Morningstar Communications Luminary Blog

Hello! I’m Leah, the new intern, and I’m so excited to be working at Morningstar Communications. For my first official post on the Luminary Blog, I thought I would talk about something I think is very important to being successful in our industry (and any industry, for that matter). That is personal branding.

The BNET Business Dictionary defines personal branding as “the public expression and projection of an individual's identity, personality, values, skills, and abilities.” Basically, a personal brand is finding your best qualities and putting them to good use. It is NOT molding yourself to fit in at a certain company or profession. Here are a few steps to finding and capitalizing on your own personal brand:

1.    Discover and develop your brand:  In order to do this, you need to first have an end goal. A plan to accomplish this goal doesn’t hurt either. Your brand should help you achieve your long-term goal and express how you’re going to do it.
2.    Craft a position statement:  Your brand will most likely be a combination of a few things you are innately good at, like leadership, encouragement or time management. For instance, if you are known for your humor, your position statement could be something like “Delivering humorous encouragement with every step.” Keeping this statement in mind while working towards your goal will make it that much easier.
3.     Put your brand to use:  Now, you must communicate your newfound brand to the world through several different forms of media. Social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, are very useful tools for getting your message out (and they are free). It’s also good to have a blog where you can share resources and links with other people in your profession.

This article entitled, “The Brand Called You,” by our CEO, Eric Morgenstern, can also be helpful in developing and using your personal brand. This branding technique should make it easier for you to visualize and accomplish your goals. Who doesn’t want an easy route to success?

I recently read a terrific article by Bruna Matinuzzi called The Pursuit of Flow on the American Express OPEN Forum. In this article she shares Mihali Csikszentmihalyi's prescription for getting into the flow in a business environment. Getting into the flow happens when you are so engrossed in a project that you lose your sense of time and it seems as if your skills almost magically rise to the level of the challenge. In order to get into this elevated state you need to feel both challenged and that your work is meaningful. As business leaders we are responsible for cultivating a work environment that allows our employees to experience flow in the workplace:

1. Provide work that is just challenging enough to avoid both boredom and anxiety.
2. Give people an opportunity to do work that is important. People need to feel like they are making a difference.
   
3. Establish clear short-term goals and expectations.
4. Give people control over their tasks.
5. Provide regular specific feedback.
   

In the long-run it will lead to happier, more dedicated and more effective employees.

 Hopefully overshadowing Tiger Woods today is a great event organized by Arik Hanson and Valerie Simon called Help a PR Pro Out. You can read more about the event here. 

So Kansas City, let’s do a bit to help our fellow man (or woman) today? Have a job opening at your company? Tweet it, blog it, post it, shout it from a mountaintop or let Justin Goldsborough (@jgoldsborough) know about it. Or all of the above.

Looking for a job? Get your resume in tiptop shape and get out there and follow the #happo and #happokc hashtags on Twitter. Share your most creative personal pitch and let employers know who you are and why you rock.

I’m looking forward to hearing all the success stories from today, especially here in town. Maybe your story will be OUR story, as we need interns. We have an immediate opening for a full time paid intern and accepting applications for two full time paid summer interns.

Have a success story? Share it below.

I've spent the last few years on the corporate side working extensively in internal communications and I've always been fascinated by the relationship companies build (or fail to build) with the people who are so obviously most responsible for their success or failure. (Note: We had a great conversation about this the other night at a local IABC senior pro's dinner).

CBS Television is actually using the – ahem – reality TV genre to give us a peek into a very unique learning laboratory. Their new show "Undercover Boss " chronicles weekly the story of a large company CEO who goes "undercover" to try and learn about the inner-workings of his company and to get an unvarnished view into the life of a rank-and-file employee. That's right, each Sunday at 8 p.m. (CT) we watch the boss put on the apron, the scrubs, the hardhat, etc. and step down into the ranks.

The first episode was Sunday, February 7 and its lead-in was only the most watched television program in history, the Super Bowl. In episode one, "President and CEO of Waste Management Larry O'Donnell worked undercover alongside his employees cleaning porta-potties and collecting garbage" … Wow! Is this must-see TV for those of us in internal communications or not?  I just happened to catch a few minutes of the show as I was trying to recover from Super Bowl queso dip-overload and was glued to the TV set. The soccer moms at our neighborhood party couldn't figure out why I was the only one left in front of the TV watching this innocuous-looking man rummaging through trash and cleaning out toilets before knocking off and grabbing a drink with his co-workers (I told them I could say the same thing about their infatuation with "The Bachelor").

Anyway, I plan to watch the full episode online and won't miss one from here on out. Any of us who have worked in employee communications know how much good it does for morale, open communications, and just good old employee engagement for the people at the executive level to actually pay a visit to the shop floor, have coffee in the break room, or just grab a tray and sit down in the cafeteria. It's the age-old "management by walking around" but it's also "two-way communication by walking around." In this day and age of electronic bombardment, it's refreshing to see at least a few CEOs care enough to flip a burger themselves.  Great job CBS and kudos to Larry and the other undercover CEOs for showing the way.

As the nation slowly lumbers out of the “great recession,” smart businesses are re-evaluating their strategies for advancing their growth.

Ensuring those among the ranks understand and embrace these new strategies will be critical to making them work. Yet, we regularly see companies overlook their own employees in their eagerness to reach the market. Surprising, since study after study ties employee engagement to improved productivity and performance. In fact, on the other end of the spectrum, Gallup recently found the cost in lost productivity from disengaged employees amounts to $300 billion.

So, how do you encourage engagement?

Demonstrate leadership. Studies show that employees turn first to their direct managers and then to senior leadership for information on where the organization is going and how what they are doing ties to that vision. Make sure to communicate your strategy effectively to middle management, as they will be a key resource to which others in the organization will turn.

Create conversation. Encouraging feedback and giving associates the opportunity to comment, question and share provides a powerful means to achieve engagement. And, with today’s social media tools, finding the right option for your employees to collaborate together is easier than ever. Be prepared for questions, comments and concerns, and respond quickly when they arise.

Communicate, communicate, communicate. There’s an old saying that in the absence of information, people assume the worst. In this fast-paced age focused on transparency and authenticity, keeping your employees updated on how your new strategy moves the organization forward helps to ensure they will internalize and take action to drive your strategies.

 As much as we’d like it, you can’t give credit to the marketers and communicators for creating the meteoric rise of social media.

Even as a collective, our industry simply doesn’t have the clout to create such a powerful new toolset.

Nope. Think bigger, and think about your mobile “phone,” and the people you “call.”

Social media will stay because of the fundamental evolution in both technology and sociology.

Most of us now carry a portable personal digital assistant (PDA).  We used to call this device a cell phone or mobile phone.  Today’s device not only provides voice connections virtually anywhere in world, but many of us have a device that also connects us via texting, email, our calendar and database, a camera (perhaps even video), speedy internet access, and a host of productive and fun “apps.”

Virtually none of us had such a mobile device just five years ago.  Back then, we were happy if we could get our phone to work inside buildings. Imagine what the “phone” or PDA of 2015 will be able to do!

Now, think about how “trust” has evolved in the last five years. At an all-time low for many traditional sources,  people simply don’t trust corporate America, elected officials, sports team owners, celebrities, etc

We used to listen to whomever the experts dubbed as a trustworthy source. Not anymore

The most trusted source today is “people like me.”  (While I’d like to think everyone is actually “like me,” the phrase really creates a reference set for each one of us).

“We” go to Mommy bloggers (the number one source of information for new Moms), look up information in Wikipedia (not the official encyclopedia), and visit YouTube to learn how to do just about anything.

We can connect today with virtually anyone or anything at anytime.  Consider this connectivity in conjunction with those we trust.  When you blend these two trends, you quickly realize why social media is here to stay.

But which social media tools will stand the test of time?

Two years ago, we’d be discussing MySpace and Second Life.  Today, the conversation encompasses Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.  In a few years, it will be “new and improved” social networking tools.  The tools will continue to evolve, as they always have. But those cows aren’t going back in the barn.

People will continue to embrace enhanced PDAs at the same time we expand our social networking to connect with even more people “like us.”

Today’s businesses and organizations simply must have an active presence in social media.  Pretty soon, your absence will be quite noticeable (remember the businesses who were late to building their initial websites in the late 1990s?

As traditional media crumbles, it’s the social media space where today’s conversations are happening.

It’s time to adopt this four-step process to move forward with social media:

Observe.  Participate.  Create.  Integrate.

Everyone can do it.  And very likely, there’s a part of the social media spectrum that’s right for you and your organization.  Do your research.  Ensure your presence focuses on achieving a business goal and embrace the change.

Your competitors are there.  Your friends are there.  Virtually everyone needs to be there.

Social media is here to stay.

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http://www.cool-cellphones.com/mobile-news/mobile-phone-evolution.html

 Last Thursday I attended KC/IABC’s Business Communicators Summit. It was my second time attending this all-day professional development buffet, and I would classify this year’s event as another success. We were treated to two great keynote speakers, Steve Crescenzo and Chris Brogan, as well as many breakout sessions on a wide variety of topics. Here are my key takeaways from each session I attended throughout the day.

Photo courtesy of KC/IABC

Steve Crescenzo kicked off the day with a brilliant presentation on creative communications. He was engaging, funny and shared some killer content. For me, the main takeaway was the idea that communicators must continue to push the envelope rather than settle for the status quo. We’ve all heard the “ask for forgiveness, not permission” mantra, but I like Steve’s take on it, “Proceed until apprehended.” As a new pro, I need to be more vocal with my ideas for new processes and/or opportunities. And, I need not be hesitant to just go out and do it, then show others how it worked (or didn’t). After all, I really don’t want to end up, as Steve said, a “Pudgy white man in a suit spewing corporate boilerplate.”

The first breakout session I attended featured Chuck Caisley and Katie McDonald of KCP&L discussing the company’s introduction of the Connections program. I admit I went into this hoping to learn a few tips on reducing my electric bill, if nothing else. Luckily, Chuck and Katie shared some great information on how they were able to create executive buy-in for their program using specific research generated from a customer survey. It was great to see research data used so effectively to demonstrate a need.

Phil and Alex from Spiral16 shared some wonderful insights on the benefits of data virtualization. This process reduces noise to help you tell an effective story and improves the speed of data processing. It is especially helpful when considering conversations in different social media and determining which are the most influential.

I’m a daily reader of Chris Brogan’s blog, and was looking forward to what he had to say. To me, Chris has a speaking style and tone reminiscent of the late comedian Mitch Hedburg. Very relaxed, though not near as spacey or staccato as Mitch’s trademark delivery. Chris shared some nuggets of brilliance, and not just his admission that 60% of his business comes from Twitter. (It CAN make you money!) My favorite quote was, “Corp Comm sells the dream, while customer service implements the nightmare.” I’ve blogged before about social media policies and the need for companies to empower all employees to act as brand ambassadors. Companies need to remember that TV interviews and newspaper quotes aren’t the only times their brand is in the spotlight.

The final breakout session I attended featured Jonathan Mast of Black & Veatch discussing his company’s efforts in the social media space. Black & Veatch was able to launch a successful internal CEO blog and a Facebook fan page for recruiting in just six months. Recent stats show B2B usage of social media continues to grow, though examples of success remain somewhat under the radar. The biggest takeaway for me here was his reasoning for implementing social media. For Black & Veatch, social media is about brand establishment and relationship-building.

Did you attend BCS as well? What were your key learnings?