Let there be light!

Over the past couple of years I’ve had this niggling feeling that just won’t go away. Communicators and human resource professionals are working in the dark. Demands are changing. Resources low. Pressure increasing. Time?  Well there isn’t enough. Result, we’re running from one event, crisis, deliverable to the next. Not only are we not thinking beyond the next week, month, quarter, but we’re working in the dark.

This came home to me again in the past couple of days. Rachel Miller had tweeted a request for help for a masters student, Sonsoles Lumbreras. Sonsoles is doing research for a dissertation that will focus on the use of social media in the context of organizational change.

Given the topic and the cause, I offered to help. And, what an interesting project that turned into. Amazing to find in my very little sample [9 executive contacts, all at major international companies] that companies either don’t have a group level internal communications person or don’t have a social media strategy so don’t have anything to say or my contacts don’t know the Communications people… What? Don’t know the Communications people?

How can we help our organizations develop strong and sustainable relationships when institutionally we aren’t doing that ourselves?  How can we understand, and I mean really understand, the impact of what we’re doing if we aren’t widely and deeply networked. We have to get out more my friends! It’s not an option.

Let there be light!

By the way, Sonsoles wants to speak to people in international businesses with operations in the UK.  If you’d like to help her e-mail is:  sonlumbreras@yahoo.com.

Tags: Communications, Creating meaning, Employee communication, Humanizing, Relationship, The profession