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Conversations are important. Equally important is to provide insight about the influences, trends, content and context of these conversations. You might have guessed it already. Communicating is a key competence for tomorrows organization but also a rare competence. Your communication efforts need a platform to make them visible for all and Signips can help you with that. For the Dutch people: click on the picture to read a great article on the importance of internal and external conversations.

By both technically and conceptually integrating Corporate TV within the coffee vending machine, added value is created for international corporate clients. Combining a quality refreshment with tailor made content and media distribution, makes sure corporate clients get their internal message across.

Since November 1st 2011 Maas International B.V. and Signips B.V. work closely together in the field of internal communication in coffee corners and pantries. By integrating the Signips’ solution in the coffee vending machines, a powerful communication-tool is created, guaranteeing several daily moments of contact with employees. This innovative solution is already in place at several Dutch Corporate Clients and will find its way to others on a short term.

Willem van den Berg, managing director of Maas, explains: “As an innovative vending company, Maas is always looking for solutions that contribute to the general perception of coffee corners and pantries. With the Corporate TV-concept we can add this value, by creating a unique and powerful communication tool for internal communications.
The Signips’ solution has proven to be a reliable and effective service and with several of our key-customers already equipped, we look for further extension of this innovative concept.”.

Ruben Halmans, partner at Signips, shares his view on the cooperation. “Coffee corners and pantries have proven to be key-areas within our Corporate TV concept. By connecting with employees several times a day,
more awareness and engagement is established. Being able to integrate Corporate TV into the vending machine further contributes to this concept. Maas International has proven to be a powerful partner, combining state-of-the-art vending technology with a getting-things done mentality. Our joint commitment to the Corporate Market has proven to be powerful and effective and we are looking forward to further introduce our joint solution”.

Picture:
Willem van den Berg, Managing Director Maas International (left) and Ruben Halmans, Partner at Signips B.V. (right), in front of the digital coffee vending machine.

Cartoon: Hugh MacLeod

Crises?

These are harsh times. Crises does not even fit to describe the global economic mayhem anymore. What impact has this on your communication efforts?

If anything we have all learned a few lessons during the crises:

Lesson 1:
Our world constantly changes and we, our companies, need to change with it. If you’re a laggard, you’ll die. It’s that simple. Why? Because your competition will change!

Lesson 2:
What is “stakeholders value” that you worry so much about? Seriously, these times prove once and for all, that short term stakeholders value is NOT something you need to focus on. Quarterly Figures, ha, ha. What can you do on to keep your stakeholders happy in times like this? At best you could manage a few percent rise of your stock indices while in the next 5 minutes someone on another continent says something about the crises and all your efforts have gone to waste and worse. Save yourself a lot of time and money and stop with that.

So what should you be doing?

You should be worrying how to communicate change with your employees. Imprint your company DNA in their brain. Communicate mission statements, goals, achievements and ambassadorship. Set your eyes on long-term strategy and set sail. Motivate, that’s what you should be doing. Baldly go beyond the short-term “shareholders value“ and head for the future growth of your company. But how do you get your people aligned?

Information overload?

We have all heard about “communication overload” that we supposedly suffer from. Well, that’s BS. But it’s true that we are busy, managing all kinds of activities at the same time. As a result we do not excel in any of them and our performance is mediocre, which is giving us a lot of stress. Thus we try to save time by not reading every mail, leaflet, poster, informative screensavers or (un)readable intranet. In fact, given the choice, we would not read any of these at all.

Still, there is one thing we should be aware of; we talk way too much. We have meetings just about anything. To get things done we need at least half a dozen of “stakeholders” to sign up for it and that does not make the company more agile and stresses everyone out even more.
 

Act now!

Whatever it is that you choose to do, you’ll need your employees to get you there, wright? Especially during crises, You’ll need to think about what you are going to tell your people and how. You also need to ensure that they understand and act upon it. That change agents have a tool to generate followers. This is not a mission impossible. This is our mission. Corporate TV enables you to communicate effectively with the audience. They will see it, they appreciate it and they will act upon it.

The User Interface for our CorporateTV platform is now also available for Android mobile devices.
With this app our customers truly are “in control” of their CorporateTV network.

With any Android smartphone (v2.2 and higher) of Android Tablet (v3.0 and higher) one can access and control playlists creation and distribution to an unlimited number of players all over the globe. Also all monitoring features are available so network- and playerstatus can be monitored at all times.

High Tech Campus Eindhoven makes a smart choice!

Nuenen, Wednesday October 26Th,


Campus Site Management and Signips signed an agreement for the start of CorporateTV at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.


A smart choice made by the management of the smartest square kilometer of the Netherlands and the smartest region of the world.


Signips and the High Tech Campus will work closely together to provide state of the art technology and content for their CorporateTV; “You must understand that 100+ High Tech companies visit the site on a daily basis. They expect no less but the best at all times.”

Taking care of a Brand

The last few years, brands have changed in the light of the Web 2.0. The social aspects of it increased the number of “touch points” of a brand almost to infinity. Buying credibility through adds and commercials just don’t do it anymore. Thanks to Social Media the crowd matters more then ever. How do you have a conversation with a crowd? You don’t and you can’t. So, your goal would be to create a set of guidelines for your Brand: the “DO THE RIGHT THING” guidelines. Everyone in your organization should know, understand and recognize these guidelines. They need to believe the statements of the guidelines and act accordingly. Your inbound communication should target the guidelines as well as your corporate identity. Ethics, moral, authenticity, they are all essential in the process of creating brand ambassadors. Unlike a few years ago, you can’t fool anybody anymore.


It is very important that you understand that the perception of your brand is created externally. The CROWD OWNS your brand. What THEY say about your brand is true, not what YOU say about it.


With your “Do The Right Thing Guidelines” you also want to involve your strategic partners and let them know what your brand is all about. Creating ambassadors is very important. You know you can’t control the crowd, but you can create ambassadors amongst your business relations and suppliers.

If you like the subject feel free to visit the site of my friend Steve Farnsworth who has some excellent Blog posts about the matter.

With regard to the great visualization: Some time ago I found it on the internet. I noticed that there a many look alikes. I am not sure who is the creator so I can not give this person credit for it. I would like to give this “Nomen Nescio” all credits for this visualization!

There is a lot that can be said about the way people communicate. We all know that our interactions are most effective when we meet in person. This is not always possible and we’re used to communicate in a lot of different ways. Some are effective, some are not so effective.

By nature, humans are used to process visual images, we are wired to translate everything we experience into images that make sense out of all our sensoritory input. To put it blunt: we’re on the lookout for danger. Creating a platform to make a message sticky is as old as mankind. Befor there was writing we told stories to teach. Fairytales where very effective in teaching our youngsters about values and ethics. And for a good reason: we love a good story! This video shows Storytelling vs. Corporate Speak by Lou Hoffman of Ishmael’s corner

That puts (moving) images right on top of our wish list if we want to get a message across.

Besides video we also need content. Our goal would be, to present a message (content) that is sticky enough to be remembered. Easy enough you say? Wrong! In internal communication efforts you often see very abstract forms of communication. Straight foward and often to the point but also dull, boring and not appealing. Chip and Dan Heath came up with the SUCCESs formula to rate the Sickyness of a message. In short, for any message to stick it needs to be:

1. Simple
2. Unexpected
3. Credible
4. Concrete
5. Emotional
6. Story

You can use this as a tool: if your message complies with 3 or more of these conditions, your message will stick! Try it.

Social Media is in essence a form of communication between people.

You can only be successful with Social Media if you’re able to act as a person (= Human Being). A lot of rules that apply for social human interaction also apply for Social media. To do so we all have our references in terms of values and opinions.

It’s safe to assume that in a short period of time you can go to college to study Social Media. Already many out there are working very hard to understand and theorize Social Media. This is off course a good thing. SM is here to stay and it redefines the way we communicate. It will not replace other means to communicate but it will be additional to them. We do need to understand its power as an individual but also as part of a social community/company.

Compared to tradditional communication two differences stand out:

• What you say on the internet, stays on the internet. You can’t “erase” or “undo” a posting.
• You are not addressing a single person but a crowd.

Already, there is enough written about Social Media to fill a small library. A search on Twitter for #Socialmedia will result in more links to great blogs than you’d be able to read. It’s almost as if we, for the first time in human existence, have discovered the wonders of communication and need to describe and define all of its aspects. We then need to define the “rules of engagement” and teach/learn them.

Clever peeps out there (creators) already gained great authority on Social Media matters. But looking closely it’s as if they are running way ahead, leaving the rest of us behind with only their latest findings and unable to catch up with them. They are no longer contributing to your need for information with regard to the implementation of a Social Media plan for your company. The knowledge gap grows.

These creators often still struggle with some basic rules for interaction. They need to come up with a definition for things as “Authenticity”, “Transparency” and “Sincerity” in order to get a clear view on how to deal with “Values”, “Appreciation”, “Listening”, Respect”, “Honesty” and more. All this have meaning to a single person but how do you cope with them from a corporate viewpoint?

Then, there is no such thing as transparency or authenticity.

From a Social Media viewpoint, a corporate is merely a group of individuals sharing some common interests. A lot of interests that are understood to be common or in fact should be common are not common at all. People working together in a system based on a hierarchical division of tasks and responsibilities seldom have a lot of common interests. They put themselves first and the company second. Everything they do is filtered through their set of values. This is our nature, we merely try to act in our best interest.

The rules

These rules may be useful:

Foremost it’s important to create company awareness about your company and brand values and ethics.

Make sure your Social Media policy is in place and known to all. Everyone needs to be aware of the do’s and don’ts with regard to Social Media.

Remember: You do not have to be “all good” or “saints” as long as you’re upfront about it. Errors will be made and that’s not such a big deal as long you are honest about it and try to reolve issues on Social Media.

Setup shop for intensive search and tracking systems for content and context.

Start with Social Media by using dedicated corporate accounts. Make sure more than one person is entitled to these accounts (in case of personnel shift or holidays) and that they are empowered to act.

Engage now! Not participating doesn’t mean that discussions don’t take place. What would you rather have: you not knowing what your customer thinks of your product, company, brand or service? Or you not being able to engage with them to turn a bad thing into a good thing?

Don’t forget: “On the internet all hysteria is mass hysteria!”