Tom Keefe

Spirited Communication

Category: Engagement

When Humor Helped Spread Serious Information About the Flu

February 10, 2018 /

Americans are suffering through the worst flu outbreak in a decade, and the deaths associated with flu are no laughing matter. But can communication professionals use humor to encourage people to take positive actions to stay healthy and limit the flu’s impact?

That’s exactly what I did during a different challenging flu outbreak: the 2009 H1N1 (Swine Flu) pandemic. This is an example of how to bring “Spirited Communication” to an organization. “Spirited” is defined as “full of energy, animation, or courage.” It takes courage to share potentially unnerving information with employees or customers, but creativity and humor can make the information easier to consider—and more memorable.

The 2009 Swine Flu pandemic was particularly alarming because, in addition to the very young and very old who more typically have critical reactions to influenza, Swine Flu strongly affected even previously healthy young adults. It was akin to a previous H1N1 influenza virus that in 1918-19 infected 500 million people worldwide and killed tens of millions of them.

Companies like VW Credit, Inc., where I worked as a communications specialist, considered how to inform employees about the steps to take to lessen the spread of H1N1. I met with the company’s business continuity manager to strategize a communication plan for sharing information about H1N1 without striking fear in healthy employees.

As I reviewed material from government and private health organizations, my creative energy sparked. H1N1 was nicknamed “Swine Flu” because the virus strain originated when a previous combination of bird, swine and human flu viruses further combined with a Eurasian pig flu virus.

My idea was to create a series of emails from “famous swine,” who joined forces to battle Swine Flu through dissemination of tips and information related to prevention and treatment. The information in the emails would then be used in a contest at the end of the campaign. By reading and keeping the emails, employees would continue to review and absorb the information, while enjoying the messages sent by “famous swine” including:

  • Wilbur, the pig from the novel, “Charlotte’s Web,”
  • Arnold, the pig from the 1960s television show, “Green Acres,”
  • Jasper, one of the Three Little Pigs, and
  • Miss Piggy from The Muppet Show.

Click image to read the .PDF version

The emails contained links to practical information regarding how to prevent and treat flu. I also posted basic health information such as the importance of washing hands to prevent the spread of infection in common areas.

It became clear from employee feedback that they found the campaign to be highly entertaining and informative.

More than 12% of employees participated in the final contest to answer a 10-question quiz on Swine Flu prevention and treatment.
 

Click image to read the .PDF version.

I was gratified to hear from several employees who said the campaign’s humorous approach made them more aware of the importance of preventing the spread of H1N1, while lessoning their fear. The campaign brought home the bacon!

How could this approach be used on the current flu outbreak? Think of a series of superheroes who fly to companies, schools or other groups to share tips for preventing the spread of influenza. They could promote flu shots and preventive treatments with a phrase such as, “We flew in to knock out the flu.”

Highlights of the 2016 Global Street Fight

April 21, 2016 /

The Fourth Annual Global Street Fight Study is being released next week by G&S Business Communications, and earlier this week, study highlights were made available to attendees of the G&S “Global Street Fight” business communications conference in Chicago.

The study, conducted in March by Harris Poll on behalf of G&S Business Communications, queried 2,018 adults online. Study highlights provided to me and other conference attendees, focused on social media patterns and preferences. Some results were broken down by generational categories of Millennials and Generation X, as well as the “General Public” and “Opinion Elites,” which G&S defined as “a sub-segment of the main survey respondents who are more informed, engaged, involved in current issues and exert influence on the general public.”

In subsequent posts, I’ll share some of the great content provided by conference panelists who covered global trends in:

  • Corporate compliance and diversity challenges in the C-Suite
  • Reputational and economic challenges that are plaguing organizations
  • Breakthroughs and advances in narrative science and artificial intelligence storytelling
  • Virtual Reality in journalism and media
  • Leadership and crisis responses

Here are three slides from the G&S 2016 Study Highlights:

Global Street What They Should Post

Study respondents (46%) want senior business leaders to share information about their company’s business activities.

They DON’T want senior leaders at large companies to share personal opinions on social media (64% of all respondents and 71% of opinion elites).

Global Street What They Want From Leaders

More than one-third of study respondents want senior leaders to use social media to address company vision, company products and services. Low on their list are posts focused on advice on running a business (13%), personal stories and anecdotes (15%) and professional development tips (18%).

Global Street Why It Matters

It matters, to somewhat varying degrees, to each of the study subgroups because large percentages of the study respondents use social media to familiarize themselves with a company before deciding whether to purchase that company’s products or services.

They tend to place more trust in information about a company when they get it through social media. And they tend to believe that senior leaders who are transparent on social media are more trustworthy.

NEXT POST: Leadership Amid the Battleground

Helpful Reader Gets a Free Plug

October 30, 2014 /

My thanks to freelance writer Hyrum Taffer (@HyrumTaffer on Twitter, who emailed to tell me that one of the links on an archived post of mine needed to be updated.

Hyrum then politely asked me to consider including a link to an infographic that provides data regarding teen drug use and the value of parental awareness. The broken link in my original post was to the DARE project, another teen drug awareness site.

When you come across broken links in sites you visit (and you will!), rather than ignore them, consider whether informing the site’s owner might open an opportunity for you to connect with a person, site or message that could benefit you or others.

'Have the Conversation' graphic

 

If Your Communications Just Blow, Here’s How to Make Them Really Suck

May 22, 2013 /
Keep reading to get to the sucky part!

Communication channels and methods continue to evolve, but the organizations where I have worked continue to rely heavily on the “blow” process, where information is pushed out to audiences. However, this cascade method is ineffective for several reasons:

  1. Lack of Engagement: Like a lecture from a parent, push communications tend to be one-sided. The audience receives information but has no opportunity to interact or provide feedback. The audience too often quickly becomes disinterested and ignores the message.
  2. Relevance: Information pushed to large groups can’t usually be tailored to individual preferences or needs. This shotgun approach hinders the message from resonating with every recipient.
  3. Information Overload: Please stop listening for a moment to the pings, chimes and assorted alert noises that are coming from your phone, laptop, smart watch and Alexa to acknowledge that people are bombarded with information. Push communications contribute to information overload, making your message just one more noisy nuisance.

That’s why push communications just blow!

Pull communications, on the other hand, can revolutionize the way we interact with audiences, particularly through social media, messaging and collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams and Slack. Here’s how:

  1. Engagement: Pull communications “suck them in” to your messages. By attracting attention through compelling content, individuals actively choose to engage. This two-way dialogue flows through comments, likes, retweets and shares, creating a more engaged audience.
  2. Relevance and Personalization: Pull methods rely on providing content that is relevant to the audience’s interests. Individuals seek out your messages because they find value in the information being shared. Algorithms on social media platforms can tailor content to their preferences and increase the relevance and impact of your message.
  3. Virality and Reach: Who doesn’t want to be an influencer of some sort? Engaging content that sparks interaction goes viral. When people share your posts, your reach extends beyond the initial audience. Effective pull communications leverage the network effect and the results can be exponentially strong.
  4. Feedback and Adaptation: Pull communications allow for instant feedback. By monitoring how audiences interact with your content, you can adapt your strategies in real-time to better meet their needs and preferences. This iterative process keeps your communication dynamic and responsive.

Done correctly, your communications will pull an audience magnetically!

How to Pull It Off

  1. Create Compelling Content: Your content needs to capture attention right from the headline. My headline was intentionally startling. It got you to read this post, didn’t it? Of course once you were sucked in, the actual message needed to deliver to keep you engaged. Do that through the use of interesting hooks, visuals and storytelling.
  2. Encourage Interaction: Make it easy for your audience to engage with your content. Ask questions, invite comments and encourage shares.
  3. Use Multiple Platforms: Reach your audience where they are. Experiment by posting to various social media platforms and collaboration sites, tailoring your content to fit the context of each platform.
  4. Monitor and Adapt: Keep track of engagement metrics and be willing to pivot your strategy based on the feedback and interaction you receive.

The Role of Creativity

No matter how you choose to communicate, creativity is key. A boring message is going to be boring unless delivered with a creative touch. Communication is part art and part science. You can take lessons on how to paint beautiful word pictures, but you may be better off hiring a creative communication professional with proven success in turning dreck into verbal pearls.

Reach out to me or leave a comment if you would like to discuss this further—especially if you are ready to leave behind communications that just blow.

Dr. Bob’s Prescription for Engaging Employees is NOT Heroin

October 3, 2008 /

I don’t think that Bob Nelson, Ph.D., was quite expecting my question at the beginning of the Q&A portion of his presentation at the Sept. 22-24, 2008 Melcrum Strategic Communication Management Summit in Chicago.

Mine was the first question he received, and it was: “Is employee recognition like heroin, where you have to have more and more to achieve the same effect over time?” I was serious, and I later learned that another participant had an “aha” moment when she heard my question. Dr. Bob, on the other hand, had more of an “Oh, no” moment.

Rather than directly addressing the point that employers may be concerned about having to escalate the value of recognition programs as employees grow accustomed to certain levels of reward, Dr. Bob reiterated some points about the value of recognition programs in general.

Although I didn’t feel that my question had been answered adequately, as the first person to ask a question, I was presented with a copy of Dr. Bob’s latest book, “The 1001 Rewards & Recognition Fieldbook.” That turned out to be a good thing both for Dr. Bob and me, because while I was browsing through this very informative and feature-packed book, I discovered that Dr. Bob had answered my heroin question on page 329. Here is the question as it appears in Dr. Bob’s book, along with his answer.

FAQ Can too much recognition lead to constantly escalating forms of recognition or unfulfilled expectations on the part of employees?

A Employee motivation today is a moving target. You’ve got to be in constant contact with your employees to determine what they most value and then find ways to systematically act on those desired forms of recognition and rewards as they perform well. You need to vary your forms of recognition, adding new ones and experiment, but you can also stop doing other things that have run their course and are no longer very motivating to employees. If you keep doing the same things years after year, you’ll likely end up with a very boring workplace. Variety is the spice of life, and as you try new programs–especially ones your employees are interested in–your rewards will be higher morale, productivity, performance, and retention. Certainly that should provide some motivation for you to stay the course! By the way, the one form of recognition that never seems to get old is effective praise. If you are timely, sincere, and specific in thanking employees when they have done good work, this form of recognition will never become stale.

Dr. Bob’s presentation was similar to his book, in that both provided specific examples of effective and misguided recognition programs. I say, “misguided,” because as Dr. Bob explained, companies should find out what their employees consider to be good recognition and rewards–not what company leadership blindly considers to be good recognition.

Here’s a quick example from Dr. Bob: According to several studies over the past 80 years (including a study conducted by Dr. Bob in the 1990s), here are the top three things that employees most want from their jobs; first, according to managers, and then, second, according to employees.

Top Three As Ranked By Managers
1. Good wages
2. Job security
3. Promotion/growth opportunities

Top Three As Ranked By Employees
1. Full appreciation for work done
2. Feeling “in” on things
3. Sympathetic help on personal problems

Managers looked at things that had a financial cost. The employees cared about things that, ironically, had no direct financial cost.

I mentioned an “aha” moment that occurred for a participant at the Melcrum summit. This communications leader had been troubled for some time by a situation that had developed with a person hired by this leader. She told me that the man she had hired performed wonderfully, and she recognized his professional successes with notes of affirmation that were entered into his personnel file and greater responsibilities that resulted in a promotion (with salary bump).

Then one day, the man complained that this leader didn’t reward his efforts in a meaningful way! “When you mentioned heroin during the Q&As, I thought, aha! That’s it! It was like heroin–nothing I did was enough. He always wanted more.” When the man first complained to the communication leader, she quickly arranged a meeting with the man, and included an HR representative. During that meeting, the leader reiterated all that she had done to mentor this individual, and pointed out how his performance had been recognized by glowing performance reviews, compensation and a promotion. He remained angry, and said that she didn’t seem to like him. “What did he expect me to do, have sex with him,” she exclaimed to me. “I’m a married woman and I certainly wouldn’t want the sexual harrassment charges!”

After reading Dr. Bob’s book, and reflecting on his presentation, I’m thinking that the man was looking for some form of recognition that differed from the laundry list that the communications leader shared with me. (No, I’m not including sex in there!)

Maybe she would benefit from reading Dr. Bob’s book. I certainly recommend it to you. Share it with your leadership, and you have a good chance of offering recognition programs that are measurable, repeatable and enjoyable for employees–without any artificial stimulants or harrassment charges!

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