Death to internal marketing

We all know that communication is 70% nonverbal, right?

Well, um, actually, nope.  Not at all.  The statistic has become mythical but is in fact urban folklore with little real support.

Thanks to Brandon for doing my homework for me regarding this post.  In essence, a late 1960s study intimated that in certain situations a certain amount of communication was nonverbal, and due to masses of publicity people now waltz around hurling the “fact” that communication is 60-70% nonverbal.  People have made careers out of this!

In a nutshell: Mehrabian’s study only addressed the very narrow situation in which a listener is analyzing a speaker’s general attitude towards that listener (positive, negative, or neutral). Also, in his experiments the parties had no prior acquaintance; they had no context for their discussion. As Mehrabian himself has said explicitly, these statistics are not relevant except in the very narrow confines of a similar situation.

Thanks Brandon.  Read more about it here.

We’re leaving a time period of (over-)specialisation in employee engagement and internal communication.

If you look at articles, thought leaders, conference platforms — its all about the technicians (e.g., social media gurus, intranet gurus, measurement gurus, writing for the web gurus, live event gurus …).  Yet these skills by their very nature are increasingly commodditised. The changing landscape of both media and audiences means that being an expert in just one core area will keep you forever downstream, and down the food chain.

I believe we will enter a period where those with more broad-based and general skills — that is, people in business who understand and are passionate about the power and value of applying engagement techniques in business — will thrive. 

Because with rapid change, media fragmentation and audience overlap, it’s become a much more complex system.  Complex systems thinking is demanded.  And that means that minor changes in one part of the system have effects, often unanticipated, in other parts of the system.  You need to be able to see the whole thing in operation, and have a very good idea about how each of the component elements work.

So, I think we need to broaden our skills set and capabilities, in general.  We need a conference about “Putting it all together” instead of “20 speakers on the topic of the balance between web and word of mouth in experienced hire recruitment.”

Whaddaya think?

Where to begin?

Scooters are great for central London traffic.  Small size and agility means they can dart through traffic.  Fuel economy is superb.  Up to 30-40mph — about as fast as you really need to go in London — they are perfect for commuting and getting around.  I owned one.

There are several things that perplex me about scooter drivers.

1.  Why do they think motorcycles are racing them?

We’re not.  We have better things to do.  The only time we lower ourselves to actually thinking you are worthy of notice is when there is open road ahead and you seem to think a 50cc Vespa can actually out accelerate a 675cc Triumph, when a bit of juvenile pique does occasionally demand an actual demonstration of performance superiority. 

The only reason scooters may believe this is possible is when the driver of the 675cc Triumph isn’t actually racing the scooter as its driver pushes it to the redline; meanwhile, the Triumph is toodling along at under 4,000 revs wondering what that awful noise is…

2.  Why do they insist on cutting in front of motorcycles?

I have never been cut in front of by a proper motorcycle.  Ever.  Yet on a daily basis scooters, seem to think that if there is a 2″ gap between the car and the cycle they should go for it.  I don’t give a shit if they want to get where they are going faster than I want to, but don’t make me hit my brakes or steer to avoid killing you and totalling your dashingly fashionable vintage Piaggio.

The fact is, the only reason you “zip in front” is because you are unsafe, incredibly lucky, and apparently immortal.  Your slow control is generally terrible, arms flapping and feet dragging along the ground while we look on in disgust, horror and not a little pity.

3.  Those ones with two front wheels, or the ring around them.

Just go home and hide under your bed.  It’s much safer there.

4.  Their attire.

An accident between a motorcycle and a car on tarmac at 20-40 mph is never a pretty thing.  You lose 1″ of flesh for each 10m you skid, not to mention impact damage.  So motorcyclists tend to wear a fair amount of body armour.

An accident between a scooter and a car on tarmac at 20-40 mph must be completely different, defying the laws of physics.  Magically, when a scooter has the exact same accident as a motorcycle, the scooter rider is gently lowered by invisible angels who provide a cushion against impact and abrasion.  That’s why people on scooters (most of them with Spanish or Italian plates) dress like they are in a 1950s Sophia Lauren movie.  It’s very glamorous.  It’s also why the majority of serious injuries in auto-motorcycle accidents are from bikes with displacement under 125cc.  That is, yes, scooters.

Put some clothes on, people.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, as with pedal cyclists, a lot of scooter riders are absolutely fine.  But why is it that while 90% of pedal cyclists are responsible, courteous, decent human beings, I’d estimate only about 25% of scooter drivers fit into the same category.  Is it a sense of inferiority driving them to act out, proving that although theirs is smaller, they can get there first?  Do you have something to prove?

Because I’m just trying to stay away from cars, buses and white vans and get to work in the morning.

ADDENDUM - 20 August 2008

With the exeption of the madman … and his pillion … on the Old Kent Road heading to Elephant & Castle the other morning on one of those 500cc Peugeots.  Hats off; total control and larger cojones than any motorcycle on the road that day.

The answer: it depends.

If you have significant equity in your corporate / consumer brand for those you seek to employ and retain, in most cases you can afford to be a bit more audacious with your employer brand; you have a lot in the bank.

If you are relatively unknown to those you seek to employ and retain, you probably need to make sure your corporate / consumer brand is pretty present.  You don’t have a lot in the bank.

There is no hard and fast rule, but that’s my tip o’ the day.

And start going to ones about other professions.  If you are an internal communicator, go to Marketing conferences.  If you are a social media guru, go to brand conference.  If you are a brand guru, go to an HR conference.

Otherwise you will never grow and you’ll see the same 5 people who spend more time speaking at conferences about your profession than practicing your profession.  Mix it up a bit.

Heaven forbid you might learn something new or get inspired.

Many moons ago, I set up the UK Usability Professionals’ Association and also co-founded the Intranet Benchmarking Forum (IBF).  At the time, usability was an established discipline coming out of the shadows, and links to internal communication and engagement were clear: It’s about the audience.

Usability has really come a long way in five years, let alone 25.  Jakob Nielsen (love him or loathe him) has recently posted some interesting reading on the evolution of usability and intranets.  The most interesting point to me, once again with an eye on employee engagement and internal communications, is the declining ROI of usability improvements.  While the improvements are still more than worthy of investment, best practice has come a long way; people are adopting it; it’s harder to find a “competitive advantage.”

Just as in engagement and internal communications, today’s best practice is tomorrow’s hygiene factor.   Yet even with the evolution of social media tools that some say have revolutionised internal communications and corporate stakeholder dialogue, much of the deployment of these new approaches follow the old processes; they are simply seen as “new channels”.  The same debate occurred with intranets; revolution or new way to distribute information?

I wonder: is it actually getting harder to squeeze ROI out of our employee communication approaches, or are we just not able to get better solutions through the organisational treacle?