Are you Happy and Engaged?

I found this video to be hilarious, but the not so funny part of it is that the strategies mentioned here for engaging employees are very real in many organisations, leaving a lot to be desired.



Engagement ends with management - How many times does your management team go on retreat to discuss strategic direction, and somehow the real meat of the matter never gets back to you? You're just told, "this is how it's going to be" and are expected to tow the line, no questions asked.

The email - Do you feel valued or engaged when important issues, which heavily impact your core functions, your team or your welfare are communicated via a company-wide email, which most times may get lost in your inbox and you only go search for it and read it after someone who has read it asks your opinion on it?

The ad - Do you know what's happening in your organisation before the wider world, or are you just another nameless face in the sea of nameless faces targeted by expensive advertising? Do you feel empowered to sell what your company is selling, because you have been fully involved in the process from conception to development to implementation?

The Power Point, with loads of clip art - Are you huddled into the staff training room and with your eyes taped open, confronted by a 100 slide Power Point presentation, with charts and tables and revolving text and clip art, which may be full of relevant information, but not dynamic enough to "fire you up" and get your buy-in?

"Noone says they're not". - Are you motivated? Do you feel like you're making a difference and that your work is appreciated and makes an impact on the overall operations and strategic direction of the organisation? Do you feel like getting up in the morning to go do what you do? But more importantly, does management care if you do? Do they ask? Is there any engagement initiative internally to gauge employee morale and solicit feedback?

I can't find HR - Is your well-being shackled to the people in Human Resources? Do you have to be depend wholly on them for any type of information that impacts you, or is there an organisation-wide tripe C structure of communication, collaboration and consultation, which makes giving and getting feedback painless?
Are you an important part of a well oiled machine or just one of a million screws trying to hold it all together? Is internal communications a vital part of your organisation's strategic plan or is it an "aside" that gets remembered when it's time to set targets and deliverables?

Are you happy and engaged?

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Why I am not a Texter

Yesterday, my friend, Sandy referenced an article on text messaging monsters and I admit, I am not a texter. I am somewhat of an unresponder, though when I do respond I apologise for the delay. I will send a text now and then, if I am in a meeting or especially if I am abroad because roaming is not cheap. But I am not one of those people who set their phone in their sights, waiting to hear that tell-tale alert, or to see it vibrate, so they can...POUNCE on it - knowing it's a reply from a friend or colleague. In the same vein, I am not much of a BBMer. Sure, it's free but I cannot lock down my life to a mobile phone and some people really do it. You check their status updates and they change it everyday and their photos change everyday. It is their form of expression and self representation, sure, but my God!

So my friends don't send me texts because I am not a good responder to them, nor to BBMs. I am often on the road when I do have that valuable "phone/bonding time", so this is another reason I am not married to my phone's keypad. While talking on the phone while driving is dangerous as it is, what can be more hazardous than keypad punching and driving? I have tweeted while driving but it's usually in slow moving traffic (which is like every afternoon...hello?)

Don't get me wrong though. I am not a text hater. I do understand that the text or BBM may be urgent or maybe you have no credit or you're in a meeting and cannot call so you can only send a text or IM. So I will respond. But when you want to sit wherever you are, bored or obsessed, and want to hold an entire conversation about the state of your love life or the state of the world, via this channel, well...I am not interested. I have, on many occasions, once recognising that this is the road I am  being dragged down, just ended the text-a-thon and called the person. It's easier, it's more convenient for me and less annoying.

And I am guessing that there are other people who feel the same way. The above was just my personal take on text messaging as communication, but there are some very real issues around the keypad obsession.

For instance, a local union is now debating the resignation of one of its executive members. While the contents of the correspondence have not been divulged and I am not sure what was sent, at the centre of the argument is a text message.

The text message has made information readily accessible to persons, especially by way of B2C marketing. I regularly get updates from my mobile provider about new promotions and events, which I appreciate, once they don't start creeping across the thin line between useful information and spam. We have started using SMS to communicate with staff internally, sending updates on important issues and leading them back to the intranet or to an email, which as you know, tends to get lost in the daily maelstrom.

However, some people also believe that texting and now BBMing are ruining the way we communicate with others. We prefer to text rather than call. Our lingo and language have been impacted by the abbreviations which come with short messaging. Common courtesies seem to have flown the coop with previously face-to-face "transactions" such as job terminations and  Dear John/Jill "letters" being completed via mobile phones. The same is being said of social media, but is it really impacting our relationships negatively? I will admit, I do prefer a phone call over a text message for casual conversation and I don't text birthday greetings to friends either, preferring to call close friends. But I believe it is how you use it and how much of it you allow to pervade your life. The technology can be used to sustain relationships and make relationships more accessible, regardless of geography for example. But it does not have to be all consuming and that is just my overarching statement when it comes to any type of technology or new media. The control still resides with us as individuals.

So don't hate me cause I am not a keypad ninja! Are you though? Are you one of those text messaging monsters?

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Think before you tweet, think before you pay

In the wake of the Haiti tragedy, a lot of organisations have come forward to offer assistance in their own way and many people have been using social media to spread the news and make their friends aware of ways they can make a contribution. So here, people have been sharing info about where we can drop stuff off like water, clothing, nonperishables, or information about account numbers where individuals can make financial donations to the Red Cross etc. To say that Haiti has overtaken sites like Facebook and Twitter may be a bit of an understatement.

I was pleasantly surprised to read that American Airlines had offered to fly doctors and nurses to Haiti for free to lend their skills to the relief effort. I also heard that UPS had offered to ship relief packages free of charge once they were under 50lbs.
The trouble with this is that neither was true.


It's amazing how quickly you can get people to respond via these social networking sites and it speaks to the growing influence of the technology in today's society.

Yet for every status update and tweet which gave accurate information, there was always going to be the possibility of those updates which would explode and circulate rapidly within the social media universe, which bloomed from one person's idea of a joke!

Communication as I said before has evolved rapidly and continues to do so. But evolution does not always necessarily mean progress, in a social sense. Whether it was a misunderstanding, a hope that spreading the rumour would light a fire under the management of certain organisations, or whether it was just a lame attempt at being funny in the midst of tragedy, misinformation today can create more havoc than say, 5 years ago, for the mere fact that in seconds, misinformation can reach every nook and cranny in the world. The Haitian consulate was inundated with calls from medical personnel eager to get on a free flight to Haiti. In a time when the consulate is looking to identify ways to get people in, get food in, locate aid workers etc, having to deal with the consequences of a silly hoax is more than a bother. It is a total waste of valuable time and resources.

It is along these lines that even though we feel compelled to reach into our pockets and make a contribution to help the survivors in Haiti, we still should be guided by common sense and not buy wholesale the info circulating on the web. There will always be scam artists who, sadly, will look to profit from the tragedy.

If in doubt, stick with the Red Cross and they can tell you how you can make your contributions, be it via text, via banks or what have you.
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To clear things up though, both AA and UPS have already made contributions, though not of the type circulated in the Twitterverse.

CNN: "We've incentivized our 62 million AAdvantage members to give cash to Red Cross and receive bonus miles from us. "We cannot fly any passengers to Haiti at this time and our efforts on the humanitarian front are as described above." (AA spokesperson, Tim Smith)

CNN: In a blog post Wednesday on UPS's Web site, a spokeswoman debunked the rumor and said that destruction of Haiti's roads and communications networks "means our own shipping services to Haiti are on hold."

UPS is donating $1 million to help the people of Haiti through relief agencies.

Photo: CNN

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Urban voyeurism

September 2009 stats showed that Trinidad and Tobago was ranked #30 on the list of Highest Number of Facebook users per capita globally, with 182,480 persons on the social media site, representing a 13.63% penetration rate...and growing.

And some of the most ridiculous and disturbing content also comes out of the twin-island republic. While social media has its advantages and is fast replacing traditional channels of communication, because of its immediacy, its appeal to a more tech-savvy demographic and its variety of channels, with Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Blogger etc etc etc, it also, like most anything else, can be demonised and used for disseminating the most alarming content.

The most recent of these which I have received is the now viral "Licks on the Promenade" clip, which goes on for over 8 minutes, and shows a young woman and her boyfriend engaged in a most crass argument on the Brian Lara Promenade, complete with profanity, violence and just plain absurdity. I would comment on the woman in question, but all I will say is that she should not show her face anywhere for the rest of her life for acting so stupidly in public. But it was not just for that brief moment, at that location, but with the assistance of the amateur media crew on the scene aka limers with a camera phone, she is now a nationwide, dare I say, global phenomenon.

But as I said in my reply to the stupid video, what was most disturbing to me is the fact that here was a very volatile situation, where someone could have been injured or worse cause tension and anger were escalating by the second, and there was someone with a camera phone, totally exacerbating the situation and in fact making it worse by provoking the couple involved, moreso the female assailant.

This is my problem. Facebook and these sites have now provided idlers with a convenient channel to exploit others and exploit negative situations. Now if in this situation, someone had been stabbed or shot, would Mr Camera Phone have kept shooting his video and worse, would he have posted it online to share with the world? When does the fun end and serious contemplation of decency begin? I saw very limited attempts in this video attempting to defuse the situation, and Part II of the saga (yes, cause Part I was clearly not enough for the masses), shows the young lady attacking the cameraman and yet he keeps filming and laughing and mocking an incensed and emotionally charged woman. If something had happened to HIM, should we have then felt sorry for him? It was clear that this was not the place or time to channel your inner Spielberg. But clearly we have not thought about time and place issues when it comes to the new technologies and people.

This comes on the heels of videos of female students fighting in the street with their skirts being ripped off and the fight continuing with them in just their panties. No matter what one may think of these girls and their behaviour, the reality is they were still minors, so did we need to videotape them in their underwear and post it online? YouTube eventaully saw fit to take the videos down since it breached their policies, but do we need someone else to tell us what we should know already?

Where do we draw the line? When do we realise that everything out there is not for cyberspace? Because if this is not the case, then anything can be found on Facebook in the future Anything. As one person said, you could simply tell someone off for poor customer service and then find yourself as the star of a viral video the next morning. Or you could be on Maracas in your swimsuit, sleeping under the Caribbean sun, and some joker could make you part of a sordid video, without you even knowing it.

Where do we say, okay...maybe this is not the place for this. But it goes back to basic "broughtupsy", and while we will ALWAYS have those who have no sense or propriety and will always find some insane new way to publicly humiliate themselves, do we need to help them along? Because then what does it say about you, the camera man or woman, who may coax them along for a "better" video. For more hits. For a popular video that everyone shares with their friends.

Society has long devolved into one where few people do anything to stop criminal activity, or to think "How can I stop this?" and some of us still have to come to terms with this. But are we also standing by, doing nothing, with our flip cams, our camera phones,  promoting negative elements via social media?

Someone stood by on the promenade for 8 minutes videotaping, what should have been an otherwise private event anyway. But seeing that the woman and her man put themselves out there anyway, does that still mean we have a right to just broadcast the nonsense. When do we stop and say, "Enough of this".

Enough of this.

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