I am going to be speaking at the Conference Board Corporate Communications and Web 2.0 event this Friday in NY. I’ll be co-presenting with Jay Krall of Cision.
One of the points I will make – and this should come as no surprise to readers of this blog – is that business leaders need to seriously consider how they and their organizations use social media to communicate.
It is not just a matter of technology but also of embracing a new style of communications. Using social media tools like blogging and Twitter to communicate with the world in an open and honest way puts more of a human face on the organization. Of course social media presents risks as well, but you don’t mitigate these by looking the other way.
I am not saying “jump on board” because I am a social media zealot. Improved communications that result will increasingly prove to be good business.
I was thinking about this while catching up with the Sunday NY Times on the train this morning. The following article jumped out at me: The CEO, Now Playing on YouTube.
It ran in the business section and featured an interview with James Schiro, C.E.O. of Zurich Financial Services. Please see below for an excerpt.
[Schiro]:
You have to be comfortable using new tools of communication even though you’re not comfortable with it.
Q. Like what?
A. Young people today look at Facebook. They look at YouTube.
They are in a totally different communication realm. I still read
newspapers. But they are getting their information off the Internet. I
went to our communications people and I said, “I’m going to use
YouTube, and we’re going to set up a blog.”
We usually have a midyear meeting where we bring 400 people in. I
said: “Look, we’re going to cancel that for cost reasons, but we’re not
going to cancel the communication with people. I’m going to go on the
road every week to visit the locations. When I come out of these
meetings or have a message, we’re going to put something on YouTube,
and tell people, it’s on YouTube. You can go here.” So there was a lot
of pushback in the organization on this.
Q. Proprietary reasons?
A. Proprietary — anybody can see it. But
when I give an interview to the newspaper, anybody can read it. Or if I
give a speech at an investor conference, anybody can usually get it. So
if I’m not willing to tell our people something that I’m not ashamed of
anybody seeing, why am I saying it? So I have no problem with it being
on YouTube, articulating the strategy, telling them where we’re going,
what I want them to do, and what I’m hearing, good and bad, in the
organization. The response has been fantastic in a short period of
time.
Q. How long are the videos?
A. About a minute to a minute and a half.
I get good feedback from my children, who tell me: “Stand closer to the
camera. Make sure you are smiling the whole time.”
Q. Are you on Facebook?
A. I don’t know if I’m ready for prime time Facebook yet.
Q. Where did you get the idea for doing YouTube videos?
A. I just said, “Look, in this
environment, it’s a cheap way of communicating.” It’s free access. If I
am just careful in what I say, maybe somebody will see it and want to
join Zurich.
