This one for my Megan

There are three things I love the most about working in the world of the webs

• It is dynamic
  The online environment changes so fast so it is never boring, there are always new ideas, and new ways of working through issues and the scope for positive change seems endless. Every job has its good points and bad points, but we get to change the bad points, it’s what they pay us for.
• Forming deep and meaningful personal relationships
  We are all connecting in strange new ways and here on the internet you are all so much more of an important part of my life than strangers on the street, I love hearing your thoughts on twitter, your passions and your dreams. Most of all I love being a part of it all, because IT IS all happening. It is happening right now. It is happening right here.
• We’ve all ended up doing the same thing
  The webs are converging all our different jobs into the one single profession. When people ask me what I do, I still say I am in the media industry, but the skills I use for my job are the same as so many other people, who work in a vast variety of organisations, sectors and industries.

And it is the last point: how all our jobs are coming together through the shared experience of being online that this post is about and as the title of this post says – I dedicate this thinking to my wonderful girlfriend Megan. This is written for her.

Human resources is a hard job

Megan is an HR professional and until I met her, I didn’t really understand what that meant and I had assumed HR are limited to things like paying the salaries - (BTW: it turns out confusing HR with payroll is like confusing my job with a paper boys).

To many people HR is just hiring and firing but covers everything from “performance management” through “organisational values” and “strategic resource planning”. HR is where the meat meets the metal, on the line between systems and subjectivity.

This is all about organisational cohesion and what sorts of thoughts and feelings bind us with our colleagues at work.

Internal communications is boring

Internal communication is seen by many in the news industry as the poor and frumpy cousin of media rels or PR. Dealing with the fast paced world of deadlines and bulletins is exciting, getting quoted in the newspaper is high profile, and how cool is it to be on radio, or TV!

But internal communication is important; and can add a huge amount of value to any organisation by pulling disparate people together into a shared experience of belonging. Internal communication is more HR than PR; and IT own the connections between us.

It’s a sticky little issue

The problem is as our jobs are converging into each other we are left interacting individually on this apex between the responsibility of different departments and often the compromises we reach suits nobody. We have to look for ways for us to work together better.

Working together isn’t a weekly newsletter (sorry PR) and it isn’t a performance management strategy (sorry HR), the best way to work together is across a single, independent, dynamic and interactive platform, which is within IT.

I think the problem is that IT reports closely to the business but core business metrics, particularly HR metrics are not being pushed back into IT planning and to be fair the PR department only just heard the word “metrics” about 18 months ago.

We need to sit down and begin a conversation and discuss how our three departments can work together as a group, for the good of the whole organisation. Maybe we should first think about what exactly “a group” is.

School of fish

Groups are all about belonging, sharing and trusting and what binds us together is our shared experience. This shared experience is built up from all the stories we have and share with each other about working within our organisation. Everybody in a company is woven into these stories, there are heros and villains, victory and tragedy; and sometimes even a little bit of love and occasionally some passion too.

Organisations are the sum total of these shared stories and by agreeing that principle HR, PR and IT will be able to progress.

The shared experience of an organisation defines that organisation

We need a platform to share our organisational experience; and thankfully “sharing experience software” otherwise known as social media applications are plentiful and cheap. Encourage individual innovation, try everything to see what works and replicate success. There are no wrong answers in this area; so the systems supporting the platform need to be able to respond to change quickly.

The first effect the organisation feels following the provision of a suitable platform, is increased cohesion; because if everyone is sharing stories with everyone else, we can work together better as we know each other more. This is the metaphorical equivalent of the organisation taking in a deep breadth; I have seen it happen.

Unfortunately not all of the stories that are shared are going to be good ones, but knowing what is wrong with the organisation is more helpful than knowing what is right. Working together PR can find and write the stories, IT can share the stories and HR can tell us how we are all going reaching our dreams.

After all everyone loves a story with a happy ending.