Jetlagged but inspired

I'm just back from Melcrum's US summit.  It's the first time I've ever been to the States, can you believe. Fantastic shops, great customer service, but can't believe nobody walks anywhere ...?!

The conference really made me think about new technology.  I saw a great presentation from Steve King, Senior Advisor for the Institute for the Future. He sees Marketing teams embracing new media, but Internal Comms teams largely retreating and he warned us not to miss the boat. The message was that new technology is here to stay, and the new generation of employees (Generation Y) is far less likely to trust more traditional corporate, managed channels and far more likely to trust more informal new media that give them the chance to interact, create, and feel more authentic and human.

So blogs, Wikis, RSS and podcasting are in. Apparenly video is set to be very big too. Us longstanders like words; the newbies, apparently, like pictures. It's interesting to see that YouTube has been bought by Google today for $1.65 billion. Watching how people are using technology in the outside world gives food for thought about what they might come to expect at work.

The big question for me is, what will all this mean for everything we thought we knew about communication?  For example, we think we know that face to face is best.  But apparently the youngest generation is not so keen on face to face. I picked up a great book at Phoenix Airport: How to Talk so People LIsten by Sonya Hamlin. It has an interesting chapter comparing the different generations and their thoughts on communication and technology.  For Generation Y, face to face meetings show up as 'uncomfortable, confrontational, and overly formal'. I foresee a whole new set of challenges on the horizon about how to help line managers to be effective communicators.

Then of course, there's the question of control.  In Steve King's view, now anyone can create content, we're going to have to give up any notion of 'controlling' messages and learn to manage the process instead. Somehow.

We're going to have to learn how to use all these goodies for the younger generation of employees, and I reckon it will mean re-thinking our rule book. Stand by for some new models and stats in the next few years.   And now I'll have to stop as this post is getting too long. Our average attention span is now apparently 90 seconds, according to Sonya Hamlin.  Frightening. Hope you can read fast ...

Sue

Comments

[Tor]

That's remarkably coherent for someone who's just stepped off a plane.

All very interesting feedback. Would love to talk more - maybe at the Summit if we get the chance?

I've just posted on another blog on some follow up to the Webinar we did a couple of weeks ago when I showed that slide about the relative impact of communication on behaviour change. I'm not sure how they did this research in the first place, but it dates back to the late '90s (that old?). If we were to do this research again in 2006 I'm sure it would reflect some of the issues you've highlighted about generational preferences.

Anyway, this all looks great. Onwards and upwards.

tor