Too clever by half

The decision by The Guardian newspaper to suspend its dedicated Twitter feed retelling the events of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US shows how we’re still finding our feet with new communications technology.

On the tenth anniversary of the attacks, the Guardian set up the @911tenyearsago account which retold the events in real time as they happened ten years previously, starting with “Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz al-Omari board American Airlines Flight 11 at Boston Logan airport” and continuing as that and other flights take off, and goes on to show how news filtered through that something was wrong.

It got as far as “George Bush – preparing to meet children at a Florida elementary school – is told an aircraft has struck the World Trade Center” before, just 16 Tweets in, it announces bluntly. “This account of the events is now ending.”

The decision to stop the feed appeared to be a result of some of the replies to the Guardian’s Tweets which included calling it a “sick sideshow”, “tacky” and “grotesque”.

Like so many bad ideas, it was actually based on good intentions and innovative thinking, typical of the newspaper’s approach to using new technology alongside traditional print.

Similar ideas can work quite well in other media – repeated real-time television footage can be instructive as it reminds us how news anchors struggled to cover the story because they so obviously in shock.

And the Guardian itself reprinted commentary articles that were written in the immediate aftermath which help to show how ten years of hindsight compare with the raw emotions of the time.

But the same trick won’t work with Twitter for several reasons. First of all, it isn’t genuine. The contemporary reporting is part of the history of 9/11 and when we watch it or read it, we are taken back to 2001, either because we remember consuming that media at the time, or just because we know we are looking at a historical document and we can put it in context.

But Twitter didn’t exist in 2001 and so the Guardian had to create the updates from a 2011 perspective.

Secondly, ten years isn’t very long ago (it doesn’t even look very different, unlike the contrast between 1973 and 1963, or 1995 and 1985).

For those who lost someone in the attacks, the emotions are still very raw. But even for those fortunate enough – like myself – not to have been directly affected, it still seems fairly recent and so the account seems a little – as another Twitterer put it – “perverse”.

So it was too long ago, and yet too recent.

In communications terms, the Guardian was guilty of one of the most common errors – broadcasting the message that it wanted to say, without considering how it would be heard by its audience.  

Head in the sand

Communicators have their work cut out during these difficult economic times. Redundancies, budget cuts, restructures – no one likes being the bearer of bad news. 

Making the decision is only half the battle. Relaying the message can require a suit of armour. 

In times of change internal communications are crucial but I know of so many cases where companies decide to 'hold off' informing employees until the deed has been done. They may think they have avoided a crisis – but in fact they have just created a bigger one. 

Where there is no communication people create their own. Where rumour rules, anger and fear creep in. If your internal ambassadors lose faith in the company – who's selling the brand? If they feel the need to start searching for new jobs – what's happened to productivity? 

Communicating after the event can only create more problems. Trust has to be earned and a lack of communication can create company saboteurs. 

A survey by Hewitt Associates showed that employee engagement is at an all-time low – not surprising when people have lost colleagues through restructures and now face increased workloads or a lack of progression. 

The difficult boardroom decisions are now playing out on the shop floor.

Those companies who kept their people informed during the bad times will reap the benefits of a united workforce, preparing to rise again during the good times. 

Here are some tips for communicating internally during times of change: 

1. Use your existing trusted channels but 'brand' up a special version of your newsletter, social networking feed and/or area of the intranet to give employees a dedicated stream of information about the changes. 

2. Make sure your CEO is visibly commenting on the changes and decisions that are ahead – either through blogs, webinars, newsletters or, where possible, face to face communication.

3. Use communication champions from different teams and keep them informed of the plans and developments taking place. These people can represent voices from the rest of the business and input ideas and opinions on the best style and method of communication for people who work in their area. Using people from all levels of the business will help promote that all voices are being heard.

4. Ensure there is a channel for everyone to voice their concerns and ask questions – this could be through an area on the Intranet or a dedicated email address.

5. Update people even when there's nothing to say. Sounds silly - but no news can be good news. Waiting to hear and not hearing anything is worse than knowing that talks are taking place or have been delayed.

6. Ditch the corporate speak. It’s easy to hide behind carefully crafted sentences about ‘downsizing’ and ‘challenging climates’ but these only cause more anger and confusion. Be honest about the reasons for redundancies or restructures and explain why actions have to be taken.

7. Communicate the positives – what will the restructure/change do to help get the business back on track? Give employees a goal to work towards during and after the changes.

8. If people have been made redundant, think about setting up a memory wall or use the Intranet as a place for colleagues to pay tribute to those who have helped grow the company. The business will show it values the contribution made by others but had to make difficult decisions.

When the directors hide away in important discussions – it’s the internal communicators' role to get the message out there as clearly and quickly as possible. The head in the sand technique never did anyone any good. 

Social awareness

This mind-blowing video was uploaded to YouTube to publicise Erik Qualman’s book Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business.

Despite the premise of both the book and the video, I couldn’t help but notice the irony that you can buy the hardcopy from Amazon for less than you can download it to a Kindle.

Nevertheless, it is a powerful watch – four minutes and 19 seconds of relentless pummelling of how social media is changing the way we live in the real world, including the fact that online students outperform those receiving one-to-one tuition and that one-in-five divorces are blamed on Facebook.

Of particular interest to business communicators is the way customers use social media. Even if your company doesn’t use it, you can bet that your customers do, and they could well be talking about you.

Is this concerning? Or inspiring? It depends on how you react. The video’s startling assertion that if you don’t use social media, your business will not exist in five years is potent stuff, but the democratising nature of social media means that it is something that any of us (including our customers) can use.

Qualman says that 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations but only 14% trust advertisements. That’s good news for those who can’t afford expensive advertising budgets – the technology is there for us to build our own communities and, as long as your quality and service are up to scratch, you can let your customers do your promotion for you.

As always, the issue boils down to content. Is your story good enough to get people talking about you?