THE PARTY LINE

Conference calls get our goats.

First, the dogs barking.  Vacuuming in the next room.  Or other distractables, like e-appliances, overloud conversations, random paper shuffling, texting.

Second come the introductions.  But only once.  [It’s hard to voice-ID during a business conversation if you’ve heard the name and the voice just one time.]

Third:  The sidebars, the jokes (when you’re not there), the awkward gaps.

Got the [silent] picture?  There seems to be a real need for a uniform manifesto for conference calls, with everyone agreeing and signing up, and with rules posted online and in our faces.

Sure, we’ve all been guilty, at one time or another, of multitasking, checking emails or smartphones when we think no one’s watching.  Still, since a meeting is a meeting is a meeting, we need to get things done.

Here are our demands:

• Appoint a moderator who’s sensitive enough to tease people out of their shells and strong enough to just say no to monopolizers.
• Stick to the topic – and to the time.  We all have other things to do.
• Start right away.  And that doesn’t mean 11 on the dot; it means 10:57 am.
• Pay attention.  Though email use can’t be monitored, it’s not hard to tell when folks are following the agenda.  Or not.
• Test the technology … ahead of time.  Not on our watches.

Researchers state that business’ spend on conference calls will grow 9.6 percent yearly through 2017, with 65 percent of those being audio.  Being active and good listeners (and participants) simply equates to good corporate ­citizenship … and good communications.

BIRDS DO IT MORE. THEY SHOULD

Call us the “reluctants.”

A few months ago, we were gently persuaded by colleagues to establish a Twitter handle.  [Facebook and Instagram, to us, are very personal spaces; we don’t use either for business.]

We did.  And promptly forgot about it.

Which is why, when more and more social media experts are shouting that, in this job-hungry market, seekers need to actively manage their personal brand via Web sites and postings and group contributions to drive personal visibility, we politely say “humbug.”

First, Google knows you … intimately.  As do the other search engines.  Chances are, whatever you say about yourself in an e-space will have already shown up.

Second, we truly get the need to social-media-ize.  For business, that is.  LinkedIn pages and postings, Twitter notes about events and ideas, Instagram visuals:  All good, if they’re done with care and without braggadocio.  Nothing annoys us more than egregious publicity for publicity’s sake.  [Many celebrities practice it; why should we?]

Third, it’s about value.  Got a clarifying comment for a discussion or a footnote about certain references?  Add it.  Want to talk about your expertise in a non-promotional fashion?  Those seven to ten critical steps or three to five “gotta dos” about a hot topic make for a great blog or mini-thought paper.

Finally, Mom always told us to speak only when we had something to say.  That’s awfully good advice today.

MAKING STORIES MATTER

Every person has a story.

So, too, every corporation.

What will make the difference, as marketers and communicators insist, is how we articulate and tell the story.

Of late, we’ve been mesmerized by Marshall Ganz, a lecturer at Harvard’s Kennedy School and a not-necessarily-well-known labor organizer, who worked for the likes of Cesar Chavez, SNCC (a Boomer alert!), behind the scenes at President Obama’s first election campaign, and other transformational initiatives.  His story point of view relies on three - and only three - elements:  the story of self (why we’re called on to do what we do), the story of us (what the organization has been called to do, a/k/a vision, mission and values), and the story of now – our challenges, our choices, and our hopes.

It’s a powerful angle, these three elements, one that many message platforms and business narratives don’t capture simply enough.  Which begs the question, or many of them:

              How often do we edit our stories – explaining how we are finding a better path?

              Are our message platforms as powerful as the real story we can tell?

Do we, can we thoroughly explain what it means to be our organization, looking to the future through our past and present lenses?

If a story is intended to help people cope with change, eliminate the FUDs (fear, uncertainties, and doubts), uncomplicate the complex, and persuade, then there’s a real mandate to objectively review our stories often.  After all, change happens both inside and outside our worlds; we need to make sense of those events and teach each other what they mean through our stories.

No question, it takes real courage to edit a decades-old narrative, refreshing it to reflect the here and now, with authenticity and candor.  The questions then lie with you, our readers:  Are you ready for that challenge?  And how difficult has that path been?

PSST, PASS IT ON: Whaddayou watching?

By the Keurig machines.  Over cubicles.  Via Facebook or texting.

Today, everyone wants to be first ‘in’ on the latest and hottest television show – whether viewercast on cable, Web, networks, YouTube or other talking animated media.  Now, PBS’ Downton Abbey is almost passé, with Monday Mornings and Girls vying for the lead [depending on what kind of viewer you are].  Or it could be seasonal sports events or reality show suspense, usually communicating the most recent iterations in the challenge or drama.

That yen to be vision-trendy started, critics and pundits insist, with HBO’s The Sopranos (though we contend it really caught on with Mad Men).  Or fueled by the amazing trajectory of YouTube, now calculating four billion hours of eyeballs a month. 

Whatever.  More important is the convenience of choosing to listen to talented artists and intriguing series at our convenience, wherever, whenever.  There, the thanks is due to all of the above:  Folks like Dustin Hoffman and Kevin Spacey and Maggie Smith vying for small screen opportunities.  The at-your-fingertips access of old-fashioned audiovisual media, on new-fashioned instruments, from smartphones and iPads/Nooks to, maybe, Google glasses in the near future.  And the prolixity of channels, with Netflix now challenging traditional broadcast and cable TV in the production of original content.

But the whispering about watching is what’s got us thinking.  It’s more than just a conversation insert, like “what did you do Saturday night?”  It’s grown to infuse and infect our activities – perhaps in generating content à la reality shows or creating a pastiche of the 1970s’ ad era in presentations.  It has, in short, got us talking and thinking, across generations, spanning cultures and attitudes.  It represents, in short, exactly the kind of ideas we might want to adopt for internal corporate dialogues, a way to help ensure our business messages go viral in the right ways.

“If you don’t stop watching the idiot box,” as teacher Mom and retailer Dad used to warn us, “your mind won’t develop.”

Not.