Jul 10 07
Sun Microsystems & The Changing Role of the Communicator
As Director of Executive Communications at Sun Microsystems, Noel Hartzell is responsible for the communications efforts of some of Silicon Valley’s most influential Executives. He was able to talk to us recently about his role at Sun and how he sees executive communications developing in the future.
Full transcript after the jump
Renn Vara: On this edition of More Than Talk, we speak with Noel Hartzell of Sun Microsystems. Noel, give us some background on your job there at Sun. What does it entail and what are some of the challenges that you face?
Noel Hartzell: Certainly. I’m the Director of Executive Communications at Sun Microsystems. The primary responsibilities include the 360° communication strategy and brand positioning for our CEO, our Chairman and Founder and our Chief Technology Officer, as well as a variety of other communication support activities for the CEO staff, the leads of our business units and new communications approaches over the web and the Internet.
It’s very exciting. I think some of the opportunities of the company, Sun Microsystems, are that the products we manufacture really power the Internet culture or a network culture. And so our employees and customers and the communities around the company really live around the Web. That’s allowed us to be quite progressive, quite experimental in how we communicate our message and have an open dialogue with those markets.
In terms of challenges, I think it’s no secret that Sun was a company that, during the Bubble, was busy building a bigger boat because of all the fish that were jumping in it and then we had a few tough years. Now we’re back on the road to profitability. We’re doing well. And so the challenge is how to communicate things that are new and different in our corporation because we’ve been painted with a bit of a different brush by some of our competitors.
Renn Vara: What are some of the ways that you are driving for more innovative communication?
Noel Hartzell: I think first and foremost, it’s authenticity. The types of communities that are most important to Sun are the technically sophisticated communities of developers and customers who really see our core technologies as key to their own competitive advantage in their own marketplace. These are people who have lots and lots of free advice, lots and lots of strongly held opinions and who are highly influential.
Influencing that word of mouth, the only way you could possibly do that is by being authentic. We’ve done some really compelling things with Jonathan Schwartz, our CEO, who has probably the most widely read executive blog in the industry, and it’s a blog that he writes. It’s not something that the communications team writes. We certainly act as counselors and whatnot in various capacities, but it’s authentically his in the subject matter and frequency and all those other types of activities stem from him directly.
We also have a podcast series with our chairman and co-founder, Scott McNealy, which is our founder Scott on the road, interviewing interesting people about the issues and trends that are affecting their business. Our Chief Technology Officer has an audio-video podcast series inside of the corporation that the engineering community here really dials into to see what the latest thinking and strategic direction of the Chief Technology Officer is.
We have a variety of different tools that we use. I think the most important common element amongst all three of those is authenticity. That is the executive themselves making sure that it’s their voice, unfiltered, directly to the markets and constituencies that we care about.
Renn Vara: That’s great to hear you say that. A question that often comes up in conversation with our customers is this: how does an internal communications professional work with leaders who are communicating directly with stakeholders? As a professional that scopes and guides messaging at Sun, does it concern you that these guys are communicating without that type of filtering?
Noel Hartzell: Oh no, not at all. Not at all. I think that, in terms of the “place” for the communications professional, is actually more solidified than potentially at risk. I think that any strong leader, particularly at a company in a market that’s moving as quickly as the technology market, really understands that their primary objective is communication.
They need to communicate the strategies and objectives of the corporation. They need to motivate employees. They need to create evangelists from the communities that we’ve participated in. There’s a lot of symbolism in who I am and how we act as an executive.
And so helping as an executive counselor to have executives make smart decisions, to think strategically, to put the programs and processes and structure around those types of activities is really what we’re involved in. I couldn’t be any happier than to have executives that want to get out there and communicate because they feel passionate about the direction of the company and they have a long-term vision about where we’re going to head.
Renn Vara: The system of communication that you’re describing is definitely considered cutting edge by a lot of people out there. Would you encourage your peers in the marketplace to engage in this type of activity, or is it not for everyone?
Noel Hartzell: Again, back to the point: one of the primary objectives of any leader is to communicate. These are definitely cutting edge vehicles and processes. I do think that any cutting edge technology cuts both ways as well. Our cutting edge process cuts both ways. If I were counseling peers in the industry, I don’t engage in transparent communications simply to be part of the crowd.
You have to have executives that are passionate and willing. They have to be talented. They also have to be the executives who have a little bit of courage and want to stick their neck out on the line a little bit. In some sense, it’s finding the talent of individuals and then amplifying that and pouring kerosene on the fire.
All that being said, I do think that ubiquity of the Internet globally as well as the almost minimal cost of access and “publishing technologies” around the edges are going to make participation and communication so easy that if you’re not actively engaged and actively participating, then you’re letting somebody else broadcast your message on your behalf.
Really strong brand communicators are going to need to understand those trends and make sure they’re active in propagating and cultivating and evangelizing the brand of the message that they want to see in the marketplace.
Renn Vara: Noel, you’ve seen social media develop quite a bit in the past few years, and it’s starting to become this new vehicle of corporate interaction. Do you see this new medium being the future of communication in the business?
Noel Hartzell: I think it’s part of the future. I wouldn’t say it’s ‘the future’, necessarily. One of the things that I always caution folks to temper enthusiasm a little bit is that old media is certainly not dead in any way, shape or form. It’s certainly consolidating and evolving and people are learning the same things that large enterprises, that small start-ups and governments and academics the world over are learning.
And so I really think that the power of brand in this world is taking on increased importance. And so the old adage ‘the brand as a promise’ holds more true every day. If you’re in a social media environment where connections are easy and where communities are developed, the promise and the strength of that brand becomes more powerful than ever.
But I don’t, in any way, shape or form, feel that a wholesale shift or abandonment of traditionally successful marketing activities is warranted. It has to be taken on a case-by-case basis: the market that you’re involved in and the company that you’re a part of and the message and the audience that you have something to communicate with.
All that being said, openness, transparency, participation and authenticity are, in my opinion, going to be the buzzwords and lynch pins of the future.
Renn Vara: You’re in a unique position there at Sun. With people like Jonathan Schwartz driving initiatives like this, what’s the next step? Where do you see things like this going in the next three to five years?
Noel Hartzell: Well, from a communications industry perspective, we all potentially need to ‘end’ the quest for message control, particularly if you’re in a company that’s facing larger competitors or has gone through rough times in your recent history. Admittedly, Sun falls into that category.
One of the things that we’re very proudly pushing forward and working very hard on is to recognize that we have a unique cause. The technologies that we produce are helping to build out the world’s largest social utility, the Internet. We feel proud of the mission of the company, the cause that we’re a part of and the technologies that we produce.
And so there’s actually no better vehicle to communicate those things that we hold true than the employee base, the developer base and the members of the community around us. Historically, as communicators, we may have blindly attempted to control and manipulate the messages to make sure everything was centralized.
I think in this new environment, we need to understand that if we’ve created passionate believers and evangelists for the values that we hold true, then the role of the communications professionals becomes less one of message architecture and control and more one of enablement.
How do we counsel people on the behaviors, on the tools, on the strategies, on the types of things that help us become a more powerful voice in the marketplace, as opposed to always trying to make sure that every message mirrors the corporate-sanctioned message. I think that’s probably the greatest trend, at least in our marketplace, that we’re going to see in the next five years.
It’s how the role of the communications professional becomes one of behavioral consultant and enabler and provider of tools and intelligence and strategy, as opposed to the quest for message control.
Renn Vara: That’s good to hear. I think the last statement you made is undoubtedly something we should all take note of. Before we let you go, do you have any advice that you’d like to give to the professional communicators who are out there listening to this podcast right now?
Noel Hartzell: Figure out how you can be a competitive weapon for your organization. The world is changing. Everything that’s old is not irrelevant. Far from it, we stand on the shoulders of those who were successful in the past and those practices hold true.
But in the new world, you can either be the steamroller or you could be the pavement. Figure out how to be the steamroller.
Renn Vara: Noel, thanks for taking the time to be with us today.
Noel Hartzell: Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity.
Renn Vara: That was Noel Hartzell, Director of Executive Communications at Sun Microsystems.
