Engagement & perspective. Two of my favourite words.
Joining such a specialist tech co 3.5 years ago, filled a marketeer like myself with professional insecurities. “What is SVN?” “Selenium tests – how do they work?” “Which environment are we testing on before a deploy – our UAT or theirs?” had been uttered (some say screeched yet I firmly disagree) by myself on numerous occasions in the early stages of my tech career.
I feared I was grasping at straws by continually, some would argue annoyingly, beating the “but…but… but…what does the client need?” drum to distract from my lack of technical knowledge! It took 2.5 years before I accepted that others truly appreciated that engagement was the Yin to the immense technical Yang we already had.
Building a culture of engagement from numerous perspectives isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. Engaging your people in terms of aligning them with your corporate vision is one thing. Providing them with the tools they need to facilitate this and engage with each other is another.
The Facebook effect means our working lives are now almost as ‘social’ as our personal lives; the lines of distinction increasingly fading. We’re increasingly picky and get frustrated at having to wade through information that we have zero interest in. “ugh, who on earth put that there?” We expect convenience and simplicity at our fingertips “How many clicks?”. We need to access information from more than one device, while on the move “I’d rather lose my wallet than my iPhone & wifi connection”. You’re smiling because it’s true.
The intranet is the heartbeat of an organisation, and they’re becoming sexier – finally being appreciated for being more than the place to download more than an expense form or to check out the lunch menu. Yep, I said it. Intranets can be sleek and sexy. Disseminating large volumes of information to diverse groups of people, keeping them up to date, organised, connected to one another and on ‘corporate form’ is an increasing challenge, made more so thanks to the prevalence of social interaction. And no, I’m not suggesting sticking a Twitter or LinkedIn icon onto a page makes an application social.
Content targeting, personalisation, blogs, forums, following capabilities, again I’ll say it – The Facebook effect, has spoiled us and we expect the same snazzy capabilities in the office.
Thankfully, it’s finally here…
