E-collaboration and online communities is the title of the Think Tank session John Gerstner, ABC, will lead at 7:15 a.m. on Monday, June 5. Think Tanks involve more of a discussion than a presentation and are designed to stimulate conversation while surfacing potential research issues for the IABC Research Foundation. Gerstner’s online focus is one of four such Think Tanks taking place at the same time.

Gerstner, president of Communitelligence — an online collaboration and knowledge portal for communicators — has years of experience online. In this interview, he discusses working on the introduction of both the website and intranet at John Deere, his only employer before striking out on his own in 2002. He also explores the subject matter he plans to address at his session.

 

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Are cubicles becoming extinct? Consider these recent stats cited in the March 2006 issue of ZD Net News:

“According to the research firm IDC, the global mobile workforce is expected to grow by more than 30 percent in the next four years. This means that over 878 million mobile workers will be conducting business via laptops, handhelds and cell phones by 2009–making up about one-quarter of the global workforce.”

With so many workers about to go mobile, it begs the question: What will communicators do to connect their remote workers to key business strategies on the CEO’s agenda and the latest organizational news?

One session at the 2006 IABC International Conference that’s sure to provide some answers is the June 5 General Session, which features the winner of the IABC 2006 EXCEL (Excellence in Communication Leadership) Award–Mr. Rajesh Subramaniam, president of FedEX Canada.

With eighty-five percent of his employees working in remote locations, Mr. Subramaniam will have plenty of insights on what it takes to communicate with this unique workforce demographic.

In the meantime, does anyone have any wisdom they’d like to share on keeping remote workers in the loop? We could use as many ideas as possible. 2009 will be here before we know it.

Communication through global boundaries is the subject of Ann Hood’s conference session on June 6. It’s about change and her experiences while head of group internal communication at Scottish Power in the UK during a time of profound change, both in the energy industry in which her company operated and within the organization during an international acquisition.

In this interview, Ann provides some detailed background to her job and many of the challenges she confronted during Scottish Power’s acquisition, ranging from internal communication issues at an international level to changes in organization structure and in senior management styles.

 

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Elma Gardner “Pem” Farnsworth, the first person to appear on television, passed away last week. It’s fascinating to think about how far we’ve come since her husband Philo Taylor Farnsworth came up with the basic technology behind what sits in most of our living rooms today. Less than a hundred years later, anyone with a broadband connection and a $100 digital video camera can put themselves on YouTube.com, serving up 35 million videos a day to an audience of more than 9 million people a month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. Thanks to devices like Tivo, the audience for content of this type may soar, as shows like Amanda Congdon’s RocketBoom come straight to Philo’s invention.

Like it or hate it, all of this is part of growing trend created by digital media — the ability for the audience to become the broadcaster. Blogs did it for text. Podcasts did it for audio. And YouTube, Vlogs, and a host of other tools are doing it for video. None of the above will replace what professional broadcasters and communicators create, but what was once a one way monologue has become a two-way dialogue. I wonder what Elma or Philo would think about that… I’ll be talking about this trend and what it means for corporate communicators at my session.

Victoria Mellor is CEO of Melcrum, a name that should be familiar to IABC members, particularly those who read the publisher’s strategic communications journal. Victoria will speak on Tuesday, June 6, on leadership communication. You can get a sneak peak at the research she’ll reference by downloading the executive summary.

 

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