Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

Real. Conference.

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If you care about employee communication, there is no better conference to go to this year than RonCon 2010, which is being held in two cities, Vancouver and Calgary, the week of March 22. 

(I recommend Vancouver.)

Ron Shewchuk has not only organized some of the best employee communication people to speak at this conference, but he's organized the most candid crew of speakers ever assembled. (And if you think you get the unvarnished truth from consultants and practitioners presenting their ideas and case studies at most communication conferences, you're about 50 percent off.)

There there might be crying, and there might be shouting and there will be laughing: But with Shewchuk, Crescenzos, Salvo, Williams, Gray-Grant, Wah and yours truly, there will be no b.s. at this meeting.

So if you've got real questions screaming for honest answers and real problems that demand real solutions, come to this real conference.

Today's the early-bird deadline. Sign up by the end of the day today and get a big discount.

Employee communication is different … and so are the E2E Communication Awards

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 Most HR executives can't stand employee communication. They talk about "having it" in their portfolio the way the rest of us talk about having an inoperable tumor in our belly.

Most marketing people, on the other hand, love employee communication! They love it so much, they recreate it in their own image, and call it Internal Marketing!

PR people like to do employee communication too. They take it one campaign at a time.

The E2E Communication Awards is for those of us who believe that employee communication is different: from HR, from marketing, from public relations: Another discipline entirely, with separate principles, different techniques and goals all its own.Logo

You wouldn't enter your art project into a science fair. So don't enter your employee communication work into some PR awards.

Peruse the perfectly calibrated categories and the agreeable entry process for the E2E Communication Awards, and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

But do it soon. The deadline for entries is April 2.

Sincerely,

David Murray, Program Chairman

P.S. Employee communication impresario Steve Crescenzo has just agreed to present the best of the winners at the Employee Engagement, HR and Social Media 2010 conference in Chicago May 12-13. Mark your calendars. More details to come.

Glue-sniffers aren’t what makes Southwest Southwest

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As all fliers know, the employees of most airlines are a vortex of three hatreds:

Hatred of customers (for always being "right" while simultaneously being such Mr. and Mrs. Magoos) … hatred of their fellow employees (for being surly, uncooperative union goons just like they are) … and hatred of themselves (for being stuck in this once-glorious, now grim industry).

And the consequences of this perfect lather of loathing? Just the latest example came during Super Bowl Sunday, when United Airlines dispatchers refused to update pilots on the score of the game, so passengers had to fly in senseless ignorance.

The very same weekend I happened to be flying Southwest Airlines to and from New Orleans, and I witnessed the following small miracle:

A Southwest customer-service agent was at working the desk at a gate, and she was not having a very good day. (Not all Southwest employees are sniffing glue throughout their shift.)

She was being curt with customers, and when they left after asking their dumb questions, she rolled her eyes.

I stood nearby reading a book, as a couple of Southwest pilots walked up. One of them observed that it looked like she was "stuck" there behind that desk. Without a smile, she allowed that she was. He asked her if he might get her something to drink. Again unsmilingly, she said that might be OK.

"What'll you have?" he asked.

"Where are you going?" she asked, not wanting to put him out because putting him out would require expressing gratitude.

"Where do you want me to go?" he insisted, at which point she said she wouldn't mind having an iced tea, sweet with lemon, from the McDonald's, a little ways up the concourse.

"You got it," he said, and walked off to get the tea.

And she smiled, just a little.

And I smiled, a lot.

That's always been the thing about Southwest that impressed me more than the bouncy, jouncy, Kool-Aid drinking would-be comics in the workforce. It's the real, honest, regular Southwest people who are working a repetitive, high-stress job, and doing so with humanity, with emotional intelligence and, albeit sometimes grudging, a sense of humor.

The idea of a Southwest employee refusing to tell a pilot the score of a football game is preposterous. It's just about exactly as preposterous as a United pilot coaxing a sour gate agent into letting him buy her a sweet iced tea.