corporate communication

The world we knew at the start of 2020 longer exists. Covid has disrupted how we work, live, and learn, and the only certainty about the future is that we’re not returning to the past.

Therefore, it’s the perfect time to disrupt how your company (and how you) communicate.

No, it’s past time, and it’s not an opportunity, it’s a requirement. Your stakeholders require novel approaches, and your management wants better ideas that cost less money.

So, here are 5 ways you could disrupt what you do:

The Gauntlet To Mediocrity

Boeing’s widening woes are a warning to every communicator tasked with creating or sharing company purpose.

The headline in today’s New York Times says it all: Cascading Crisis Reveals ‘Sick’ Culture at Boeing. Recently revealed internal documents show employees regularly cutting corners, dissing one another and insulting customers, feeling remorse for having deluded regulators and, above all, obsessing about meeting deadlines and budgets.

Twitter is expanding its staff and its efforts to communicate with the world, and in doing so is turning to a lot of the tried-and-true structures and approaches that its 140-character service helped destroy. The changes beg a few questions, most notably why?

More is better, according to the leading marketing theorists when it comes to brands participating in social media. Blogger how-to lists and entire books are dedicated to the proposition, and there are services that will tee-up "content" so you can repurpose it into the mediasphere. The Conventional Wisdom not only says this is effective commercial speech but that it's a replacement for old approaches, like advertising. Spend more of your marketing budget on it this year or risk being oh so 2010.

With reports that the oil gusher in the Gulf is nearly kaput, BP's new CEO announced Friday that the company would scale back its cleanup efforts in areas where there is no more oil. Makes sense. Still bad for the brand, though.

There are two problems with which BP must contend, one situational and the other conceptual:

Earth Day is behind us and I'm digging out of my cluttered digital desktop to uncover the nuggets of value that have been hidden amid the countless pitches and come-ons typical of April's environmental hoopla. Among those nuggets: three reports and guidebooks on ... making green pitches and come-ons.

Last month, on Nov 10, 2009 the 7th blogwell session took place in sunny Atlanta, Ga. (this is meant to be a joke for I have been twice to Atlanta so far and have seen a lot of rain not to mention flooding). Nearly a month later – and I am a little late for that – now that the dust has settled I wish to recap on some of the best sessions I was able to attend.

JPMorgan Chase announced earlier this week that it plans to hire 1,500 new mortgage and small business bankers by the end of 2010. I think this is a tremendous branding opportunity.

"We have invested in new systems, aggressively grown our capacity and are now looking to increase our sales force," said its head of home lending in a statement reported on CNN.

(NOTE: This essay draws on a chapter in my new book, Bright Lights & Dim Bulbs, which identifies nine radical branding and marketing insights for innovative business leaders to watch as we roll into 2010)

Bank of America/Merrill Lynch took out a double-page spread in the Wall Street Journal last week to deliver what it must have felt was a very important message to its current and would-be customers:


Nothing.