Open comms; an admirable world of voices to listen to and to watch wind blowing data!
When we think about communications for business, were is the wind blowing? Optimists can point to the introduction of new areas powered by social technologies that somehow open business towards a relation and interaction with customers, new structures of defining strategies and change management that opens a lot of new enterprise oportunities. Pessimists can point to the continuing deluge of all negative spam attention, ever-more sophisticated phishing techniques, and of course the burdens of increased regulatory compliance, legal and difficulty to reach an audience, target customers in the right way, listen to the voices around you or your business and analyse its data and analytics.
Open Communications – Open Comms are the Next generation for collaboration
Open Communications – Open Comms – is the next generation of human communications and collaboration in any organisation leading the field in delivering new ways of communicating and creating co-creation process and synergies. I am one of the positive ones looking at it. Open Comms can and is indeed shifting the way business, organisations and contries deal with their communications. And let me tell you this is hard, difficult and new, but amazing.
Some recent stats show that 57% of businesses currently monitor online conversations about the brand, products or services, according to a recent study by Capgemini. But the reality is that 20% do not listen at all and another 23% of respondents weren’t sure whether or not the company is listening to online conversations in the same study.
This reveals the importantce of a proper communication strategy and a lot about the importance and the necessity to invest in an open communications strategy.
Why am I a defender of Open Comms?
Because I believe in creating value and listening to different voices, even when sometimes we might hear things that we don’t want to hear and that are different from our own perspectives or ideas. I believe that the only way to deliver successful strategy is challenging certainty, especially our own. When you or your business might think you’re undeniably right, ask yourself “What might I be missing here in this communication?”. And when you start listening to your clients, users, customers you might want to adpat, change or evolve. (Although I must underline this does not mean forget your core values of principles).
In a world with a huge increasing variety of principles, cultures and lack of clear hegemonies things are flowing. It is rather difficult to understand everything form one’s own perspective.And social media fast adopting technologies and tools just created a world without barries: economic, politic, financial where change and continous change and evoltion has been radical.
The market of communications has been through a revolution with an entire new industry for listening services rapidly maturing with vendors such as Radian6, Spiral16, Crimson Hexagon, Research.ly, Lithium, Sysomos, Marketing Sentinel (Skyttle) and many others improving businesses communications and monitoring consumer conversations and experiences. Nevertheless the wide array of these new communications tools and capabilities are nothing less than baffling. They somehow require proper stratgey open mind set for business and expert analysis prior to committing any significant investment of finances or organizational resources now and over time.
Some perspectives for the future of Communications = Open Communications:
– The need for an Unified Communication: from internal to external, from traditional to social;
– Open IT-Based Communications, make sure software is fast in execution
– Powerful set up in a content and SEO friendly way;
– Fixed Mobile Convenience and convergence with the advent of the mobile tablets and smartphones;
– Agile Business Process Integration towards the concept of a Open Business;
– Rich User Experience and knowledge how to navigate in the data and analytics;
– Deployment of Choices, clear transparent management capable of communicate internally and externally;
– Business Continuity and Integrity, key for a good communications, the importance of a good continuity story telling.
Maria Fonseca is the Editor and Infographic Artist for IntelligentHQ. She is also a thought leader writing about social innovation, sharing economy, social business, and the commons. Aside her work for IntelligentHQ, Maria Fonseca is a visual artist and filmmaker that has exhibited widely in international events such as Manifesta 5, Sao Paulo Biennial, Photo Espana, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Joshibi University and many others. She concluded her PhD on essayistic filmmaking , taken at University of Westminster in London and is preparing her post doc that will explore the links between creativity and the sharing economy.