Content curation is the new sexy buzzword on the block.  It’s popping up all over the place with the recent fervour around pinterest firmly securing it as a skillset or a capability that may need further consideration. I imagine the origins of content curation  lies with librarians, gallery directors and editors, but it is now permeating into the language of marketers, and corporate communicators. I would suggest that those engaged in change communication would benefit from a better understanding.

Content curation is defined as the act of discovering, gathering, and presenting digital content that surrounds specific subject matter. This month, Communication World has a feature on the topic. One of the featured authors Rohit Bhargava in 2009 defined a Content Curator as:

Some-one whose job it is not to create more content, but to make sense of all the content that others are creating. To find the best and most relevant content and bring it forward.

The first article “A matter of substance” by Shel Holz, looks at the rise of a content strategy, what to curate and how to curate. The second, “How curation could save the internet (and your brand) by Bhargava, identifies five basic models for how content curation efforts can be structured.

How do these concepts apply to change management?

Why should change communicators be paying attention?

Well on one recent engagement, the in-house comms advisor suggested that communicating the changes to all of the identified stakeholders would be very hard. They all used varying custom communications outlets; it would require a fragmented approach.  I didn’t disagree… if you assumed that the change communicator’s role is to feed information to the various audiences in a medium that is preferred.

But what if the change communicator put on the hat of the content curator?

Change communication would then involve a content strategy. Making the information about the changes easily searchable, shareable, categorised, and findable.  A daily or weekly digest, which made it easy for all of the stakeholders to find what they would like.

If the underlying organisational systems support and promote multi media content, then it should not be too difficult.

First steps?

Determining what to curate  – what content currently exists, or would be easy to generate around the change to be implemented? What are the sources that could be used? (YouTube, newsletter, intranet, SharePoint, industry articles, online news, company website, employee blogs.

Do you need an enterprise approach to content curation?

One of the first things change and communication professionals do when we enter organisations going through change is to establish a change radar or calendar. Map the competing projects, initiatives, changes being introduced that may negatively impact our ability to share information.

Depending on how large and complex the organisation is the role of content curator in change may need to be an enterprise role – one that has oversight of all the changes coming through so that the organising taxonomy makes sense.  An employee receiving 12 different aggregation emails will be just as overloaded as the employee receiving the fragmented yet tailored pieces of information.

Bhargava’s five models provide further value if applied to change management

1)   Aggregation – curating the most relevant information about a particular change in a single location

2)   Distillation – pulling out the most simple and important messages within the change agenda

3)   Elevation – curating by identifying a larger trend or insights from smaller daily musings (eg the “small wins & snowball “ approach of change)

4)   Mashups – unique, curated juxtapositions where content is merged to create a new point of view (fabulous way of embedding culture change and supporting behaviour change or highlighting the gap analysis)

5)   Chronology – brings together historical information to show an evolving understanding (the change journey?)

I’m not suggesting that change communicators throw out their repertoire of tools, tactics, tried and true. But perhaps, thinking like a content curator might yield a different outcome? What do you think? Share your thoughts…

Dust off your networking boots, thoughts and opinions and get ready to join IABC Victoria for our first Be Heard event of the year on Tuesday February 21 at The Wheeler Centre.

Lachlan Drummond – who leads the Melbourne office of Newspoll - is a master of establishing facts and interpreting data that has influenced decision making at many of Australia’s leading organisations throughout his career.  Research is increasingly being used to inform the media agenda, and communicators now have access to a broad range of DIY online tools.

A must for all professional communicators, Lachlan will lead a discussion on the art of influence through research drawing on insights from behind the political polling scenes at Newspoll, to case studies on research commissioned purely as a PR tool, the pros and cons of DIY research, as well as a story-telling approach that gets ideas over line.

A few of the topics we are set to cover include:

-          What does research bloke know about communication?

-          Current trends in research and the implications for professional communicators?

-          What it’s worth? The merits of using free online tools vs investing in a market research partner

-          What collection methods work best for your audience?

-          Strategies for extracting quality data

-          Packaging your results and messages for the board room, employees and other stakeholders

Lachlan Drummond is Group Account Director and Head of Strategic Research at Newspoll, and is an accomplished public speaker. He has over 15 years of experience in marketing and market research, previously lectured in marketing communications at Monash University and was a former Treasurer of the Victorian Committee & Qualified Practising Market Researcher (QPMR).

Join us from 6-8pm on Tuesday February 21 in the Workshop Space at The Wheeler Centre for a lively discussion over drinks and cocktail catering by The Moat.

Members: $45 Non-members: $65

Click here to register >>

…the building of a community of change managers

The Change Management Professionals hit a major milestone this month with reaching 500 members on the LinkedIn group. I’ve always been a fan of quality over quantity but as one of the co-founders and the owner of the linked-in group I found this number pretty satisfying.

I thought I would take the time to capture some of the observations and learning on the growth of this group with the benefit of hindsight as it may assist others.

The beginning

The Change Management Professionals started after Kym De Lany and I met at a Change Communication Masterclass I was running for the Ark Group in February 2009.  Both working in change in Melbourne we bonded over a common sense of isolation  — change managers often work alone, under darkness, and in the background. After some conversations with two of Kym’s colleagues (Verity Byth and Karen Walker) we decided to see if there was enough interest in a semi-formal community of managers.  Verity, Kym and I then went on to workshop what that would look like, how it could run, and what the value proposition was.  In hindsight this day was incredibly valuable.

Lesson 1: Prepare the ground, work through the foundation stuff

Looking around

Of course there were other models to look at, we all had been involved in other professional associations. We contacted the then NSW branch of the Change Management Institute, but they were reluctant to talk to us at that stage so we pushed on. Nevertheless comparing our vision to other associations and clubs was important in establishing the boundaries of what we would do, and what we would not.

Lesson 2: Research similar entities – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

And we’re off…

From there we came up with a relatively simple plan of action. Construct a survey that would generate content of value to those who work in change, those who employ change managers, and those who broker that relationship.

Lesson 3: Offer value

We did this in a very cost effective way – Survey Monkey and our little black books! Then we organised a meet up at a CBD venue, with bar snacks provided to launch the findings and initiate group discussions on the findings.

Lesson 4: Keep it simple

It was not polished – the venue was humble and a little quirky, (but free), I put forward a modest catering budget and sponsored the food, and the facilitation a little adhoc.  But it worked.  In the absence of anything else like it we attracted 35 people working in change and had fantastic conversations. It’s the Angry Birds model – Aim, Fire, Adjust (HT Pete Williams of Deloitte Digital).

In May 2009 we started a blog, and then in June 2009, a LinkedIn group for an online home and blog for the purpose of disseminating information and developing the community. Providing an online home.  There were teething problems with this.  People who work in change are not necessarily early adopters of technology and regular users of LinkedIn. I was also heavily committed with IABC Victoria and my own business, so updating another blog as well as managing the LinkedIn group became unrealistic. So we dropped the blog, and maintained the LinkedIn group.

Lesson 5: Again Aim, Fire, Adjust

Once we relied solely on the LinkedIn group for publishing details of upcoming meet ups, we found that numbers dwindled. It tested the quality v quantity belief. Personally, provided I had one other person to have a good conversation with about what was happening in the change space I saw value. But I understood that a critical mass is useful. By that point I had been using Campaign Monitor for my own Change Nugget series, and it is low cost and super easy to use. So I adapted the template to use for the group and event notifications.  We let the members know that if they wanted to be told when and where meet ups were then they would need to provide an email address.  I also set up an eventbrite account – again, free, easy to use. The act of getting a ticket via eventbrite bolstered the attendance numbers. People could see upfront who else was going, and were automatically reminded of their commitment to attend the day before.  It was a bricoleur approach – use the tools at hand, to build the community. We know regularly see around 25 – 30 attend our in person meet ups.

Lesson 6:  Build your community through bricolage

Our initial approach was to chose a theme that was topical, start with an ice-breaker, and then facilitate small group discussions that come back to whole of group de-brief. Kym and I actively encouraged others to pick up the facilitation baton and be responsible for organising and managing the evening. This has been challenging – let’s face it, facilitating a discussion with 20-30 of your peers who do the same thing for a living can be confronting. We have been very careful to stress that facilitators may choose to run the evening any way they please –it’s a great opportunity for all of us attending to learn alternative methods. But sometimes it still takes courage. Regardless of intent, we have found that we do need to provide ‘volunteers’ with some structure for them to feel free to adapt to their style.

Lesson 7 : Semi structures provide opportunity for emergence and great discussion

Identity & self-organisation

Often as not the icebreaker has included some element of why are you here. It’s in the conversations of sense making that the identity of the group has emerged. The discussions of what it is and what it is not. As E.M Forster once wrote – “ How will I know what I think, until I see what I say?”

We started with three assertions:

1)   The group is inclusive; it’s not just for bona fide change managers (indeed that is a highly contested identity), but also for all of those who work in change.

2)   The expertise is in the room, we don’t need to be talked at, and if we have great questions that elicit shared knowledge.

3)   When we share our experience in change, the collective practice of change management improves.

These assertions have really resonated with people. People often come to the group the first time and voice “I’m not a real change manager” but they often have stories that enrich all of our practice. They also often tired of sales pitches, and self professed gurus getting up and talking at them in the name of professional development. By focusing on the resonant attributes of the group, people are more willing to share. They feel safe to provide warts and all accounts of change. They take more risks in disclosing elements of their professions that they are uncomfortable with – and within this practice comes great learning.

Lesson 8: let your community define you, they contribute more when this is the case

Sponsors & Patronage

After the first two meet-ups, we attracted the patronage of SHK. They have been outstanding as patrons – they provide their boardroom and meeting rooms, and put on wine and nibblies.  They have never asked for anything in return, simply preferring to invest in the community. It makes sense for them – as recruiters they place change managers and the better the community the more satisfied the clients. We often wish more recruiters would come along to participate and build their own change management knowledge – one of the frequent frustrations is that the recruiter is the broker of the engagement and the organisation or client rarely understands change well enough to know what they actually need. We need the recruiters advocating on our behalf – and ensuring that position descriptions reflect the real role. Most recently Ampersand have sponsored the first meet up in Sydney and are keen to get further involved. This is a promising development and we hope that we can find a way to work together that offers supplementary value.

Lesson 9  – there will be people who want to help you, take it!

Command and control v emergence

I think one of the most interesting aspects has been the tension between command and control (running a group, initiating stuff, setting rules) and emergence (if the community isn’t asking for it, or initiating discussions, then it’s not up to Kym and I to organise it!) People who work in change like to control. The notion of emergence can be unnerving. The LinkedIn group is a great example – I have stuck with insisting that community can determine its norms and behaviours on the group. I may not always like how some members use it, but provided another member provides feedback it is of value, and then the community has the final say.  As administrator I have at times given others a push to jump on and say something, but often this is because I cringe at the thought of my face /name dominating the group wall. But I do think it takes a long time to build a community, so for now, as one of the co-founders I take pleasure in sitting back and watching the small steps and new voices emerge. I have faith that the community will self-regulate.

Lesson 10: Those who like to control can let go ; – )

So there you go – I hope the lessons are of some use to you. If you are interested in reading more about the group – here are the write-ups of a few of our meetings below. There has been a great range of topics suggested recently on the linked group, so I would say there would be another meet up happening soon. If you want to be on the distribution list for notifications drop me a line and I’ll sort it.

•  Buzzword Bingo for Change Managers
• 5 signs of good health in change projects
• Change Sponsor Engagement – Getting them to the altar
• The tribe has spoken

This post has been brewing for a while. It’s a culmination of a few years of using social media channels now, observing the changes in the marketing, communication and HR arenas and a growing frustration in observing companies making social snafus who simply should know better. The recent publishing of the Australian Top Ten PR Disasters, by PR watchdog and blog site PRdisasters.com,  there’s a very short list of factors that ensure you remain off these lists. Enough is enough!

I’m using the term social business in the way that IBM does.

A Social Business is one that embraces and cultivates a spirit of collaboration and community throughout its organization—both internally and externally.

It’s a deliberate use of term. I think we have moved on from social media marketing or social media use in HR. I think there is a growing recognition that our organisations are hyper-connected and operate within a social ecosystem. Yes, of course, organisations have always existed within a social ecosystem, but I don’t think this has been widely recognised by leaders and management.

The inhabitant of this ecosystem are many and varied and all have the potential to influence the outcomes of our organisations. And while we love to take the technological determinist view that the platforms like twitter, blogging, FB, yammer and youtube are enabling a new type of organisation, I’m just not sure that is enough to explain this shift.

Technology escalates the move to social business, but it is an ethos in operation, and complicit understanding of what it means to be social, that relationships matter and small actions can have massive impact, that is driving the move to social business.

The social ecosystem can be a dangerous place to exist. Those active in social media can be a ferocious and short tempered lot. They are quick to pounce, swift in ridicule and slow to praise. Somewhat unsocial really. It’s a behaviour that doesn’t get rewarded in the workplace, and I guess we can blame the immediacy of the “upload” button. If you felt so strongly to write a condescending snark of a letter about a company to your newspaper of choice you would have to take time to construct it and edit it to ensure that it had a chance of getting through the editor’s filter. And it may not see the light of print.

It’s no wonder that our companies and organisations are slow and reluctant to adopt social business principles. But here’s the rub. With or without social media technologies, if your product or services are lacking, people are already talking about you. And to a lot of people.  Once upon a time we use to trot out the “research shows that one unhappy customer will tell 7 – 9 people” in marketing and customer service seminars in the early 90’. With or without iphones, your employees are going home or meeting friends in pubs and talking about their their place of work – the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Whether you like it or not you are already a social business.  What is left to determine is how good a social business you are.

The question that companies and organisations need to ask in 2012 is how much better could we be if….

• Each employee were able to be an active brand advocate within their social circles
• Our pool of candidates for recruiting was expanded to those within social networks
• Our marketing did not need high cost above the line advertising
• Our product and service development was informed by consumer research without the costly consultancies
• Our customer services teams could respond to complaints in real time and prevent escalation or snarky stewing…

For some, the answer is a lot better. Others have a captive market and it is unlikely to make much of a difference.

You also need to ask yourself how worse could we do…

• If the firewalls came down and employees could access social networking sites
• If our customers had a space to voice their disappointment
• We lost control of our key benefits and features and gave it over those who really like talking about us

I would argue that if you are truly fearful of these options as an organisation, then you have greater things to worry about than becoming relevant in your business practice.  But I do understand the nervous twitch and the paralysis by analysis. That said, there are four elements that will make it the transition to being a social business easier.

1. A permissive culture that rewards risk, innovation and exploration
2. A recognition that your organisation is made of highly interconnected social paths, and the boundary between inside and outside is highly permeable.
3. A champion, a coach, a mentor or consultant who can translate and ease your into understanding the new ways of working and how you can harness them
4. A good dollop of common sense.

Without these four elements, you’re possibly going to be on the receiving end of the snarkier side of the social media ecosphere and if everyone unplugged, there would still be some-one telling another seven people about you. If you look at this years’s top ten PR disasters pretty much all of them could have been avoided with the application of the four factors above.

As per previous years, I end this one thinking about 2012.

Rather than themes and qualities, or wish lists for Santa, this year I am thinking about the notion of catapults.

2012 might be a year of “Catapult”. Think about it. Where would you be if you ‘catapulted’?

• work
• relationships
• health
• finance
• spirit

Where would you land?

No planning. No incremental steps. No path mapped out.

Just pull back. Say no.

Just hold.

Hold.

And breathe.

Be.

And build.

Build.

Observe the tension.

Take in.

Listen.

and

LET GO

Amplify!

Fly

Where did you land? Might see you there in 2012?

in your business to make the biggest difference to achieving your organisational goals? Great question hey?

Today I attended a terrific Corporate Culture Roundtable led by Carolyn Taylor, founder of the Walking the Talk methodology and including three of the Walking the Talk accredited practitioners. Walking the Talk is an interesting methodology in that takes the theoretical concepts of organisational culture (for example Schein, Quinn & Rohrbaugh, Cameron and Quinn) and translates into a rigorous and practical methodology for changing corporate culture (hence, “walking” the talk).

Quinn and Roehbaugh developed the Competing Values Framework,  which measures an organisation’s effectiveness as defined by the values that are privileged, and therefore the dominant culture.

The values measured in the diagnostic include:

• Flexibility v control
• Internal v external focus
• Adaptability & readiness v stability
• Growth, acquisition, resource support v information management
• Productivity & efficiency  v cohesion and morale
• Goal setting and planning v human resources and training

In Cameron and Quinn’s later book on changing an organisational culture, four archetypes are produced based on the CVF diagnostic and can be used to describe organisations. The four cultural archetypes are:

• Clan – people focused, employee relations
• Adhocracy – innovation & entrepreneurship
• Market – competitive, customer centric
• Hierarchy – Bureaucratic, process driven

Taylor in her book “Walking the Talk” provides six archetypes to consider in measuring movement from an existing culture to a preferred culture.

• Achievement
• Customer centric
• One team
• Innovation
• People first
• Greater good.

I was particularly cheered to see the Greater Good cultural archetype emerge. Having earlier done work with organisational culture researcher Associate Professor Cameron Newton within The Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies we had observed that nonprofits do not always fit the CVF well, and we had started working on instruments that recognised the value sets that are manifested in the Greater Good culture.

I think the most inspiring or exciting aspect of this morning’s workshop was hearing the Walk the Talk practitioners discuss culture change differently to how I have heard it discussed over many years. There tends to be an assumption that organisations can or should shift from one culture to another with little consideration of the implications for subcultures within, or the blunt force required to enforce a new culture. Today I heard a more tempered discussion about bolstering elements of the preferred cultural mix, the importance of honouring the legacy of past cultural foundations, and the need for aligning with strategy and focusing on the one behaviour that will most represent the culture that will drive performance of the strategy.  It was a more nuanced discussion and one that provides confidence in the Walk the Talk practitioners.

A very big thank you to one of the Walking the Talk practitioners Grant Downie of Dynamic Strategies for the invitation to attend and your continued investment in the change management community.

So thinking about your organisation – what one behaviour could be changed that would make the biggest difference to achieving your organisation’s goals?

Leading through Change: How to Change when Change is Hard

Join best-selling author, Professor Chip Heath in this half-day workshop and gain a practical understanding on how to become a leader who can effectively drive change by influencing employees to make a switch in their behaviours. Designed to produce the maximum amount of learning within a short period of time, this seminar will be a hands-on, team-based event that will provide effective solutions to the management challenges facing Australian organisations.

Participants will learn to:

• gain a practical understanding of leading through the change process, and its impact on individuals, teams, and organisational dynamics
• explore the steps to successful large scale change implementation
• discover key elements to creating a culture of change
• challenge your leadership abilities to drive change initiatives to improve your client and associate impacts.

Seminar methodology

This workshop will weave through a good balance of concepts and theory with interactive activities. The approach of Professor Chip Heath is to:
• deliver the perfect balance between traditional and current approaches to leadership. Staying current with the most recognised thought leaders on change and continuously researching new philosophies and approaches Chip believes in delivering structured theory content to develop new skills
• make the connection between theory and real life experiences of each participant
• guide leaders to identify opportunities where they can apply the concepts discussed during the seminars
• highlight that learning is the development of new knowledge, skills, or attitudes resulting from a person’s interaction with their environment.

AIM members $525

Non-members $595

For more details click here.

If the Change Management Professionals are hosting an end-of-year event in Melbourne, why not also have a festive evening in Sydney?

The Change Management Professionals Group is flourishing so it’s time for the Sydney-Siders to meet face-to-face for a festive exchange!

Please join members of our Change Management Professionals network for an evening of sharing our stories of change and some holiday cheer.

There will be a gift exchange (ie. your business cards), so come equipped to put a card in everyone’s stocking.

Ampersand have kindly offered to provide nibbles and our first glass of pre-Xmas bubbles

(French of course)!
Where? The very lush Hemmesphere from 6-8pm on Thursday 1st December.

Please RSVP by Monday, November 28th by registering here. If you have any questions, please contact Jody Weir at 0452 070 456 or by email jodyweir@gmail.com.

Please forward this on to Sydney based colleagues who work in change and might be looking to share stories and build networks. They are more than welcome!

End of year networking and celebration

Come join a great community of communications professionals at The Mint Bar for a delightful outdoor summer barbecue and a few cheeky drinks!

$35 for members

$45 for non members.

Starts at 6.00 pm.

Relax, chill out and simply enjoy the company of your communications community.

  Register here to let us know you are coming

Keen to build on your crisis management skills?

Learn how to prepare for and respond to a communications crisis or conflict situation. Join us for lunch on November 18 and hear two of Australia’s leading media and crisis experts explore the lessons learned from high profile media dramas like the Qantas dispute, the GASP “bad service” email and the controversial Gunns Pulp Mill.

Barbara Sharp, the director and founder of Pax Populus has spent more than 20 years advising ministers, governments, statutory bodies and major corporations on how to prepare for and handle major public issues. Pax Populus is a communications and conflict resolution consulting company specialising in high stakes reputational risk projects. Barbara is experienced in issues management and crisis communications and has prepared numerous strategies for high-profile issues, often in the face of legal action and public interest campaigns.

Sam North is the media director at Ogilvy Public Relations. A former managing editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and Sun-Herald, Sam has more than 30 years experience in media and management. His role involves providing advice on media engagement, crisis and issues management. Past clients include Ford Australia, Microsoft, Toshiba and Unilever. Sam has prepared clients to handle both potentially damaging and advantageous circumstances including an appearance before a Senate committee and interviews with journalists on national television news programs.

Cost: $50 for IABC Victoria members, $75 for non members.

Register here