Gatehouse Blog
By Year
By Topic
- 3D
- aa-exclude
- animations
- Blogging
- Book reviews
- Change & transition
- CIPR Inside
- clients
- Communication blogs
- Crisis communication
- Culture
- Current Affairs
- directors
- Downloads
- Employee engagement
- Employee motivation
- Employment trends
- Events
- examples
- flash
- Fun stuff
- General musings
- Image and identity
- Internal comms books
- Intranets
- Language
- Leadership comms
- Line manager comms
- Listening
- Messaging
- Our profession
- Podcasting
- Research
- Social media
- team members
- Tools & techniques
- Trust
- Uncategorized
- videos animation
- Weblogs
- Workspace communication
CommsFlashMob – what on earth is it?!
It all started with an innocent throw-away comment a few weeks back… Anyone interested in social media and communications will know just how big Wikipedia is these days – a staggering 3 million entries and the seventh most popular website globally. But despite its huge reach and considerable…
Directory of Twitter tools for communicators
In line with my new found enthusiasm for Twitter (you can see my ramblings and follow me via the right hand column of this blog), here’s a really helpful post from Brian Solis in San Francisco – on the tool and the phenomenon. Better still, it’s written especially for comms people. Excelle…
Continue reading Directory of Twitter tools for communicators...
Employee spokespeople and the online conversation – free article to download
I was interviewed recently by Alex Blyth, a freelance journalist, for a piece he was researching for Personnel Today on the impact of social media inside and outside the workplace. I’ve just got around to checking the PT website and I noticed that the article was published a few weeks ago R…
Continue reading Employee spokespeople and the online conversation – free article to download...
Who should be driving social media inside the organisation?
A quick pointer…. There’s an interesting debate emerging over at The Parallax View on social media within the enterprise – what it is, who should drive it and how it links to ‘traditional’ internal communication. It builds on a recent post by Chris Brogan. I…
Continue reading Who should be driving social media inside the organisation?...
Employers slow to tap into social media in search for recruits
I received an interesting press release today from the CIPD. The Institute included a section on social media in its annual Recruitment, Retention and Turnover survey – and the findings make sobering reading. The vast majority (80%) of the 779 organisations surveyed do not currently use Web 2.…
Continue reading Employers slow to tap into social media in search for recruits...
IBM experiments with social networking
Spotted this really interesting article in the latest issue of Business Week. It outlines how IBM is using social networking tools similar to Twitter and Facebook to enhance internal communication and knowledge sharing. It's interesting because, whilst there's an awful lot of hype and…
Prime Minister’s Questions on YouTube
There’s widespread coverage today of Gordon Brown’s decision to open up PM’s questions to the general public by encouraging questions to be submitted via the Downing Street YouTube site. ‘Ask the PM’ is the latest move by politicians to embrace the power of social…
YouTube top 10 corporate clips
Here’s the excellent first installment of the ‘top ten’ corporate/brand clips currently on YouTube – compiled by Matthew Yeomans and the team at Custom Communications ahead of the forthcoming Social Media Influence conference (see calendar for details). Just follow the link t…
The Observer’s 50 most influential blogs
Thanks to Matthew Yeomans at Custom Communication for flagging the Observer’s recent feature on the 50 most influential blogs, which had passed me by. What the list shows, as Matthew rightly points out, is the enormous power and influence leading bloggers now wield. PR professionals take…
Continue reading The Observer’s 50 most influential blogs...
More perspectives on social media…
Following on from my last post, here are two additional – and timely – perspectives on social media and employee communications from the team at Ragan. As usual Steve Crescenzo gets to the nub of the issue in his piece exploring how these technologies could – and are already …
Is internal social networking a bad idea?
Spotted this blog post today – an interesting perspective on the use of social networking tools inside organisations. It comes from Jake Swearingen, a reporter at BNET.com. In it Jake spells out exactly why he thinks internal social networking is a really bad idea, namely: Because social netwo…
Continue reading Is internal social networking a bad idea?...
Facebook Fridays – a great way for employers to experiment with social media
Those of you who read this blog regularly will know my views on social media – I’m passionate about the potential of this technology to revolutionize internal comms and enhance relationships at work. But many employers are running scared – blocking access or reprimanding employees …
Continue reading Facebook Fridays – a great way for employers to experiment with social media...
Harvard on social networking
I spotted a couple of interesting perspectives on social media today on the Harvard Business website & blog. Charlene Li, Vice President at Forrester Research, feels corporations should embrance sites like Facebook, whilst Tom Davenport, President’s Chair in Information Tecnhology and Mana…
Silver surfers take on the Facebook generation
Following on from my last post, it’s great to see that Saga has launched a social networking site for the over 50s (check out this piece from The Guardian). Saga Zone created a real buzz during its trials – more than 13,000 ‘silver surfers’ signed up during the four month pil…
Continue reading Silver surfers take on the Facebook generation...
Big 4 switch on to YouTube generation
Carrying on from my last post about the Deloitte Film Festival, it appears that other ‘big 4′ firms are involved in similar initiatives. I just spotted this piece about a similar competition being run by my old employer Ernst & Young, only this time focused exclusively on potential g…
Deloitte Film Festival taps YouTube potential
Here’s a great example of a YouTube-inspired communication initiative from the professional services sector. Global consulting and accountancy giant Deloitte has just undertaken its first ever Film Festival in the US. All of the firm’s US employees were invited to produce their own short…
Continue reading Deloitte Film Festival taps YouTube potential...
Free report sheds light on business use of social software
I’m always keen to share the latest communication thinking with you, particularly if it takes the form of a nice chunky report that’s completely free of charge . Accountancy giant KPMG has just produce an excellent publication entitled "Enterprise 2.0: Fab or Future?" Thi…
Continue reading Free report sheds light on business use of social software...
Thought leaders – Harvard’s management & leadership blogs
A quick bit of sign posting….Did you know that a number of leading thinkers on management and leadership are now blogging on behalf of Harvard Business Online – click here for a list. Be sure to check out Tammy Erickson’s thoughts on generational differences, Sylvia Ann HewlettR…
Continue reading Thought leaders – Harvard’s management & leadership blogs...
Academic research – the radical side of social media
The closet academic in me is always delighted to get his hands on new scholarly thinking about employee communication and other workplace issues. He’s also frustrated by the limited amount of research being undertaken in this area, particularly around the impact of social media on working life.&nb…
Continue reading Academic research – the radical side of social media...
Social media for Government and public sector communicators – free report to download
New Communications Review (NCR) has just published a link to a superb 99-page report about public sector blogging. I thought I’d pass it on. It’s called "The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0" and it’s published by the IBM Center for The Business of Go…
US spies experiment with social networking
I was chatting to Marc Wright the other day about about the potential internal uses of social networking software – basically building internal sites like MySpace, Facebook, MyRagan and Melcrum’s Communicator’s Network to connect employees. We both got really fired up about the eno…
Continue reading US spies experiment with social networking...
The new battleground in political campaigning
I’ve been watching Bert Decker’s US blog, Create Your Communications Experience, for some time now. If you haven’t discovered it already, it’s well worth subscribing. His latest post, one of a series on innovative use of video, gives an insight into the ways some of the US pr…
Continue reading The new battleground in political campaigning...
Move over Buzz Lightyear…
It’s the first time I’ve been compared to a super hero…well almost… Big thanks to Marc Wright, publisher of the communicator’s website Simply Communicate, for labeling me a ‘Buzz Director’ this week. Mentioned alongside a nice image of the plastic hero from …
In case you missed it – last week’s Dojo discussion
In case you missed it, there was a wonderful discussion on social media over at the Black Belt Dojo last week. I didn’t have time to contribute myself, but it’s worth flagging here as it captures incredibly well the various views, opinions, prejudices and delusions people hold about soci…
Continue reading In case you missed it – last week’s Dojo discussion...
Conference report
On Friday I took part in the first Simply Communicate/Ragan conference on engagement and social media. It was, I have to say, a stonking day. We were down in London’s docklands. The sun was shining, the company was excellent (particularly Marc and Bev Wright who, as ever, were the perfect host…
The big Simply event
I’m really looking forward to ‘Engagement, Social Media and the Internal Communication Revolution’, the big Simply Communicate/Ragan event being held at London’s Hilton Docklands later this week. It’s been a long time in the making but, if the line up is anything to go …
Social media gets serious
Is it me, or has the world suddenly gone social media mad? Every newspaper and magazine I pick up these days includes a mention of or, more usually, a feature on MySpace, Facebook, blogging or podcasting. There’s no escape. I was flicking through the UK daily newspaper Metro the other day and stum…
Melcrum social media survey – results just in
Thanks to everyone who took part in Melcrum’s big social media survey recently. Based on responses from more than 2000 communicators worldwide, the study’s surprise finding was that online video is a more popular application than blogs. 55% of respondents said they were already usi…
Continue reading Melcrum social media survey – results just in...
Take part in Melcrum’s mammoth survey on social media
Robin Crumby, managing director and co-founder of Melcrum (he’s the ‘Crum’ to Victoria Mellor’s ‘Mel’) is calling on the worldwide blogging community to support what could be the largest global survey to date on corporate use of social media. So far they’ve …
Continue reading Take part in Melcrum’s mammoth survey on social media...
What does YouTube mean for internal communicators?
That was the rather challenging question posed to me recently by Marc Wright at Simply Communicate. It’s a tough one. Whilst it’s easy to see the impact of YouTube and other video and photo sharing websites on external communicators, the implications for internal communicators are less o…
Continue reading What does YouTube mean for internal communicators?...
Ta ta avatar?
Steve Crescenzo makes me smile. I don’t always agree with what he has to say, but he’s always guaranteed to entertain. Take his recent post about Second Life, the much hyped 3D virtual world that is built and owned by its residents. Steve captures, very clearly, a view that I’m sur…