The Long Tail is in the Zeitgeist (Part Deux)

A couple of weeks ago I wrote:

We are fast becoming a culture that is fascinated with cultivating a personalized experience at the intersections of every possible niche market or experience; this desire has penetrated far deeper into the zeitgeist than I think we realize.

What I failed to say was: in addition to being pulled into the niche by citizens, bureaucracies are facing tremendous pressure to be in the niches by their workforce. Today, I want to finish what I started by exploring three different examples: innovation, social media, and work-life balance.


Innovation

Make no mistake, bureaucracies are 20th century organizations with 21st century challenges. So is it any wonder we make mistakes?

Take the common approach to innovation for example. How many organizations have innovation groups or secretariats? Making innovation a business line rather than your core business is one of the biggest reasons that the pursuit of innovation usually fails. The reality is that the size of the system ultimately undermines its ability to be innovative.

While it may be true that a large enterprise will never be as agile as eight people in a room with a coffee pot, it is also true that if we are to have any hope at fostering innovation we should acknowledge the fact that innovation may not be something that can be built into traditional hierarchical structures.

Perhaps we should focus less on formality and whether or not a particular innovation is scalable across the enterprise but rather ensure that we accord ample flexibility to our human resources so they can be innovative in their own right.


Social Media

The way in which government agencies are approaching social media is, to my mind, generally short-sighted. The overwhelming trend is to use social media as a way to disseminate information about the organization and it’s policies and programs to the public.

By now anybody who has spent any time in the space is familiar with the criticism that social media isn't a broadcast medium in so much as it is a conversation.

But, have we wrongly favoured a line of reasoning that privileges the narrow use of social media for official external communications over the widespread use of these technologies for less formal communications between and among staff?

I think we have. I also think this is precisely why we see departments with Twitter accounts blocking Twitter for its employees or departments with Facebook pages blocking access to Facebook. In short we have adopted an institution-centric model for social media rather than an employee-centric one.

I can't say for certain but I have the feeling that this may be partially a by-product of the fact that communications and marketing professionals are leading the bureaucratic charge towards the use of social media; communicators who are charged with communicating what their departments are up to.

Before moving to the next example, I think it is worth mentioning that one of the defining properties of the long tail is that the total niche of the distribution rivals the total mainstream and that the larger the organization, the flatter the distribution becomes; both of which are tantamount to evidence that we do in fact have much more to gain from diffusing these technologies informally across the organization than we do from formally centralizing them.


Work-Life Balance

Nowhere is the tension between the generic approach of the machinery and the desire for specificity more apparent than in the management of our human resources. People are desperate for autonomy, mastery and purpose but instead get telework policies and casual fridays. It's no wonder employee engagement is on the decline.


It's about relevance

If our public institutions are to have any chance at success, if they are to remain relevant in changing times, then they (we!) must get better at satisfying niche demands from both the outside and inside of our organization.

But make no mistake, this movement, from what government does to what government is being asked to do, will be painful.

How painful?

Well, I suppose that is a matter of how well equipped our organizations are to:

1. create an environment conducive to what Vint Cerf calls "permissionless innovation";
2. diffuse communications technologies and extend trust to use them; and
3. allow people to exercise greater autonomy over their work.

Simply put, any organization tightening the managerial reins in this environment will experience more tension than those loosening them; and I've argued before that in a hyper connected age, this will undoubtedly effect the flow of talent between and among organizations.

Food for thought.


Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.ca subscribe/connect

The Long Tail is in the Zeitgeist

I’m a fan of the long tail.

You may recall that I’ve already mapped both internal communications and the public sector adage of “fearless advice and loyal implementation” along the long tail distribution; and while those maps have value, they are just a subset of examples of a much larger phenomenon.

We are fast becoming a culture that is fascinated with cultivating a personalized experience at the intersections of every possible niche market or experience; this desire has penetrated far deeper into the zeitgeist than I think we realize.

I think we understand that as a consumer I want niche products, but where we fail is that we often overlook the fact that as a citizen that consumer will want a similar experience. By that I mean the citizen-consumer wants (expects!) access to niche government programs or services that meet their particular needs, and want (expects!) to access them as easily as they Google something.

In short, here is how I see the movement.

I have a number of other thoughts on this but have to leave it here for now; more soon on this I promise.

[PS - If you were at Marcom and attended my session (thank you!) you can view my Prezi here, or grab my raw speaking notes here]

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

The Long Tail of Internal Communications

I assume you are already familiar with the long tail; if so proceed directly to flipping through my slides below, if not it might be worth reading the Wikipedia article, the book by Chris Anderson, or watching this video by Clay Shirky, as the long tail forms the basis of my entire line of reasoning below.

The Tail

The bulk of communication within the organization - perhaps its very life blood - is informal. If you look at the examples I've charted you begin to understand how the long tail grows as new communication tools emerge.

No one would ever think of trying to enforce an approvals process on face to face peer-to-peer communication. If someone told you had to pre-screen your phone calls or emails through communications you'd probably laugh. Yet the tone is rather different when we approach the confluence of corporate intranets and enterprise wikis. At the epicenter, where formal and informal collide, there is great confusion. A confusion that paralyzes staff, creates division and sucks productivity.

My hope is that visualizing internal communications along the long tail helps people understand that internal communications happens along a continuum, and that continuum shifts as the tool set grows. Once we understand that, we understand that the role of communications shouldn't be simply to maintain the integrity of formal communication channels but to also ensure that people are communicating effectively within the organizations informal channels as well.


The Emerging Role for Communicators

I see three very specific roles for which modern communicators: (1) provide guidance and strategic direction; (2) steward modernization ; and (3) employee engagement Moreover these three roles occur at very specific parts of the organization: (1) policy; (2) culture; and (3) collaborative technologies. Essentially, this is the emerging role for communicators:




BTW - if anyone is interested, I have developed a 3 hour training session around this conceptual framework for internal communicators.