Category Archives: Communication Technology

Same Tools, Different Rules

Digital marketing technologies and ethical restraint.

Communication Technology, Employee Communication

At Smith we think internal communications is special. 

What makes it special? Employees, of course. 

When we do our jobs well employees access opportunities that can help them stay healthier, enjoy retirement and put their kids through college. And employers maximize their valued employee relationships. Special. 

Same Tools, Different Rules. 

On the surface, communication looks the same across many fields and disciplines. 

Marketing, advertising, public relations and employee communicators all use similar tools and techniques. We all might create a brochure, website, or video intended to reach targeted audiences and produce desired outcomes. We all think strategically and creatively when presenting choices to our audiences. We all try to write clear and impactful messages.

The key difference is in the relationships we each have with our audiences and the ethical restraint that relationship requires. 

Smith’s clients occupy a position of trust with their employees; an ethos that informs and defines the tools we use and the persuasive approaches we take. False promises, outrageous promotions and scare tactics may work in sales, but they have no place in employee communication. 

Unfortunately, new players who don’t get this are moving into the HR communications space. Many of these firms consult clients on employee communication without experience in or appreciation for the ethical responsibilities inherent in it. 

Seeing employees as no different from any other anonymous end user, they recommend techniques and technologies intended to invisibly commoditize employee data and behaviors. Marketing what they call “results-driven” communication, these organizations promote:

  • Engaging in indiscriminate data collection.
  • Commingling personal and professional data.
  • Monitoring data that evaluates employee performance against often unstated wellness, training and other goals.
  •  Using behavioral science techniques, such as “gamification,” to influence employees “behind the scenes.”
  • Advocating for the use of apps to create AI-generated biases for or against criteria that’s not transparent to the user.

Solutions like these often have a myriad of analytical tools. However, these types of techniques and technologies show little appreciation for the pivotal role an employer plays in an employee’s life.

Employees want to trust their organizations to be faithful to the promises they make and transparent in the messages they communicate.  Employers need to trust employees to be reliable in their actions and transparent in their interactions with the organization.  

This reciprocal bond, when nurtured and protected through open and honest communication, runs deeper and lasts longer, than the often-short-term results generated by commercial, transactional communication.

Employees are key to organizational success. They deserve special treatment. 

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Please rate your last straw?

Loads of online surveys are destroying your engagement measurements.

Communication Technology, Employee Communication

Enough already!

A couple of days ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled: Customer Ratings Have Become Meaningless. ‘People Hand Out 5 Stars Like It’s Candy.’ The article focused on Uber ratings as a surrogate for the flood of surveys we deal with every day.

Confusion over what constitutes 5-star behavior for certain services, combined with the guilt of potentially hurting someone’s livelihood, has people defaulting to perfect scores. Ratings padding is particularly rampant for services involving personal interactions.


Just like the children in the fictional Lake Wobegon, everyone is “above average” on some apps—way, way above.

Preetika Rana, WSJ Technology Reporter

I think they’ve captured what many of us have been thinking and feeling.

In just the last two weeks, I’ve received 17 marketing surveys through email and/or text messages. More than one a day from companies large and small— my electric utility, a golf course, my insurance company, multiple online vendors, a coffeeshop, SaaS providers, etc. It’s like they are being piled on until I finally buckle under the load. Two in particular became my last straws. 

The first was from my dentist. She’s a fabulous dentist. An accomplished DMD, educator, former head of our state’s dental association. The perfect dentist. Except, she recently purchased a marketing package that facilitates (promotes) the use of digital surveys. They go out whenever you make, change or go to an appointment.

The second straw was from a roadside vendor who sells raw, local, wild honey. So now the raw honey dude, selling off his truck’s tailgate, is push-marketing in my phone with SMS surveys? Is he really going to adjust his business model after analyzing his survey data?

Enough, already!

Just because you can, should you?

This question should be the first hurdle any digital communication feature needs to clear before adoption. There are countless companies inventing new ways to push, pull, track, fence, compile and report endless streams of user/consumer/employee data. 

With more and more digital solutions coming online every year, we must think critically about these technologies. How are they received and perceived by the actual humans engaging with them? And how does this communication product/feature help us achieve our goals?

Today’s survey explosion is facilitated by platforms like Shopify, Facebook and Workday. What used to be a discrete function of a company like Survey Monkey, has been integrated into most major social media, online sales and human capital management platforms. These tools make creating and distributing surveys easy. Technically easy, that is. Creating and conducting surveys that yield valuable data still requires strategic thinking and implementation. 

Take my two surveys as examples. Does my dentist think I’m going to be more loyal or get more “dental care” because she asks about my wait or if the office is “nicely appointed?” The office is comfy, fully staffed and I never have to wait more than five minutes. She knows these answers before she asks them. She likely believes she’s increasing appreciation between her office and me. When, in fact, she is annoying me. 

What about the honey dude? He definitely prefers cash, but begrudgingly takes credit cards with a swiping device on his phone. His survey is likely generated by the credit card vendor, for their own purposes. There wasn’t a single question about the honeycomb/honey ratio (the only important question) or the wait times at the tailgate. I doubt he even reads the survey results.

Why are these two sending a survey after every interaction? Just because they can.   

Combatting Survey Fatigue

Unlike the honey dude, our clients create employee engagement surveys that are both important and well thought out. Unfortunately, empty marketing surveys are diluting the effectiveness of these important information-gathering tools.

When employee surveys suffer from reduced participation, disengaged responses and false data points, the culprit is likely survey fatigue rather than the quality of the survey architecture.


All effective communication adapts to the environment. To be heard in a loud room, you raise your voice or lean in closer. Signs on 70 mph roads need to be larger than those on 30 mph roads. And surveys conducted in an environment overrun with surveys need special attention to resonate.

You can elevate your engagement surveys in the minds of your employees, even when they are barraged with useless surveys.

Limit the frequency of your engagement surveys.  

An annual survey can be framed as highly important to the direction of the company. Quarterly surveys monitor employee attitudes and progress toward goals. Monthly surveys are not typically effective. It is very hard to institute meaningful change on a month-to-month basis and you dilute participation. 

Acknowledge survey fatigue.

Establish a limited survey schedule and let employees know that schedule in advance. Frame your surveys as important to the direction of the company. Let employees know that you are aware of the potential for survey fatigue and that you will not waste their time on activities that are not important. Employees are the only source for certain feedback. Tell them why they’re important and they’ll participate.

Make your survey relevant.

Surveys not only gather data they also communicate your organization’s values and business interests. Be certain your survey isn’t merely an exercise in polling employees. Make it a thoughtful process, transmitting important information between management and your workforce.

Employees want to be relevant to their company. Show them how their survey responses inform decision. Take the time to promote engagement surveys as vital to the ongoing success of your organization and employees will understand that these surveys aren’t the same as the throw-away versions they experience every day. 

Let’s Connect

If you want help designing and implementing employee engagement campaigns, we can help. We’d love to hear from you. 

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Be Transformative!

Heads-up content creators–the world is not open source.

Communication Technology, Social Media, Trends

The culture of visual sampling and appropriation suffered a setback today as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Andy Warhol Foundation in a much-watched case involving the limitations of copyrights within the fair use doctrine. Digital visual appropriation has attempted to piggyback on allowances used in music sampling within hip-hop and other genres. This ruling counters that movement by reinforcing copyright law when commercial interests are involved.  

Orange Prince and fair use

At issue was a series of silk screens created by Andy Warhol (who died 1987) in which he used a photograph of Prince taken by Lynn Goldsmith. Goldsmith sued the Andy Warhol Foundation for licensing an image called “Orange Prince” to Conde Naste. Goldsmith was unaware of the Warhol silk screens until they appeared in an issue of Vanity Fair (owned by Conde Naste) in 2016.

“Orange Prince” article on Wikipedia.

The court was unimpressed with the Andy Warhol Foundation’s argument that their licensing of images of the Warhol’s silk screens, though based on Goldsmith’s photos, were permitted under the fair use doctrine because they were sufficiently “transformative.” 

The 7 to 2 decision crossed ideological lines within the court in favor of Goldsmith, finding that when the magazine published a photo of Warhol’s work it lost any transformative value and the digital version “share[s] substantially the same purpose, and the use is of a commercial nature.”

“Goldsmith’s original works, like those of other photographers, are entitled to copyright protection, even against famous artists. Such protection includes the right to prepare derivative works that transform the original.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing the majority opinion. 

Transformative use

Had the Andy Warhol Foundation sold the physical silk screens this decision would likely never have happened. (Though, it seem that the court ruled against this use too.) It is the mass distribution and easy replication of protected works that remains squarely in the sights of copyright restrictions.

This decision may inform other important legal questions being generated (pun intended) by artificial intelligence. Do A.I. programs have permission to alter, or sample original copyrighted material without written permission? Print, image and music recording publishers seem united in their stance to protect their works from a.i. infringement.

“Today’s Warhol Foundation decision is a massive victory for songwriters and music publishers. This is an important win that prevents an expansion of the fair use defense based on claims of transformative use. It allows songwriters and music publishers to better protect their works from unauthorized uses, something which will continue to be challenged in unprecedented ways in the AI era.”

David Israel, CEO, National Music Publishing Association

Fair use simplified

Smith ensures our clients don’t bump up against copyright issues by being very careful in our image selection and paying for the images that require us to do so. However, when creating digital content for personal social media, educating, informing, or for a non-profit presentations, fair use offers more latitude for creators to appropriate, sample and use the work of others.

The easiest way to understand the difference is to follow the money. You can’t directly profit from another creator’s work without compensating them. It’s that simple.    

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ABCs of a 21st Century Writer

Prose, Pixels and Persuasion

Articles, Communication Technology, Strategic Communication

Audience

Start with your audience—what they know, what they need to know and how they make sense of the world.

Brevity

Tight copy is the “soul of wit,” and it takes twice as long to write.

Context

Pre-existing knowledge and conditions dictate how an audience receives messages. Incorporate context to add layers of meaning. Ignore context and risk failing to connect.

Drafts

The third draft is always better than the first or second. The fifth? Not so much. Exert the right amount of effort and resist obsession.

The Greeks knew some stuff.

Ethos

Beyond the prevailing zeitgeist, every corporate culture, marketplace and social media following taps into specific memories, values and language to make meaning. Persuasiveness often hinges on these.

Feedback Loops

Natural feedback signals are lost when we use any media—from writing books to broadcasting video. Many of today’s technologies, like social media, are including ways to measure audience reactions. Click-through rates, watch-times and other social media listening techniques act virtually to tell us what’s resonating and why.

Graphics

Graphic design increases readability and keeps our messages relevant in fast-moving media environments.

Modern readers unconsciously judge our visual production values against everything else they encounter.

Hyperlinks

Hypertext is the most underappreciated and the most powerful writing developments in our lifetime.

Hypermedia de-clutters our prose while adding unimaginable richness to our documents. Your digital composition can unlock the world with the right hyperlinks.

Interface

Our documents are read on a myriad of screens—some are the size of matchbooks, others the size of walls. Anticipate which interfaces your audience uses to design features like graphics, audio, video and interactivity.

Juxtaposition

Compare and contrast to help delineate and distinguish.

Knowledge Management

Communication increasingly means managing information flows, platform integration and data analysis. Technology and numbers can often intimidate communicators. It shouldn’t.

Written language is a profoundly complicated technology. If you can master English, spreadsheets should be like coloring books.

Laughter

Comedy is best left to professionals.

“There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.” — Erma Bombeck

Modality

Digital communication is beautiful because we can incorporate any or all of these modes into our documents:

  • Text is great for brevity and/or complexity.
  • Video captures short attention spans.
  • Audio contains subtle cues and emotional richness.
  • Interactivity engages the mind, the will and the body.

Negativity

It’s not all sunshine and lemonade. When you say something important, someone else is likely disagree.

Anticipate possible negative reactions and integrate effective responses when possible. On social media, always have strategies for dealing with negative posts. Especially learn how to deal with trolls. (Hint: Don’t feed them.)

No Trolls!

Obviousness

Don’t do the thinking for your audience. You’ll bore them and lose them.

PowerPoint

I know we have to use PowerPoint. But must we use it badly?

When you use it, avoid the well-known sins that lead to glassy looks and ineffective presentations.

Questions

For interest, create questions in the minds of your audience; questions they must answer for themselves.

For clarity, answer the questions your audience might ask if they could.

Repeat

If it needs to be said, say it again and then say it again.

Then say it a different way. Then repeat it. Then recap, referencing the first three times you said it.

Cut a groove into an audience’s memory that isn’t easily erased.

Speed

Quick turnarounds, instantaneous responses and on-the-go content development are creating pressures for communicators to be faster and faster.

It’s amazing and exhilarating to open a mobile app and produce a fully formatted video that posts 5 minutes after initial inception. It’s also exhausting and sometimes reckless to move at the pace afforded by these platforms.

Tap the brakes for better content.

Timing

Impatience can cause an initiative to fail on the launch pad.

Measure the moment, looking for what the Greeks called kairos (the fullness of time, the pregnant moment). This is especially important with campaigns where information builds upon itself or momentum is critical.

Unaddressed Issues

When you choose not to directly address issues that are important to your audience, it’s often helpful to signal that you’ve made a conscious choice and are not guilty of ignorance or oversight.

Voice

Professionals are often required to slip into their client’s voice rather than to find their own.

We all have a style. We just have to open our mouth and sing to find it.

Words

I love words. You love words. The right word is a delicious morsel; the crafted sentence a feast.

It may seem that technology is pushing words aside, but fear not. Words accomplish things AI never will. In the hands of artisans (smiths), words reach into our memories, touch our hearts and create our possible worlds.

X-rated

Always avoid blue jokes and references (see Laughter).

Yell

SOMETIMES IT’S GOOD TO GO BIG!!!

Zig when others Zag.

If everyone is using digital, it may be time to mail a beautifully crafted, glossy print piece.

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