Author: dave Page 57 of 75

Wow! I got two posts mentioned in the PR briefs note on the Mutually Exclusive PR weblog. Now I know I’ve really arrived.

Actually, Eric Eggertson, who runs the blog, is an old friend of mine from Regina and one of the best PR bloggers around. His insights and wry humour inject a note of Prairie reality into the sometimes rarified air of corporate communications. Since he entered the realm last year, he’s become one of my must-reads. And he’s also been kind enough to send quite a few readers my way.

Thanks Eric. And keep ’em coming!

Here’s a story that says we’re working harder but getting less done. That seems to fit with the anecdotal evidence I see around me every day. People talk about how busy they are and how they don’t have time to get everything done. That seems to be at odds with all these great time-saving technologies we’re all so busy adopting. But the new hardware and software doesn’t seem to help. In fact, if studies like this are to be believed, they might be a big part of the problem.

Here’s an excerpt from the Wired News article, just to give you the flavour:

Unlike a decade ago, U.S. workers are bombarded with e-mail, computer messages, cell phone calls, voicemails and the like, research showed.

The average time spent on a computer at work was almost 16 hours a week last year, compared with 9.5 hours a decade ago, according to the Day-Timer research released this week.

Workers typically get 46 e-mails a day, nearly half of which are unsolicited, it said.

Sixty percent of workers say they always or frequently feel rushed, but those who feel extremely or very productive dropped to 51 percent from 83 percent in 1994, the research showed.

Put another way, in 1994, 82 percent said they accomplished at least half their daily planned work but that number fell to 50 percent last year. A decade ago, 40 percent of workers called themselves very or extremely successful, but that number fell to just 28 percent.

What should we take from this information? Well, we’re moving in the wrong direction, despite the technological advances we’ve made. We haven’t learned how to use technology to our advantage, at least in a consistent way. We have learned how to take advantage of technology in a larger sense. Our corporations are more profitable than they’ve ever been and real advances have been made in all sorts of areas.

But we have not been as quick with figuring out how technology helps our society in a “social” sense. How are communities made stronger by high technology? How does the ability to bring people together in a virtual world translate into a better “real” world? We don’t have those answers. We’re not even asking the questions yet. We’re starstruck by the potential wins and not paying enough attention to the issues we’re facing right now.

In a company, this shows up in issues like switching from print newsletters to intranets. Features that used to be standard in a print publication, like employee profiles, retirement notices, death notices, upcoming social events, etc., are often discarded. They’re not seen as driving business anymore and they get dropped from the “instant-on” Intranets. (This isn’t to condemn Intranets — just to point out that some of the “social” benefits of the older technology get overlooked when we switch to the newer models.)

We expect employees to work harder. We monitor their performance more closely. And we’re more likely to question their work habits if they don’t measure up to business objectives. In theory, this should make us more efficient, but in practice, as studies like this are starting to indicate, we are becoming less efficient. Or at least, we think we are less efficient and that could be the same thing.

We need some new measures for how we decide whether we’re working well and whether the companies we work for are measuring up. Bottom line performance is only one measurement. When it’s the only one used, it’s hard on employees. But if we were to broaden the measurement base to include items like job satisfaction, community involvement, creativity — there could be a lot on this list — we would be able to judge the merits of our business world in a more socially responsible manner.

A change is coming, I’m sure of it. And while the rapid adoption of new technologies is part of the problem, it’s also the key to a solution. We’ve just got to keep asking the right questions.

I’m a writer. I also like to hear other writers talk about how they write. This list of Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing is one I really like. It’s good advice and good reading too. We’re all writers, even if all we write are e-mails to colleagues. Everyone benefits when we put a little thought into how we communicate with each other.

(Thanks to 43Folders for the link)

There’s been a debate going on for years now on just what the future is for newspapers in an online world.

There are those who think the prospects are limited for newspapers and that their days as one of the prime delivery networks for news are limited. Recently, PR blogger Steve Rubel, complained about newspaper sites only delivering partial RSS feeds. Then he went further:

Flash forward 10 years from today. We will look back and laugh how quaint it was that we received our news on dead trees. Yes, I am saying the word “newspaper” will be a misnomer. News will be delivered automatically each day, not by the paper boy, but via wirelessly enabled e-paper devices that are easy to read. All of it will be powered by RSS.

Perhaps. A lot will depend on just how good those E-reader devices really become. Still, I’m not convinced. There are a lot of significant factors that are still pointing to newsprint enjoying a long life yet. And there are others that share my opinion.

In his Loose Wire blog, Jeremy Wegstaff, a columnist with the Wall St. Journal, takes a contrary view (perhaps not surprisingly, given his vocation.)

But Wegstaff’s response is not knee-jerk, in any way. He presents a lot of thoughtful reasons on why we’re not likely to give up the luxury of print anytime soon.

I tend to agree. While I do a lot of reading online, there are still plenty of situations where I want to hold something in my hands and read. A cup of hot coffee and a lot of sunshine coming in through the window — to me, that’s a recipe for curling up with a book or leafing through a newspaper, not cuddling up to my computer.

Similarly, when I commute in the morning, newspapers and books outnumber portable devices by quite a bit. Part of the debate has to do with whether we need to see news in “real time.” Personally, I think that requirement is overblown in importance. We just don’t have to know everything right now. If something is significant, we’ll hear about it soon enough. Still, it is human nature to want to know stuff right away, especially if they can find out about it before someone else. Knowledge is power, as they say.

As I reporter, I used to see this a lot at news conferences. While sitting around waiting for a politician to arrive and tell us what the news was, we’d all debate our own theories, trying to convince each other that we knew more than the others about what was happening. And we’d do this right up until the announcement was made. It was fun, but it didn’t really contribute anything to the larger picture.

What do you think? Are you likely to accept getting all your news delivered to your favourite media player via RSS? Or do you think that newspapers are going to stay relevant in a fully electronic world?

If you’ve ever been the victim of a badly organized business meeting (and I’m sure we all have been at one time or another) you’ll appreciate these 9 suggestions for how to make your business meetings more productive.

The list was compiled by Merlin Mann over at 43 Folders, which is a great place to visit for all kinds of ideas about how to organize your on-life life.

There’s a new blog out on Employee Communications, a subject near and dear to my heart. It’s called For Your Approval, and it’s written by Ron Shewchuk, who’s the author of a new book from the IABC called Writing and Editing the Internal Publication: Delivering Employee Communications with Impact, Integrity and Style.

His post today is a thought-provoking piece called The Myth of the Strategic Communicator. He raises some good points in this first of what will be several posts on this topic.

He takes aim at the notion that if communicators are going to be relevant in business, they have to gain a seat at the executive table. But in his experience, that’s not a path to success, especially for communicators.

Well, I’m here today to tell you that I’ve been a temporary dinner guest at that strategic table more than a few times in my long and sordid career. And I’m ready to share a little secret: most of the time the guests are insane and the food is undercooked, overcooked, rotten or poisoned. Very few decisions actually ever get made. Long-term direction is often nothing more than the path of least resistance, or whatever your cranky investors are insisting you do next. And battle tactics are devised in a very deep, cushy bunker in which the primary goal is not victory, but self-preservation.

He’s got lots of other good stuff, like why a psychopath would fit into an executive suite and how communicators share a lot with social workers. It’s provacative and worth reading.

Another new blog
Another interesting update for business communications blogs is the launch of the IABC Communications Commons. The blog is actually a series of blogs (3 at the moment) which will feature well-known communicators talking about what matters to them.

Shel Holtz, who has a long history of championing new media for communicators and is the co-host (with Neville Hobson) of the For Immediate Release podcast, was one of the driving forces behind this new venture, which is sponsored by the IABC. Surprisingly, though, I couldn’t find any mention of it on the IABC website yet. Perhaps it’s too new to point to.

The Communications Commons features three sub-areas right now — Branding, Employee Communications and Measurement. You can sign up for RSS feeds for each of them, as well as the general feed.

It’s an indication that communicators are getting serious about using the blogosphere as a way to spread knowledge. If you’re in communications and you want to stay in touch with how our world is changing, I encourage you to check out these new resources.

I’m sitting here tonight catching up on all my RSS feeds. I subscribe to a lot of blogs (as you can see down in the right-hand column) and sometimes I fall way behind in reading the latest posts. When I was away in Victoria, I didn’t have regular access to the web, so I didn’t read much at all for over a week. So tonight, since I’ve nothing else going on right now, I’ve been spending some “quality time” with my computer.

Often while I do that, I listen to podcasts. But this is Saturday night, so I’ve got the radio turned to CBC Radio One and I’m listening to “Randy’s Vinyl Tap,” which is arguably the best music show in the land. While I’ve pretty much given up on regular radio, there are still some great shows on CBC and since they’re not yet releasing them as podcasts (although they’re thinking about it) Randy’s Vinyl Tap is one I always try to listen to.

Host Randy Bachman, of course, was one of the founders of The Guess Who, one of the most famous Canadian bands of all time, and certainly the most famous to ever come out of Winnipeg. His show features his incredible stories about the popular music scene over the last 40 years, which he fills the show with. And he plays his personal favourites throughout, all with his unique personal touch.

Tonight, he’s featuring instrumentals only. “No voices at all,” he says, except his own to introduce the songs. It’s been a great show so far, and there’s still another hour to come.

If you haven’t checked out the show on CBC Radio One (alas, it’s not available as a podcast yet) try to carve some time out of your Saturday nights and listen. I guarantee you’ll have a good time.