How do you rate the communication in your organisation?

We know how critical it is to maintain effective and ongoing relationships.  Have you reviewed your communications recently? Continuous improvement will ensure you align yourself with your market place.

Recently I read about the interesting concept called the ‘Porous Membrane’.  It was introduced back in 2005 by Hugh MacLeod and the reality is if you are not communicating effectively then your customers and employees will take control. Have yours?  It is much better to be proactive than reactive.   The more porous the membrane is, the more aligned you are with your market and vice versa.

MacLeod’s visual helps us understand this better…

Y = your market

B = conversations inside your market place

A = conversations inside your organisation

X = membrane separating the market and your business

How do we puncture this corporate membrane to have more meaningful alignment:

1. Blogging:  I was recently at a financial social media course and I was shocked that only 10% of the audience were blogging.  Let’s look at how blogs can be used internally and externally.

Internally they can be used for project management. This offers an effective way to store vital information in virtual teams and is an effective interactive tool used for the success of projects.   Internal blogs can also support knowledge management and business intelligence.  Knowledge management is used as a diary record of ideas and anyone can add comments and find information by filtering.  Business intelligence can alert the organisation to issues that multiple employees are blogging about.

Externally blogs are the most important part of your social media plan.  They have become the top marketing tool for top ranking businesses.  Blogs attract website traffic and they build trust, credibility and engagement.  Below is a YouTube video that explains why it is critical to blog.

2. Discussion forums: Online business discussion forums can initiate good discussion by employees asking  practical questions about policies, procedures, products and services or just letting off steam within an organisation.

3. Instant messaging: The advantages of instant messaging over the internet or internal network is that it is in real-time. The great thing is you can have multiple conversations happening at one time.

4. Social Presence: Is a relatively new concept of showing that an individual is available and willing to engage and connect with others in their online community. It can also be used as keyword alerts about your organisation to help you connect with your target market.

5. Virtual Worlds: In a corporate world this enables you to communicate as groups on-line.  They are used for training sessions, meetings and projects.

As you can see, these tools to enhance communication are not expensive, not hard to implement, not hard to get individuals engaged and can give you a competitive edge.