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The third annual ‘Professional Development in Internal Communications’ study by the VMA Group, highlights the core skills and qualities that managers look for when recruiting IC professionals today.
According to the report, the top five skills are:
- Influencing
- Coaching Senior Leaders
- Strategy Setting
- Writing – Specific Corporate Messages
- Writing – Online/Publications
Interestingly, the first three points highlight the continuing evolution of internal communications from a function that churns out news, to one that has a real impact on the success of a company. While the last two points highlight that traditional communication skills still have an important place in the function.
By contrast, the top five skills as perceived by the IC community are:
- Coaching Senior Leaders
- Social Media Development
- Influencing
- Public Affairs
- External Communications
While survey respondents felt that they are an integral part of the senior leadership team, disappointingly the results showed that advocacy for internal communications amonsgst senior leaders remained unchanged from 2010.
On a more encouraging note, the results did testify to the resilience of the discipline despite the economic climate, with 74% of internal communications functions remaining the same or increased in size over the last year.
You can download a copy of the full report via the VMA website >
Melitta
With so many communication methods to choose from, email, Twitter, Facebook, Sharepoint…we can sometimes be overwhelmed with choice. However, older methods of communication still have a place in society as Canada’s Harold Hackett has been proving.
Over the last two decades, he has sent out more than 4,800 messages in a bottle from his Canadian home along the Atlantic coastline.
Every message asks for the finder to send a response back to Hackett, and since 1996 he has received an impressive 3,100 responses from all over the world, each one with a different story to tell.
The emotions involved in receiving an unexpected personal letter, mean that the older communication methods still have a valuable role to play. Though as Harold has sometimes waited up to 13 years for a reply, there is still something to be said for the speed of new media!
You can watch a video of Harold talking about his messages in bottle on the BBC News website >
Melitta
A recent global survey by Australia’s 1080 Group that asked close to 1,200 professionals key questions about how they use video conferencing, has given some surprising insights. Here are some of the highlights:
- Productivity is the top reason for using Video Conferencing, with money saving coming second.
- Value depends on your own communication or organisation needs, with Europeans valuing the ability to communicate more regularly with peers, while industries such as Financial Services value it as a ‘green’ alternative to physical travel.
- Cultural issues are the biggest barrier to video conferencing usage, with an “Inability or unwillingness to use new technology” and “entrenchment of the current way we do things” taking the top two spots by a wide margin.
- The need for good examples to learn from. A number of insights pointed to the experiential nature of meeting and collaborating virtually. Sadly, some people disparage the communication medium because they see others using it unsuccessfully. The main gripe was presenters that “have distracting mannerisms or gestures.”
- It’s growing fast! Despite the issues respondents predicted that video conferencing will grow by 211% in 2012!
To read more about the lessons learned from the survey, follow the below link to download the resulting white Paper, which includes a useful checklist.
Melitta
A new ebook titled ‘The Uncommon Sense of Internal Communication’, created by Russell-Oliver Brooklands, the IC professional behind the Internal Communication Model, is now available for download and sets out to answer some of the many paradoxical questions surrounding Internal Communication.
When introducing the book Brooklands said, “Originally drafted under the working title: “Why everybody’s rubbish and it’s no one’s fault”, the book compassionately challenges a number of widespread unconscious assumptions, and shines a light on various cultural blindspots. In the process, it helps make sense of why so many people, even at the top of organisations, seem to struggle with IC. And it provides practical steps that can be taken to help them think about it in new ways – so IC professionals can start making a bigger difference.”
‘The Uncommon Sense of Internal Communication’ is currently available to download free of charge from www.internalcommunicationmodel.com, with a number of versions available depending on your global location and IC view point.
Happy reading!
Melitta
