Jan 11 07
What we have here, is failure to implement a communication system
By Renn Vara
Organizations like SNP often struggle with bringing vision to our work with enterprises, while still responding to their urgent market-driven needs.
To be sure, it’s not for lack of trying on both our parts. Take for example WebEvents that communicate a tactical need for information to a field organization, partners or to customers. These needs seem to bounce up very last minute in isolation from other efforts being made to the same audience. We often face situations where a large enterprise launches a strategy of improving communication, only to find that multiple groups have scheduled simultaneous WebEvents to communicate other products, services and initiatives. The result is even greater confusion, because we’re now communicating with a fire hose.
When we bring this up to our strategic customers, they often respond with a despondent “what can we do?” For years we’ve been promoting the idea of a comprehensive communication structure. We speak in terms of the enterprise being like a small city with the need for its own radio/TV station to centralize news, information, corporate learning and executive messaging.
Of course we don’t mean a real radio/TV structure - no antennas or massive CNN Newsrooms required - we just use this as an analogy for clarity. Up until recently, the possibility of creating and managing this type of structure was unwieldy and expensive. However, the recent adoption of technologies like podcasting, vidcasting, and social networks all built on an RSS subscriber-based backbone now make this centralized system not only possible, but expected by users.
That’s why SNP has created and is implementing what we call a Communication System. It’s an exciting evolution in corporate communication based on the actual behavior of their users and their adoption of portals, audio and video via the web and on mobile devices and subscriber-based services with social networking capabilities; blogs, forums, and scheduled live chat sessions.
SNP’s Communication System begins with the user and their need to get things done and ends with the portal/RSS subscriber backbone. For example, we’ve successfully rolled out a specific communication system for sales organizations we call Taking It To The Streets: From Portal to Proposal. This is marketing-speak to say we’re giving the field organization a centralized system to give them what they need, when they need it, to better serve their customer while also giving them a structure for immediate feedback and learning. The result is a better-focused sales organization resulting in higher sales and lower costs – and the end to multiple groups all speaking to the same audience at the same time with similar messages. Said another way: roll up the proverbial fire hose, you don’t need it anymore.
