I heard on the radio this morning that “billions have been lost over the last year through people updating their statuses rather than working”. I’ve heard similar things before and frankly I don’t agree.

A couple of years ago I was asked by Melcrum Publishing to write something about the use social networking sites by employees and I suspect this debate will carry on for years. The simple and credible sounding argument is this: If people are spending time on social networks instead of working, the business is not getting any value from that employee for that time.

Strictly … empirically … it’s true. But it ignores the bigger picture of getting more long term value from your employees by creating more engaging working environments. The fact that jobs and even departments for employee engagement exist is testament to the need for engaging employees. Research shows that money doesn’t motivate in the long term. Being an engaged employee in an agreeable working environment does. Some years ago, studies showed that allowing access to evil employee-time-stealing sites like Hotmail and Yahoo! actually lead to a small increase in productivity in some areas. It was found that, on the understanding that access was only allowed during breaks, people did exactly that – and while they remained at their desks, checking on their evil productivity-leaching webmail, they actually continued to do more work.

Ok, maybe not scientific, but I think the real issue is a management issue: If your employees are spending too much time networking then either you should see their work suffer and this can be addressed, or they just haven’t got enough work.

I once worked at <a global brand that shall remain nameless> that had had all the DVD drives removed from the desktops that staff were issued with. When I asked to borrow the department’s DVD player (oh yes), it was explained to me that this was a security issue (even if staff were using USB sticks to take work home with them), but more importantly to prevent people watching films when they should be working. You’d think you’d notice someone spending two hours staring at their screen, earphones in, and smirking at the funny bits and generally not doing any work, but apparently not. It only made me wonder why my bag wasn’t checked for books in case I might be reading novels at my desk instead of working.

There are reasons (apart from basic human rights) why we no longer work in Dickensian penury, silently seated at desks, fearing the fines and corporal punishment meted out by our employees. Allow people their email, their quick bit of networking, their texts (that’s phones as well as books), their chats over the photocopier and expect them to do the work that needs to be done. If they’re wasting time sort them out or make sure they’ve got enough work to do.

If you employee adults, treat them like adults and you’ll get a grown up attitude to work.

The Long Dog.

PS – This doesn’t count as social networking … this is work.

“Expert opinion comes highly priced and chiefly ignored” – The Long Dog 2009

On and off, I’ve been freelancing for a decade. In that time I’ve had some great clients and recruiters … and some not so great. So here are some observations and tips from my world.

Getting the gig – standing out from the recruiting hopefuls crowd.
Recruiters see hundreds of CVs (résumés) a week, so why are you special? Sadly most recruiters don’t care if you live or die (unless you can make them money). They also copy/paste your details into a database and whoever’s CV meets whatever they’re searching for gets the gig. Just like Google. Best bit of job application advice I got was from Nick at Zebrapeople – apply SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to my CV. What are the words and phrases recruiters searching for? ‘Experienced and accomplished consultant’? Or ‘IA,  UXD, interaction designer with 5 years experience’ / “Internal communications professional specialising in intranet and online communications”?

I’ve also asked previous clients to provide recommendations on my Linked In profile. When I send my CV to new recruiter or client, I also send a separate document with these recommendations copy/pasted in. Know what? They read them ever time and don’t have to be bothered to click on links to websites.

Expectations: How much should you lie to your clients?
‘Not at all’ is the simple answer.  Get found out – you get fired and a bullet hole in your reputation. “Under promise and over achieve” is a maxim I’ve often heard. People are constantly surprised by your ability to cough up the goods faster than was imagined. It works fine. Until, that is, some smart arse promises more and still delivers. And yes, I’ve been that smart arse. What did it get me? Extensions to a contract that lasted nearly 18 months. Nice.

Just be realistic, make sure you can deliver what you promise, actually deliver it and when it’s needed put some extra work in. But make sure your client realises this. When I was 20 I worked in a department store, on the management training scheme *snore*. I was a little too modest (no, really) and my manager / mentor would say “When you’ve done something  good tell me! If you don’t tell me, someone else will show me what they’ve done and why should I think you’re any better?”. Doesn’t mean show off, just make sure people realise when you’ve done something good for them and they’ll appreciate it.

Win battles, don’t fight wars.
If you’re a freelancer or consultant, you’re not the Director in charge. You’re paid to provide expert knowledge and to argue the case if necessary. If your client chooses to ignore your advice because they know better (and a lot think they do), then you’ll have to decided whether to fight your corner or let them send in the Light Brigade and see what happens. I’ve had to present my feeling on a  real shocker of a project. I wrote a polite, but honest one page report which was presented to the board, considered and then ignored. I wasn’t happy, but there’s a point where your opinion becomes a problem. May I refer you to the recent sacking of drugs advisor to the UK government because of his unpopular opinion? Ok … so … find the balance between your integrity and your desire for the continuation of employment and don’t let pride get in the way.  Or move on – that’s the joy of freelancing.

Be nice: People like nice people … and re-employ them
I had an odd conversation with a colleague once who angrily complained that “it seems to be the people who are all smiles and ‘nicey nicey’ who get listened to round here”. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that despite his academic qualifications and that he’d run his own 2 man agency, he was aggressive in meetings and no one was listening to what he said because they were too busy worrying about him.

We all like nice people so, without being fake, be nice. It’ll make it easier for you to communicate with your client and if something goes bad, they’ll see you as a human being, not just a resource. Being nice – much underrated. Just think: Who would you prefer to be working with?

The rest? Work it out for yourself – that’s why you get write “experienced” on your applciations.

The Long Dog

From the fairy tales of our earliest years to the soap operas, newspapers and box office hits of our maturity, we humans love stories. But it’s not just about adventure and a happy ending. Stories are a medium through which we communicate and mentally store information in a handy recall framework of associated items.

“Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact”. Robert McKee, screenwriter.

It’s easy to dismiss storytelling as something for kids and I wouldn’t recommend starting your corporate presentation with ‘Once upon a time there was a brave little CEO…” but as a technique for engaging audiences and conveying information it’s as good today as it was thousands of years ago.

The fact stories follow a narrative, building up layers of information and associated items (first this happened, then as a result that happened) helps us create a linear mnemonic – one that photographic memory performers use to connect and remember huge lists of seemingly unconnected items.

Used as a communication tool, stories and storytelling allow us to lay out a message in a clearly accessible form that we’re all familiar with.

“Rapport is created between the storyteller and the audience. They feel that they are actively involved, rather than just passively listening”, Lindsey Warnes Carroll, comedian and story teller.

Our brains and basic cultures have changed little since the days of hearing the news, learning about the latest religion/King/invaders and keeping in touch with our community through stories. In fact, traditional storytelling is enjoying a renaissance with storytelling festivals like Beyond the Border, held in the grounds of a cliff-top Welsh castle, on the increase.  And now there are even companies like The Story Tellers who “help business leaders engage their people in strategy, vision, values and change”.

But you don’t have to be a pro who’s spent years learning the art – we tell stories all the time: “Have you heard? She was with HIM last night at the bar and then…”.  Engaging stakeholders, communicating the progress of a project, concepts for design or delivering an unpalatable message, we all engage with this medium without thinking – it’s how we’re taught as children, how we consume news and entertainment: it’s our common culture as a species.

Some principles:

• Beginning THEN middle THEN end. Build up to the ‘big issue’ from the beginnings so your audience can start with simple concepts and add the detail – like Lego.
• Make sure the end has a real end. A joke without a punchline doesn’t work. Make sure your story builds to the main point, deliver that point, then finish or move to a new and different thread. Unless you’re very good, don’t try to carry several threads at once – people will get lost.
• Use a narrative to plan your presentation material (yes, I do mean PowerPoint slides amongst other things).
• Make sure you include details if you’re introducing new ideas. Don’t be afraid to stop the narrative and explain. E.g. ‘for those of you who don’t know what social networking is…’, or, ‘And the sword he held was carved with sigils and signs of a dark and unnatural nature…’, depending on your subject matter and audience.
• Stories can be spoken, written, pictorial or use just about any medium for their production. The importance is in the structure, building narrative and communication of the message.
• Experiment with stories that don’t yet have an ending and allow or use the audience to discover and create as a collaborative exercise. Remember those ‘choose your own adventure’ books? On the internet, a user’s journey through a website doesn’t always follow a prescriptive path, but is … wait for it … hypertextual.
• Enjoy the telling of the story and your audience will enjoy the story too – no matter how potentially dry your subject – believe me, I’m delivered some stats stories in my time that could have bored people into an early grave, without improving the engagement through storytelling.

“And they all lived happily ever after. The End.”

The Long Dog.

Social media frontierswoman, PR pro and MD of PR agency thebluedoor, Abigail Harrison gives us some solid practical advice from the pointy end of using social media in a business context. Just don’t call her Bernard.

LD: Abi? Abigail? What should I call you?
AH: Abigail or @AbigailH would be just fine
LD: You just can’t help yourself, can you.

LD: You work in PR – what are the top 3 three things individuals can get from using social media?
AH: (1) It facilitates conversations with ‘influencer’ audiences about things they care about, (2) Ensures individuals stay ahead of the curve as digital tools evolve and networks develop, (3) Helps test ideas and develop thinking – people sometimes forget social media is great at delivering excellent results, it’s a brilliant research tool.

LD: Tell us about your organisation and what you do – yup, this is the chance to plug your biz
AH: Ahh music to my ears! thebluedoor is a PR agency. Our ’sweet spot’ is understanding the relevant digital tools – what they do or don’t do, and how they can work for different companies, brands and campaigns. Digital hasn’t changed the nuts and bolts of what PR is.

LD: Continental or ‘Full English’?
AH: Neither really – I love a pink grapefruit or a bowl of porridge.

LD: What got you interested in online social networking?
AH: I’ve been involved in online for a while, and worked on the PR for one of the largest dotcom IPOs in 2000 – StepStone, the online recruitment site. It’s a fascinating world which allows us all to work creatively with some brilliant practitioners.

LD: Isn’t this all a bit … well … geeky?
AH: Well, yes and no. Part of the problem is language. We do ourselves no favours hiding behind walls of geek-speak. It’s vital we make digital approachable and normalised. That said, it is crucial we understand the geekiness behind it all – and once you start to understand it, there’s a beautiful, measurable logic about the digital world.

LD: What are your top social sites for work?
AH: It has to be Twitter – the digital rock-star of the PR and online world. I have a separate screen on my desk with TweetDeck running – through this Twitter application we discover breaking news, respond to requests for help and interact with the multiple social communities using it. [LD: That is sooo 'geek chic']

LD: And top sites for play?
AH: It isn’t strictly a social site, but I couldn’t live without BBC iPlayer. It’s wonderful – great for catching up on the world and business.

LD: Pint of beer or glass or wine?
AH: Glass of wine – it’s been a long time since I had a pint!

LD: Favourite online social success story?
AH: The work that we have recently done for SocialSafe has been a real high point for me. Key to cracking online is to identify the ‘influencer’ blogs and sites. We successfully pitched a story to Mashable, and the ensuing traffic (meaningful rather than drive-by) and knock-on pick-up was phenomenal!

LD: Favourite online social disaster story?
AH: Thankfully I don’t have one. But I did send a new business pitch, addressed to ‘Mike’ but was actually ‘Mark’. Naturally he was upset – but we agreed as penance I’d be ‘Bernard’ for time-immemorial.

LD: So … Bernard … advice for someone starting out with social networking?
AH: Get your hands dirty and jump in.  It’s the only way to learn. Follow people on Twitter who use practice – it’s a great way to understand what and how people are using the tools. A key challenges is staying on top of developments, so keep reading. And of course don’t lose sight of the world outside the digital bubble.  

LD: Let’s say I’m a business who’s ’social curious’ – what are the top benefits and risks?
AH: Benefits:

• just taking a step towards understanding the digital world opens up a world of opportunity and possibility
• digital is a real-time barometer about how your audience, customers, stakeholders feel about you – not knowing is a bit like sticking your fingers in your ears and not looking, because it is happening anyway and isn’t going away anytime soon
• engaging online is a great way of qualifying leads and researching potential customers

Risks:

•  the major risk is letting the excitement of online get in the way of rational objective consideration – just because it’s shiny and powerful, it’s vital to understand the medium to ensure it fits in your overall business strategy
• also if you haven’t conducted the due diligence of understanding your current online footprint before you start experimenting you risk tripping over quite quickly and publically

LD: Thanks, Abigail. Want to come to my free social media event in London? Go on – it’s going to combine theatre, art and business skills and there’s a glass of wine in it for you?
AH: Go on then.

• More on Abigail / @AbigailH / Bernard (so many profiles, so little time) on thebluedoor website.

Her wicked sense of humour doesn’t conceal her no-nonsense attitude and she’s a true digital professional, able to move between the often immiscible worlds of tech, comms and business strategy. She’s run intranets for some of the worlds best known brands, is a keen sportswoman and all round fun person to be with. Ok … that’s her ego massaged enough – here’s 60 seconds with one of best Intranet Managers I’ve met:

LD: How long have you spent working with intranets?
CS:Since about 2000. I’ve been an Intranet Manager since 2005.

LD: Do you have a technical, communications background or something else?
CS: Maths! I did Maths at University which then led onto HTML training. For anyone who knows me they’ll know my laugh wouldn’t really suit an accountancy environment.

LD: How many employees has the largest intranet you’ve worked on served?
CS:Reuters intranet served 25000 staff and had about 1.5 million pages. And as all things go, it was the smallest team I’ve had.

LD: Top three key things an intranet must do, to be a success?
CL: (1) Have a staff directory on it, (2) be consistently available (and by this I’m referring to serving all offices and avoiding outages), (3) have at least one tool the staff can brag about.

LD: Top three common points of failure for an intranet?
CS: (1) Intranet builds led by people who only care about technology and not what the user actually wants from it, (2) not getting investment into good servers and even more importantly backup servers, (3)
Wikis – That’s totally un-pc of me to say but I’m not a fan at all: Making it easier for users to add content doesn’t mean they’ll maintain it.

LD: Jakob Nieslen or Jacob’s Cream Crackers?
CS: Cream crackers – is that a description of me?

LD: If you weren’t managing intranets what would you rather be doing?
CS: Pro Tennis player

LD: Did you set out to be an intranet manager?
CS: No! I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. My second job was at Unisys and I was randomly picked within the team to go learn HTML and build the financial services marketing team a website. It was love… [I suspect 'love' to be an exaggeration of sorts - Long Dog]

LD: Top three challenges for running a good intranet?
CS: Buy-in, budget & lack of control. It probably all really comes back to buy-in. It really shows that in the current financial state of the world those senior managers who have seemed to be bought in still look straight to the Intranet team for cost cuts.

LD: What do your friends and family think you do for a job?
CS: It varies, I’m not sure anyone really gets it! I try and tailor my answer and obviously stop talking as soon as they glaze over. I have been known on occasions to say I’m a PA just to avoid further questioning! I have several friends who refer to me as their clever friend, very flattering. I think maybe it translates as we don’t understand what you’re saying so it must be clever.

LD: Who should manage an intranet: IT, Internal Comms, HR or someone else?
CS: I think if you’ve got a person leading it who has both IT knowledge and comms/strategy knowledge then you can run it from IT or Internal Comms. My advice to anyone though is never never run it out of HR. Ideally if you have a company strategy team the Intranet would sit within it.

LD: Top three survival skills for intranet managers?
CS: (1) I bake cakes and give them to IT – it’s definitely helped me get a few databases built faster or for free! (2)
The ability to stop, clear your mind and try to imagine how a certain user would deal with something or want something, (3) Patience …

LD: What do you look for in someone working for you, on an intranet?
CS: Drive and personality. You’ve got to be able to talk to anyone and everyone if you’re going to succeed in such a cross functional team. I think drive is key to delivering and keeping the customer happy. I want people in my team that I can send to a meeting on their own and know they will represent the team at the same level I would.

LD: Software or information architecture - which is more important?
CS: Ooh that’s a hard question! I guess if you’re IA is great you can kind of cover up for useless software but if your IA is bad it doesn’t matter how good your software is.

LD: Best or worse intranet story
CS: We were clearing old sites off the intranet by backing them up onto an external hard drive and then deleting them. Highly technical method obviously. We managed to deleted a site which turned out to contain a buried folder with the sales figures database in it. This was their daily reporting tool and held everything!!! I found out the next day it was missing, had that moment where your blood runs cold, re-uploaded the site and looked at the data. Only to find the data was miraculously up to date, to the minute … we never did figure it out …

LD: Finally, any tips for struggling intranet workers or managers?
CS: Go out and see as many intranets as you can. And don’t be afraid to say no to a senior manager

More about Claire on her Linked In profile.

The Long Dog

“If you’ve got the time to do it badly, why haven’t you got the time to do it well?”, Gerry McGovern

Intranets are great. Believe me, I’ve worked on a few, and I think they’re the unsung heroes of a company’s digital paraphernalia. Great for providing a portal to a company’s own online services; great for providing virtual spaces for collaboration; great for broadcasting news and announcements across the globe; great for internal branding; great for supporting employees’ day-to-day tasks.

But … and this might sound like heresy … they’re not that good for internal communication.

By now any comms professional worth their salt has realised ‘newsletter comms’ doesn’t cut it. Broadcasting static information, voluntarily digested by mute, time-starved audiences only answers a small proportion of issues (see where I’m going?). Trouble is a lot of managers (some comms pros) see the intranet as The Answer –whack up the content, email a link and voila, communications done. Sadly, they don’t see that being digital doesn’t make it any better than a printed newsletter. All the printing and global distribution costs are cut, sure, but if the comms isn’t working, why not save even more money and just not do it at all? Hey, you could even do the comms face-to-face – now there’s an idea.

While it’s true an increasing workforce of generation Y-ers expect digital tools and unbounded internet access there are an lot of clever and experienced people spending an lot of clever and experienced time and money making sure their digital services survive against their competitors and provide what people want. Plugging new technology into an intranet then waiting for objectives to be met and the ROI to roll is unlikely to work.

One of the reasons networks like Facebook and Twitter work is they mimic real-world social interactions and their rewards but also their risks. Not everyone wants to interact through a digital medium: I work with an experienced digital consultant who hates the very idea of social sites, let alone Luddites who object to IT in general. On top of this organisations are often nervous about letting their little darlings loose on tools of free speech and the employees are often nervous about speaking freely for fear of ridicule or retribution.

Yes, intranets are great, but lazy managers can sweep communications tasks under the proverbial carpet and employees are often too busy to read lengthy web pages or, worse, PDF announcements *shudder* which they might liked to have kicked back with and read in print at their desks with cup of something steamy.

Intranets are often the solution cart put before the communications horse. Think of them as one of many channels, use all the good stuff they can do (global reach, real time publishing, feedback, audience tracking etc), but don’t forget they’re just one tool in the professional’s toolbox.

Some ranty reminders…

- Tailor your communications to the needs of your audience as well as your business (horse THEN cart)
- Don’t try and make a social networking playground unless you want people to treat it like a playground: the ‘in crowd’, the bullies and those who lurk in corners and solitude
- Your intranet is only one channel in a suite that can provide effective internal communications

The Long Dog

Buttock-clenchingly awkward humour; jargon overdose; PowerPoint poisoning and just plain dull: all symptoms of bad presentations and bad presenters. Same way that some people sing like angels and some like storm drains, presenting uses innate skill and learned technique to really work.

Presenting is the art of delivering information to a live audience, responding live to their feedback and facilitating dialogue and discussion (alternative definitions welcome). I include telephone / video conferencing, virtual presentations and any other medium involving human interaction and instant audience feedback. The importance is that it’s an empathic and very personal skill.

With printed and electronic communication we’ve got used to the idea that anyone can publish, so anyone can communicate, giving rise to “newsletter communicators” who don’t (or won’t) care whether there’s reaction, so long as it goes out on time.

Early this year the UK government started a crackdown on boring teachers, blaming them for poor results and bad behaviour. We’ve all sat through interminable presentations and thought ‘what was that about’, ‘I could have done some real work’ or actually done some ‘real work’ during the presentation. Don’t mistake a subject matter expert for a good presenter.

Purpose. Why are you doing this? What do you want your audience to take away?  “Communicating <insert topic>” isn’t good enough.

Structure. Stories are a formula humans have been used to for millennia, from cradle to grave. Plot twists, cliff-hangers and humour work well when they’re well crafted.

Engagement. Be creative and come up with ways to ensure your audience absorbs the information and can make use of it; teachers spend years training to do this. Use games, group interactions, town hall sessions, feedback, discussion and facilitators.

Tools. Beware of PowerPoint dependency: it’s a visual *aid*, not the presentation itself (see this most excellent video of How NOT to use PowerPoint). Also beware of hefty print outs … what do you want them to do – read or listen? Either way, keep it lean.

Style. Be an interesting speaker, but know your limits. If you’re a natural born performer put it to good use, if not, work up to the edge of your ability and not beyond. Let someone else to do it or at least let them facilitate and you can field questions. Don’t be shy about … er … being shy, we’ve all got our different strengths. Vary the tempo with other speakers (not too many, it’s not Vaudeville), breakout sessions and ample opportunity for feedback and discussion.

Next steps. Support your ‘stand up’ with physical takeaways, follow up sessions and actions to give context and credibility

Now go do // that Voodoo // that you do … so well.

The Long Dog

“I know what you’re thinking about,” said Tweedledum: “but it isn’t so nohow.”
‘Through the Looking Glass’,
Lewis Carroll

One of the problems of communicating with or making services available to large bodies of people is that everyone is different.

I was recently told off, on a well known communication organisation’s forum, by a ‘colleague’ for the apparently anachronistic use of the term “audiences” (your thoughts please?). Anyhoo – be it audiences, stake holders, participants … woddevah! … you need to understand who it is your engaging with (that better?) to craft your work to meet not only your needs but the needs of those you’re engaging with. If you don’t, you have to make ill-informed assumptions, so at best you’re fighting blind, at worst it’s vanity publishing, a waste of money and in some cases potentially litigious – a classic example of this is web sites intended to be used by disabled people, that aren’t accessible.

- Web Accessibility Guidelines (dry, dull and impenetrable, but ‘official’ guidelines from the W3C – the international standards organization for the World Wide Web)

In the miasma of “We are all individuals” (sorry Python) how does one tease out the relevant information about your intended (dare I say it) audience? The answer to this is manifold, but here are some quickies off the top of my very own head.

Personas
Originally a marketing technique, these are great fun to create and give you archetypes, illustrating broad demographic characteristics. The personas are intended to be characters that are believably real, so that those working on the same project can relate to them on an empathic level to encourage a focus on the intended audience as real people.

Typical characteristics include age, gender, educational level, financial position, motivation and goals for using your material, your response to their motivation and goals and often include a scenario concerning the persona needing to interact with your material.

I recently made a bunch of personas for a public sector organisation and even before the end of the presentation my stake holders were already taking about their proposed web content in ways like “Well, is this going to easy enough for Dean to understand?” and “We’re going to have to find a way to make sure Chrissie follows the process the way she needs to, not the way she wants to”.

I’m happy to write a whole post on personas if people are interested, but as a starter, I’d say have a look at things like:

- “The User is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web”. Good but unless you’re a stats geek, skip quite a few chunks about audience segmentation with pivot tables *snore*
- “Personas” – Wiki

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
MBTI uses a psychometric questionnaire to identify certain characteristics that show how individuals interact with people, situations and information. There are four pairs of polar characteristics (e.g. extrovert vs. introvert) and the questionnaire determines where we are on each scale to give a four letter ‘personality type’, which in turn carries a broad description of our behaviours. Case in point – I come out as an ‘extrovert, intuitive, feeling, judge’. You can read what the MB Foundation say they think I’m like under their entry for an ENFJ and feel free to disagree with only the bad bits.

How does it work in practice? I was talking to a senior project manager recently who told me a story about meetings he used to chair where no decisions were made, interminable debates always dragged the meeting over time and general dissatisfaction was felt by all. He then ran some Myers-Briggs tests on this group and realised that he was running his meeting all wrong for these people – they needed structure, not creative freedom. At the next meeting, he simply limited discussions to five minutes per topic with a decision to be taken at the end and ruthlessly enforced this. The result? Discussions were focussed, decisions were made and the attendees declared the meeting the most productive they’d ever had.

My first encounter with MBTI was in a workshop, run by Uma Palaniappan, an Ergonomist and Human Factors specialist at Rolls-Royce (the engines business, not the cars – Rolls-Royce sold the car business over 30 years ago, bet ya didn’t know that!). She split the attendees into four broad groups based on the MBTI results from the tests we’d done prior, and at the end of the workshop we presented our work to the group.

I presented my ‘extrovert intuitives’ group’s scruffy flip chart page, covered in shapes, squiggles and annotations, with my other ‘EN’s chipping in, while at the other end of the spectrum, the two quietly spoken ‘introvert sensors’ held up their A4 sheet with two or three lines written in small, red biro lettering and apologised as they’d not finished discussing what the question was really getting at. It was a fantastic example of how it IS possisble to pigeon hole people into identifiable groups – Moomins and Hemulins (for those that know).

- MBTI Wiki definition (sorry – lazy, I know)
- The Myers & Briggs Foundation (nastily ‘smiley’ site and with no definition of MBTI – aren’t they missing a trick? – but they appear to be specialists, so hey)

Now, I also wanted to talk about UCD (User-Centred Design), NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) and something from the Dalai Lama, but as I’m approaching 1000 words and have already streaked past the boredom threshold of a number of you … they’ll have to save for their own special days.

But before I finish, I do need to mention that it’s not just about individuals. Another fascinating (read ‘geeky’) example of getting your ‘people things’ wrong is what happens when we get the wrong NUMBER of people in on something and why no government in the world has ever held a cabinet of more than 20 people for any length of time. Just read it – it’s a good story: “Explaining the curse of work”, New Scientist, 14 Jan 2009

Right. Done. Now, just remember: To paraphrase Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’: “We are all individuals … I’m not!”

The Long Dog

- “We are all individuals!!!“ Youtube ‘Life of Brian’ clip by Monty Python, for those of you living in a cave for the last 30 years (contains adult humour and religious irreverence)

I speak enough IT to get by, some of my friends are even ‘in IT’, but no … I’m not in IT.

Everyone from my (almost) 80 year old mother to my four year old son uses it in some way or other, so why is there still a strong sense that the internet is still ‘all IT’ and not just another channel?

Historically you needed a pony-tailed IT person of ambiguous job purpose to knock you up a website or intranet. Then the time came when they were then joined by a goateed designer (head to toe in black) and the two would argue about form versus function while you wondered how to get that 40 page corporate brochure “on … line” and then find some plausible justification for the outlay.

A while back I spent some time at an organisation where the Comms team’s admin support – a lady close to retirement – would ceaselessly and unforgivingly refer to me as “the technical expert”. She would also profess that she “knew nothing about IT” and that she “didn’t really understand computers”. This I accepted at face value, despite her conspicuously competent daily use of a computer and a number of standard Office software packages.

The point where I had difficulty believing that she “knew nothing about IT” and “didn’t really understand computers” was when she produced the memory card for a digital camera and said something along the lines of “I just don’t know what to do. I’ve tried downloading straight from my camera at home, but I can’t open the files in Paint or Photoshop. I’ve tried the memory card in this USB memory stick card adapter thing [I’d never seen one of these ‘card adaptor things’ before!] but I can’t get my work computer to recognise it at all … You’re technical – can you help?” Let’s just play back the line – she “knew nothing about IT” and “didn’t really understand computers”.

And the point of this rant is…?

The web is just another medium. Anyone who can read can publish information on it. It has as much to offer as other channels and with interaction, feedback, multimedia and an instant global reach at time of publication it has a lot more as well.

Yes, understand its peculiarities, but treat it as just another channel. When it’s treated separately, you end up with gems like the article in my local county newspaper ‘Bucks Free Press’ (no relation) whose headline on the 16th of January 2009 ran “Sorry you heard about your job losses online”, where “Angry county council staff were shocked to learn on the internet that hundreds of their jobs are set to be axed”. Perhaps some of those jobs were in Internal Communications?

Joined up thinking please, ladies and gentlemen, and don’t be afraid of the web – come on in, the water’s lovely.

The Long Dog.