Communication 101

I worked with a company some years ago and after listening to their situation, I suggested developing a Corporate Blog. After meeting with Management about the concept, I was told to shelve it until next year. I looked at him and asked him why? After pausing for about 10 seconds to choose his best excuse he said, "we need to take Baby Steps."

I said, "with all due respect, you're a technology company with a website that was developed as a student project, you have no cohesive Marketing materials in place to compensate, you don't write press releases, don't advertise.... what are you waiting for?" He simply, said "No".

I regrouped, went through my idea and pitched it along with a Marketing Plan for the upcoming year (some 2 months) later. I mentioned that I wanted to start a Corporate Blog for them and tried to educate them as to why I felt this was a great idea. Time passed and I proceeded to make plans of how I wanted to architect this new Marketing Tool.

Another project came up and and I felt this would be the ideal situation to implement the blog. I sent out emails describing how I would use the blog and why it would be such a great product for their clients. I thought I was gaining ground on this until one day one of their Directors said, "Tj, what is a blog?" I learned a valuable lesson that day about communication.

• Tell them
• Tell them what you told them
• Tell them again

It was then I realized that they were not unwilling to commit to this idea due to a lack of potential or investment, but unwilling to commit due to a lack of understanding. It took me over 3 months of talking about the concept to get someone to say, "I really don't know what that is."

Have we really come to a place in our culture where we are afraid to ask for more information due to public image?

So, I sat down with the Director and went over what a blog was (again). During the process he asked questions about the software and then gave me buy-in. I think this was the same thing that happened when websites came around. Some were like, "oh god I don't know what that person is talking about", but I don't want to sound out of touch so I'll just say, "well, I don't know if that is the right fit for us at this moment. Let's put it on the side and consider it next quarter." Now look at how many companies have websites.

To all those out there that want to ask the question but don't want to seem less knowledgeable than someone else, ask it anyway. Learn something today to benefit yourself tomorrow.


Tj Todd
Studio490