Live and direct from the SCM Summit UK

By Sona Hathi, Assistant Editor, Melcrum

The wait is over, the day of the SCM Summit UK has arrived. I'm in a room at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel in London, with about 200 communicators from around the country, and indeed the world. With all these experienced practitioners and experts in one room, there's perhaps no better place in the world for a communications professional to be at this very moment in time. Now let me tell you how the day's coming along so far...

9.30: The Summit is kick-started with a thought-provoking key note presentation from Roger D'Aprix. Roger makes some insightful points about the state of the communication function right now. He talks about the evolution of the economy over the last decade from being industrial, to service led, and now to being information led. Roger says “Intellectual capital is the real treasure of business today and only highly engaged people can produce it”. He has famously strong opinions on social media, and while he stresses he’s not some kind of “neo-luddite”, he disagrees with the idea that social media is a necessity for today’s communication strategy. He maintains that new technology can potentially add to the noise that exists in organizations. “Communicators today have one flaw,” he says, “they love new tools and craft, but leaders want outcomes. To paraphrase my colleague Bill Quirke, leaders care about arriving at the destination and communicators tend to think too much about the journey. This presents a big problem.”

10.45: Everyone’s now had the shot of caffeine they need for the next session. Involve’s presentation is going on right now - their sessions are always fun and energising. On this occasion, the team has arranged a trial. The room’s split down the middle, one half’s the prosecution, the other’s defence. The defendant is Ian Jones acting as a CEO accused of cutting internal communication and HR expenditure by 20 percent. There’s a judge, and a (very glamorous!) clerk, jurors, the defendant and the barristers have all been sworn in.

11.00: Prosecution and Defence are now conferring amongst themselves (using witness statements and case notes made available to them) to decide what their respective arguments will be…

11.20: Twenty minutes later now, and both sides are putting their arguments to the defendant. “It’s not the budget cuts that you’re guilty of, we put it to you Mr. Jones that the way you communicated them was entirely inconsiderate and wrong” said one member of the prosecution. The arguments have been heard and the jury finds the defendant NOT guilty.

11.45: The session ends with raucous applause, cheers and laughter as chief inspector of the Hong Kong Police, Steven Tait, (one of the delegates) puts the now free defendant Ian Jones in an arm lock and drags him off the stage. The room is satisfied that Tait truly is a copper when he says to Jones, “Nice aftershave you’re wearing there pretty boy!”

With Live Interactive providing technology that enables delegates to post questions and offer comments to the chair while sessions are running, there's lots of discussion flowing.

The court room trial format that Involve used seems like a great way to iron out ambiguous issues within the organization. I put the following question to you, if you had to put an individual or a function within your organization on trial, who would it be and what “crimes” would they be guilty of?

More from me this afternoon…

Comments

[Annie Waite]

I wonder how many "neo-luddites" there are actually lurking in today's organisations?

And by "cutting internal communication and HR expenditure by 20 percent" do you mean cutting resources? Because if so I imagine it's an issue heaps of communicators are facing at the moment, and analysing the decision-making process in such a way as Involve demonstrated at the Summit could really benefit lots of other orgs too - in terms of ensuring sensitive and considerate handling of the situation. Sounds like a fun session. Judge John Deed eat your heart out!