As I recently was putting in my son’s contact lenses, I realized that the experience could be beneficial as a communications lesson.

So just as I embarrassed my daughter years ago by telling a true story about whacking her with a golf ball, I’ll now embarrass my 15-year-old son by talking about how wearing contact lenses is like communicating in difficult times.

First, when I say that I was “putting in my son’s contact lenses,” I mean that I was putting them into my son’s eyes, not mine. He was just learning how to insert and remove contacts, and called for help after several frustrating minutes of trying to insert them himself.

Lesson #1: You should ask for help when you can’t see what you’re doing wrong. No matter how hard he tried, my son couldn’t see why his contact lenses kept bouncing off his eyes. It took the help of an experienced person to take a look from a different angle. In Kevin’s case, he was closing his eyes defensively just before the lens would settle onto his eye. In the communicator’s case, when a program, publication or campaign falls into your hands because it isn’t falling into place, you may need an outside opinion about how to redirect your efforts–and to find out if you’re blinking defensively.

Lesson #2: Which side is up? If you’ve never worn contact lenses, you may have trouble understanding how difficult it can be to discern whether a lens is “inside out.” Only a keen, practiced eye can spot the subtle angles that indicate whether a contact lens is flipped inside out or not. That spells the difference between completing the task in comfort or losing all pretense of sophistication as you shout in agony, “Get it out, get it out”–while you hop around the room, hunched over, frantically trying to remove the wrongly inserted lens from your now extremely irritated eye. Same lesson for communicators: If you don’t have the knowledge or experience to accurately gauge the angles of your project and the people involved with it, you may wind up hopping around a conference room, shouting in agony, “Get me out, get me out.”

Lesson #3: Keep it clean. This may be debated by some communicators, but I believe that just as a clean contact lens prevents irritants from building up, keeping a professional demeanor with coworkers, vendors and anyone who crosses your path can prevent a buildup of irritants in the workplace. Now some people might say that their workplace is full of irritating people, and that’s the way they like it. Okay…and I’ve spit on my contact lens before reinserting it at times when I didn’t have solution. But I didn’t feel good about it, and my eye knew the difference.

Lesson #4: The focus can change over time. Does your strategic communication planning involve using the same basic concepts year after year? Just as eyesight changes over time, communications needs and opportunities change constantly. Give yourself at least an annual checkup to see whether your vision has become a little fuzzy.

Lesson #5: When all else fails, radical surgery is an option. After wearing contact lenses for about three decades, I faced a tough choice. My eyesight and eye shape had finally made it difficult to find affordable contact lenses that balanced comfort with clear vision. So I decided to undergo laser eye surgery. A radical (for me) choice, that has given me great mid- to far-distance vision. Goodbye, contact lenses. If your communication programs just don’t seem fixable, maybe it’s time for a radical change. Just don’t do it without the guidance of an expert!

Lesson #6: Be realistic about the radical choices too. I had a choice with the laser surgery. It would be simple to correct my vision for the mid and far distance vision. But my eyes also have trouble focusing close-up. I had to decide whether I wanted one eye corrected for distance vision and one eye corrected for close vision, or whether to have both corrected for distance, and use reading glasses. I chose the reading glasses. If you need to consider a radical change to your communication programs, you may have to be ready to compromise on the probable results.

How do these lessons look to you?

thought last night about the struggle that my son had with wearing contact lenses for the first time,

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.

I sometimes feel like I’m beating my head against the wall whenever I try to teach my kids lessons on Internet safety and privacy. They’re relatively young (Kevin is 14 and Caitlyn is 12), and they haven’t seen or heard much of the sordid side of online communications.

Another case study recently whipped across my desk—but I don’t think I can share it with my kids yet. Maybe in a few years. Here’s the background. Tell me what you think.

I was reading an issue of Automotive News, a trade magazine geared toward the automotive industry. I was beginning to get a little punch-drunk from the usual collection of bland articles, when an article on page 46 hit me right between the eyes.

“Racy scandal for race exec” was the headline on an article that reported that Max Mosley, president of Federation Internationale de l’Automobile, the sanctioning body for Formula One and other international racing circuits, was caught on video recently with his pants down. Actually, with his pants, and every other stitch of clothing, removed from his 67-year-old body.

The video, which was posted on the British News of the World website, started a sort of media flogging of Mosley. According to the Automotive News story, in the video, the naked Mosley administered lashes to one of five prostitutes, counting the strokes in “vigorous German” and adding, in German-accented English, “She needs more of ze punishment!” Later, he gets punished by a dominatrix for being a bad boy.

Mosley is fighting off calls that he resign, lashing out at his critics, saying that the video was of a private matter that was “harmless and completely legal.” (I checked…prostitution among consenting adults is legal in London, where the video was made. Side-note: prostitution is not legal in Monaco, where Mosley lives with his wife.)

You may be thinking at this point, “So what is the lesson that you want to share with your kids, Tom? Tell us before we have to pull it out of you!”

In what, to Max Mosley, must have been a painfully twisted idea, the S&M sex video was filmed with a camera hidden in the brassiere of one of the participants (not Max, I’m assuming). That’s it; that’s the point that I want my kids to understand.

The world in which we live is closer than anyone would have thought to the “Big Brother” world written about by George Orwell. Only it is even more insidious than Orwell imagined, because rather than an evil government conspiring to remove our privacy, we are doing it to ourselves. Through our brassieres, through our camera phones, through our lack of respect for privacy.

My kids need to know this, before they start adding videos of their own (hopefully much more family-friendly than Max’s) to their MySpace, or Facebook, or whatever place they will consider to be “private,” “safe” and “boss” in the future. Because it isn’t only Big Brother we need to fear today; it’s Big Dominatrix with the Little Video Camera…or our best friend who doesn’t have the sense to yell “Cut.”
“max+mosley” prostitution video privacy commakazispeek

I want to make sure that you have the opportunity to download a copy of, “The Power of Words,” a free white paper from The Catchpole Corporation and Best Practices in Corporate Communications (BPCC).

It contains “an invigorating collection of famous speeches, soliloquies, and ruminations that illustrate the timeless force that words, uniquely configured, can achieve,” according to BPCC.

I’ve had the opportunity to read just a couple, and I look forward to reading the rest.

Enjoy!

During a much-needed and unplanned sabbatical from podcasting and blogging, I thought about my plans for this site. CommaKazi Speek began as an extension of my desire to delve into the world of social media. First, I blogged. Then I created podcasts.

Both ventures provided me with practical experience and a better perspective of this portion of the social media space. They helped me to connect with other bloggers and podcasters. They let me stretch my professional skill set while having fun.

Like a lot of people, I have plans for my life–both professionally and personally. Those plans change at times, due to circumstances or opportunities. I wondered whether my blog and podcast could help me launch into a different phase of my career. They didn’t. They remain a hobby without reward, other than personal satisfaction.

That only goes so far, when I have to balance other commitments and responsibilities. So I’m planning to shut down my CommaKazi Speek podcast site as soon as I ready this blog to handle podcasts. Why pay Libsyn to store my old shows, when I can’t be sure when I will have new content ready to post? I’ll be downloading PodPress and then using it to distribute any podcasts that I choose to create in the future.

At the same time, I’ll be changing the focus of this blog…sort of. In June 2005 I launched the predecessor of this blog on Blogger.com. My purpose for launching the site was to prepare me to blog as a volunteer at the 2005 IABC International Conference. I believed that blogging at the IABC conference would:

• help me to focus during the conference
• broaden my networking efforts
• force me to dive into this blogging thing

My final reason given at the time was that Warren Bickford, 2005 IABC Chair, had asked for volunteers, and “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Those initial posts on the IABC Cafe opened the door for me to continue posting there for a couple of years, while I moved this blog to its current home.

Because I started blogging at an international conference for communicators on its blog, the focus of my blog posts up to now primarily has been on communications issues. About what else was I going to write?

As time passed, although I was careful to keep a self-imposed wall between my work as a corporate communicator and my opinions expressed on the two blogs (mine and the IABC Cafe), that wall negatively impacted my ability to write meaningful posts regarding communication trends and experiences. The bottom-line point for this post is that I plan to move away from communication issues…sort of.

I’ll write more about this tomorrow.

Whenever long periods of time go by between posts on blogs which I regularly read, I wonder what’s behind the silence. Is the blogger overworked, overtired, waylaid, apathetic or ill? In my case, I needed to step back from this blog when the number of people and tasks facing me combined with a cold/sinus infection that decreased my stamina.

The result: cobwebs on the blog.

This probably has some well-known, prolific bloggers laughing. You know, the guys who Twitter that they’re blogging about a new social media report while recording a podcast about their new wiki that is changing the face of public relations as we know it. But many of those types (at least the ones I’m picturing) are consultants who:

• Use social media to advance their practice, by enhancing their reputation and reach, and by becoming known as “gurus” in their field,
• Are constantly traveling, where the long flights, delays and stays in hotels provide time for blog posts and tweets, and/or
• Are young and unattached, giving them fuller control over their schedules and priorities.

I started blogging and podcasting to get experience with these tools and techniques so that I could make informed recommendations when discussing social media with management at my employer. Don’t get me wrong: If, along the way, I had the opportunity to launch my own consultancy that provided endless professional opportunities, along with bags of cash, I’m sure that, today, I would be one of those consultants described above. I’m not knocking consultants. The fact is, many communications consultants have, directly or indirectly, taught me a lot about social media–and I remain grateful to them all.

My point is that when you look “behind the scenes” in many organizations, the reasons why so many employees are NOT blogging, podcasting or tweeting include the fact that we ARE NOT CONSULTANTS.

If my company hired a consultant to provide guidance on the possible introduction of social media within the company, management and staff would expect the consultant to tactfully, but accurately, present the facts regarding the value of social media tools and techniques–and the opportunities that would exist within the company for employing those tools and techniques.

But I’d love to hear from any internal communicators who have experienced something like this next scenario: You spend a lot of time developing a strategy for introducing social media tools and techniques within your organization–only to get pooh-poohed or outright denied the chance to make your case.

A second difference between consultants and in-house employees: free speech. Some of the most interesting blog posts that I’ve read have been written by consultants who start with the phrase, “At a company where I worked (or consulted)…” In the case of an internal communicator, every post that mentions the company has the potential to bring heat upon the author–up to and including termination. In my case, why would I jeopardize my job to write a post about a struggle that I might be having with management over social media tools or policies? The people in the trenches have a great position to gather “real-world” tales of trials and errors. But many of those tales never make it onto a blog.

So some of my silence has been caused by my decision to keep some things in my life “behind the scenes.” But that won’t stop me from writing about the rest!

I downloaded the beta of Windows Live Writer and am writing this very short post to test it. I’ve included a photo of my daughter with our dog, to see how well it uploads images as well as text. So far, this looks great as an offline blog editor for my WordPress blog.

Neville, thanks very much for   recommending this on your blog. (Yes, I’m testing the link.)

In addition to my full-time position as an internal communications manager, I volunteer to guide communications at the church that my family has attended for 12 years. I’ve probably faced more challenges in terms of developing communication strategies and obtaining resources of people and budget there than in any of the “professional” jobs that I’ve held throughout my 27-year career.

That’s one of the reasons why I was excited about participating in a communications workshop offered on July 30, 2007 by the staff of Granger Community Church in Granger, Indiana (USA). Granger is a solid example of how the Gospel message can reach people who have become disenchanted (even downright hostile) with “organized religion,” and who aren’t attending a church because, according to Granger leaders, they see church as too boring, intimidating, or irrelevant to their “stressed-out, hyper-speed lives,” and/or “they felt unworthy, unloved and unlovable.”

Following the communications workshop, I interviewed Kem Meyer, Granger’s communications director, along with some workshop participants. I posted the discussion on CommaKazi Speek. It was my second recorded conversation with Kem; here is the first one.

As one of the workshop participants points out in our recorded conversation, Granger has become known as a leader in effective communication to today’s tech saavy person, who may also be wary of any hype coming from institutions–including organized religion. So how has Granger reached and retained members? How has it grown from about 10 people meeting in the living room of Senior/Founding Pastor Mark Beeson and his wife, Sheila, to several thousand people worshiping in a large, modern space that also features:

• a casual atmosphere
• friendly people who’ll help you find your way around
• contemporary music, powerful dramas, high-impact media presentations
• an innovative children’s space and
• a Starbuck®-esque café?

Communications played an important role. Although Meyer was quick to credit the terrific speaking skills of the church’s pastors, she also provided practical tips for church communications staff and volunteers.

Bad communication is when you are trying to change someone’s “world view,” Meyer said. Good communication is when you speak respectfully to a world view, even if you disagree with it. Instead of trying to send “the right message” to your audience, you need to develop communications that release “the right response.”

Meyer defines “world view” as the bias that affects the story we tell ourselves to make it easier to live in a complicated work. Examples of world view include:

• A home-cooked meal is better for my kids
• Church is boring and is for sissies
• Organic food is “better”

During the communication workshop, Meyer presented five “communication myths” and four “best practices.” The five communication myths are:

• You (the communicator) are in control
• The more choices (products, services, message), the better
• Advertising creates interest and reinforces the brand
• It worked before, so it’ll work again
• People care about what you have to say

Although I don’t have time to unwrap all of these myths, I’ll cover a couple of them. People mistakenly believe that advertising creates interest and reinforces the brand, when at best, advertising creates awareness, which is not, in and of itself, a motivating factor. Meyer pointed out that cancer creates a sort of powerful awareness in people–but that doesn’t mean that people want it. Brands are built on experiences, she added.

People remember, on average, 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, 30% of what we see, 40% of what we do and about 100% of what we feel, Meyer said. Emotion is the “on/off switch” for thinking.

The four best practices discussed by Meyer were:

• Know your audience (psychographics as well as demographics)
• Remove barriers to entry (is that tri-fold brochure and over-friendly approach to visitors attracting people–or repelling them?)
• Reduce the noise. Life is hard enough; we shouldn’t make it harder on people trying to get our message.
• Tell one story at a time. Act as an air traffic controller, and let the ministry leaders fly their own planes. You simply direct the flow and keep them from crashing together.

Among the practical examples of how Granger’s communications staff uses this knowledge, Meyer talked about how the church looked to attract visitors who could be hostile to Christianity and church. The church staff developed a message series titled, “The Most Irritating Things About Christians.” That series attracted people who were looking for affirmation that certain things about Christians can be seen as being irritating. Pastor Beeson was able to shape his messages to address those irritations, while affirming the reasons why Christians may act in a seemingly irritating way.

I’ve only skimmed the surface of the workshop, and haven’t talked about the practical advice for improving the communication process, adding volunteers and determining the ways to reach a particular audience or demographic. I’ll be sharing more with my church’s leadership, and may find other tidbits worthy of posting here.

I regularly head over to the PR Conversations blog, because the authors provide great ideas and information. The latest post by Frank Ovaitt, “Linking Trust and Transparency,” provides some new research that further supports the evidence of the link between trust and transparency.

Well worth a read.