Author: Thomas Keefe (Page 6 of 7)

Finalized my itinerary for the 2005 IABC International Conference, and that has pumped me up! So much to see, hear and experience–then I have to try to express some of the more meaningful pieces to you in manageable bits. I can’t wait!

If you are attending the IABC Conference, safe travels, and I’ll see you there. If you can’t get to the conference, comment on this blog to tell me what you want to know.

My initial blog entry for today was going to be a summary of my planning for the upcoming IABC International Conference. Exciting coverage of the clothes I’m planning to wear and the fact that I’m bringing my digital camera (to supplement my written conference coverage and to be ready in case I spot President Bush or Ben Bradlee).

Gratefully, I reread the draft post from the perspective of someone who is not me, and realized that I had fallen into a common trap. Some of the worst columns, advertising and lectures come from the minds of people who write for themselves, rather than for their audience.

It was a good reminder as I prepare to blog at the conference. My intention is to provide content that will be interesting and useful to a general audience. Stay tuned and let me know when I stay on track, or get lost and step in something repugnant to us all.

At times, troubling events affect me like allergy shots–building my immunity over time to forestall more intense reactions from subsequent events. (“Been there, done that, let’s get on with life.”) At other times, the troubling events are more like an allergic reaction to bee stings, where my sensitivity actually increases over time from repeated exposures. Friday’s events surrounding the departure of my supervisor, the CIO, was more like a bad bee sting–and the swelling hasn’t yet gone down.

As I wrote yesterday, I hate being the bearer of bad news that I can’t communicate. Bearing the bad news until someone else (usually someone with more authority) lets it out is, very often, unbearable.

My discomfort with these announcements traces back to when I was an associate editor on a trade magazine for the hardware industry (that’s “hardware” as in nails and cordless screwdrivers, not computers or printers). The editor at that time was a well-connected figure in the industry, regularly invited to participate in seminars, roundtables and golf outings at conventions and conferences. When the long-time publisher of the trade magazine died, he was replaced by someone who didn’t care for the editor’s work ethic–so after some time, the new publisher decided to fire the editor.

The publisher decided that he would build support and relieve anxiety among the remaining magazine staff by gathering us together to break the news…before telling the editor (who was on vacation at the time). Build support? Relieve anxiety? Exactly the opposite occurred, as we left the meeting and had to figure out how to act when the editor got the news.

I remember feeling like a traitor the morning that the editor returned to work, try to interact with him as he cheerfully talked about his vacation, and asked me what was new around the office. “Oh nothing much, same old stuff.” I wanted to tell him that he was about to be fired, but I didn’t want to risk souring relations with the new publisher. I disliked them both about equally at that time.

Later that day, the editor, visibly upset, called us into his office. “I’ve been fired,” he said. “We know,” I said, in one of my moments of personal transparency and ultimate stupidity. “Y-you knew? And you didn’t tell me??”

Awkward silence. Repeated only a few times since, the latest being last Friday morning.

It still stings.

Not even spies and politicians like to keep secrets, so why would a professional communicator like me? That was the spot I was in last Friday when I and the CIO’s other direct reports were pulled into a conference room and told that the CIO had just been terminated.

“We’re writing an email now that will go out later today,” the company president said. “Until then, don’t say anything to anyone.”

I left that meeting with a heavy heart and even heavier weight of responsibility. Although we regularly work to earn a seat at the table where important decisions are being made, we don’t often talk about times like last Friday, when you can’t do the thing that you do best: communicate. Sure, by being present at the meeting, I could convince the president and HR executive that we needed to schedule an all-IT meeting to be held later that day, and to quickly compile a list of Q&As. Things that should have been considered and planned long before Friday–but weren’t.

As I walked quietly back to my desk, I was screaming inside! I listened to the usual chatter floating through the department. It was the calm before the storm. Just as I sent the first draft of Q&As to the printer, I heard the “ping” that signaled a new email arriving in my mailbox. It was the announcement of the CIO’s departure. Chatter within the department died almost instantly. It was the calm within the “eye of the storm.” Soon, the whispers began and reached the throbbing effect of a tree infested by cicadas. The whispers didn’t make me as uncomfortable as the sporadic laughter that followed.

This wasn’t the first time that I experienced the awkward silence of bad news. Tomorrow I’ll write about the time when my boss learned about his termination AFTER his staff, and then confronted us!

Until then, do you have your own examples to share?

Lessons I try to teach my children often help me as well. To combat requests for pet dogs, gerbils, fish and other creatures, I talk to my kids about responsibility; usually that disorients them until I can escape the room. Responsibility and possible disorientation hold true for blogs as much as for pet algae eaters.

It’s easy to look at someone’s blog and think, “I should get one of those.” But before you leap into blog “ownership,” you should answer the same questions that you would ask your child before bringing home a baby Welsh Corgi or other pet:

· Have you considered the long-term impact of this new “member of the family”?

· Who is going to care for it? What care does it need?

· Who is going to clean up its “messes”?

· Can you train it?

Let’s look at each question.

Have you considered the long-term impact of this new “member of the family”? A new pet is cute and fun–for about two days. Then the reality of the commitment begins to sink in. The same is true of a blog. I kept pulling up my first blog post just to look at it. Now I’m disciplining myself to prepare a new blog entry every business day–fitting it into my other responsibilities. In other words, it’s work!

Who is going to care for it? What care does it need? When I asked my kids who would clean the gerbil cage and pick up the dog poop, they shouted, “I will, I will.” Now I have to threaten them before they clean the cage and give the gerbils fresh food and water. I hope the Geneva Convention doesn’t cover house pets, because Salt and Pepper have a pretty strong case against us. Blogs have their own needs–fresh information on a regular basis and attention to comments from readers.

Who is going to clean up its “messes”? No example necessary for the pet side of this example. On the blog side, we can face ethical and legal ramifications from a post or a reply. For example, when I mentioned last Friday that my CIO had been let go, and how communications could have been handled better (more proactively), an email friend cautioned me. “Blogs are unknown territory in terms of legal ramifications, influence, etc. [Remember] that a lot of the people posting are self-employed consultants who don’t have to answer to an organization. That allows them to be riskier/edgier in terms of content.”

Good advice that leads to the final question: Can you train it? Any dog owner knows that the “training” you go through is more to teach you how to behave, not your dog. I’m still new at blogging, so time will tell. I wouldn’t walk my pet too near the edge, and I have to watch where this blog goes as well. I like being close to the edge, but I don’t like falling off without a golden parachute (which I don’t have currently).

My IABC IT colleagues and I recently have been discussing communication challenges. I’m dealing with one of the bigger ones today (challenges, not IABC colleagues).

I was greeted at the start of the business day by a request to gather with the CIO’s other direct reports in a conference room. There, the CIO’s boss (company president) and the CIO’s counterpart on the operation side of the business announced that the CIO was no longer a company employee. Good morning!

I went into crisis communications mode, and was glad that I did. The president hadn’t considered meeting with the IT staff, and the counterpart was going to be gone on vacation all of next week! Tactfully, I suggested that we schedule a “town hall” meeting for later today, and that we begin to craft Q&As. I’ve tried to stay hooked into the communication planning, although some noticeable glitches have occurred.

· HR and the executives didn’t bother to have me review the notice that went out company-wide, announcing the CIO’s departure. So I groaned when I spotted the two misspellings and other grammatical errors. Professional? Yuo bett!

· Although the executives supported the idea of an IT town hall meeting, they were in a hurry to get to another meeting. So we didn’t talk about the dozen IT employees in our four other locations who wouldn’t attend the meeting. An IT supervisor took the initiative to set-up an audio-conference, which will provide some access–to ear pain from line static, if our Polycom is true to form.

Oh well, just about meeting time. Here we go…again!

If this blog appeared in a pop-up window, would you:

-Read it

-Delete it

-Never see it because your security software blocks all pop-up messages?

Earlier today, I participated in a webinar hosted by Astaro titled, “Astaro Security Gateway.” That’s “Gateway” as in, “Gatekeeper,” as in “You Shall Not Pass!“

The webinar demonstrated how Astaro’s product protects networks from computer viruses, Trojans, phishing scams and SO MUCH MORE. In fact, it even can search out and remove individual words from messages, so employees aren’t offended by vulgar terms like those found on so many blogs today. (Prevent us from using the word, “excrement,” and half of the blogs I read would look like electronic Swiss cheese.)

What do you think about pop-ups? Ever seen one used effectively to communicate a message?

I asked the Astaro presenter whether he would advise website developers to forget about pop-up windows because security solutions like Astaro’s blocks them. His answer? “Unfortunately – website developer would never listen.”

When you read my blogs from the IABC International Conference later this month, you should get a flavor of the event atmosphere, presenters, conference content and attendee reactions as seen through my filter. I’m not going to be controversial or outrageous just to attract readers–but my balanced view of things will uncover things that will make you smile, and things that will make you cringe. Guaranteed.

That’s because the IABC Conference is planned and run by human beings, and human beings make mistakes. Errors in planning or arrangements, when presentations go awry, or errors in judgment, when otherwise good people goof up. Couldn’t happen in a conference run by professional communicators? Uh, sure can. I’ve been there a lot–and benefited from it. I’ve learned the most about myself when I’ve had to see and correct my mistakes. As a professional communicator, I’ve learned great lessons when my messages were misunderstood or soundly thumped by others. Didn’t always mean that my message was wrong, or that their opinion was right. It meant that my communication wasn’t effective–for them.

I’m excited about spending four days with a hotel full of people who live and breathe communication. Who continually try to improve their process for determining and crafting effective communication strategies and messages. Opinions, advice and insightful revelations will be bouncing off the walls. I plan to grab as many as my brain and laptop can gather, sift the useful grains from the chaff, then put them on the blog for your review, reflection and comment.