Setting and timeline

Published February 4, 2010 Random thoughts , video games 1 Comment
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If you’ve read my blog for a while, you may know that I’ve been anxiously awaiting the launch of StarCraft II since the game was announced in May 2007.

Now, I just read on Wikipedia that StarCraft II is being set four years after the events of the first StarCraft installments. Why would Blizzard set it four years after when releasing the sequel 12 years after the first?

Anyone else find this odd? Why not set the new story 12 years later, and have some correlation with the time that’s passed? I’m 12 years older than when I planted my first Spawning Pool on a field of creep. Why has Jim Raynor gotten away with growing only four years older? How are we supposed to relate to him? (joking)

I am curious to know what you think of this. I like when game and movie sequels are set the same number of years in the future as it’s been since the original was released (in real-world years). It’s a nice touch.

Trust and Senior Management

Published January 13, 2010 Random thoughts Leave a Comment
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I think this is a tricky subject, and a really important one for an organization.

Senior and executive management have a huge effect on the culture of the organization, especially one that is built on a highly hierarchical structure.

When it comes up that staff have lost (or never had) faith in their leadership, what can those leaders do to change it?

These are four behaviors that I think can lead to situations like this:

  • Lack of honesty in staffing changes (internal hiring, promotions, temporary assignments, etc)
  • Exhibiting a cynical attitude during meetings, presentations and staff interactions.
  • Back-handed comments about their colleagues in front of staff.
  • Being disconnected from middle-management, not recognizing a manager’s job well done (this trickles down to staff level).

The damage caused by these types of behavior can be hard to undo. It takes time, but these behaviors need to stop before trust can be rebuilt.

I asked on Twitter earlier today, “What are some things Sr. Managers / Directors can do to gain trust from their staff?”

One response I received from @brianjbradley was:

@RickWeiss honesty, knowing their names, empathy, being genuine

I think these are definitely a few things Senior Managers can do to start down the road towards trust.

Now the hard question is; what can an organization do if Senior Managers are genuinely cynical, unhappy, backstabbing people?

Remember to KISS

Published December 29, 2009 Random thoughts Leave a Comment

Keep It Simple, Silly!

I had a discussion the other day that was far more complicated than it should have been. The person I was talking to was over-complicating the idea they were trying to convey and seemed to like it that way.

Remember word-problems from math class? I bet he hated them – I should ask next chance I get. How were you at word problems? I remember being one of the few in my classes who actually liked them.

Word-problems are all about taking information, simplifying it down to the core data, pushing all the unimportant details aside and crunching the facts to reach a conclusion.

It’s a useful life skill that can serve well in any profession; communications included. Brothers Chip and Dan Heath say in their book “Made to Stick”, that simplifying ideas is an important way of making them sticky. Just not over-simplifying to the point of being below your audience.

How do you practice developing this skill? Should we all go back to grade 9 math for a week? ;)

What auto-DMs say to me on Twitter

Published December 21, 2009 Blogger/Media Relations , Random thoughts Leave a Comment

Everyone’s clicked somebody’s follow and found a fresh new DM in their inbox a short time later that said “Thanks for following me. You may be interested in this http://somelousywebpage.com/”

I usually unfollow people who do this immediately. They’ve already completed their goal of sharing whatever URL it was that they put in the auto-DM. Their objective was to get the follow-back, because they almost always followed me first. Their profile looked interesting enough to give them a chance but typically I was already on the fence.

The Auto-DM tells me that this is a one-shot interaction. Deliver the link and that’s it. And that’s not how I use Twitter.

Sometimes I get an auto-DM that’s just a friendly greeting. I’m ok with this, though I feel it unnecessary. I don’t expect immediate interaction from everyone I follow, nor do I immediately interact with someone who follows me. There’s no reason to rush. Most of us already understand that social media isn’t an overnight endeavor.

What do you think when you get an Auto-DM? Do you respond? Do you unfollow?

Social transparency? How about honesty.

Published December 6, 2009 Random thoughts , Social Media 3 Comments
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The word “Transparency” is being overused by us communicators and social media folk.

What happened to words like “honest”, “candid” and “sincere”? They’re great for describing human exchanges, and they’re not used disingenuously by CEOs, elected officials and spokespeople to describe their relationships with stakeholders.

I feel like honesty, sincerity, and candidness are more closely connected with ideas of human morality. Transparency has to do with optimization; finding a balance between sharing information and protecting proprietary knowledge in order to maximize trust and minimize loss of competitive advantage or stakeholder’s personal information.

Why am I saying this?

I noticed a status post on Facebook today by a well-known person in social media who I’m friends with. They were mentioning that they tend to make the occasional negative post, or share personal thoughts differently on Facebook, because they see it as a more personal channel than Twitter. They were asking honestly if their friends and “friendz” minded this.

One of the comments in the thread beneath it thanked them for being “Transparent”.

I shook my head. I hope that it was said in jest, but for some reason I get the impression it wasn’t.

Put up your hand if your response to your spouse or significant other saying “I love you” has ever been “Thanks for being transparent”? I don’t expect to see many hands.

What about this scenario:

A good friend says “Thanks for helping out, I was having a tough day.”

Which of the following would you respond to this sincere thank-you with:

  1. It’s my pleasure, you’ve been there for me in the past.
  2. Don’t mention it, I was maximizing your shareholder value!
  3. Hey, what’re friends for?

It’s a bit of a ridiculous example, but you probably get my point. You’d most likely answer with 1) or 3) but not 2).

Keep the formal corp-speak for the boardroom.

Am I the only one getting tired of terms frequently used in government and corporate mission statements being used to describe social exchanges? Am I overreacting here?  I’d like to hear your take.

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/amandang/)

Something to watch – Sugar: The Bitter Truth

Published November 16, 2009 Cool links , Random thoughts Leave a Comment
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After watching this video, I’m thinking differently about how I’m going to eat in the future. It also changed the way I think about how I was eating a few years ago.

If you have some time, I recommend watching it.

A couple of years ago, I was in a relationship with a fascinating girl. Our compatibility aside, I learned a lot from her. She’s a very smart girl, and she was (and I assume still is) very serious about her nutrition. She’s vegetarian, and since we lived together, I adopted a vegetarian diet as well. It was easier, and I quite enjoyed it. I’d still take a tasty vegetable curry over a burger any day.

Over the months we lived together, I lost 30lbs. Almost all of the weight I gained since I stopped swimming competitively and started university. It was because we didn’t consume many heavily processed foods, and we certainly didn’t buy everyday products with added fructose.

An offer to help was fruitful

Published November 5, 2009 Government Communications , Social Media Leave a Comment
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I was tipped off by Douglas Bastien yesterday to some chatter about PWGSC on Twitter. This comment caught my eye.

Snapshot 2009-11-04 23-11-46

PWGSC is the Federal Department I work for.

I replied “@ruk Don’t know how much I can do about helping you find an interviewee, but if you tell me more, I’m willing to try to help.”

I was too late to actually help; Mr. Rukavina had gotten an interview and produced a great video profile of the Jean Canfield building in Charlottetown, PEI. The Jean Canfield building, as I just learned, is  a really cool ‘green’ building that was built by Public Works and Government Services Canada. The interview was not with a PWGSC representative but an architect from the design firm contracted by PWGSC. He does a fantastic job of explaining the many features of the building that reduce it’s environmental footprint. The Jean Canfield building is 60% more energy efficient than similar buildings in its class.

I can only imagine that time was the issue with not giving the interview to @ruk, since his video is really good press.

The video is very interesting.  I’m glad I messaged @ruk and learned about it. If nothing else, I know a little more about a project that happened outside Ontario Region where I work.

I used to monitor PWGSC on Twitter, but stopped because a) it was ‘tumbleweed’ quiet b) I switched twitter clients and forgot to set up the keyword for a live search. That’s how interesting the search had been. I’ve since resumed my monitoring.

The un-conference & government: A match made in heaven?

Published October 28, 2009 Conferences , Random thoughts , Social Media Leave a Comment
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Since I attended WIREDcamp roughly a month ago, I’ve been thinking a bit about using the un-conference model in government. WIREDcamp was hosted by the Ontario Government but open to Federal and municipal public servants, as well as not-for-profit-ers. I haven’t been able to come up with any negatives. They really do seem to be a match made in heaven. As long as you have participants open to sharing. Here are 4 reasons I think they’re a good match.

  • Governments are full of subject matter experts
  • They’re actively seeking ways to share and manage knowledge
  • The aging silos of the public service are crumbling under the weight of renewal
  • Budgets for large-scale conferences and learning events aren’t there

PodCamp, the little un-conference cofounded by Christopher S. Penn and Chris Brogan in Boston a few years ago has spread like a weed throughout North America and even across the ocean. I’ve attended them in four different cities myself – Toronto, New York City, Boston and Montreal. The same rise in popularity has happend with other un-conference ‘brands’ like BarCamp, DemoCamp and others.

If you’re new to un-conferences, here are a few basic steps to organizing one. (Not necessarily in this order)

  1. Find your audience for the un-conference
  2. Invite them to your event
  3. Get a venue, book a date
  4. Establish the rules of engagement
  5. Work with your audience to develop your agenda
  6. Provide enough guidance to make sure that your un-conference is going to be valuable to participants

That’s basically it. You might have to consider sponsors (maybe getting your venue for cheap or free). How you work with your audience to develop the agenda might vary. PodCamp Toronto organizers use a wiki to organize speakers, volunteers, etc. If your audience isn’t comfortable using wikis, you’ll need another way.

thegridAt WIREDcamp, they simply divided the room into many discussion tables. A grid marked on the wall with green masking tape represented tables and a time slots. The agenda was developed on the spot by having participants write topics on paper and tape them to the grid.

It’s too bad I had to skip the afternoon of WIREDcamp because of another work-related commitment; I thoroughly enjoyed the small, intimate and on-the-fly un-conference format.

I suggested the topic “How do you help non-tech people learn to use tech tools”. You can find the notes here. I didn’t know if anyone else would be interested, but as it turned out, a few people dropped in to take part and we had a good talk!

Also that morning, I joined the discussion on “How to manage ownership of content with multiple contributers (for the purpose of ATIP/FOI).” ATIP is short for Access to Information & Privacy in the Federal Gov, while FOI stands for Freedom of Information for the Ontario public service. These are the official systems in place for allowing the public and politicians access to government information.

This was a fascinating discussion initiated by Karl Ghiara, one of the guys behind the Federal wiki, GCpedia. This is a serious issue when it comes to furthering collaboration in the government because existing policies are not geared towards collaboration on channels that aren’t fed through top executives. I have to say, I was amazed by Douglas Bastien’s knowledge of policy, he contributed a lot to the discussion.

Have you tried the un-conference model? I really enjoy it and think there are a ton of opportunities to employ it within government.

Lesson in crisis communication

Published October 9, 2009 Communications Strategy , Government Communications 2 Comments
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I had an experience this Tuesday past that I won’t soon forget. Following a 10 a.m. meeting, my manager brought me into an urgent situation.

A tragic accident had occurred at a job site owned and maintained by another federal department and the contract for the work being done had been procured by the department I work for (PWGSC). One of the contractor’s employees had been seriously injured — possibly fatally, the media was on-site. That’s all we knew.

First hour:

The first step was getting the story straight. I learned as much as I could about the situation, as quickly as possible by talking with other stakeholders. I drafted a situation brief and background.

All the while, my understanding of the situation developed. Federal and provincial departments that investigate such accidents had dispatched investigation teams to the site.

I quickly established messages using a similar situation from several years ago as a reference. I learned that in situations like this, it’s extremely important to not jump to conclusions.

  • The situation was under investigation and commenting on it would be inappropriate.
  • What we could comment on, if asked, was the nature of the work the contract was for, and the relationship between PWGSC, Parks, the contractor and the job site.
  • We could emphasize how regrettable the tragedy is and that our thoughts are with the family and friends of the injured worker.

I shared developments with our Issues Management team who supply our Minister’s office with up-to-date information.

The following 5 hours:

Communication between myself and the other federal department’s communicator remained open as we pieced the situation together. It was decided that they would be the lead department on media inquiries, however questions regarding the nature of the work and the contract would fall to us.

We learned that the worker had in fact passed away. We paused to reflect on this tragic news. Planning was updated to include this information.

Day 2:

The first news reports had appeared the previous evening. The Ontario spokesperson for the investigation had been quoted in one and the attributed information was grossly inaccurate.

I found a phone number for the provincial ministry’s media contact; the same person who had been quoted. I meant to find out if the spokesperson had been wrong or misquoted.

I touched base with the provincial spokesperson and made sure our information jived. I learned that they were not yet in a position to release the name of the deceased, and that  a revision to the article would be published online later that day, and in print the following morning. The revision was more correct, but mentioned PWGSC as the owner of the work site.

Is this a big deal? Well sort of, but after discussing the matter with my manager we decided that contacting the news outlet for a 2nd revision was unwise for two reasons.

  1. With the situation still under investigation we would still have to refuse comment on most questions.
  2. It was obvious that the specifics of the work and contract weren’t of interest to the media outlet in question, and the general details were already provided by the Ministry of Labour spokesperson.

Ongoing:

My department has not been contacted by the media for comment. To my understanding the investigation into the accident has not concluded. I’m continuing to monitor the media for articles about the tragedy.

The support of my manager and co-workers was invaluable.

Losing my voice

Published October 7, 2009 Personal news , Random thoughts 1 Comment
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I lost my voice… largely the reason for my blog’s stagnation.

What do you do when you lose your voice after a bout of laryngitis? You let it heal.

I’ll be honest, I work in an environment that has a certain level of toxicity. I saw some bitterness beginning to show through in my writing here, as well as in my Twitter posting. I decided to make a conscious effort to curb the bitterness, refocus my energy and learn to find new ways to stay positive and love my job. I want to emphasize the fact that I really do love my job – but sometimes the place I have to go every day to do it can drag me down even though I try not to let it.

My future plans for this website:

I want to get back into the habit of writing here regularly. It’s a great outlet for discussing ideas that can’t be expressed in 140 characters.

I do plan on re-developing the focus of my writing. Video games have taken on a different role in my life since taking a full-time job. Rather than expending regular thought on communications within the industry, I’ve just been playing them during the few hours I have to do so.

I would like to include discussion about government communications and the implementation of web technologies and Web2.0.  This is a discussion I plan to have with my manager at my mid-year evaluation this week. I think it’s important to set boundaries for what details can and cannot be discussed in this forum. I trust my own judgment, but feel it’s important to bring my manager into the conversation.

Other subjects I want to discuss include general experiences I’m having at conferences, as the Chairperson of a workplace Network for young professionals, as a lover of music and more. After all, I called my website after my name – I think it should reflect a bit of the diversity of my thoughts and interests.

I do plan to continue referencing technology and video games in my writing because they are still hobbies of mine and find them especially useful for metaphors when making sense of my ideas.

Have you ever lost your voice?

If so, what did you do to find it again? How did you reinvent your own websites to match changes in your life?

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