Click this link to listen to a 14-minute interview of Claire Leheny on the final day of the Sept. 22-24 Strategic Communication Management Summit 2009 in Chicago.

I interviewed Claire, who is Melcrum’s Director, North America, to discuss:

• Findings from a recent Melcrum global survey of communication professionals
• How the current economic market is impacting internal communications, and
• Changes within Melcrum, including the reason behind Melcrum’s recent relocation of its headquarters from Chicago to Washington, D.C.

Click this link to hear an 8-minute “Quick & Dirty podcast” that I recorded on June 8, 2009 at the IABC 2009 World Conference at the Marriott in San Francisco.

This podcast was recorded following a presentation by Lynn Patterson, director of corporate responsibility at RBC Financial Group, Ontario, Canada. Lynn’s presentation, “The Suite Spot: Transforming your corporate responsibility report into a communication suite,” included ideas for moving away from a focus on corporate responsibility reports so that communicators instead can provide a “suite” of communications tailored to key audiences across appropriate media.

Our discussion covered the reasons to move in the direction of CS communications suites, examples of how it is done at RBC, and the possibly surprising thought that CSR departments may one day disappear–but the work won’t.

The IABC World Conference has featured some terrific SR-related presentations. Come back to read and hear more as the conference continues.

(cross-posted on the SR LINK web site)

When I was growing up, many of us we were convinced that aliens really did exist and would eventually reveal themselves to us. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that life could exist on a few of the billions of planets spread across the universe. When we acted out that first contact, the person playing the “alien” would typically say, “Take me to your leader.”

Now older and perhaps wiser, we don’t look for spaceships descending from the sky—and we wouldn’t automatically consider our company’s senior leadership to be the best people to manage an interstellar meeting, if we had the opportunity to arrange one. In fact, survey results seem to indicate that at least one-third of us would beg to be taken away in the space ship, rather than remain behind in a work environment that had failed to engage us.

But let’s talk about how to improve communications within an organization. Primary takeaways of a preconference workshop at the Melcrum Strategic Communication Management Summit 2008 in Chicago included:

Communication expert Roger D’Aprix, a vice president at ROI Communications, and fellow ROI VP Michelle Glover led a workshop that was titled, “Improving Employee Engagment through Effective Leadership Communication.”

D’Aprix stated that a company’s leader is the single most effective communication tool professionals have to engage the hearts and minds of employees. He pointed to separate research findings from Melcrum and Towers Perrin that indicate the top driver of employee engagement to be the actions of senior leaders.

[See my podcast for an interview with Roger D'Aprix that centers on the third driver of employee engagment--social responsibility--and a preview of his soon-to-be-published book, "The Credible Company. Communicating With Today's Skeptical Workforce."]

D’Aprix and Glover shared results of a survey that ranked the level of engagement of various reporting levels within organizations. The results are:

- Senior executives (53%)
- Director/Managers (25%)
- Supervisors (16%)
- Salaried workers (14%)
- Hourly workers (12%)

Their take was that people closest to information were the most engaged. The need is to bring information effectively to supervisors, salaried and hourly workers. “Engagement is just one factor for success, but it is a very powerful factor,” D’Aprix said. “People will go the extra mile and bring more energy when they are engaged.”

To promote greater employee engagement, pay attention to the communication behavior of your leaders, he said. One key to engagement is to have effective and engaged leadership at the top, Glover and D’Aprix emphasized. D’Aprix added that employees no longer are a “cost of doing business,” they are the means of doing business–particularly in service-oriented markets like the United States. Therefore, organizations should demonstrate their interest in employees by researching the needs of their employees as thoroughly as they do their customers’ needs.

D’Aprix said the old-fashioned “command-and-control” management style, where leaders demand more and expect constantly better results, is not going to work with today’s workforce.

“Lead people well, keep them involved and you will improve the retention and performance of your organization,” he said.

Melcrum’s Strategic Communication Management Summit 2008 in Chicago was exceptional. I’ve already posted a podcast interview of communication expert Roger D’Aprix that was recorded on the first day of the summit, and I’ll be summarizing some of the information I gathered during the three-day event in Chicago.

The summit was held at the Ritz-Carlton in Chicago, about one block from my high school. That gave me additional photo opportunities and ideas for blog posts.

I particularly want to compliment the Melcrum staff, led by Vicky Burch, Annie Waite and Rick Spratley. They went above the call to be welcoming, helpful and instrumental in encouraging networking among the participants and speakers.

More to come, as I get to it.

The graphic to the left features (from left): John Ryan, advisor of Student Publications at my alma mater, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Ill.; Jim Tidwell, chairman of the Journalism Department at EIU; and Rick Popely, reporter at the Chicago Tribune and an EIU journalism alum.

The latest CommaKazi Speek podcast features interviews of these two former and one current journalists (the two former journalists teach journalism at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Il). We discuss the current state of journalism and what the next wave of journalism graduates may face.

I conducted the interviews on July 18, after a charity golf outing at EIU, my alma mater, to benefit the Gene Seymour Journalism Scholarship. (No thanks to me, my foursome managed to win third place.)

As I drive south tomorrow to my alma mater in Charleston, Ill., I’ll no doubt enjoy memories of my years spent there as a journalism major.

But 2008 isn’t 1980 (the year I graduated), and I expect to have some frank discussions with former journalism instructors and colleagues (and perhaps, some current students) about the current state of the profession. I haven’t walked into a newsroom in about a decade, but I suspect that many are subdued, because of the decline in print advertising and economic forces that are behind continuing staff reductions in many newspapers across the country. Some long-time professionals have had enough—as evidenced by this July 14 article regarding a resignation at the Chicago Tribune.

The workforce and business environment continue to change, not always for the better. Although my B.A. degree from Eastern Illinois University may not be as high as it once was, it remains indispensable to me. I’ve been committed for many years to the concept of being a “life-long learner.” That led me to earn accreditation through the International Association of Business Communicators, and to hone skills in newer communication methods and technologies, including blogging and podcasting.

My professional and personal life today doesn’t look anything like I would have imagined it turning out when I graduated from EIU. Challenges, disappointments, minor successes and major “growth opportunities” continue to be part of my work and life.

Tomorrow, however, will not be a day to dwell on what life isn’t…it will be a day to enjoy life as it is.

I’m still in the process of moving to my new home on WordPress. Please pardon the ongoing renovations, as I tweak. I still plan to change the main graphic, but all in due time. So far, I will simply thank another Tom who created the Mandigo theme.

I also will be posting podcasts there, linking to my Libsyn account. Again, still finishing the first podcasts–a lot for a newbie to learn–as many of you have already experienced.