Conversationblog

Time to look at my own little "neck of the woods" here in Belgium and see how my Belgian PR colleagues are using (or not using) tools such as blogging, podcasting, RSS feeds etc... in the context of business communications.

Two little surveys are helping me to fine-tune my own personal impressions:

First there's the results of the social media survey of Leads United - Blackline's sister agency - which were published this afternoon.

My colleagues at Leads United collected feedback from 70 PR professionals working in companies across all industries located in Belgium.

Here are the major results:

• Only 24% of respondents use RSS feeds.
• Only 1.4% are active wiki users.
• The implementation of blogging guidelines has risen from 4% in 2007 to 20% in 2008.
• When speaking about strategically applying social media tools, it is seen in this order; first external communications, second internal communications and third, crisis communications.

You can find more details in their social media press release here.

And then there's my own, personal, non-scientific, listing of PR agencies located in Belgium, who are using (or not) RSS feeds to distribute their own (or their client's) content.

As with recent years the trends are not improving that much....

Here are my findings:

• From the 27 PR agencies surveyed, only 9 are using RSS feeds on their website.
• 1 PR agency decided to finally start with RSS feeds on their website in 2008.
  
• 4 didn't optimize their feeds to be recognized by a browser.
• 1 PR agency website was not available.
• 1 PR agency website had RSS feeds in 2007, but not anymore in 2008.

As I wrote on numerous occasions before, RSS feeds and their use is a basic & fundamental skill for someone, or an agency who claims to have experience in "social media" or "online PR".... I can't understand that some PR agencies claim they have those skills and then not implement RSS feeds for their own use on their own website....

You can find the full list and results on my public wiki. Comments about the list and the results ? Please let me know..

Also, for those of you who have heard about RSS and are willing to spend a couple of hours this summer to learn about it, go here and check out my 2 new Summer Courses .

Everyone is welcome !

Here is a nice application of social networks: putting pressure on a company and making a clear - and not anonymous - statement that the current CEO is not the top favorite for the job.

Belgacom is one of the major telecom operators in Belgium and is owned for 51% by the Belgian government (read: the taxpayer). This Facebook group is asking members to give their preference as to a new CEO for the group.

Today - after several days of activity and about 200 members - they list a top 10 list of possible applicants for the job of next CEO. No vote whatsoever for Didier Bellens, the current CEO of the company.

Not sure how - and if - this will influence any decision making in this matter (probably not at all) but I like the idea of giving a voice to the people - like me - who actually support this company through taxes.

Interesting note: the company has several official and non official Facebook Groups but this current "vote group" - which grows at about 25 members a day - has the most members....

Via IT Professional. Other blog coverage (in French) here and here.

Yesterday I arrived in Iceland for the summit of the International Association of Online Communicators.

For the next 2 days we'll be discussing several topics and papers on online communications with people from different countries and backgrounds. You can see the full program here.

If you wish to follow the conference you can do so on the IAOC blog - I just installed the CoveritLive code and you'll be able to interact with us while the conference is live.

It is great to meet up again with my colleagues from the IAOC again and I am sure we'll discuss the set up of the European chapter is the next 2 days.

I am not the only Belgian here; Luc Van Braekel, our most influential Flemish blogger, is also here and it is nice to finally meet him face to face.

Reykjavik is a great city; small, calm, nice people, by the sea and with amazing views on the Icelandic countryside.

I think I'll come back one day and visit the interior. Luc (who has been here since last week end) tells me that the country has a lot to offer to people who love nature.

I will be posting picture on a regular basis on Flickr as well. Enjoy the conference and please do interact through the CoveritLive interface if you see a chance.

Here's some good news for you: if you would like to attend the next Melcrum conference on the future of the Intranet then I have a 25% discount for you !

On June 25 & 26 I'll be talking at the Intranet 2.0 Forum in London. The conference covers the future of the intranet and internal communications in a social media age.

Despite substantial investment in intranets over the past decade, for most companies they’re still not delivering a return on investment in terms of use and increased efficiency in the way employees access useful and important information.

Now, the arrival of social media tools has presented a fantastic new opportunity to rejuvenate intranets, drag them into the 21st Century and place them right at the centre of companies’ efforts to improve conversation, collaboration and a sense of community across the organization.

The Intranet 2.0 Forum has been designed to share the latest thinking, developments and practices relating to intranets, content management and web 2.0 tools and technologies.

You can find the full online agenda here. If you're planning to attend and would like to use the 25% discount offered to my readers, please do the following:

Call Melcrum on +44 (0)208 600 4670 or e-mail events@melcrum.com and you will get the 25% discount by mentioning that you are readers of Blacklineblog.

(In fact you are readers of the Blacklineblog - which is my second blog - and the place were my articles are originally written.)

If you will be there, please let me know so we can hook up.

According to a study by Awareness, a social media company in the US - about 54% of enterprise size companies are using so called Web2.0 technology. The adoption of blogs, wikis etc... even rises to 74% when looking at companies with less than 500 employees. The report is based on 112 completed surveys.

From all the Web2.0 technologies used, blogs rank first in adoption with 87% of the respondents saying they have used them in an enterprise context. Some other findings include that 96% of the respondents say that all of their Web2.0 initiatives have been successful and 91% claim that using social media for internal purposes has improved communications and collaboration.

The report goes on with interesting insights in the use of different kind of social media and the importance of security, deployment and so on. The major obstacles to the adoption of these tools are limited internal resources, internal budget and - last but not least - security considerations.

While the report gives a very good insight on what is happening in the enterprise world in the US, I would love to see the same kind of study done in Europe. Just over the last week I visited several companies, large and smaller ones and come to the conclusion that we all have a very long way to go.

At the same time, questions from clients are more precise, more elaborate than before showing that the interest in using social media for business communications and collaboration is clearly there.

How about you ? Do you think the time is right to start thinking about deploying social media, or is it too early for your organization ? Let me know.

With a new "war for talent" going on in the marketplace companies are looking for - what they call - "innovative" approaches to discover, attract and recruit employees. One of those tools is blogging.

It seems that "a blog to recruit" makes much more sense, or is easier understood by companies than he whole "social media for the enterprise" concept. I do understand why; recruitment is at the core of most organizations today, has a high priority and is very practical with a clear ROI.

Being a former headhunter (don't ask...), I can say that a blog is definitely a very good tool to complete the HR/hiring arsenal.

My first encounter with an Executive Recruiter who blogged was in France and Jacques Froissant from Altaïde is still posting at a very regular pace. Some topics he covers are:

• news from the industries he recruits for - demonstrating he understands the business environment of his clients.
• the latest positions he's looking to fill - obvious promotion.
• human resources news for Managers - showing he follows the latest trends that impact his potential applicants.

Even government organizations like our own VDAB (Flemish service for employment) are using blogposts as a recruitment tool by having job seekers and people who already have a job blog about their experiences.

The set up is very well done; bloggers are allowed to blog during one month and tell their story; how did they find that job, was it difficult, who helped them etc...

Except... the blogposts you can read on the VDAB Joblog are "reviewed" before they are posted. Although they are based on real blogposts by job seekers they have been re-written to a certain standard the VDAB editorial team handles...

Even if this is explained and made public (in Flemish) on their blog page, it still gives me a feeling of "corporate control". Why not publish the articles as such ? Are all job seekers bad writers..? Authenticity is better than mediocre writing no ?

What do you think ? Should blogposts always be posted as such (authentic) or can they be rewritten for the sake of editorial quality ? Fill in the poll and let us know.

After some well deserved holidays we're back at full speed at Blackline. Together with Leads United we've set up our first training sessions and are ready to take enrollments.

On February 12 we kick off the season with a master class on "New Media Relations" where we will take a closer look at mainstream media relations as well as how to use social media like blogs, podcasting etc...

This is a full day program starting at 09:30 and ending at 16:00. We are doing our best to balance interesting theory, strong case studies and of course hands on exercises. Here are the details of the 2 first training days:

• Master class New Media Relations, February 12, Dutch language session.
• Master class New Media Relations, February 26, French language session. 

In my new media part of the day I'll split up the group and let you get your hands dirty with blogging, podcasting & videocasting so you can see how these tools could relate to your current communications outreach...

These master class sessions are part of a new initiative by Leads United called Leads'Cool; communications training days led by both agency and external specialists on the topic.