Today was the first day of the Dartmouth Communicators Group Conference.  Organized by the Public Affairs office, the two day event is bringing together all of the communicators on campus, an impressive feat considering over 80 people attended the first day.  

I’ll admit, I was a bit skeptical of the event at first.  I think in-house conferences can veer into the “cheesey at best” category more often than not, becoming more of a politically correct pep rally for the organization rather than a productive use of time.  But this one was different.  There was a really great energy in the room from the get-go and it continued throughout the night through the reception and dinner (though I’m sure the availability of alcohol didn’t hurt the mood any! )

The event started off with a presentation from Paul Argenti, Professor of Corporate Communication at the Tuck School of Business.  His presentation made me realize that a great communicator can really make all the difference in the world.  I have degrees in public relations and business, so I had heard of the majority of the concepts he was talking about before.  But the way he did it made it seem new and fresh.  Here are some of the things he covered: 

  • In a decentralized communications system, lots of different messages come from different audiences, who don’t necessarily talk to each other.  However, the audience doesn’t differentiate between departments so they must find a way to harmonize the message.
  • Different organizations have different ways of communicating, though no way is necessarily better than another. I made the mental note of a transparent organization versus one where everything is vetted.  It’s the difference between a CEO that blogs himself versus one who has his public relations office write his blogs for him.
  • It’s cheaper (not to mention better) for an organization to be proactive in its communication, rather than just reacting when something negative happens.
  • Aristotle’s The Art of Rhetoric outlined the three key components of communication: The speaker, the person the speaker addresses, and the message the speaker delivers.  This, in turn, helped him to develop his communications strategy framework, a constant cycle of the organization delivering a message to certain constituencies and then a portion of those constituencies are going to communicate a response back to the organization. 
  • When you communicate a message, always set goals so that you have a clear understanding of what you want your audience to do as a result of that communication. If your communication does not achieve that goal, you should consider that communication a failure. 
  • Communication is strategic when it is completely consistent with an organization’s overall strategy to enhance its strategic positing and competitiveness. 
  • Most of the time, executives aren’t sure exactly what they want to say.  It’s the communicators job to suss that out.
  • Strategic communication is clear and understandable, true, communicated with passion, repeated and consistent.  
  • Communications objectives should constantly evolve along with the changing environment and constituency expectations. 
  • The Tennenbaum and Schmidt Model: As audience involvement increases, content control decreases.
  • Analyzing constituencies: What constituencies are most critical and which are secondary? You have to be willing to make tradeoffs, because you can’t make everyone happy (but you also have to be prepared for unhappy people). 
  • Consider how the constituencies feel about the organization, what they already know about the organization or the communication topic and what other information sources they have (official and unofficial) that may affect their opinion of the organization.
  • Deliver appropriate messages: Choose communication channels carefully and use care to craft the structure and format of the messages.
  • People always forget what’s in the middle of the message so you have to make sure all the important information is in the beginning and repeated again at the end. 
  • Assess constituency responses: Did they respond in the way the organization wished? Did the organization reach a measurable objective? How should the communication strategy be revamped? 
  • When communication supports strategy the media writes articles that  highlight core values; employees understand what the organization stand for and are willing to give discretionary time to their work; community members are more willing to engage in discussion to reach a common ground; students have a shared understanding of the institution’s mission; alumni may not agree with the institution but understand where the position comes from.
  • Hierarchy of company statements: 
  1. Mission: Why we exist
  2. Values: What we believe and how we will behave
  3. Vision: What we want to be
  4. Strategy: What our competitive game plan/advantage will be.  Basic elements of strategy statement are objective, scope, and advantages.
  • What are the differences between identity, image and reputation? Identity is that which is central, distinctive and enduring about a company.  Image is the reflection of the organization’s identity from the vantage point of one constituency.  Reputation is the collective image - how all constituencies view the organization.

Following Argenti’s presentation and a communication exercise, there was a panel titled “the pitch for Dartmouth”, where we heard from the VP of Development, the Dean of the Faculty and the Head Baseball Coach about how they “pitch Dartmouth” to their different audiences.  The biggest takeaway from this is that the message is really dependent on the audience, even within like groups.  For example, you communicate with different generations of alumni differently because they had a set of experiences and traditions that may be different than other generations.

Then there was food and beer and merriment for all. Stay tuned for more from the conference!