In a networked age, our expectations are being conditioned by the possibility of interaction. We’ve always expected this of our friends, the people we’re close to. Increasingly we’ll expect it of the enterprises with which (for whatever reason) we choose to engage.

Communication is a phenomenon, not a tool. To state the obvious, it is as much about listening as speaking. Generally organisations have not acknowledged this. Internal and external communication, traditionally managed in silos, must be seen as a single activity. This does NOT mean a simple consistency of message: organisations who think communication is only about skilful messaging have already lost the plot.

And yet corporate communication is still conceived largely as a form of one-way messaging, speaking at people in the hope that if you do it long enough, loudly enough, something will sink in. Such messaging may still have a place, but it’s becoming a smaller place. If this messaging is misplaced it is more likely to alienate than engage.

We need to rethink how we plan and manage communication in business. To do this we need to think harder about the relationship between effective communication and business effectiveness. In particular we need to put aside many half-baked ideas about how brands work, ideas that are now alienating people rather than engaging them.

More resources

Click here to download a PDF which begins to explain these observations. I am currently working on an extended piece exploring these ideas further, showing why they matter, and pointing to some more fruitful approaches. I will publish these extended thoughts here as soon as they are ready, but you can follow them as they take shape on my blog: http://paulbrasington.wordpress.com/