competition. But the *best* way to distinguish yourself is to let your personality leap at the reader, right off the page or screen!

Now many newsletter editors face a problem that they are more accustomed to writing somber business documents than publishing a lively and memorable read.


HERE IS A TIP TO HELP YOU GET YOUR "NEWSLETTER PERSONALITY" RIGHT OUT THERE.

Think about your favorite newspaper. Maybe it's the New York Times, USA Today or some local paper that you buy weekly. Somewhere in that paper there will be a columnist that you probably turn to and read week-in week-out. Why? Because you feel you know the characteristics of the writer. You understand where they're coming from, on a whole range of issues. You either empathize with their views or read the column because it makes you angry and you enjoy the controversy.

No matter. What that journalist has achieved is to make their own personality leap from the paper. And you need to emulate precisely that approach in your entire newsletter!


HOW TO HAVE COMPLETE STRANGERS FEEL THEY KNOW YOU.

If you don't do it already, start telling your readership a little bit about yourself. People like to feel they
know you and understand where you're coming from. Here are some handy pointers. Just pull out and use the ones that best apply for your own newsletter readership.

- ENSURE THAT YOUR READERS KNOW WHERE YOU ARE FROM.
People automatically start to think they know you and build a picture just from a place name, State or Country. You may not have been there for years, but it'll start to build an image picture in your readers' minds!

- ESTABLISH WHETHER YOU ARE STRAIGHT-LACED OR A BIT OF A JOKER.
Humor can work wonders, but if you're not a natural funny man (or woman) then don't try and fake it.
Just be yourself.

- BE FORTHRIGHT ABOUT YOUR VIEWS.
Don't sit on the fence worrying about whether your readership will agree or not. Establish where you are
coming from straight-away and celebrate the fact. Either your readers will agree or if they disagree, it will
create some interest and soon you'll get readers letters, etc...you get the idea.


Whether you're new to the newsletter editing game or already established, remember that your readers have a choice. If your publication comes across as faceless and lacking in personality, the chances are your readers will jump ship, right across to the nearest competition.

by Michael Green