Communicators Career Growth Survey indicates growing skills areas
With three years of data from more than 500 professional communicators, North Star Communications Consulting today shared results of its 2013 Communications Competency Study, and three-year trends the consultancy has collected. 2013 Communications Competency Study Approximately 200 professional communicators participated in the 2013 survey in June and July of this year. The vast majority of […]
Boxed in a communications job? 6 tips to break free
We’ve all been there: that point in our careers where we feel “stuck” in a role, or pigeon-holed as a specialist who is destined for more-of-the-same until the end of time. I once had a boss who described it as being in a “home for the terminally inert.” Communications and marketing professionals increasingly see the […]
Who’s got game? Gamification is the communicator’s next frontier
If you’ve ever seen anyone other than Alec Baldwin playing Words with Friends on an iPhone, you’re seeing the new frontier that every communicator needs to understand: gamification. Now, before I lose all the Monopoly haters and Xbox intolerants, let me say that gamification simply is the use of game thinking and mechanics to engage users and solve […]
What a story! Communicators and the (lost) art of storytelling
No matter what path we’ve taken to become communicators or marketers, I’d argue that the most fundamental skill we’ve all worked to develop is that of a storyteller. What I’ve seen in recent years — working with clients –is that storytelling is re-emerging as the most central of core competencies. CCOs and CMOs want more […]
The Communicator’s disconnect: I think I’m great – why don’t you?
A number of years ago, I had the unenviable task of telling a communications employee at an annual review that – despite previous years of relatively strong performance ratings with other mangers — that year fell below expectations. I walked through the specifics, then asked for feedback. The employee sat stunned for a moment, then […]
INTERNAL social media: The treasure behind the firewall
We hear almost every day we about companies that either display great finesse or attract epic public scorn with a Tweet or Facebook post. Social media clearly is cooking on the front burner of just about every external communications and marketing team on the planet. The battle for “likes,” “shares,” clicks and tags is on, […]
Buying the brand of you: Creating personal social media brands
Having spent 17 years working on global consumer foods and beverages, I get what brands are about. But I have to admit that when it comes to creating a “personal digital” brand for social media, it isn’t exactly something that feels all that comfortable – at least at first. After all, communicators and marketers are […]
Outputs or outCOMES? Showing the difference helps you measure up
Your last communications or marketing campaign netted 100,000 click-throughs, 500,000 “likes” and 1 million impressions. You proudly take those numbers to your general manager or marketing partner, and the response is somewhere between watching paint dry and selling hot chocolate in a sauna. It’s just not – well — selling. Whether it’s internal or external […]
Tweet: your job will likely depend on it
In spending a good portion of the last 6 weeks on the road – in markets home and abroad — I took the opportunity to ask some large and small groups of marketing and communications professionals a question: how many of you have a Twitter account? Or are active on Facebook? Last week, I […]
Vulcan Mind-Meld: Communicators and marketers need to think alike
Any child of the 1970s (or beyond) who’s ever watched the sci-fi television series Star Trek knows how first officer Spock could connect the brain of any species to his own simply by placing his hands on the head of a partner and performing the Vulcan Mind Meld. I tried it on my twin sister a […]
