Janet Lee Johnson | The Art of Marketing

My friend Michael O’Connor-Clark writes Uninstalled by night and works at Thornley-Fallis in Toronto by day heading up their social networking practice, which is a perfect job for the forward-thinking fellow that he is.

It seems I’m always about three weeks behind him.

Silos

His June 6 post bemoans the fact that every social networking site is in a silo from the next - his identity, friends, reputation, likes and dislikes all have to be managed in separate fashion from site to site - which is one of my personal pet peeves and one of the greatest challenges we’re facing in the online world today.

I was ruminating on organizational silos over the weekend. My thoughts were centered around branding, and how important effective story-telling is becoming in the larger enterprise.

As we become more geographically, technically and experientially dispersed, our grasp of the corporate brand, vision and values is colored and flavored by the particular silo in which we work.

Storytelling

I believe that developing, telling and distributing compelling stories are the only ways we’re going to overcome the silo-ed effect of comprehension and understanding.

There’s a reason why statements like “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” and other tales transcend time, language and age boundaries.

I was in a meeting this afternoon with a company who wanted to know more about my approach / process of building brands - and every successful brand I’ve built had three equally strong components:

1. Executive sponsorship and support
2. A clearly defined audience for whom our story should have absolute relevance
3. A strong, compelling, entertaining story that everyone in the company could understand and tell in their own authentic way

DNA

At the same time, I’m concerned that the so-called “corporate DNA” that knowledge workers have traditionally held closely is now:

Distributed easily (with USB drives, personal email accounts and RSS)
No longer controlled
Accessible and (often) anonymous

Largely as a result of enterprise 2.0 technology, today’s employees are freed from the confines of a knowledge-management infrastructure that demands control and compliance over corporate knowledge, messages and brand.

This is now a fact of life for marketers. Our brands are truly now the hands of strangers. (Some of whom get their kicks by practicing unnatural acts with them, it’s true.)

Which is why now - more than ever - we must create memorable, truthful stories about our companies, our values, and our brands and live them every day.

Only then will our corporate DNA will extend truthfully beyond our silos, firewalls, carefully crafted messaging matrixes and corporate brand guidelines; and into the hands of virtual strangers, friends and observers…

And they will judge each of us by our identity, friends, reputation, likes and dislikes wherever they come upon us - which isn’t all that different from real life.

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34 years ago a vision of 2022 emerged, culminating with the cry: “Soylent Green is people!”

Today, I’m proposing my own vision of 2022: “Business is people!”

As in 1973, when we contemplate the future, it’s simple: people.

The difference? We believe firmly in sustainability, a secure environment and global collaboration - for we have seen the results of mismanaging our resources.

This week the future of technology is unfolding at Enterprise 2.0 in Boston. And there’s a movement starting there that hearkens back to the same late 60’s and early 70’s that birthed Soylent Green and the “summer of love” (talk about a great catalyst of collaboration and change):

It’s the Enterprise 2.0 Uncoalition - and it is forming in real time on the floor of the conference. I am anxiously awaiting floor reports, but here’s what I know about the Uncoalition:

Participants believe in moving RSS beyond simply sharing news feeds - allowing people to send documents and files (e.g. spreadsheets, presentations, graphics) through feeds to people in a secure manner. Opt-in to your corporate PR feed and get the latest financial results presentation delivered to you as it is posted…

Participants believe in adding productivity to RSS feed reading - allowing an employee to post directly to their blog or wiki from their feed reader - whether it be from Outlook, their Blackberry or enterprise IM service. Post your product’s press coverage from your Blackberry to the people on your team’s wiki.

I am looking forward to the Uncoalition logo popping up all over the web. Watch for it on an enterprise 2.0 site near you.

Power to the people…

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Like strengthening your body or training for a race, your readiness for Enterprise 2.0 applications and strategies is often a case of proper alignment.

Alignment - where the philosophical rubber meets the practical road in the following areas:

• Tools
• Methods
• Management framework
• Philosophy

Enterprise 2.0 applications cause concern because of the alignment required to successfully implement them. Leaders must ask difficult questions that have cross-departmental ramifications:

• Tools: how do Enterprise 2.0 applications align with our existing tools? e.g. Would a wiki replace, supplant, or coexist with other team tools?
• Methods: are we open to the implications of using social networking tools? i.e. Are our employees ready for collaboration (often with people they’ve never met) throughout the organization? Do they have the communication skills necessary to get their ideas across to others who may not speak their native languages?
• Management framework: do we (as managers) have the confidence to empower our employees with such tools and methodology? e.g. Are we able to craft a message and immediately let our employees create content around it - without the traditional command and control structure? How much are we willing to let go?
• Philosophy: does our business support the convergence of ideas and actions driven by a new way of communicating? e.g. What if someone in accounting comes up with a new product feature? Will they gain access and support of the product management team to consider implementation? Will they gain the support of their own organization to spend time working with product management?

These are not easy questions to answer. But they are some of the most important questions leaders can ask themselves as they attempt to get ready for a new way of doing business.

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In an interesting post today at Slow Leadership, author Carmine Coyote describes four laws of information flow:

• First Law: Upward flows will contain only good news
• Second Law: Downward flows will be limited unless they are negative
• Third Law: Sideways flows will depend on trust and liking
• Fourth Law: Bad news travels farther and faster than good

In describing these tenets as based in human nature (we only share with those we like, we always want to be seen in the best light, we never want to be “the bearer of bad news,” etc.), it makes sense that:

“If you want to get good information, make yourself liked and trusted, whether you’re in a boss or a subordinate relationship with the person who has the data.”

And that:

“…there is a continual skewing of data towards the negative, especially over the short term. If a new initiative is launched, the quickest feedback will be the most extreme, whether positive or (especially) negative. That sometimes leads to organizations and people making bad judgments. Ideas are dropped on the basis of quick feedback that suggests problems. The good news takes its time to filter through and by then it’s too late.”

Slow leadership, then, is giving information time to develop, bubble and get to you in its entirety.

But that seems (pardon me) slow. In today’s competitive, information-rich and time-starved economy, I believe there is a better way. And sometime I feel like I’m beating a dead horse, but I’m subscribing to the basic law of training:

• Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you told them.

Tenets for Enterprise 2.0 Communication Leadership

• First Law: Empower your employees.
• Give them the communication tools that will:
• Give them a voice (like blogs, wiki, collaboration and email tools)
• Track conversations productively (and “just in time”) by subscribing to them (via RSS)
• Set boundaries (legal and ethical as well as brand…) so everyone knows what’s out of bounds to talk about. (Trust me… Your PR group isn’t the only group who needs to know communication boundaries any more.)
• Second Law: Tell the truth.
• Employees can smell inauthenticity and untoward behavior a mile away. Don’t expect them to let inaccuracies (no matter how small) stand. It compromises their integrity and yours. And remember Coyote’s Fourth Law, above.
• Third Law: Expect communications.
• Employees should be required to communicate with you / your customers / your partners / and each other in written form, captured in a knowledgebase. This goes especially for large organizations.
• Fourth Law: Be responsive.
• This is not to say you cut off projects or people at the first negative flow of information. Reach out whenever something bubbles up and do something like:
• Ask for help - in a communicative organization, someone’s likely to have encountered a similar issue, and can recommend options.
• Set the record straight - rumors are often more rampant when ignored.
• Admit mistakes - if something bad happens, deal with it. Again, issues come and go quickly in today’s information rich economy.

I’m a big proponent of quickly capturing, assessing and addressing issues as they arise.

Where does slow come in? Every decision, every word, every communication you build for a lifetime contributes to your communication leadership resume.

Over time, you’ll know information will flow up, down, sideways and absolutely hit the fan once in awhile.

How you deal with it will define you, and perhaps even set you apart as a wonderful example of human nature - evolved.

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I volunteered over the weekend to write a messaging document for a non-profit group I’ve been working with; as they’re about to go into major fund-raising mode, and their material has been maturing (read: polite for changing) over months of collection, creation and collaboration.

A messaging document, in my opinion, is the most fundamental piece of the marketing puzzle. The thing from which all communications goodness (clarity, consistency, and brand integrity) flows.

What is it? A critical ’stake in the ground’ for how you describe (position) exactly what you do… For example, I’m positioning exactly what I do as:

I help businesses:

• generate awareness and demand for their products and services
• help them track and manage their reputations
• safely understand and leverage the “web 2.0″ world of communications

Consistency in delivery across all media is critical - and if you’re not being clear about your purpose, you might as well throw your marketing dollars right down the toilet.

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