More listening than talking – a new WoW (way of working) for communicators

May 29, 2007 | Comments(2), | Categories: Social & collaboration |

Two items especially struck me in the comments about my post “Talking or listening ? What does your intranet reveal about your management style?

Giacomo‘s suggestion: “Take the list of top users (people that use a lot comments, forums and other stuff) and use them as beta-tester for innovations”

He’s right. The very nature of 2.0 gives you clues as to how to learn to listen.

When people say “our culture/enterprise/intranet is not yet 2.0-ready” they are missing the point. It has no meaning to say we are “2.0-ready” or not.

Did we say “we are ATM ready?” (ATM = automated cash machines).

Did we say “we are cell phone-ready?”

No, these major technology changes just happened because they met a need that manifested itself when the solution appeared.

Matt‘s comment “Using old-style Forums & Bulletin Boards” is a reminder that in fact 2.0 is not new. It has just come to a head – a tipping point as some would say.

Even Tim Berners-Lee said that the web 2.0 is what the web was always intended to be. He should know!

Matt also says “…linking the intranet to other corporate communications channels (F2F gatherings, conf calls) can also be powerful – assuming that those aren’t also top-down fests.” Good reminder that you can’t plug in a 2.0 tool to a context that is fundamentally anti-2.0.

This Thursday, I’m presiding day 2 of the annual conference for internal communication managers in Paris: “Rencontre annuelle des responsables communication interne”.

Among the speakers we’ll have a global communication manager from a large, recently merged global company whose attitude is “dare and do”. If more companies did the same, corporate communications would not have the credibility issues it often has. (Note 28/12/2001: text modified to remove the identify of the company and the person.)

2 Responses to “More listening than talking – a new WoW (way of working) for communicators”

  1. IntranetManagement Says:
    May 30th, 2007 at 9:43 am

    http://intra

    Passaparola Due segnalazioni stamattina: la prima è un articolo dell’intranetjournal sul valore del passaparola tra gli utenti della intranet (cioè i vostri colleghi) e sulla necessità di progettare pensando a loro. Citazione: Nev

  2. giacomo mason Says:
    May 30th, 2007 at 9:49 am

    Thanks for all, Jane.
    I wait for your report from the conference.
    And sorry for my bad english… :-)

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