Epiphany comes from the Late Greek and is most likely an alteration of Greek epiphaneia which means appearance or manifestation. The word can have three different meanings :
1. Epiphany capitalised stands for the January 6 church festival in commemoration of the coming of the Magi as the first manifestation of Christ.
2. It can also mean appearance or manifestation especially of a divine being (the so-called deus ex-machina)
3. An intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking : an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure
Why am I telling you all this, because I am waiting for one to happen:
In one of my previous blogs, I was writing about my new assignment as Communications Manager. One of my key responsibilities is to define how communications can take a leading role in changing the company's culture and mindsets of the employees.
I want to take this one step further and build the case for collaboration. Engaging your workforce in times of transformation is not easy but as long as your employees and direct reports are not convinced about the case for change - there will be no tipping point. Companies that neglect to communicate consistently, address concerns or invite their staff to participate in change will see their transformation efforts fail big time.
If you understand that obtaining feedback is an essential part of your communication strategy, you will also grasp why collaboration can be the means to create your momentum.
Unfortunately, most organisations' ecosystems (like the one I am working for) are not equipped for this and live with the misconception that powerpoint, intranet posts and emails are effective ways of communication (the so-called Push model).
Times are changing and so are your professional communities. The success stories of Myspace, Flickr, YouTube, blogger and the like are perfect examples of a people driven (r)evolution. This generation wants to be heard, has an opinion of its own, selects and wants to share this with the rest of the (online) world (the Pull model).
UGC or User Generated Content is what we call them and it takes two to tango : Users (and yes, some of them also belong to your corporate community) and Content.
And boy have they got something to say... some of these personalised sites receive more hits in a day than the average corporate website. Why? Because they are seen as opinion leaders, influencers or innovators in their field. What's more, it's not the number of hits that you get that matters, it's the number of reactions, links, discussion threats that count.
That's how you can measure the effectiveness of your communication - the more reaction, the more effective the message has been.
Put this into a corporate perspective and I hope that you have your epiphany by now.
Collaboration tools can also do this for you : enough with mass customization and mass mailings, create and use platforms that allow for collaboration and two-way communication..
If you do not provide your staff with these tools, you are basically ignoring them the right to voice their concerns or opinions. Your communications monopoly is history and if you cannot provide these tools in-house, you are running the risk that they vent their opinions outside.
Collaboration is a philosophy and collaboration tools are the enabling technology :
Instant Messenging (IM), weblogs, CMS, webinars, voice over IP, wikis and webconferencing are commonly used collaboration tools which are freely available on the internet.
If security is an issue (protect the content), it is recommended that you integrate these tools with your Intranet. If there is a technology mismatch, then look for ASP providers that can host these solutions on dedicated and secured platforms. If your governance model is not flexible enough, change your governance.
Show leadership and steer the process instead of the content! A collaboration philosophy will enable your knowledge workers to
- communicate effectively
- collaborate more efficiently
- create communities across geographical locations
- adapt quickly to changing strategies
- increase visibility
- become pro-active
Just follow the Three Magi : Communication, Collaboration and Culture and change will start to manifest itself... like a deus ex-machine
