I work with meanies!!!

What has happened to the workforce? Barely anyone says please or thank you, rarely do a I see a smile in the hallways, and “constructive confrontation” is used as an excuse for being impolite (as a best case scenario) or downright mean.

I am SO tired of this…bullying at work. It is NOT OK to be rude. It’s not that everyone should agree, or that you can’t have very passionate discussions, and express strong opinions. This just makes you interesting. But be respectful. Be mindful that other people have feelings…and that it’s not a weakness to be sensitive…it’s just good manners!!!

Am I dreaming…or is actually possible for a large multi-national to achieve this? Anyone? Please tell me it’s possible…..

Is anyone actually reading this?!?

The folks have been in town for a couple of weeks…and I’ve been a bad blogger…but I got to go lava hiking, beer tasting, and touring Central Oregon. So no complaints.

And actually…being away from the keyboard and the fact I didn’t really miss anything, got me thinking. Well, this and some stats that have been swimming around my brain. More than 50% of our employees have their own company issued PCs. Yet, most of the stories we publish on our intranet, get about 17-33% readership. On wildly read stories (those about money) get up to 90%. These are approximate numbers…even so, most of the time we’re only reaching a fraction of employees…and still the business does just fine.

Do employees need to know everything about the business to be productive, happy, and intelligent employees? Probably not. And the information they do need to know, they’ll find when they need it, or be told by their managers.

So what to do?

I may be writing myself out of a job, but I suggest paring back on the amount of information communicators put out. Improve the quality (most of it is pretty bad…a lot of marketing, buzz words, and limp writing). Organize the intranet so information is easy to find. Use RSS so employees can opt into the information they need to do their jobs well (…and trust that they’ll figure out what they need to know). Then reserve the right to push important information to employees through their managers…that way it’s more likely they’ll get the info, and do something with it.

I think this is especially relevant to big organizations that get bogged down by too many, redundant comms. So before you set out some elaborate comms plan, ask yourself: Is anyone actually going to read it? And if they don’t, will it be a big deal. If the answer’s no. Don’t write it!

Robert Scoble on social media

I was going to write a post about the virtues of social media…but stumbled across a post of Robert Scoble’s (formerly of Microsoft, now with PodTech) that I think does a great job of summarizing some of the rocking-est benefits of these new media: blogs, wikis, RSS, etc.

There’s one thing I don’t agree with…let’s not call it Media 2.0. The 2.0 thing is getting tired. I actually like social media. It’s descriptive. We can interact with new media in ways we couldn’t with traditional media (newspapers, TV, radio, magazines, etc.). Readers, viewers, and listeners can be more involved with media like blogs…it’s immediate…I can post a comment, check out the popularity of a post, etc.

This to say: I’m happy with the term social media. You?

Citizen and employee journalism will improve standards

Here’s a rundown on citizen journalism by Steve Outing with the Poynter Institute.

I’m tired. It’s late. So this will be short.

But as I was driving from the beach to my hotel this evening I started to think about the influence that I’m certain citizen journalism will have on traditional news outlets and practices.

The effect I think will be this: Citizen journalism will make professional journalists better. Citizen journalists tend to disclose biases, points-of-view, etc. This makes the reporting more transparent, and more believable. I think eventually trad media will be gently forced to do the same or face losing the trust of viewers/readers…essentially losing credibility.

This is true in corporations (where I encourage executives to empower their employees to blog freely…though intelligently…not disclosing company secrets/sensitive information; as well as with news in general. Citizen journalism (or employee journalism as I call it in a corporate setting) will change the quality of information—for the better.

Objective reporting? It doesn’t exist.

Michael Arrington (of TechCrunch) got me thinking. “Human interaction is simply too complex to pretend that we are all objective.”…he was quoted saying in Wired’s latest edition…in an article by Fred Vogelstein.

Arrington runs TechCrunch…a site that blogs tech reviews and start-ups. (More about that.)

I agree. There’s no such thing as objective reporting. There aren’t two sides to every story–there are as many sides as there are people who are part of the “story.” And journalists (perhaps more than most) are some of the most opinionated people I know (which also makes them more interesting…though some can be absolute pompous snobs too…terrible for cocktail party chatter!). So they shouldn’t pretend they don’t have an opinion. In fact, knowing the opinion can add to the story…another element…a point-of-view. And to me, there’s no absolute truth, only perspectives.

Pretending to be objective is more of a threat to the truth and your ability to report, then simply admitting up front that you have an opinion, bias, interest…or whatever it was you have. I think newspapers should state on the corner of their front page the editorial “leaning” of the paper. Be up front about it. At least then we’d know where you were coming from.

I think the rise of citizen journalism, and people’s approach to disclosing conflicts of interest will eventually pervade traditional media practices too. I’m looking forward to this. I think it’ll be healthier and much more honest….which of course, is the pursuit of all good journalism. (Whether truth exists or not.)