If you were an evil mastermind with a plan for world domination would you blog about it? No of course you wouldn’t. Would you let your boiler suited and rubber booted employees, going through your underworld lair on electric trains, tweet about it in their coffee breaks – I don’t think so.
You would stroke your cat and jolly well keep your thoughts to yourself – maybe just allowing yourself the odd cackle at the sheer delight in so much secrecy and such future power.
The real question is why anyone with a cunning strategy that gives them an edge on the competition would even think about bragging about it online? Why give away your secrets? People never used to.
They kept their plans in good, strong filing cabinets where they belong. And when it came to messages – they would be finely crafted. Just a handful of fully briefed and ‘on message’ people would be allowed to articulate them – everyone else would be banned from speaking to the media.
So why has everyone started blogging and twittering everything to everyone?
I blame the generation Y-ers – all those sociable little bloggers, tweeters and facebookers. Conventional print media bores them. They get their information online, flicking between a plethora of sources. They’re not intimidated by authority and feel entitled to know everything. They bring a morale compass to work and making consumer decisions. And – when they’re not texting – they’re sharing everything with their ‘friends’ online.
The key question is how you develop and promote a clear, consistent message in a world where the conventional media have waned and a plethora of informal, unstructured and uncontrollable channels have emerged.
I don’t believe that organisations ever really got away with saying one thing and acting in a different way. People talking (chatting, the ultimate social media) always gave them away. Social networking just speeds up the time taken to pull off the mask.
The genie won’t go back into the bottle. The online challenge must be embraced. It will take a new style of leader. Who can communicate plans and strategies with conviction – who relish embracing the all-pervasive media and have the personality and charisma to take people with them.
As we look forward to a period of stress, restructuring and change in both the public and private sectors, maintaining morale will require serious focus on shaping clear messages and brilliant internal and external communications. The range of channels must be embraced to explain change messages – promoting hope and belief in organisations and brands.
