Editorial
Full disclosure: I am not an internal communications professional. I have worked with plenty, been aligned to their goals and objectives throughout my career, but what it is to walk in their shoes remains a mystery to me.
But internal comms is a pivotal role in the success of digital transformation projects, so I am going to ask some uncomfortable questions and share an outside perspective. I might even kick off a debate in the process.
Let's start here: There's a technology knowledge gap in the internal comms profession — and it needs to be addressed.
When Is an Internal Communicator Not an Internal Communicator?
Internal communicators wear many hats. So what other hats do they sometimes wear?
When they are educators and need to explain for the quintillionth time just what it is they do — and don’t do — as part of their role.
When they are the firefighting, clean-up crew after someone in the organization goes rogue without first discussing requirements with the comms team (what do they know?!) and total chaos ensues.
When they are dancers leading that intrepid, two left-footed tango with their IT colleagues to simplify their audience target settings, gain access to add content to a site page or request a feature activation controlled by the Microsoft mothership.
So how can organizations support internal communicators to get on with the job of, well, communicating, without all this faff and nonsense?
- Educate colleagues on the difference between internal and external communication?
- Explain why tricky messaging needn’t be delivered from the horse’s mouth like a hammer blow from Thor himself?
- Leave the Bert and Ernie two-step and train internal communicators to be more technically savvy (and a lot more Rita Hayworth)?
Yet when I asked internal communicators the latter (minus the “be less Sesame Street” metaphor) on the Microsoft Corporate Communications forum, a curious silence followed. Maybe the very mention of the word “Microsoft” leaves communicators bumfuzzled. And I get it, I really do.
Related Article: Advancing the Digital Maturity of Internal Communications
Microsoft 365: Ubiquitous Integrated Ecosystem or Pandora’s Box?
As a contractor, I see a lot of organizations roll out their shiny new SharePoint intranets with relative conviction that this behemoth-ic buffet of capabilities has something for everyone, straight out of the box.
You’ve got Dynamics for business development, Viva Topics and Syntex for information management, Power BI for reporting, Viva for employee experience — and internal communications teams have completely lucked out with spaces called “communication” sites which obviously tick all those communication boxes, right?
Layer all that with a sprinkling of Copilot and prepare to usher in the era of an inclusive, technology utopia ....
... or not? The definition for Pandora’s Box goes something like this: “a process that once begun generates many complicated problems.”
Yet in the case of SharePoint, a great many of those complicated problems might easily be addressed with some “backstage” training. I’ll focus on SharePoint because an ugly rumor was making the rounds on LinkedIn that SharePoint represents rather a pain point for some IC folk.
Why IC Needs to See the Full SharePoint Story
Internal communicators need the whole story to produce content effectively; not half or a chapter’s worth. And so it is with SharePoint. Understanding some (or a lot) of site, library, list and audience interdependencies, for example, provide important context for some of those SharePoint idiosyncrasies (read: hair tearing frustrations).
For example, audience targeting is only effective when the groups in the Active Directory reflect the target groups of the internal communications team. Very often this isn’t the case. But should an internal communicator be expected to worry about the nuances of the AD? Perhaps not, but understanding its purpose (and impact on audience targeting) is halfway to solving the problem (and knowing who to contact).
For those organizations using Copilot’s personalization of senior leadership messaging feature, will the messaging produced be run through comms or around them? And what might the consequences be?
When the penny drops that there is more to this whole Microsoft 365 ecosystem than anyone knew, what is the typical organizational response likely to be?
Related Article: Will SharePoint Online Disrupt the Intranet Market?
The Question of Third-Party Wrapper Intranets or Standalone Solutions
Making things even more complicated, we have the third-party “wrappers” (think Unily, Fresh, LiveTiles, Staffbase et al). These solutions often present themselves as a catch-all answer to all perceived SharePoint shortcomings. They capitalize on user demand to create out of the box solutions that are more intuitive to use and cater to a more bells and whistles approach — at a significant cost.
And in a case of biting the hand that feeds you, these same vendors, whose software is based on a SharePoint foundation, hold it up as an example of how not to do comms.
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Messaging from Unily, Igloo and others position SharePoint as a technically complicated, unfit for purpose answer to communicators’ needs. In the process, they confirm what communication teams already suspected: “it’s not you, it’s SharePoint.”
Anything can seem complicated the first time you use it. And upskilling while maintaining business as usual is tough, I get it. But it’s a misnomer to suggest SharePoint is overly technical. And with Viva now available in its many different guises, organizations face the dual challenge of providing adequate SharePoint training and keeping up with the chameleonic Viva suite.
But should that mean internal communicators (or any business discipline, for that matter) be spoon fed intuitive features and functionality because the alternative requires an iterative learning program?
Gathering of the Communication Clans
I mentioned the Corporate Communications forum earlier. Liz Sundet, Microsoft MVP, set it up earlier this year to “focus on the role of corporate communicators and information technology and share best practices and information on the evolving roles and challenges which corporate communicators face each day.” So far it’s held two virtual meetups to talk about, well, Microsoft and communications.
When I raised the topic of technical skills and training during one meeting, people started sharing some of their internal processes and solutions, including some of the following highlights:
- Take the same approach to an internal tools/channels guide as you would a brand style guidelines — socialize it, evangelize it and make it part of your onboarding experience.
- Introduce an internal “Business Partner” who is both a technical and communications expert and can guide internal communicators through features and functionality without the dreaded open ticket with IT. One rather spiffy quote covered this nicely, “In the same way communicators are focused on communication, IT are focused on keeping the tools running. It takes a conduit person, a power user to help bridge the gap.”
- “I am currently undertaking conversations centered on the Art of the Possible for each of my internal departments. The purpose is to help ideate what they can do, repurpose their work into newer technologies, and work on creating strong use cases guided by me and my team. It's really helped to bring tech to my people.”
- “The challenge is 'people don't know what they don't know' so mini sessions giving a quick overview of each main app and what it does is a great way to whet curiosity.”
- “TBH, I frequently see a rift between IT departments and Comms. More often it's when running a tech project. IT want help from Comms. Comms can find the tech-talk overwhelming. Perhaps even messy regarding what they need to communicate. Then IT try to do their own comms but can struggle too.”
While this is a great space to hear about what other organizations are doing and brainstorm some Microsoft hurdles, I fear it isn’t reaching the audience that needs to hear this message.
Related Article: Want to Improve Internal Communications? Pay Attention to These 2 Key Moments
Where Do We Go From Here?
Accountability feels worth mentioning here. While it’s IT’s role to manage the day to day running and maintenance of solutions, understanding those solutions’ capabilities should be down to the people using them to push content out. And this should be an explicit requirement, rather than an implicit assumption. It feels as if internal infrastructures need to be considered in line with any push on technology.
Investment in training has undoubtedly dipped since the pandemic, with fewer people coming into the office to the classroom set-up which feels a lot like snow boots: Antiquated, retro but in need of a comeback. Nothing has replaced the old school training methodology and we can’t rely on IT as a band aid for those gaps in knowledge or on generic training videos. We need to address this skills gap and ensure the teams for whom Microsoft is endemic understand the broad strokes of its roadmap.
Also work investing in is the bridging role raised above. This person would act as a conduit between the wider organization, internal communications and IT — their job would be to educate and train employees in the technology they are using, identifying use cases, parallels and opportunities.
But in the meantime, see you on the dance floor Bert.
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