Website media sections are old news

Humans love news.

While the channels we use to find out the news continue to change, most of us still need our daily news fix - details on what is happening in our organisation, our country and our world.

When I first became involved with the online space in 1995, an 'about us', 'communications', 'PR', 'In the news' or 'Media' section was already a common feature for many websites. Placing media releases online made sense as a method of distributing and archiving an organisation's news.

Today it is accepted practice that organisations include their media releases on their website. In fact, not much has really changed. Journalists go to an organisation's website media section to review media releases, or subscribe to a 'push' service such as an email list or RSS feed to get alerted whenever something newsworthy is released.

Some organisations have added press kits, official photos and executive bios. A few include transcripts of speeches or video. However for the most part there's been little innovation compared to the rate of change for other aspects of websites.

This lack of innovation was brought home to me in an article by Maish Nichani of Pebbleroad, Designing the Online Newsroom.

The article questions the traditional role of a website media section, today's audience is much broader than journalists and the needs of the audience have changed.

It makes the point that a website media section is no longer simply a feeder for media - it is an online newsroom in its own right;

The newsroom section in corporate and government websites is not just about press releases anymore and nor is it just for the press. The demand by a broad spectrum of customers to be updated on what’s happening at every front of the organization combined with the organization's need to promote and educate customers about new directions has expanded the role of the newsroom.

Maish suggests that organisations rethink the purpose of their website media section to address and engage a broader audience, and provides some examples of the types of content and features leading organisations are adding, such as,

• In-depth features
• Latest news stories
• Interviews or customer stories
• Speeches
• Podcasts
• Blogs
• Videos

The article provides some excellent examples of organisations across the public and private sector who have developed online newsrooms, such as the United Nations, Nokia and Cisco.

It also provides a roadmap of how to rethink a media section and turn it into a more useful online newsroom.

I've passed on Maish's article to our media team to help support them in how they think about our online media section and are beginning to think myself about how we can use our media section more effectively to speak to our broader stakeholder and customer audience.

Read full post...

View summary...

Live call-in show discussing the strength of the relationship between internal communications commitment and intranet effectiveness

The online talkback radio program, The Hobson & Holtz Report, will be spending an hour discussing the topic of my blog post on the relationship between a strong commitment to internal communications and an effective intranet.

The program, presented by Shel Holz in California (US) and Neville Hobson in Berkshire (UK), discusses public relations and technology in a twice-weekly podcast.

The live call-in show discussing the topic of my post is set for Saturday, August 23, at 10 am US Pacific, 1 pm US Eastern, or 6 pm in the UK. - which makes it 3am in eastern Australia.

For those who do not want to get up at this time, it will be stored on their website for later listening, and I'll add a link from my blog.

Read full post...

View summary...

Using social networks to add value within organisations

I worry sometimes that MySpace and Facebook, despite their phenomenal growth over the last few years, may be actually slowing down the adoption of social networks within organisations.

By presenting social networks as largely involving frivolous, time-wasting tools to promote bands, buy and sell people's photos or exchange virtual gifts, these networks position social networks as playthings for young people rather than serious business tools.

Senior managers are not interested in introducing services which appear to be designed to distract staff from their jobs and add no measurable value.

I believe that social networks, applied correctly, are a powerful stimulus for organisational efficiency, information management, collaboration and innovation.

A few organisations already provide social networks for their staff and have realised real business value, as discussed in a ComputerWorld article I discovered via Victoria's fantastic eGovernment Resource Centre.

The article, Social networking behind the firewall, discusses the benefits being realised by Deloitte Consulting, IBM and Best Buys through their internal social networks.

Deloitte's D Street has supported the organisation in,

• Attracting and retaining talent
• Developing virtual teams (geographical collaboration)
• Building expert networks and communities of practice
• Sharing information horizontally across the organisation

IBM's Beehive has helped,

• Build stronger relationships between different teams and individual staff
• Extend internal dialogue and collaboration
• Foster innovative thinking

And BlueShirt Nation has allowed Best Buy to,

• Tap into marketing ideas across the organisation
• Refine organisational policies
• Shape strategic thinking
• Close the gap between frontline and corporate staff

In all of these cases substantial business value has been unlocked through a network that allowed staff to connect, self-organise and share.

Perhaps this is the message intranet managers need to communicate to help senior executives understand the business value of social networks, rather than focusing on the joys of Scrabulous.

Read full post...

View summary...

California launches a best practice government wiki

As reported in Government Technology, California has launched a best practices wiki for state employees.

It currently covers topics including:

• Healthcare in Prisons
• Customer Service
• Disaster Preparedness
• Education and Training
• Green California
• Human Resources
• Information Technology

The wiki can be accessed at bestpractices.ca.gov, although it requires a California email address to register.

There's an interesting write-up regarding the process used to create the wiki as a sample best practice.

I expect to see more of these types of self-regulating professional networks emerge across government over the next few years in support of moves to whole-of-government standards and to improve knowledge capture, transfer and management.

Read full post...

View summary...

Growth of social media use in US congress - is it sustainable?

Apparently 33 of the US's congressmen are now actively using the Twitter micro-blogging service to give timely updates of what is occurring on the floor of the US Congress.

From the article, Twitter takes flight in Congress, in Federal Computer Week, the service has facilitated real-time discussion with constituents regarding legislation under consideration and appears to be beginning to influence how elected representatives engage with their constituents. From the article,

Ari Herzog, a political blogger who has been following the use of Twitter in Congress as well, said that he sees Twitter as a way for elected officials to show taxpayers and voters what they are doing.

“Whether the future with the Congress will be in YouTube or in Twitter or in some other technology, I think [those type of technologies] are where it’s going to be,” said Herzog.

The article does point out the risk of these technologies being used purely for political messaging, another way to distribute media releases.

In my view this is the risk of any communications medium, and the best equivalent is talkback radio - yes it will be used to communicate political messages, but it will also support communication between public office holders, government agencies and citizens.

Read full post...

View summary...