Social media is about more than being social, it’s about building a community, and often around areas of related interest.When it’s your real-world community you’re trying to engage, social media provides an excellent set of tools.
I recently had the privilege of participating in a discussion panel with Mike McCamon, chief community officer for Water.org, a non-profit organization that provides safe drinking water in third world countries. When Mike talks about engaging his communities, he groups his goals into three ... Read More >>
We’re in the midst of a campaign called “Ask Ben.” As you might expect from such a name, we’re offering up a bit of my time and wisdom, free of charge, to hospitals and health systems that would like an outside perspective and advice on their online strategy.
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August 7, 2009 – 12:15 pm
When asking hospitals what makes a good Web site, we often hear terms like “interactive capabilities,” “easy to use” and “has lots of content, especially educational content.” While these aren’t necessarily wrong, it’s what’s not on this list that’s disappointing.
Imagine asking Michael Dell about what it is that makes Dell.com “good.” Or Jeff Bezos about what makes Amazon.com a “good” Web site. Of course it has to be easy to use. But strategically, the thing that makes dell.com or amazon.com ... Read More >>
So many statistics – this IABC speaker says:
80 percent of change initiatives fail
90 percent of employees know when a project is not on track to meet its objectives
19 percent believe they are empowered to alert management to the problem
Does your organization have multiple feedback mechanisms in place for employees? Do employees trust that their opinion counts and that management will listen? In an economy where many organizations are implementing huge change initiatives, doesn’t it make sense to try to improve ... Read More >>
This fascinating IABC session talked about industries where employees ARE an organization’s brand promise and the importance of aligning your internal and external brands. Consider two examples:
A major McCorporation creates a jingle, “We love to make you smile,” and rolls it out through a multi-million dollar advertising campaign. The problem: minimum wage employees in a job they don’t like don’t typically smile at customers … and really don’t care if customers smile or not. The irony was overwhelming, blogged about
... Read More >>
This week, I’m attending the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) World Conference. Yesterday I listened to the President and COO of Best Buy talk about internal communications. His passion for and belief in the power of communications and the importance of transparency was especially inspirational, as those are common goals at Geonetric. Two comments that intrigued me:
This month we’re celebrating Geonetric’s 10th anniversary! It’s a big milestone in our company’s history, and I’m proud to be a part of making that happen. Still, I like to look forward to what’s coming next, and one of the important things we want to do over our next 10 years is change the way companies like Geonetric do business.
We advise clients to use transparency (e.g. patient satisfaction or quality measures) as a communication strategy. Now it’s time for Geonetric ... Read More >>
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