Be like Batman: why a super-mobile workforce is imperative

The reality of time pressures today, is that we all feel like we spend our days chasing something, whether its sales or deadlines, but it’s the chase that seems to rob us of our time and has become a new age criminal. While no one discredits the value of office bound workers, it is this growing need to get more done in less time and more efficiently that has created the need to establish a force that can act as independent agents and go to war on work.

However, you don’t exist in a comic book, TV sitcom or alternate reality and probably don’t begin your crime busting days by slipping down a super-fast tube into an underground cave that has been kitted out with the most sophisticated and high-end technology and gadgets available. It has therefore become all the more important to know what arsenal is at your disposal. Let’s review…

While some of us may think we can drive like Batman, the truth is, we need not go racing off into the big yonder. In fact, with mobile internet connections – particularly as Wi-Fi and 3G hotspots become more pervasive countrywide – we are able to connect, retrieve work, communicate and update at faster speeds and in less time than the Batmobile could ever hope to travel.

The explosion of the internet and the reality of “always connectedness” — which underpins the cultural shift towards a mobile workforce — means that you can shoot out communications and resolve any issue or elicit faster decision making quicker than Batman could use a rip-cord to scale a tall building. Racing down the street in the Batmobile or swinging from a rip cord may well have the flashy appeal, but connecting remotely is instantaneous and saves more time, which is an invaluable advantage today.

Similarly, fueled by the latest technology advancements, there has been a call to simplify communications and subsequently we are witnessing an increased uptake of unified communications (UC) and convergence in a bid to have one medium, one number, one voice box, one email, etc.

The road to achieving this overarching goal of one-time-one-place accessibility and communication has given life to the concept of presence. This may sound superfluous, however, like the Bat signal this presence provides our colleagues, piers, customers – and whoever else wishes to communicate with us – with systematic access to our immediate availability as well as alerting us that our attentions to a communication or presence is requested.

This presence is instantaneous, like the Bat signal, however, more effective as details or requirements can be shared at once and in less time. This is not to mention that our presence has farther reach than that of the Bat signal, as with the Internet, our communications are not geographically bound and we have access to almost every corner of the world.

Further to this, as most of us are not built 6ft and strong, carrying our entire arsenal everywhere we go – as with Batman’s utility belt – has become counterproductive. The collective weight of all of the communication tools and gadgets that we make use of is bulky and inhibiting, which for a long time left a void in the technological advancements available to us – until now. While smartphones have been around for a number of years, it was the success of the application-rich iPhone that really set the market alight chiefly due to the flexibility and functionality that these tools offer the mobile workforce. Therefore, like Mac Gyver’s pocket knife – if used properly – your smartphone enables you to converge all of your communications through one ‘ultimate’ device.

This ability brings true one-time-one-place-one-point-of-contact to the fore, making always-connected, on-demand and simpler communications a reality and subsequently provides you with an enormous boost to your productivity. You may not have the skill to escape a locked room before a bomb blows up with nothing but your pocket knife, but having a smartphone ensures that you will have the flexibility to define your presence from wherever you happen to be.

Couple these tools, with the addition of a Bluetooth headset – which offers crisp and instant voice communication connections, whether via a desk phone, mobile phone and/or softphone or other IP-based telephony – and you can gain a stronger integration of your communication devices. If Batman can get away with hassle-free, hands-free communications then why shouldn’t you.

So while you may not be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, or escape any dangerous situation with a pocket knife and a piece of twine, as the new, super, mobile taskforce, you are raging a war on work and with the right tools and a set plan and objective, you can win!

This article was first published on memeburn.

7 hot tips for creating content-driven marketing campaign

South Africans can tell a great story — hang around a braai with a bunch of them for long enough and the stories will start flowing quickly. In terms of content marketing, the country’s people are great at telling stories in traditional media such as print, radio and TV. South Africa punches above its weight when it comes to advertising and media awards. But because internet use at any kind of scale is only a recent development it is still adapting this storytelling ability for a digital audience.

How can South Africans adapt their creativity to create stand-out content campaigns encompassing both traditional and digital channels?

1. Understand why people consume content, and why they share it

The reason why digital and especially social media is likely to be around for a long time is that it fulfills a very basic need to check in with your social group. People on social media are like meerkats chirping at each other – Twitter is therefore a very apt name! It’s about signalling how you want to be seen in your group. You’re reading this story from The Economist, so you’re intelligent. You’re sharing pictures from Vogue, so you’re stylish.

Social media is very addictive – you are always after that quick little fix, constantly checking to see what’s next, and what you can share. And then most people also want to learn useful things that they can apply to their own lives. Understanding human behaviour when it comes to digital media is an essential first step before putting together a strategy for your content campaign.

2. If you can’t say it in a tweet, don’t do it

If you can’t get your message across in 140 characters, it is not a simple enough idea that will be easy for people to understand and share. Truly amazing pieces of content can always be conveyed in little more than a tweet. We are living in an age in which we are bombarded with content and people have very short attention spans. If you can’t get your message across in two or three seconds, you’ve lost them. They will move on to the next interesting thing.

3. The trick is to provide content in layers

The basic message should be very simple and punchy, but it must provide layers for people who want to dig deeper. There should be some substance if you want people to go beyond the headline and the basic story. For example, from a tweet, you could lead your audience to a short Youtube video. If they are still interested, they should be able to read in-depth online or print articles or see a great infographic. The idea is to take people on a content journey – as they consume one piece of content, you offer them the next step. This is how you build momentum and an audience. So try and avoid providing once-off content items – you need to have to have a long-term strategy of producing your content.

4. Guard against a cookie-cutter approach to content

You need to think of different ways of getting your message across on different channels. What ‘integrated’ often ends up meaning is a brand producing an amazing TV ad, putting that same ad on Youtube, and then taking a still from the ad and putting it on a billboard or on a Facebook ad. So the content is essentially the same throughout.

It adds very little to the consumer experience – if people have seen one piece of content, why should they want to see the others? The trick is to offer fresh ways of viewing and engaging with your content by telling different aspects of the story on different channels.

5. Timing is crucial for maximum effect

Your campaign is much more likely to be successful if you’ve tapped into or added to current public conversation, especially that which is ‘bubbling under the surface’ and has not yet started to trend. You want your content to be highly relevant and spark interest and conversation, not something that’s already been done. You need to know what will get people going – what is likely to dominate the conversation for at least 10 minutes at your next braai?

6. Resist the temptation to push product into everything

Brands are often tempted to slip a product message into everything. But some pieces of content are more about how people feel about the brand and what it stands for. If this is what you’re trying to communicate, don’t refer at all to products. There are other ways you can lead people to your brand’s products. This is not to say that products don’t have a role in content, but they shouldn’t become the default.

People tend to ‘switch off’ if they think you’re trying to sell them something. Content should never be an infomercial – a piece of advertising loosely disguised as a piece of content. There are so many media players out there whose only aim is to produce great content, and you need to be able to compete with them.

7. Know what you aim to achieve with your content

Apart from your messaging, you need to know your target audience. Do you want to reach 10 people, or 10 000? Also, each time you produce a piece of online content, you need to review and look at the analytics to determine what worked and what didn’t, what you can learn, what your audience is interested in, what you can build into the next piece of content, and how you can adapt your campaign as you roll out your content. Flexibility is key.

This article was first published on memeburn.

SPI course shows new ways of doing communications work

By Ettioné Ferreira

Government communication officers from across South Africa have praised a course they attended at the Sol Plaatje Institute (SPI) for Media Leadership recently, saying it had capacitated them and exposed them to new ways of doing work.

The course, held at the SPI in July, focused on a range of strategies which government communication officers need to use in their work to communicate better and more effectively with their various constituents and on how to manage and lead their organizations in a rapidly changing media landscape.

“I studied for four years but within the few days I have been here (at the SPI), there’s a lot that I’ve seen and I now notice that it is so imperative that one keeps on studying, one keeps on refreshing and refreshing,” said one of the participants, Manelisi Ntsodo, who is the media co-ordinator for Parliament of South Africa in Cape Town.

Ntsodo graduated with a BA degree in Journalism and Media Studies from Rhodes University, the home of the SPI, in 2003. Ntsodo handles media accreditation during events at Parliament.

The communications manager of Buffalo City Metropolitan, Keith Ngesi, said: “This course is going to capacitate me; the content I’m getting here I’ll be sharing with my team.”

He spoke after attending only a few days on the five-day accredited and certificated course known as the Government Media: Essential Tools for Editors and Journalists.

Ngesi also has strong ties with Rhodes University, where he did a journalism course with the East Cape News Agency endorsed by Rhodes in 1994 and 1995 and worked closely with Radio Grahamstown. Ngesi has worked as a communications manager for six years and has also been a producer and presenter of current affairs programmes for the SABC for 12 years.

Ngesi says that it is very different working in government compared to the media industry. “Government media is different (because) there are a lot of legislative systems and processes that we operate under and we are obliged to follow.”

Ntsodo adds: “(In government) You don’t have as much freedom to write about what you think… you must make it a point at all times to abide by [the code of ethics]. You can’t just write something you want to.”

The Makana Municipality communications officer, Yoliswa Ramokolo, was also on the course. She has a BA (Hons) from the University of the Western Cape and joined Makana in June 2013. “I’ve learned so much that I didn’t know before… there will be some changes in my office now. Now I will be able to deal with the media in a better way than before,” she said.

She regards her position to be of strategic importance to the Grahamstown community. “It is very important to communicate the work of the municipality and to bring the people and the municipality together so they will be able to work together.”