Enterprise RSS:
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Attensa > Solutions > Corporate Communications

Closed Loop Corporate Communications

The Corporate Communications Challenge

Communicating with employees has to be one of the toughest marketing challenges. Period.

Co-workers can be clued-in or clueless, open minded or jaded, on-board or out to lunch. Every corporate communication message received is filtered through these lenses. Getting employees on the same page on everything from corporate vision, strategic initiatives, project plans, key operational indicators and employee benefits can have a tremendous impact on performance, engagement and esprit de corp.

Clearly and effectively conveying key messages to the workforce is critical to employee retention and global competitiveness.

Every organization needs to provide its employees with the tools and the messaging that keep them up to speed and engaged.

Providing employees with choices of how corporate communications are received can bring the message delivered and the delivery mechanism into harmony. How these pieces work together determine whether employees will receive and understand the communication the sender intended.

The Trouble with Email

At work the unstoppable flow of information, messages on projects, customer questions, industry newsletters, internal announcements and spam comes in the form of email that overflows our inboxes with messages and documents demanding varying degrees of our attention.

Somehow, multi-tasking, time compressed employees are expected to review every message, separate the signal from the noise, prioritize the information on the fly, craft a cogent and timely response and get back to completing the job at hand, all while planning their next course of action.

Email's own success has brought it to the breaking point.

While email can be delivered to every employee with a single click, there are big hurdles between the message being sent and the intended knowledge transfer getting through.

Occupational Spam

One of the major problems is "occupational spam." Employees are needlessly copied on messages they don't need to read. It's easier to blast a large group than it is to precisely target the people who really need the message. The opposite problem can also occur when critical employees are left off the list and don't receive a message they really do need to read. The burden is on the sender to identify who needs the information. This often leads to critical people being left out of the loop.

Over Eager Spam Filters

On the other side of the equation, over-eager spam filters (including a human who is overwhelmed and clicks the delete button too quickly) are a big problem, as is the problem of simply missing a message in the hundreds that people receive each day.

The Endless Loop of Request and Response

Workers are constantly walking the line of whittling down the massive amounts of information they get to a manageable level without missing or deleting the relevant information they need.

How can corporate communicators cut through this clutter, provide better targeting and help people receive, prioritize, and accurately interpret internal communications?

It's clear that one tool, email, can't do it all. Bringing multiple communications techniques to bear on the problem by combining email communications with strategic portal placement and new social networking technologies including RSS can increase the chances that key corporate messages are received.

RSS: Handles the Internal Communications Heavy Lifting

Innovative organizations are looking to enterprise managed RSS platforms to handle the heavy lifting of the internal communications load.

RSS is a far more efficient alternative to email for day-to-day news distribution, project coordination, scheduling and document distribution.

It is much easier and quicker to read an RSS feed from 50 projects than to wade through an overstuffed inbox, sending requests for information, spending time searching and visiting multiple websites to see if anything new has happened.

It starts by simply separating messages into two big buckets: Need to Know and Need to Respond.

By using email and instant messaging for Need to Respond communications and letting RSS handle the Need to Know message the eases the burden on overloaded inboxes.

RSS gives senders and receivers more control over communications.

Senders can easily create and channel topical RSS feeds based on different types of corporate communications, and receivers have the choice of which feeds they subscribe to.

Unlike corporate-wide e-mail, employee can decide which content is most relevant to them and can choose to subscribe. Employees who aren't interested in hearing about the company's special events can simply choose not to subscribe.

Critical must read messages with desktop alerts can be pushed to all employees to help insure that the message grabs the employee's attention.

RSS lets employees choose where they want to receive messages.

With a synchronized platform RSS feeds can be read in desktop feed readers, Web based readers, Instant Messaging and an on smart phone. This ensures that employees only receive content that's relevant to them.

Managed RSS handles messages more intelligently than conventional email.

RSS messages are automatically organized into categories or folders that give every message delivered to the category context and meaning.

RSS doesn't overwhelm users.

RSS presents users with a headline and a short synopsis so they can decide if it's worth following diving into the full message. Most RSS readers give users viewing options so they can quickly scan through their content.

RSS standardizes the formatting and display of the internal communications since it's stored on the intranet.

Closing the Loop with AttentionStream™ Analytics

Enhanced AttentionStream™ Reporting and Searchable Attention Analytics Reports

Managers, team leaders and administrators can access reports based on Attensa's unique AttentionStream™ analytics.Understand which users are reading what feeds, how many feeds are in the system, and more.

Attention reporting helps corporate communicators gain insight into how their audience effectively converts information into wisdom as users gather information in their quest to answer questions and solve problems.

Reports can be used to identify "must read" feeds and the most effective communications channels for getting information to specific users and groups. Detailed Attention reports are searchable based on feeds and users.