Making Progress with Strategic Communication

My first discussion post for Strategic Communication class asked how we viewed communications in the past and to reflect upon the materials provided by our instructor. Which perspective did we find most helpful to our understanding of strategic communication? You all know me. I can't resist using personal experience in any challenge. This is about progress, so why not?

When Hatch (2013) mentions Malinowski’s photograph of the anthropologist observed by the natives (p. 39) it struck me as funny and reminded me of another photograph I had found years ago. In my photo, one guy is digging a hole. Joe, according to his name tag, is surrounded by several folks with similar name tags, only each of the observers has a title rather than a name, with “manager” on the end of their titles or “lead” at the front: Operations Manager, Lead Technician, Total Quality Manager, Facilities Manager, Heavy Equipment Manager, Lead Gopher, etc. all surrounding, watching, and pointing at Joe, the hole digger. Ironic? How many managers does it take to dig a hole? Zero. Just hire Joe.

This guy has no name.

I think I’ve been kicked around over the years with having a boss clearly focused on the modern organization theory and driven by the contingency theory in organizing teams, to having a new boss who might be a fan of the postmodern perspective. I’ll explain:

My old boss owned a software company and when he put me to work on a project team, I always found myself faced with clients having insatiable appetites for sabotaging my work. Though failures on my part, each project was a successful outcome for my boss, because he had predicted my failure. He would swim in terms such as risks and constraints, assumptions, deliverables, and return on investments, all things measurable.



In my blind desire to be successful, I didn't realize my boss had not placed these same criteria for success on other analysts, so I quit playing his game and played like the others, refusing to provide him with time-wasting flowcharts, timelines, and graphs. Soon enough, I was taking on projects, reaching out to clients, and making successes (completing goals and objectives I had set for myself).

The old boss has since retired, taking with him his mask of the grand narrative. I can relate with the postmodern perspective much more because of my painful experiences dictated by the tyrant.

There is no right way to do things and by the time you’ve grown accustomed to your comfort zone, someone comes along using new terminology for the same things you’ve been working on for years, but now you’ve become seated in your ways and management isn't happy. They want change. The newly employed use fancy words explaining the same symbols of the past and management is in awe.

The emerging discourse, through hidden meetings where veteran employees are excluded and new employees become heroes, plays out until someone at the top realizes there is a communication problem which if left alone could likely embarrass the organization as a whole.

It came at a meeting and was announced that our CEO made this perfectly clear. The word “dashboard” is not to be used in any context when introducing our new portal to members. He insisted there is a public profile and a personal profile. Why not the new flashy “dashboard” terminology the new guy used the other day? Because we are not implementing a DASHBOARD, it’s a personal profile page!

How much does communication or lack thereof play a part in your successes and/or failures?



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Social Analytics and Your Story

Have you ever wondered what your impact is as a start up author or publisher, especially if you don't have big business behind you? Stephen King and Dean Koontz don't have to ponder such things because someone else is doing that grunt work. This leads to a very popular question among new authors and publishers in today's digital world, because "sales numbers" are not as important as influence. At least, not at first! We're trying to establish a base and haven't even considered sales. How do we gain traction from the beginning?

We are coming into an age where information is freely available and people out there are proving that this data is more important in gaining power and influence than are sales numbers. Information is freely provided because it is acquired at less cost than past methods. As with drug addiction, if you peddle the product for free and if it's good stuff, they'll come back in droves!

You save money and effort while using today's freely acceptable modes of pushing your data. Facebook is free, Twitter is free. You have all these avenues of marketing potential. But, what do you sacrifice by navigating in the dark with no direction? Your time! And, with little feedback.

What's missing? Analysis and decision making are lacking. All this data means nothing when the other guy is using theirs to make decisions which beat you out in the market place. They know what the data means and they know how to produce more content via reviews and conversational feedback, which in turn allows them to target in a way to maximize on the knowledge they gained by analyzing the mined data they have accumulated. Say what?

Simple terms. What do they have that you don't? Direction and a budget, sustained by years of branding and accumulating that base you're trying to establish.

Here are the questions you need to ask yourself when promoting your product.

Brand: What is your message?

Stephen King: I can produce horrific stories that will make you lose sleep at night.

Mission: What goals have you established which will live up to your brand?

Stephen King: I will write 3 novels that will creep you out!

Scope: How will you reach your goals without diluting your brand?

Stephen King: I will write from my heart and not listen to all these folks who give feedback saying that I should do something other than write 3 novels that will creep you out.

Feedback: What feedback will you utilize to reinforce dedication to your brand?

Stephen King: I will not wait for feedback in the form of fan mail and gratuitous visits to my estate. I will go out into bookstores and institutions who invite me to speak and I will listen to my consumers, the readers of my books. If they're not happy, it's time to change my brand or the execution of my message.

What is your message to your audience?


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