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communication world iabcs

digital magazine for communication
management march 2014
The evolving
social intranet
Next-generation tools let you tap into

the knowledge living throughout
your organization
from the editor
All aboard
L
SALVOPHOTO.COM
ets face it: Changing behavior is not easy. When it comes to engaging employees on an intranet, this seems to be especially true. Could
it be partly because so much of what we do at work becomes a habit,
even rote? Even as intranets evolve into dynamic social collaboration and
community-building tools, many communication professionals have been
frustrated by how tough it is to get people to use that terrific tool that will
make everyones lives easierand have had their efforts met instead with
continued reliance on email, general complaints or even plain old apathy.
Our authors in this issue explain what is so special about intranets today,
but even more important, they offer great ideas on what you can do to
avoid pitfalls and engage your employees in a new way.
Id like to build on that great thinking with a few extra
nuggets of advice.
Make sure your leaders are visible on the intranet. Nothing annoys employees more than seeing the managers of
the organization give themselves a pass.
People need time and

constant reminders to
make a change in their
behavior.
Illustrate how knowledge sharing will boost profits by

positively affecting productivity. One of the authors in
this issue, Toby Ward, is a preeminent expert on this.
Check out his article (The Change You Wish to See)
for ideas on how to think about this concept.
Persevere. People need time and constant reminders to

Natasha Nicholson make a change in their behavior. Keep showing them how
easy it is to use this tool, and how much more they can get
done in their day if they use it wisely.
Get your influencers going on the intranet and ask them to be vocal. If
theres something really useful, or some fun stuff, people will go there. As
much as we are creatures of habit, we are also social creatures who crave a
connection to others and like a laugh or two.
Finally, use it yourself. Honestly, how can we suggest something to others
if we are not committed to it ourselves?
Natasha Nicholson
Executive Editor
3 COMMUNICATION WORLD MARCH 2014
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CW
THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATORS
CW March 2014 Vol. 31, No. 3
Executive Editor
Natasha Nicholson
Senior Editor
Jessica Burnette-Lemon
Creative Director
Sheila Young Tomkowiak
Managing Editors
Sue Khodarahmi,
Amanda Aiello Beck
Production Editors Sue Cavallaro,
Rebecca Kavanagh
Copy Editors Caroline Cornell,
Alisa Damaso
Designers Aimee Andrion,
Sean Deason
International Advisory Panel
Africa Gail Cameron; Ros Jones;
Mari Lee, ABC
Asia/Pacific Kaz Amemiya; Sujit
Patil, ABC; Aniisu Verghese
Canada Graham Machacek;
Tod Maffin; Colleen Lavender
Europe/Middle East Ian Andersen;
Silvia Cambi; Dirk Hinze;
Claudia Vaccarone
Latin America/Caribbean
Ignacio Robledo;
Paulo Soares, ABC
U.S. Michelle Bernhart, ABC;
Sam Harrison; Ruth Kinzey;
Preston Lewis; Jeremy Schultz
Advertising Sales
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Contributors
James Robertson (The Power
of Social) is the
author of the
best-selling books
Essential Intranets:
Inspiring Sites that
Deliver Business Value, Designing Intranets: Creating Sites that
Work, and What Every Intranet
Team Should Know. The founder
and managing director of Step
Two Designs, based in Sydney,
he has helped teams around
the globe deliver successful and
valuable intranets. You can find
him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Toby Ward (The Change You
Wish to See),
CEO of Prescient
Digital Media, is a
social business
consultant, writer
and speaker, and chair of the
Intranet Global Forum, a semiannual conference held in Los
Angeles and New York City,
hosted in association with IABC.
He blogs at IntranetBlog.com,
and you can find him on Twitter.
Caroline Kealey (How to Make
Yourself Invaluable) is CEO of
Ingenium Communications in
Ottawa, and is an
internationally recognized
expert in strategic communication planning and evaluation.
Hear more from her through the
Results Map blog, on Twitter
and through LinkedIn.
Colleen Lavender (Bookmark)

is the internal
communications
specialist for SAIT
Polytechnic, a
postsecondary
educational institution with
2,400 employees in Calgary,
Alberta.
Jennifer Barrett (Case in Point)
is the director
of corporate
communication
at Asurion, based
in Nashville,
Tennessee, and leads a team
of professionals responsible
for all global employee
communications.
Michele Hodges is communications manager for
Asurions 7,000plus customer care
division, and is
responsible for
delivering strategic communication through all levels of the
business.
Christy Roberts is the supply
chain communications specialist at
Asurion. She has
more than 10 years
of experience in
internal communication and
marketing.
Phil Douglis, ABC, IABC Fellow

(Photocritique),
directs The Douglis
Visual Workshops,
which has been
training communicators in visual
literacy for more
than four decades. Douglis is a
widely known workshop leader
and columnist on editorial
photography for organizations.
He offers one-on-one tutorial
workshops, held in Phoenix,
Arizona, in digital imaging and
photographic communication.
For registration information,
email pnd1@cox.net. You can
also take a look at his galleries
of expressive digital
photography.
inbox iabc news & events
Communication Worlds
digital transition
ast May, Communication

World officially went digital.
After 30 years as a bimonthly
print publication, moving CW to a
monthly online-only format was a
big change. While weve heard from
people who miss the print version,
the new format is proving to be
popular. As the anniversary of CWs
transition approaches, heres a look at
how the digital version has evolved.
Readership
The level of engagement with CW

as a digital magazine has been high.
In 2013, there were about 269,000
page views of the digital web edition,

and more than 13,000 new visitors,
averaging 88 visitors per day, from
114 countries around the world.
The majority of readers are from the
U.S. and Canada (at 48 percent and
31 percent, respectively), followed
by Australia, the U.K., New Zealand, France, Slovenia, South Africa,
Mexico and the Philippines; the figures track with IABCs membership
numbers in these countries. An average of 3,200 people read each issue
of CW, and readers spend an average
of 6:47 minutes per visit. According
to a third-quarter 2013 study from
Zmags, digital magazine readers spend

an average of 4:09 minutes per visit,
putting CW above the average.
The most popular issues in 2013:
rust from the Top Down: How

T
Building Trust Can Have a Positive
Impact on Your Organizations Bottom Line (June)
tep It Up: How to Make Your Way
S
Up the Career Ladder (July)
cw by the numbers
MayDecember 2013
alancing Act: Managing Change

B
Takes a Steady Hand (September)
reak Through: Turn Your Content
B
Marketing Efforts Inside Out by
Putting Your Customer Front and
Center (November)
ll A-Twitter: The Perils of Social
A
Media (August)
The most popular articles in 2013:
How to Improve Your Odds for
Successful Change Management,

by Brad Messinger and Jill Havely
(September)
PEOPLE
13,000
new CW digital visitors
Your Future. Your Choice, by
Neil Griffiths, ABC, and Deborah

Hinton (July)
Make Communication Your
Business, by James Shaffer, IABC

Fellow (September)
VIEWS
The Growing Pains of Employee
Communicators, by Lee Smith

(July)
269,000
page views
6 Tips for Crafting a Social Media
Content Strategy, by Arnie Kuenn

(June)
TIME
6:47
average minutes
per visit
REACH
114
countries
The most popular columns in 2013:
Business Writing Is Like a Road
Trip (from August Words at

Work, by Lynda McDaniel)
All the News that Fits (about
brand newsrooms, from July Tech

Talk, by Shel Holtz, ABC, IABC
Fellow)
The Rhino in the Room (about a
Gold Quill Award-winning project

from Chicagos Brookfield Zoo,
let us know
what you think
We want to hear your ideas
about what youd like to
see in future issues of CW,
and what you think of the
digital magazine so far.
Take this short readership
survey so that we can make
sure were meeting your
needs. You can also send
your thoughts to us at
cwmagazine@iabc.com.
from July Case in Point, by Simon

Edelman)
Its time to show off the hard work

youve put into your communication
programs over the past year. Be recognized as a master communicator for
your achievements by the worlds premier communication awards program,
the Gold Quill Awards.
The final deadline for entries is 10
March. Go to the Gold Quill Awards
website to enter your work for the recognition it deserves.
B-rollIts Alive! (from Septem

ber Visually Speaking, by Suzanne
Scardino Salvo, IABC Fellow)
Change Your Perspective (from
June Photocritique, by Philip N.

Douglis, ABC, IABC Fellow)
World Conference:
Change the way you think
Bring your passion for being a better
communicator to Toronto, 811 June,
for the IABC World Conference. With
seven educational tracks and more than
60 breakout sessions, plus five general
sessions, World Conference offerings
can help you reach the next stage of
your career. Explore new ideas on:
Crisis communication.
Research and measurement.
Strategic leadership and business.
mark your calendar
Webinar: Study links

culture of trust to employee
social media use
Keep It Growing (about a Gold
Quill Award-winning project from

a South African nonprofit, from
September Case in Point, by Mari
Lee, ABC)
Career building.
Gold Quill Awards:

Last chance to enter
Strategic Corporate
Communication Leadership
Summit
10 11 April
Washington, D.C.
Findings from the Social Workplace

Trust Study are now available on
iabc.com. The study, conducted by
Human 1.0 in partnership with
IABC, the Great Place to Work Institute and the Society for New Com
munications Research, reveals a
correlation between workplace trust
and the use of social media.
Researchers Ed Moran and Franois
Gossieaux presented the studys findings in a webinar that is free to IABC
members. Access the on-demand
recording of their presentation here.
Member Month
promotion: Application fee
waived in March
Marketing and advertising.
March is a great time to encourage your

friends and colleagues to join IABC.
Reputation and brand.
For all new members who join during
March, well waive the US$40 applica mployee engagement.
E
tion fee.
For more details about the Member
Month promotion, go to iabc.com.
For more information and to register, (This promotion is for new or lapsed
go to wc.iabc.com.
members only, and does not affect active
renewing members or students.)
Communicating Change:
The Vital Role of the
Business Communicator
4 March22 April
Online workshop (six modules, one hour per week)
Intranet Global Forum 2014
6 7 March
Los Angeles
2014 World Conference

8 11 June
Toronto
For more information
about these events and to
register, visit iabc.com.
bookmark reviewed by colleen lavender
Y say you
ou
want a revolution
Engagement is a two-way streetgive people the opportunity
to contribute, and they will
hen the topic of employee engagement

comes up, all heads
swivel toward the
communicators in the room. How will
you make employees more engaged?
Were often expected to do the heavy
lifting through better storytelling and
snazzier tools.
But engagement is not entirely
up to communication practitionrs.
e
John Smythe, in his new book, The
Velvet Revolution at Work: The Rise of
Employee Engagement, the Fall of Command and Control, posits that engagement must come from leadership.
An organizational engagement and
communication consultant, Smythe
defines engagement as more than
employees who go the extra mile and
willingly give discretionary effort to
support the company. He believes
people engage themselves when they
are invited to contribute to everyday
operational decisions as well as to big
issues such as tough budgets, layoffs or
battling a hostile takeover.
In other words, engagement happens
when employees are given deliberate
and organized opportunities to have a
say in decisions that affect them.
Ill admit, The Velvet Revolution took
me on a bit of a roller-coaster ride. I
found it simultaneously comforting
it didnt blame the internal communication function for not doing enough
to foster engagementand disheartening. If your leadership team is a
command-and-control hierarchy, with
little chance of decision making spilling down the org chart, is there hope?
Good news. Even if leadership at
the top is not about to share decision-
about
the book
The Velvet
Revolution at
Work: The Rise
of Employee
Engagement,
the Fall of
Command
and Control
by John Smythe;
Gower Publishing Ltd., 2013;
291 pages
making power, Smythe contends there

is still plenty of room for engaged
workers at the local level. If a unit
manager regularly seeks input on decisions that will affect an employees
experience at work, engagement will
flourish.
The book is a how-to guide for organizations ready to embark on engagement. The second of three sections is
dedicated to outlining the design of
what Smythe calls interventionsthe
moments when employees are invited
to challenge and contribute. Case
studies reinforce the process, providing evidence of intervention successes.
Smythe cautions against intervening
only once. If it is done only to get
input at one particular moment in
time, he suggests leadership be fully
transparent about that, or engagement
could backslide.
I feel the titles comparison of the
rise of employee engagement to the
noniolent cultural changes in 1989
v
Czechoslovakia is a stretch. We can
hope there is a global shift toward
more engagement, but this change

doesnt spring from demonstrations
in the cafeteria or a swell of Norma
Rae-esque rallyng from the employee
i
ranks. Smythe himself notes that while
engagement requires a bottom-up
contribution, the responsibility for
setting the stage for input lies firmly at
the top.
The bottom line: If there is appetite within your organization for
truly involving employees in decision
making, jump in and put in play the
concrete tools Smythe shares. If your
organization isnt there yet, advocate
for employee involvement, control
the areas you can and create communication channels that up the engagement ante.
about the reviewer
Colleen Lavender is the internal communications specialist for SAIT Polytechnic, a postsecondary educational
institution with 2,400 employees in
Calgary, Alberta.
hear for yourself

In this CW Radio podcast,
author John Smythe talks
with CW Executive Editor
Natasha Nicholson about
the ideas behind The Velvet
Revolution at Work.
social intranets building connections
The power of social

What social media features can do to boost productivity,
engagement, knowledge management and customer service
by James Robertson
ocial and collaboration tools

are becoming an integral part
of modern intranets. When it
comes to redesigning or redeveloping sites, planners now take for
granted that some elements of social
functionality will be included in their
new intranets. A growing number of
organizations are even moving to true
social intranets, which bake social
capabilities into the core of their sites.
Employees have always talked
among themselves and worked
together in teams or business units.
Social tools now have the potential
to supercharge these discussions and
connect people in new ways.
Going far beyond blogs and wikis,
these tools provide rich support for
project work, wide-ranging conversations and online problem solving.
People can like and follow news
and use an activity stream to keep
track of whats happening across the
organization.
Social and collaboration tools are,
however, just a means to an end. The
really interesting conversation is about
how these tools can directly benefit

both employees and the organization
as a whole. Those real business benefits include:
Bettering productivity.
Fostering staff engagement.
Enhancing knowledge management.
Improving customer service.
Internal communication teams have
everything to gain by leading the push
to introduce social and collaboration
tools within organizations. Communicators are already responsible for
spreading news to all employees, and
their strong people skills are vital to
ensuring that these social tools succeed.
Bettering productivity
Collaboration tools can take many
forms, ranging from simple capabilities (liking and commenting) to rich
tools that support daily work (project
spaces and communities of practice).
see for yourself

This promotional video from Yammer shows how its social collaboration tools can facilitate teamwork across departments and hierarchies.
Communicators
are already responsible
for spreading news
to all employees, and
their strong people
skills are vital to ensuring these social tools
succeed.

The management consultancy
McKinsey & Co. in 2012 studied several hundred cases of organizations
using social tools and found a 20 percent to 25 percent productivity gain
when these tools are used to support
interaction among workers.
Project spaces are a common starting point for deploying collaboration
tools, and for good reason. Project
teams have a clear goal (deliver their
project) and a concrete need to work
together. Social and collaboration tools
provide immediate solutions, which
is why theyve spread widely through
most organizations.
Social tools can also support wider
conversations and information sharing. These capabilities may be a core
part of the intranet platform or provided by third-party enterprise social
networking solutions such as Yammer
or Chatter. While the natural focus for
these tools has been knowledge workers, experience is proving that frontline
employees are often the greatest users.
Fostering staff engagement
Organizations are operating in turbulent times, buffeted by external shocks
and wrestling with near-constant internal changes. To remain effective, they
must rely on an engaged workforce.
That means people who are more
motivated and productive, and who
have a clear understanding of the organizations strategy and focus. When
people are engaged, they are also active
contributors to wider organizational
discussions and decisions.
It is therefore no surprise that staff
engagement is a primary focus of corporate affairs, internal communication, HR and intranet teams, across
all sectors. Social tools provide many
opportunities to have an immediate
effect on engagement.
At the simplest level, social tools
can provide employees with a voice.

They provide a bottom-up communication channel that
supplements traditional
corporate news. Basic
commenting on news
items is a typical starting point, which is an
easy way to add value to
existing intranets while
opening the door to
richer social tools.
Social tools can go far
beyond this, fostering
conversations among
staff and connecting
them with the broader goals and
purpose of the organization. The
social intranet at Common Ground,
a nonprofit in New York City that
addresses chronic homelessness, is a
good example. Though the staff was
passionate about the organizations
purpose, an internal review revealed
that employees felt disconnected from
one another, with each location feeling out of the loop. A social intranet
allowed employees to share their
thoughts on news items and their passion for the work they do, creating a
greater sense of cohesion.
Social tools can also help senior management connect to staff, whether via
a dedicated CEO blog or by engaging
employees in discussions held on organizational social networking tools such
as Yammer. Employee engagement can
be further improved by strengthening
the organizations social fabric, which
is where online spaces for the local
basketball league or jogging group can
be valuable.
Enhancing knowledge
management
There are startling figures relating to the
problems caused by poor knowledge
management. Research conducted in
Establishing a social
intranet at Common
Ground helped employees
forge bonds across the nonprofits various locations.
2007 by Accenture with 1,009 managers at companies in the U.S. and

U.K. showed that 42 percent said they
accidentally use the wrong information
at least once per week. The managers,
from customer service, finance and
accounting, human resources, information technology, and sales and marketing departments, also said that more
than 50 percent of the information they
obtain has no value to them. On the
face of it, these are problems relating to
publishing static content (and finding it
afterward). Social tools, however, have
the potential to address these issues
in new ways.
A key part of knowledge management is highlighting the expertise
of staff and then helping others find
the right expert when they need one.
Social tools provide an efficient way
of connecting staff who have common
interests and needs.
Communities of practice take this
a step further by creating long-lived
spaces that bring together people
who work on common topics, even
though they may be scattered across
the organization.
Arup, the global engineering consultancy, has long been recognized as
a leader in communities of practice.
With about 10,000 employees worldwide, Arups challenge has been to
mine the knowledge of its network
of designers and engineers and make
the best ideas quickly accessible by
all. Over time, posts on its space have
shifted from Help, Im in trouble!
to Im about to do a project on X
whats the current best thinking? This
growing maturity is the result of a
strong corporate culture and sustained
community management.
Social tools are also a natural platform for generating ideas and solving
problems. These tools can address realworld issues or drive companywide
innovation. The Cabin Crew forum
at British Airways was an early leader
in this arena, using a simple bulletin
board tool as far back as 2008 to foster an active space that solved amazingly diverse problems, from ice cubes
that cant be broken up on a plane to
employee parking at airports.
Arups intranet has enabled the consultancys geographically diverse designers

and engineers to turn to one another for advice.
At the simplest level,

social tools can
provide employees
with a voice.
Improving customer service

While intranets serve an internal audience (staff ), they can also help improve
customer service. Customer-facing
employees rely heavily on having
the right information, regardless of
whether they are in government, banks
or supermarkets.
Increasingly, social and collaboration tools are transforming customer
service activities by allowing frontline staff to connect directly with one
another. These days, frontline employees in many organizations use rich
social tools to work together across
geographic boundaries and provide
peer support for one another. This is
transforming how they deliver customer service and answer customer
questions.
have an important role, but now they

are sitting alongside rich social interaction. With tools becoming ever
cheaper and more sophisticated, now
is the time to harness them for real
business value.
about the author
James Robertson is the author of the
best-selling books Essential Intranets:
Inspiring Sites that Deliver Business
Value, Designing Intranets: Creating
Sites that Work, and What Every Intranet
Team Should Know. The founder and
managing director of Step Two
Designs, based in Sydney, he has helped
teams around the globe deliver suc ess
c
ful and valuable intranets. You can find
him on Twitter (@s2d_jamesr) and
LinkedIn.
Social tools dont compete with or

replace existing platforms and practices. Content and news will always
social intranets creating value
The change you

wish to see
To make social business work, you have to change the culture
by Toby Ward
ometimes you get what you

pay for, but money alone is not
a panacea.
While the use of enterprise
social media continues to grow, these
tools continue to be poorly deployed
and adopted, particularly behind the
firewall on the corporate intranet.
Executives are not happy, employees
are less than thrilled, and communication and social media managers are
frustrated with internal social media.
Tools such as blogs and wikis exist
in most corporate intranetsprelim-
inary results from Prescient Digital

Medias 2014 Social Business Study
peg 72 percent as having at least one
social media tool available to some
or all employeesbut the execution
and supporting change management
required to make them effective is
lacking or absent.
While many organizations have
piloted, tested or attempted a wider
release of some enterprise social business tools, most continue to be isolated
and poorly received. All too often,
free or vanilla solutionssuch as the
out-of-the-box social media solutions

that are frequently bundled with content management or portal solutions,
namely Microsoft SharePoint 2010
are introduced with little thought for
business or user requirements.
The success of social business tools
has more to do with change management than with technology. Most
employees dont know what a wiki or
My Sites (the personalized profile page
in SharePoint) is, so why would they
use it? Employees need to be educated
be the guide
Successful social intranets begin
with good governance. That means
having:
n explicit, documented goverA

nance model that details ownership, management and decision
making.
A social media policywho can

do what, when and how, and the
rules for doing so.
Executive sponsorshipa senior

executive in your corner to help
promote your new tools.
A communication plan to promote these tools by email, newsletters, the intranet home page
and buzz marketing activities.
Active conversationslead and

promote these conversations
with topical posts that are well
targeted and promoted to potential subject matter experts and
other relevant audiences.
A training plan that details who

learns what, when and how.
about, sold on and cajoled into using

these tools until their use becomes a
routine action that is part of the organizational culture. Effective change
management flows from effective governance (that is, a documented model
detailing ownership, management and
decision making), a clear social media
policy (who can do what, when and
how, and the rules for doing so), and
active communication and training.
Flirting with features
It should be little surprise that when it
comes to enterprise social media, satisfaction levels are at an all-time low.
In fact, in the Social Business Study,
both employee and executive satisfaction rates on average point to failed
enterprise social media programs: 77
percent of employees and 64 percent
of executives rate their internal social
media tools as poor or very poor.
That suggests that most organizations are not truly social, but rather
are just flirting with social features and
have no real commitment to social
business. Many are playing with and
even finding some limited success
with a smattering of tools, but using
and integrating social media into most
aspects of their day-to-day business
inside and outside the firewallare,
for most, still an evolutionary leap
some years away.
Vanilla solutions = vanilla results
Part of the reason is the lack of money
or investment: Most organizations
spend little or nothing on their enterprise social media tools. According to
preliminary results from the Social
Business Study, those that do implement social media tools generally
spend less than US$10,000, and a
good number spend nothing at all.
Sometimes you get what you pay
for. A vanilla solution can produce
Most organizations
are not truly social,
but rather are just
flirting with social
features and have no
real commitment
to social business.
Just like the real-life

relationship killer,
the biggest reason
for social intranet
failure is apathy.
Through employee profiles, blog posts and Q&As, Sabres intranet is

giving the staff access to a bank of corporate knowledge: 60 percent of
questions posted on Sabre Town are answered within one hour.
vanilla resultsor worse, if it is not

accompanied by the requisite change
management that all social business
thrusts require. Social business is more
than setting up a corporate page on
Facebook.
Using social business tools represents
a mental and cultural leap. The successful integration of social media into
the daily operating lives of employees, namely on the corporate intranet,
requires careful assessment, planning,
governance and the aforementioned
change management.
gest reason for social intranet failure is

apathy.
There are two primary reasons for
the low satisfaction levels: generic, free
or open-source solutions with poor
functionality (such as Media iki or
W
bundled tools in platforms like SharePoint 2010), and little or no change
management or communication planning. But more important, low satisfaction levels with social intranet tools
are largely due to a lack of user take-up
(adoption). Employees need a reason
to use social business tools.
Theres got to be a reason

Social media tools are so simple and
inexpensive to deploy that it is incredibly easy to be lulled into complacencyuntil your initiative begins to
fail. Often, failure is the result of a lack
of use or adoption by users. Just like
the real-life relationship killer, the big-
Return on investment
Most organizations dont need to see
or realize a measured return on investment in their social business efforts,
but some are seeing real benefits.
Sabre, the company that runs most
of the worlds airline flight reservation systems, is an impressive leader
in employee networking. With nearly

10,000 employees spread around the
world (55 percent work outside of the
U.S., where it is headquartered), Sabre
has utilized enterprise social intranet
tools, with spectacular results.
Recognizing its unique needs as
a globally distributed workforce,
Sabre embarked on building its own
employee networking intranet from
scratch. Using a nascent open-source
web framework, Ruby on Rails, Sabre
created an impressive employee networking platform called Sabre Town.
Sabre Town represents the companys
need to forge more meaningful connections among its geographically
diverse employee population.
Sabre Town has all the features of
most social networking sites, including:
Detailed employee profiles.
Photo sharing.
Blogs.
On Sabre Town, users can post a

question to the entire organization, and
the sites inference or relevance engine
automatically sends the question to the
15 most relevant employees, based on
what theyve entered in their profiles,
blog posts and previous Q&A posts.
The results have been impressive:
60 percent of questions are answered
within one hour, and each question
receives an average of nine responses.
However, it took Sabre a full year to
convince a majority of employees to
join and use this internal social network, and it required the active support
and participation of Sabres CEO and
executive team.
Social business tools require careful
thought and planning. Yes, theyre easy
to deploy, but theyre not easily adopted
without the requisite investment and
accompanying change management.
The technology is the easy part. Successful social business requires more
than a fleeting investment of money,
time and process.
User commenting.
Enterprise question-and-answer
functionality.
about the author

Toby Ward, CEO of
Prescient Digital Media,
is a social business
consultant, writer and
speaker, and chair of the
Intranet Global Forum, a
semiannual conference
held in Los Angeles and
New York City, hosted in
association with IABC.
social intranets envisioning the future
Creating the
next-generation
intranet
Intranets hold new promise in the social world.
Guy Van Leemput explains why
Be an ambassador
of change. Social
intranets are mainly
about culture
change, much more
than about implementing a new
piece of software.
ow and where we work is

changing. A thriving social
intranet can not only keep
employees informed but
also help unlock the knowledge held
by individuals for the benefit of the
whole organization. We asked Guy Van
Leemput, online communication and
intranet expert at consultancy J. Boye
in Brussels, to share his thoughts about
what makes a social intranet great and
where the medium is headed.
CW: What do you see as the most valuable contribution a social intranet can
make to the business?
Guy Van Leemput: One area that I hear
more and more success stories about

is access to knowledge and expertise.
Knowledge within organizations is
often dispersed across departmental silos and different geographies.
While some of this expertise may be
documented in traditional knowledge
management systems, most of it will
be tacit knowledge locked inside the
heads of employees.
Guy Van Leemput
A social intranet can be part of the

solution to unlock this tacit knowledge.
It makes the organizations experts easily reachable by others and encourages
them to share their expertise in online
communities, wikis and discussion
forums. The business benefits can be
manyless time wasted looking for
information, faster and better answers
to customer queries, and more ideas
for product innovation.
CW: What can communicators do to
ensure that a social intranet thrives and
is valuable to the business?
Social intranets can be quite a

challenge for communication professionals who are used to producing traditional top-down material. I
would recommend focusing on three
areas. First, link the objectives of the
social intranet to the overall organizational goals. Social intranets will create the most value if they support an
important corporate initiative or help
to achieve measurable business objectives. Communication professionals
should work with the key stakeholders in their organization to understand
how a social intranet can be relevant
for them, what benefits they expect
and how they will help to make it a
success.
Second, be an ambassador of change.
Social intranets are mainly about culture change, much more than about
implementing a new piece of software.
Employees and senior management
alike must be encouraged to embrace
two-way communication with feedback and content creation by everyone. In some organizations, this will
come more naturally than in others
if employees are afraid to voice their
opinions or if management thinks that
social [strategy] is a waste of time, then
the communication people have some
evangelizing to do.
Last, benchmark against other organizations. There is no need to reinvent
the wheelother organizations have
tried social intranets before you. Find
opportunities to network with your
peers in similar companies and benchmark your progress against theirs.
GVL:
CW: What are the most important

things to keep in mind when developing a mobile strategy for the intranet?
The future of intranets is

mobiletheres no doubt in my mind
about that. For communication proGVL:
fessionals, I see two areas of focus. One

is to identify early-use cases and their
top tasks. Mobile access to the intranet
is not equally urgent for everybody
in the company. A good way to start
is to identify a few target groups that
are likely to be early adopters, such as
salespeople or repair engineers who
spend most of their time on the road
or with customers. Find out what are
the top tasks that they need to perform
during the day and how the intranet
can help them to do these tasks efficiently. This is a great way to build
experience with mobile and win the
support of a few influential groups
within the organization.
The other is user experience. Too
many mobile intranets, or mobile websites for that matter, still suffer from
poor usability, leading to skepticism
and disengagement. Its a delicate balancing actyou need to fine-tune the
user experience for each type of device
(smartphone, tablet, laptop) while
at the same time ensure cross-platform consistency. There are technical
solutions for this, such as responsive
design, but whatever the solution,
someone needs to take ownership for
optimizing the user interaction.
CW: What do you see as the next step in
the evolution of the intranet?

GVL: Weve talked about social and
mobile, which are probably the two

most important trends. Two additional ones are integration and search.
Portal technologies for intranets have
been around for many years, with
varying levels of success and adoption.
Recently the idea of integrating various systems into a single entry point
for the end user has become popular
again, with many organizations trying
to integrate a traditional top-down
intranet with a social platform and with
Too many mobile

intranets, or mobile
websites for that
matter, still suffer
from poor usability,
leading to skepticism
and disengagement.
Its a delicate
balancing act.
other communication tools. Also, the

layout and attractiveness of this unified
home page are receiving renewed attention. Successful intranets often have a
well-designed, easy-to-grasp entry page
that avoids the information overload
pitfall of earlier portals.
For years, intranet search has been
an area of high expectations and poor
delivery, much to the frustration of
intranet managers and end users alike.
But as more and more unstructured
social content is created, the importance of a good search engine grows.
Luckily, people are beginning to understand that it requires effort and discipline among everyone involved to
improve intranet search to an acceptable level of quality. Im convinced that

search, or findability, will become a
priority in the near future.
As a final point, Im a strong believer
in the concept of the digital workplacean integrated set of digital tools
for employees, combining all of the
trends and capabilities discussed above:
traditional content as well as user-generated social interactions, easy to search
and accessible on any platform. An
exercise that I recommend to any communication professional is to map how
far your organization has come on this
journey, and what it will take you to get
to the next level.
As more and more

unstructured social
content is created, the
importance of a good
search engine grows.
career advancement strategies
How to
make yourself
invaluable
Five essential practices for strategic communicators
by Caroline Kealey
f youre not clear on the value

you bring to your organization as
a communication professional,
there is no hope that anyone else
will recognize it either. Consider your
value proposition carefully, and then
spend some time focusing on these
five essential practices for strategic
communicators.
1.
Communicators have to be fully aligned with the

organizational or corporate objectives.
Too often, we are vulnerable to being
reactive and going off in directions
that are actually disconnected from
the organizations mandate and target
outcomes. And that is a slippery slope
to irrele ance. You need to deliberately
v
align your function, your decisions,
and your investments of time, energy
and
mental
space to whatever the organization has
determined to
be its top priorities and targeted results.
Drive alignment.
Thats the space that matters, and

where you need to be in order to make
a difference.
2.
Adopt a strategic state of mind.
Whatever youre doing on a day-to-day

basis needs to focus on the end state
i.e., What does success look like? This
is in contrast to having tactical tunnel
vision
and
focusing only
on the reality
of the daily
churn. Being
strategic, and
bringing that
value to the
table, means constantly thinking about
outcomes. This results-based mindset is at the core of being a strategic,
valued communicator. Its the escape
hatch from being a tactician, stuck as
a short-order cook. Consider also the
importance of strategic communication
planning as a vital core competency
for our profession: Developing tight,
insightful plans that connect business
objectives to communications leading
to measurable outcomes is critical.
Being strategic,
and bringing that
value to the table,
means constantly
thinking about
outcomes.
3. Practice outside-in thinking. Hav-
ing the skill and insight to frame an

issue or initiative so that it hits the
sweet spot of whats relevant to both
your organization and your audience is
a hallmark of a strategic communicator.
Outside-in thinking is the ability to read
your audience or clientsto understand what makes them tickand to
act in a manner that speaks
to their vantage point. By
becoming an
expert in public
environment
analysis and in wearing the hat of the
stakeholders you serve, you become the
glue between your organization and its
audiencea go-to internal resource

equipped to consistently add unique
strategic value to your team.
4. Connect the dots. When clients are
recruiting senior communication talent, one of the

most impor
tant and hardto-find skill
sets
theyre
looking for is
the ability to
integrate. Connecting the dots means
you have the savvy to use big-picture
thinking to see that this change management activity is connected to that
employee video, which in turn might be
connected to an upcoming stakeholder
ask the right questions

Here are 10 questions strategic communicators should be asking
top leadership:
1. What does success look like?
2. Why this? Why now?

3. What are the objectives of the project or organization?
4. What are the communication objectives?
5. How can communication help advance the project or corporate
objectives?
6. What are the main risks and opportunities?

7. Thinking back about past communication activities, what worked and
what didnt? Why?
8. Who are the key audiences, and why are they important?
9. What are the project management parameters (e.g., time, budget and
human resources)?
1
0. If we could change just one thing, what should it be?
The ability to ask

meaningful questions
is the centerpiece of
great consultative
skills.
event. Thinking in a creative, integrated

fashionconstantly looking for opportunities that happen at the points of
intersection within your organization
is a highly valuable skill to cultivate and
promote.
5. Ask questions that count. The ability
to ask meaningful questions is the centerpiece of great consultative skills. It is

vital to establishing strong
internal client
relationships,
and there is
no quicker or
easier way to
add immediate
value than by asking insightful questions that generate clarity and simplify
complexity. This approach immediately
sets you up in a helpful, constructive
posture, and it is also the most elegant
way to defuse a tense situation that
might otherwise degenerate into conflict or impasse with an internal client.
Asking questions that count instantly
adds value.
The reality is that as communicators,

we often work in a sea of chaos. There
are waves of new demands, changes
and requests to deal with that come
crashing in at a relentless pace, and to
be honest, that can be a pretty overwhelming experience. On the other
hand, theres also something exhilarating about living on the edge and not
knowing what comes next.
Either way, the one thing we know
for sure is this: In communication,
there are going to be waves. So wed
better learn to surf, and enjoy the ride.
about the author
Caroline Kealey is CEO of Ingenium
Communications in Ottawa, and is an
internationally recognized expert in
strategic communication planning and
evaluation. Hear more from her through
the blog at ResultsMap.com, on Twitter
(@carolinekealey) and through LinkedIn.
learn more
For more thoughts on
strategic communication,
visit the Results Map blog.
case in point by jennifer barrett, michele hodges and christy roberts
Taking the
intranet to the
next level
Upgrading the platform was just the first step in creating a robust,
user-friendly tool for Asurion employees worldwide
ased in Nashville, Tennessee,

Asurion provides mobile device
and home electronics protection solutions to millions of
customers worldwide. In 2011, Asurion
realized that its intranet needed an
updateit was operating on an outdated version of Microsoft SharePoint,

and it had limited functionality, no central governance, little hierarchal organization and cumbersome navigation.
Content owners relied on the companys
A
GOLD QUILL
WINNER
a winning entry
This program won a
2013 IABC Gold Quill
Award in the digital
communication channels category. For more
than 40 years, IABCs
Gold Quill Awards
program has evaluated
the work of communication professionals
around the globe,
recognizing the best
of the best in the
profession.
Over the ninemonth period, the

team implemented a
steady communication
schedule to promote
the intranets functionality and educate
employees.
communication team to post most documents, and news and information

were rarely updated. Consequently, the
Asurion internal communication team
relied primarily on email and printed
materials to communicate with the
companys global workforce of 14,000
people. But that meant employees
lacked the tools to find, interact with
and learn from one another.
The plan was to develop a new
intranet with more intuitive navigation, team collaboration sites and
easy search capabilities. It needed to
be a robust, real-time source of news
and information for employees about
the company, its customers and the
industry; allow employees to share
information using a variety of media;
and organize and consolidate relevant
information for one-stop access.
The first step was to upgrade the
intranet platform to the latest version
of SharePoint. That allowed the communication team to build the business case for an improved intranet.
Team members reviewed the capabilities of SharePoint against the technical requirements of their proposed
plan and were able to customize the
product to meet their requirements.
They also developed key elements that
directly addressed the business need to
keep employees engaged and informed
about company happenings by pushing relevant content to them based on
their role, location and function.
The next step was to launch a beta
pilot of the new intranet, called Insite.
Over the nine-month period from January through September 2012, the team
implemented a steady communication
schedule to promote the intranets functionality and educate employees about
its use. Multiple media channels were
used to engage employees, including
mailers, interctive web tools, emails,
a
intranet messaging, webcasts, live meetings and posters, based on the needs of
each employee population segment.
With so many new features on the
intranet, the team instituted a com-
prehensive training program, starting

with group and individual sessions
for senior leaders and HR teams, and
then a series of in-person training sessions and webinars for all employees.
Webinars, training videos posted on
Insite, web articles and informational
emails proved especially beneficial for
employees working remotely.
Using its annual employee communication survey as a benchmark, Asurion
followed up in 2013 with another survey that measured the impact and use
of the new intranet. Among the results:
In 2012, 21 percent of employees
ranked the intranet as a key source
of information. In 2013, 82 percent
ranked Insite as a key source of information (against a goal of 75 percent).

Previously, only 11 percent of
employees visited the intranet daily.
After Insites debut, 65.3 percent of
employees visited once a day or more
(against a goal of 50 percent).

In 2012, 20 percent of the employee

population said they felt they were
well informed about the company.
A year later, as a result of Insite, 71
percent said they knew more about
other areas of the company (against
a goal of 60 percent).

Employee engagement with the
intranet improved. Previously, all
articles were posted to the intranet
by the communication team, but
since Insites launch, 19.6 percent of
articles posted came from employees
(against a goal of 25 percent).
By mid-December 2012, an average
of 5,500 employees were visiting the
site daily. This number continues to
rise as the team focuses communication and training efforts on Asurions
international locations, and the team
continues to educate employees on the
functionality and new features.
about the authors

Jennifer Barrett is the director of corporate communication at Asurion, based in
Nashville, Tennessee, and
leads a team of professionals responsible for all global
employee communications.
Michele Hodges is communications manager for Asurions 7,000-plus customer
care division, and is responsible for delivering strategic
communication through all
levels of the business.
Christy Roberts is the supply chain communications
specialist at Asurion. She
has more than 10 years of
experience in internal communication and marketing.
photocritique by philip n. douglis, abc, iabc fellow
When color
tells the story
Playing up certain colors can give an image deeper meaning
take your best shot

Email photos for possible
use in this column to The
Douglis Visual Workshops
at pnd1@cox.net.
olor photography shows us

things as they appear to the
eye. However, color photography can also go beyond
simple description to tell a story, drawing on its hues to pull the eye through
an image, creating contrasts and, more
important, defining meaning.
Each of the three images presented
here uses color to communicate the
nature of the subject at hand.
Courier, New York City
I created two layers of vivid blue color
to bring order to urban chaos here. A
courier on a bike wears a blue shirt

and blue cap, nearly the same hue as
on the peeling plywood construction-site wall that makes up the entire
background. White is important here
as well. I freeze the motion of the courier between the two white vans to
create maximum tension. The white
shreds of paper on the wall draw the
eye to the white vans, as well as to the
white shirt of a woman trudging along
the sidewalk. Neither the courier nor
the woman acknowledges the others
presence amidst the tumult of this
colorful scene.
Survivor, New York City

Fragments of the past often manage to
survive amidst the high-rises of contemporary Manhattan. I made this
image to tell the story of such a survivor, and used color to do so. A tiny
building, hemmed in by towering condos and office buildings on all sides,
has somehow managed to survive here
over a time span covering parts of three
centuries. It is small and low, while
its neighbors are large and high. It is
made of red brick, and I render that
color, bathed in early morning light, in
striking contrast to its massive monochromatic neighbors. This building
tells us what New York Citys famous
34th Street might have once looked
and felt like. Meanwhile, its upper corner window reflects the sunthe past
seems to be winking at us here. The
deep red is the key to telling this story,
bringing the past to life.
often photographed
it and made it a subject for my tutorial
students, encouraging
them to tell its story by
contrasting the inanimate oversized letters
to some kind of expressive human behavior.
On my most recent
visit with a student,
we were fortunate to
find a man repainting
the sculpture. I limit
my own image to only
the upper portions of the letters L and
O, and I link the sculptures brilliant
red and blue to a paint roller loaded
with fresh red paint, poised in mid-air.
The primary red and blue colors tell
the story. The rich red roller, teasing a
powder blue sky as it emerges from the
painters silhouetted fingers, expresses
the essence of the story itself.
Sculpture, Scottsdale, Arizona

One of the most important works of
public art within the Civic Center
Plaza in Scottsdale, Arizona, is Robert
Indianas iconic Love sculpture. I have
about the author

Phil Douglis, ABC, IABC
Fellow, directs The Douglis
Visual Workshops, which
has been training communicators in visual
literacy for more than four
decades. Douglis is a widely
known workshop leader
and columnist on editorial
photography for organizations. He offers one-on-one
tutorial workshops in digital
imaging and photographic
communication. For registration information, email
pnd1@cox.net. You can
also take a look at his
galleries of expressive
digital photography at
www.pbase.com/pnd1.
MAKING MAGIC
The magazine youre reading right now didnt just appear

out of thin air. Regardless of the channeltablet, smartphone, website
or printconjuring up a publication takes a magic combination of
compelling content, engaging visuals and a connection to the people
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We help make that magic happen.
Grayton custom publications deliver results through credible content,
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Find out more at graytonpub.com or call 313-881-1734.
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CW

communication world iabcs

Next-generation tools let you tap into

from the editor

People need time and

Illustrate how knowledge sharing will boost profits by

Persevere. People need time and constant reminders to

THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE

IABC World Headquarters

Creative & Digital Production

Copyright 2014. All rights

5 COMMUNICATION WORLD MARCH 2014

Opinions expressed by authors

Colleen Lavender (Bookmark)

6 COMMUNICATION WORLD MARCH 2014

Phil Douglis, ABC, IABC Fellow

inbox iabc news & events

ast May, Communication

The level of engagement with CW

page views of the digital web edition,

7 COMMUNICATION WORLD MARCH 2014

Zmags, digital magazine readers spend

 rust from the Top Down: How

 alancing Act: Managing Change

 How to Improve Your Odds for

Successful Change Management,

new CW digital visitors

 Your Future. Your Choice, by

Neil Griffiths, ABC, and Deborah

Business, by James Shaffer, IABC

 The Growing Pains of Employee

Communicators, by Lee Smith

 6 Tips for Crafting a Social Media

Content Strategy, by Arnie Kuenn

The most popular columns in 2013:

 Business Writing Is Like a Road

Trip (from August Words at

brand newsrooms, from July Tech

Gold Quill Award-winning project

from July Case in Point, by Simon

Its time to show off the hard work

 B-rollIts Alive! (from Septem

June Photocritique, by Philip N.

mark your calendar

Webinar: Study links

 Keep It Growing (about a Gold

Quill Award-winning project from

Gold Quill Awards:

Findings from the Social Workplace

Marketing and advertising.

March is a great time to encourage your

9 COMMUNICATION WORLD MARCH 2014

2014 World Conference

bookmark reviewed by colleen lavender

hen the topic of employee engagement

10 COMMUNICATION WORLD MARCH 2014

making power, Smythe contends there

more engagement, but this change

11 COMMUNICATION WORLD MARCH 2014

hear for yourself

social intranets building connections

The power of social

12 COMMUNICATION WORLD MARCH 2014

rust from the Top Down: How

alancing Act: Managing Change

How to Improve Your Odds for

Your Future. Your Choice, by

The Growing Pains of Employee

6 Tips for Crafting a Social Media

Business Writing Is Like a Road

B-rollIts Alive! (from Septem

Keep It Growing (about a Gold

n explicit, documented goverA