Day: July 20, 2011

In Silos or a Rising Tide

by Stanley LearyPhotography
silos
Does your company have a silo effect?

My last post was about being aware of the relationships and politics of the office. This is to address not caving in and not pursuing what is best for the company, but finding a strategy to make great communication take place.

When a company functions as if each department is separate then you get the silo effect.

While I worked for Georgia Tech I saw this more than anywhere I had been before.  Since I worked in communications, my role had me moving from one department to another.  In the span of a week I photographed three different research projects on the campus and all three of them were solving the problem of epilepsy.

What was strange was that none of these departments knew about each other and even after I told them about each others projects they still didn’t interact together.

It was also at Georgia Tech where I saw the silos starting to be dismantled.  When they built the new Bioengineering building they had open labs next to each other.  This was to encourage people to talk to each other and collaborate more.

I enjoyed playing pickup basketball at Georgia Tech.  I played with students, alumni, faculty and staff.  While waiting between games we had time to talk to each other.  Two professors I played ball with talked one day together about their work.  Dr. William Hunt, Professor Bioengineering, and Microelectronics/Microsystems talked with Dr Roger Wartell about a problem. 

At the end of that conversation Dr. Hunt had a major breakthrough in his research. I too had a conversation later with Dr. Hunt about his work and he had a breakthrough, but struggled to get funding.  I asked if he would let me take a look at a way to visually communicate the concept.  After I helped him with some photos of his work he presented his work to a conference.

Very similar presentation to what he had been doing, but now new images.  He had one of the branches of the military come up after that talk and give him a $500,000 grant.  He sent a letter to the president of Georgia Tech telling him how I had helped him.  I was thrilled for him and I.

Toyota can tell you about how one part just about brought down their company in 2009.  It started as what was thought to be floor mats and then it came out they knew they had a faulty accelerator design.  This was an example of silo that just about took down the company.  It is still dealing with the bad PR this gave the company.

You need quality process in place for the whole company and not just parts of it.  You need to address these issues:

    •    A defined end goal
    •    Work done right the first time
    •    Individual responsibility for quality
    •    Verification, not inspection–quality processes focus on the on-going verification of quality achievement and not only inspection at the end
    •    Long-term focus
    •    Improved quality results in lower costs

If a company puts equal quality standards for their communication as they do in their product then it will lift up all the departments and in the end the customer gets a better product and experience.  This makes all those involved walking taller and prouder about what they are apart.

You see a rising tide lifts all boats.

ships
A rising tide lifts all boats

Your work can be too good

by Stanley LearyPhotography
books
The books range form $30 – $70 depending on how many pages

A religious leader for a large church organization told his communications team to not produce slick well-polished pieces, because then folks will think we have too much money and not give.  We want to look like we need help.

What is sad is that it probably costs more money to produce poor quality than great quality work.  If the work is not of a certain caliber then no one in your targeted audience will digest the content and then it was a total waste of money.

I have been producing two to three minute multimedia packages that range from $2,000 – $5,000 to produce in addition to the cost of travel expenses.  The companies I do this for are used to paying $10,000 to $250,000 for similar length video projects. Since they are so much less to produce the client was doing more of them.

This can cause a problem for the client with the rest of their corporation.  They think based on previous expenditures they are spending lots of money, when in reality they are spending less.

This was also happening for books we did as gifts.  People thought these were tens of thousands when they are often only $30 a book for 10 books.

If you are in charge of projects and you are not aware of this political reality of quality of your products you may be in for a rude awakening in a budget meeting. 

As communication specialists we help tell stories effectively. You also have another role to play of educating your organization about what you do.  They need to have you help them understand the strategy of the communications and the costs.

I would recommend getting someone to help you tell your story.  This could be one of your colleagues in the industry to help you.  I think one of the strangest things I have discovered over my career is how communications folks need someone to help them with their PR campaign.

First of all the PR you do for yourself is not necessarily the same thing you do for others. 

Here are seven things you might want to do:
  1. Take your analytics or get some to show how many folks you reach with your messaging.
  2. Show where you are getting placed—tear sheets
  3. Create a notebook/PowerPoint of these talking points that you are ready to now present to a person or a group.
  4. Identify those persons in your organization that you need as your allies
  5. I suggest taking them to lunch and sharing with them some of you material showing how you are being more strategic than in the past and how you are being more cost efficient in doing this.
  6. Create a comparison chart.  What we used to spend on something vs. today what we are spending. 
  7. Maybe give them a framed picture and copy of the story you produced for them or coffee table book and include with it a cover letter talking about the number of hits and responses you have gotten to it.

A strange thing may happen after you have done this with a few folks—you will get more work.  You may also get a larger budget next year.  People are drawn to folks who show business acumen. 

While I have given just some suggestions you may want to help those reading this blog with your tips.  I would love to hear your comments and suggestions.