Productivity tool or a procrastinator’s best friend?

By Tanya Batra, Melcrum

In February last year, Thierry Breton, CEO and chairman of Atos Origin, an international IT services company employing staff across 42 countries, announced his mission to ban internal email, with the intention of becoming a "zero email" company by 2014.

Unsurprisingly his declaration caused a media stir and also received some backlash, but Breton defended his decision, saying:

"I didn’t do this for external reasons…I did it to enhance the quality of working conditions for Atos’ 80,000 employees…my first intention was to deal with this data deluge and to work with the tools the young generation are using. We are addressing a real issue of our time…we are no longer using email the way it was intended to be used"

  
His decision was also made in light of the revelation that employees were receiving over 100 emails a day, of which only 15% were useful, and also upon consideration of the fact that for the 10,000 new employees hired every year, internal email tools such as Outlook were completely unfamiliar, with Breton stating, "We have to adapt ourselves to this new generation that will become our business colleagues tomorrow."

As radical as the idea may sound...
...it perhaps isn’t when you fully consider that it’s a positive step towards what we’re all trying to achieve -  i.e. transforming the internal comms model and becoming a social business. And whether you realise it or not, most of us have already taken these steps in our implementation of digital tools.
What we haven’t done however, is fully allowed the potential of these tools to take hold and deliver the collaboration-driven business benefits they’re capable of.

So while we have the tools in place which hold the potential to increase efficiencies, reduce reliance on email and ultimately drive productivity – our failure to educate employees as to how it can be used,  failure to generate the required culture shift that encourages more "fluid" communication and a failure to engage leaders to lead by example and influence – are all pivotal reasons why "business-benefitting collaboration" is simply not happening.

 

IBM – where it all began?
While Breton’s decision was the most highly publicised, IBM’s BlueIQ team* - namely one member of the core team, Luis Suarez, knowledge manager, community builder & social software evangelist - could be considered as leading the charge, having decided back in 2008 to start living in a world without email.

 
"As a remote employee, I wanted to prove to everyone that I could keep working for the company without using email, relying almost exclusively on social software tools to communicate daily with my team members."

And in January 2011, just three years on, Suarez reported an impressive 95% reduction in inbox traffic.

Why live without email?

"Around two and a half years ago in my role of software evangelism, one of the main hurdles we were hearing from people is … they perceive this software as another set of tools on top of what they were already using…they had this feeling that, you’re asking me to spend more time online with Twitter, Facebook and whatever the internal social software applications were."

As well as wanting to demonstrate to coworkers just how dependent they were on email (despite its loss of productivity as a channel), Suarez’ decision was also triggered in 2008 when IBM’s Blue IQ team were faced with the challenge of educating an overwhelmed and reluctant salesforce to use the social tools that were available to them to provide "answers" rather than "problems" (with the potential to benefit them in completing daily tasks and increase efficiencies). The initiative was a success and transformed IBM’s salesforce into fellow social software evangelists. Not only that, the Blue IQ team continues to expand with the ultimate aim of enterprise-wide social collaboration inside and outside of IBM that drives real business results.

Enabling crucial conversations
Suarez will be sharing his story at our first-ever Digital Communication Summit in London on 27-28 March, 2012, where we’ll be addressing the role of technology in enabling crucial conversations to build an engaged and collaborative workforce, and the fundamental role communicators play in leading the transformation across culture and leadership to create a truly social business that reaps the benefits of outcome-driven collaboration.  

Joining him will be thought leaders such as Paul Miller, CEO and founder of the Intranet Benchmarking Forum and Digital Workplace Forum and Laurie Hibbs, HR director at LexisNexis UK as well as business leaders from companies including BT Conferencing, Nokia, Bupa and the adidas Group who will be sharing their powerful case studies. 

Check out the full event programme online: http://bit.ly/yipJEj

*IBM’S BlueIQ Ambassador Programme - A worldwide community of social software evangelists with a mission to energize and enable every IBM employee to use social software, both internally and externally. The BlueIQ ambassadors support the BlueIQ program’s mission to transform IBM into a showcase for the business benefits of social software adoption.

Sources:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16055310

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/01/luis-suarez/

http://mashable.com/2010/09/03/world-without-email/

http://www.elsua.net/2012/01/13/blueiq-at-ibm-finally-goes-external/

https://www-304.ibm.com/wikis/home/wiki/BlueIQ?lang=en_US

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/offer/adoptioncouncil/

 

SharePoint: Creating the connection

By Tanya Batra, Melcrum

Investing time and money in intranet tools and features without creating a connection as to how this investment can help employees do their job better, rarely amounts to little more than an expensive bill for a poorly used portal.

And for communicators, the frustration often stems from a poor connection with the IT function. Communicators often complain that much of the intranet functionality created by IT is done so with little understanding of what the day-to-day internal communication requirements may be.

Across our portfolio of case studies, we’ve repeatedly seen that the most successful intranets are those that:

1. evolve in response to a comprehensive understanding of end-user requirements and experiences;
2. are managed effectively and;
3. are the result of a partnership between the IT and internal comms function.

At our upcoming User Forum: SharePoint for internal communicators, Didier Thomas, change & communication manager at Siemens will be sharing his SharePoint challenge.

Having previously worked in internal communication before moving to IT, and now acting as an interface between the two, Thomas is particularly well placed as a presenter. He’ll discuss how his team managed the imposition of a decrease in corporate travel by successfully positioning SharePoint as a solution to 28,000 employees, and encouraging them to use “virtual workspaces” as an alternative.  

Also on hand will be Greg Kerchhoff, SharePoint project manager, who will cover the practical steps taken by the BBC towards generating better SharePoint launch and adoption strategies. He will explain how this led to the creation of SharePoint collaboration tools that were right for the organization, and team sites that were successfully adopted by business units. 

Our keynote speaker, Richard Dennison, principal business partner at BT plc, will be discussing how the social media features of SharePoint are driving a transformation program in this global firm. Other case studies on the day will come from organizations including Standard Chartered Bank, Aviva plc and Maersk Line.
 
In the meantime, take a look back at how BT first implemented a range of social media functionality, such as BTpedia wiki, resulting in real organizational benefits. This feature-length case study, “How social media fits into BT's business”, by Mark Morrell, intranet manager, BT, is available for download, for the next five days. To download your free article and view the full event program, visit the website. 

   
We hope to see you in London on 8th February!

Turning SharePoint stress into SharePoint success

By Nishwa Ashraf, Editorial Assistant, Melcrum

When the word “SharePoint” is uttered, what’s the first thing that pops into your head?

Is it: Collaboration? Microsoft? Content management?

Or how about: Confusing? Clunky? Lacks intuition?

Despite the fact that 40% of corporate intranets are now SharePoint based, and an increasing number of IT departments are keen to migrate to it as a communication platform for their company, it seems the same enthusiasm for the technology isn’t felt by many communicators.

For those who are new to SharePoint, simply wrapping your head around the prospect of how a new platform works, how it will be used, and the role you will play will certainly be amongst some of the questions on your mind. Then there’s the issue of what version to use, license fee bands and add-ons.

And for those already familiar with the platform, ending up with a multitude of team sites may be just one of the many challenges you have faced.

But if SharePoint does fail, it could be due to a governance issue, according to Sam Marshall, director of ClearBox Consulting and Melcrum’s trainer for the SharePoint for Internal Communicator’s course.

To ensure maximum value is derived, clarifying the business requirements, as well as the technical and functional needs is the first step towards successful execution of SharePoint.

Here are 10 questions you may want to address before diving headfirst into the implementation process:

1. What are the specific roles of the communication and IT departments?
2. Who “owns” the site?
3. Who will be administrator?
4. Who will manage content and how?
5. Has the balance between user-generated and corporate content been defined?
6. What are the metrics for content creation?
7. How will cross-functional content be managed and monitored?
8. Have policies on when to use and when not to use SharePoint been created?
9. What are the levels of moderation for different areas of the site?
10. Has a strategy been created to help employees adopt SharePoint?

These were just some of the many questions, Marshall covered at yesterday's SharePoint for Internal Communicator's course. If you’re cursing at the thought that you’ve missed out on an opportunity to know the ins and outs of the platform, worry not – we’ve still got a few places left for the next course on 9th September, so if you’re interested get booking!

So, is your company looking towards or using Sharepoint? I’d love to hear your stories.

Thanks to the CIPR

By James Bennett, Head of Content, Melcrum

Just a quick note to thank the CIPR for inviting me as Melcrum's head of content, to be the external judge for its internal communication category which took place this morning.

Six very strong shortlisted companies presented their case to myself and two senior internal communication judges and we deliberated for a long time before making a very tough call on which one should be the worthy winner.

Watch this space when I'll be blogging live from the London awards ceremony when the CIPR announces the winning entry on June 16.

One and a half staff needed to look after social media channels

By James Bennett, Head of Content, Melcrum

“Spend less money on social media tools within an organization and there is less reason to prove ROI”, said Richard Dennison, senior manager, social media at telecoms company BT, during a webinar yesterday afternoon. According to Dennison and many other practitioners there is little evidence of social media initiatives within organizations proving a return on investment. But surely they should, particularly if recent research on the amount of time it takes to maintain social media channels is true.

A study by CloudSpark, a US communications strategy company, has discovered that it takes a minimum of 65 hours a week to maintain four social media channels for one brand. Many social media channels maybe considered “free”, but if this is accurate (and not an April Fool), the time you need to create, develop, and maintain those channels is far from free and would take 1.5 full time staff to complete.

CloudSpark surveyed 40 “social media practitioners” from the external and internal spheres, and questioned them on the hours they invest in social media for their brands or the brands of their clients. In the survey it defined the following: creation – setting up the page with initial content (this doesn’t include creative design team hours); development – attracting followers, initial promotion/launch; and maintenance – listening, responding, posting, messaging, inviting.

I’d love to know just how long it takes internal communicators to maintain their social media channels. Please leave a comment on the blog or drop me an email at james.bennett@melcrum.com.

Here are a few stats from the surveyed practitioners and the time they spend on social media for a single brand:

Planning
Social Media Research: Eight to 25 hours
Social Media Planning: 10 to 20 hours

Blog
Creation: 10-15 hours
Development: 40 hours
Maintenance: Five hours/week

LinkedIn
Creation: One hour
Development: Five to 15 hours
Maintenance: Three to 10 hours/week

Facebook (Fan or Group Page)
Creation: Three to 12 hours
Development: 10 to 50 hours
Maintenance: Seven to 15 hours/week

Twitter
Creation: One hour
Development: 15-40 hours
Maintenance: Three to seven hours/week

YouTube (branded channel)
Creation: Three hours
Development: Five to 20 hours
Maintenance: Two to seven hours/week

End of the huddle: Are we in danger of losing face-to-face comms?

By James Bennett, Managing Online Editor, Melcrum

Every morning at 10am without fail, the group heads at Melcrum will have a huddle. And considering many people here either run, cycle or commute to work on the London underground and that medical experts are warning of a widespread outbreak of swine flu as the winter months draw in, this may all sound rather unhygienic, but unless you’ve tried it, that’s where you’d be wrong. When better to set the tone for the working day than first thing in the morning, a time when everyone’s fresh (minded) and raring to go.

The first rule of the huddle is to, well, huddle. In simple terms this entails gathering in a small circle with one member of the team leading the way. Whether he or she is called the ‘huddler’ is neither here nor there, call them whatever you like, but above all the leader must always maintain control and ensure brevity. The huddle must not last more than 10 minutes. That would be more muddle than huddle.

It is also key to remember that a huddle is not a discussion but a series of statements mentioned and listened to attentively by the key members of the company, something many CEOs could perhaps adopt in order to have a better understanding of what their line managers do on a daily basis. If they had embraced this form of communication it may well have saved the jobs, careers and foundations of many of the world’s workers, executives and iconic businesses that have now crumpled into a sorry, recessionary heap.

Putting the recession to one side, the huddle leader then goes round each member of the group asking each individual what he or she is working on that day. The group leader may then ask for a short daily sales report or any outstanding achievements, events, or queries to be announced but this is also done strictly in turn and in the same order. This is finally followed by the leader then questioning each huddle member on whether or not they are facing any potential ‘blocks’, or problems that could prevent them from carrying out their daily duties. Anything else is then taken offline and worked on separately.

Social networking

The explosion of social networking and platforms such as Yammer, however, got me thinking about whether or not we need huddles any more? Having access to the internet, 3G mobile phones, endless iPhone applications, email, Twitter, instant messaging, texting, voicemail, video on demand, and even the now prehistoric but still essential conference call allows us to communicate whenever we want, from wherever we want and with whoever we want. Not only that, we can use whatever method we choose because the majority of professionals have access to all this technology for virtually no cost whatsoever.

But unlike the blinkered 1990s vision of a paperless office (he says printing this off), essentially doing business and communicating with someone without ever meeting them during your working career could eventually happen. Just ask yourself how many times someone has said to you, “it’s great to finally meet you after all those emails”, or “I never realised you looked like that in real life?” Real life? People have forgotten what it’s like to meet and simply don’t have as much face time as they used to. And, year after year, this trend is increasing.

On the flipside, however this can have its advantages. Take Yammer for instance, a closed corporate network that allows you to connect with all your colleagues via a website, pop-up desktop application and/or mobile phone app and to continually share with your colleagues what work or even social activities you are doing that day, week or month. You could be in IT fixing the server that runs the entire operation, or in sales and in need of volunteers for a cross-country charity cycle ride or perhaps in HR carrying out a series of interviews for a key senior of the team who has just left. The point is that everyone in your network has real-time access to the events and actions of their colleagues day in, day out. At Melcrum we’re using it as an experiment and the amount of knowledge sharing, ideas and information you learn about the business and each other is invaluable. Using a tool like Yammer allows you to communicate to your colleagues simply, cost-free and with messages targeted specifically to them and their network. I’ll be sharing this blog link with my colleagues the instant it goes online.

Yammer serves the same purpose as a huddle but in this case is arguably more transparent and messaging is not restricted to a small number of senior leaders. However, face-to-face contact and that instant sharing of crucial first thing in the morning, targeted information is immediately lost. Many communicators have faced or are facing huge budget cuts and being told that face-to-face communication is the most effective form of comms during a recession, but is it really? Surely in this tech-savvy day and age real-time online conversations then lead to an increase in information sharing and eventually personal contact? I’d be very keen to see any research on how effective online conversations are compared to face-to-face meetings.

There is, however, no instant solution. Each company has its own culture, needs, and Web 2.0 experience levels. The common answer to a successful internal communications strategy is to use a combination of communication channels. Many companies now use a blend of blogs, conference calls, live question and answer video streaming with the executive board as well as face-to-face meetings, but despite this leap forwards one still has to question, how effective this all is, where this is all heading and how we will be communicating within our organizations in the future.

Now that I’ve blogged and not physically spoken to any of you before I’d better get on with the rest of my day.

Please email me with any thoughts to: james.bennett@melcrum.com, find me on Twitter or log onto Melcrum's Twitter feed.

Social Media Workshop buzz hots up

By James Bennett, Managing Online Editor, Melcrum

The one-day Melcrum Social Media Workshop on June 24th is getting closer and closer. Not, admittedly as close as my face has been to several dozen commuters' armpits on a number of London’s buses in the last 48 hours thanks to the Underground strike, but very close nevertheless. 14 days to be precise. And we’ve got a great day for those clamouring to join us here in Hammersmith at Melcrum’s training centre.

In fact our trainer for the day Benjamin Ellis, director of Redcatco and social media expert extraordinaire, and Abi Signorelli, director of internal communications at Virgin Media, got together this morning to finalise the agenda for the event. Not only that, they also produced an AudioBoo - a 3 minute recording via a special application on the Apple iPhone. Abi also joined myself and Melcrum founders Victoria Mellor and Robin Crumby on Wednesday afternoon Boo’d us, so to speak and then I turned the camera back onto Abi to ask her what delegates can expect from the day and how she has used social media to great effect at Virgin Media. She’s the kind of person that if she hasn’t downloaded the latest ‘app’ onto her iPhone within 30 minutes of being developed and added to Apple’s gigantic library of applications she gets upset. You can’t blame her, social media is fascinating and I’m as caught up the excitement as her and many other internal communicators.

So what can you expect on June 24?

• The day is designed to be a very practical and hands-on series of interactive sessions complete with a number of exercises specifically created for internal communicators.
• It will set the context and go from where you, as communicators using social media, are today to using the technology, and gaining the necessary skills and knowledge for you to take it back to your teams and improve communications within your business.
• It will examine the great places in which to use social media and the areas where you shouldn’t using real-life examples and case studies, including the huge successes Virgin Media’s internal communications team has had using a variety of technologies and social media platforms.
• It will dispel the myths and fears that some internal communicators may have about social media and show you how, with the right tools, knowledge, skills, business culture and technology, it can open up a whole host of new opportunities to communicate with your stakeholders.
• It will show you how the technology behind social media is among the most user-friendly and interactive we, as professionals and internal communicators, have ever seen and used allowing you to tap into possibilities you never knew existed.

I hope you can join us in 14 days. I look forward to seeing you then. Meanwhile, please follow me on Twitter via iether @Geskey or @Melcrum.

US internal comms ahead on use of social media

By James Bennett, Managing Online Editor, Melcrum

By now I’m sure you all know what a big fan of social media I am. I can Tweet and blog until the cows come home, only virtually mind you. But I’m not alone using social media for business purposes, so it seems are US internal communicators.

Consulting firm Watson Wyatt, well know for its study on making the link between an organisation’s financial performance and communication, has discovered that despite their relative youth, US businesses are increasingly embracing Web 2.0 technologies such as social networking tools, blogs and webcasts for internal communications and as part of their overall technology mix.

The firm’s 2009 HR Technology Trends survey that questioned a total of 181 and 14,000 US employees covering more than a dozen industries, found that since the economic downturn began, 72% of employers have increased their use of the intranet and 61% have increased their use of email to communicate with employees. Employers are also using new communications tools with close to a third (32%) increasing their use of webcasts; 13% increasing their use of social networking tools; and 12% increasing their use of blogs.

Large HR and internal communications budget cutbacks were cited as the reason behind this increase in accessible and principally free social media tools. Interestingly, however, despite a rise in intranet usage, the survey discovered that the adoption of generic intranets has almost ground to a halt. While 86% of companies currently have intranets, only 2% plan to implement them in the next two years.Instead they are turning to various social media tools to plan for future HR and internal comms strategies with 13% of US respondents saying they plan to introduce and implement blogs, wikis (13%) and podcasts (10%) in the same timeframe.

“Web 2.0 technologies work well, in most instances, for targeting specific employee and manager groups, and companies are using them in appropriate situations,” said Jon Osborne, senior technology consultant at Watson Wyatt. “Using tools such as role-based portals, internal blogs and webcasts ensures that both managers and employees can send and receive tailored messages in an engaging format. This is useful for improving productivity and maintaining employee morale and engagement, particularly in this difficult economic time,” he added.

Key Findings:

• The economy has taken a toll on HR budgets. More than 70% of participants reported a budget decrease, with an average decrease of 1%.
• Most companies stayed true to their sourcing strategy in the past 24 months. The majority of companies that did make a move opted for more outsourcing.
• Companies have increased their use of the intranet, e-mail and webcasts for communications during the economic crisis.
• Satisfaction is high for those that have deployed or are piloting Web 2.0 technologies, but planning for future deployments is surprisingly low. Social networking, while extremely new, is already being used more than most other Web 2.0 tools.
• Talent management has become a higher priority for one-third of companies due to the economic crisis.
• More than half of companies are planning more talent management technology in the next 24 months, with an emphasis on integration. Forty-six percent will integrate their existing applications or leverage their enterprise resource planning (ERP), and 27 percent will move to an integrated suite.

What are you finding in your respective countries? Are similar increases happening in your organisations? Are you using Twitter within your employee network? Let me know either by emailing me directly at james.bennett@melcrum.com, or tweet me on Twitter by going to Twitter.com and searching for @Geskey or @Melcrum.

PS: Melcrum is holding its first (of many I'm sure) social media workshop on June 24th here at Melcrum HQ in Hammersmith, London. If you haven't already thought about using social media as part of your internal comms strategy perhaps now's the time?

Is Facebook dead as an internal comms tool?

By James Bennett, Managing Online Editor, Melcrum

Opinions on social media are constantly divided within the internal comms profession, and as communicators fall into two very distinct dinner parties.

We are either tank top wearing old schoolers, who haven’t ventured musically further than The Everly Brothers and stoically maintain that by overly focusing on Facebook, for example, we are ignoring the core values of comms. Or we fall into the new generation of 1980s retro dressed twentysomethings who, when they’re not Tweeting on their iPhones or downloading a Ricky Gervais podcast, tell their more traditional peers that they are in fact missing out on the biggest evolution in communications since Sir Tim Berners Lee decided to turn the Filofax into the World Wide Web.

I questioned our loyal audience on our Linked In Melcrum Communicators Network as to whether they thought Facebook was dead as an internal comms tool? Naturally I realise I was preaching to the converted. If you responded online then you were already in some way gripped by some form of social media and had signed up to Linked In, which is, in my opinion, as good a professional-to-professional comms tool there is online.

We as communicators, however, rather predictably and equally healthily have mixed views. It seems that most of us have considered, or even used, Facebook as a comms tool but with wildly varying degrees of success. We have never been afraid to test it out as a means of communicating with colleagues, but following a short period of experimentation perhaps realised there were either better tools already in place or that we would rather use other social media sites. Or, as some of you mentioned, even wait for the next big online buzz to hit our screens.

Haroon Bijli, an online marketing and communications professional at Tata Consultancy Services, says Facebook still remains a “useful means to keep in touch with employees who are not on the internal network, work from client or home locations, or who are always on the move.” He has a point. It is extremely tough to constantly communicate and get those key messages to remote workers. Of course, you could use Instant Messenger or Blackberry Chat, for example, but it’s difficult to argue against your workforce using a resource that has 200 million users, many of which belong to your organisation. The again, unless they are connected to the internet 24/7, you have no way of reaching them other than simply giving them a simple phone call, which defeats, or rather obliterates the purpose of communicating with someone.

Bijli and others, however, argue that FB will not replace the corporate intranet and that it serves as more of an add-on, a bonus that can complement the internal resource whenever necessary. Again this can often be true. Facebook has done wonders for social media, and opened our eyes to its possibilities. But corporate it is not. The only time it can perhaps swivel its zombie biting, strawberry throwing head towards anything resembling professionalism is when people from the same company organise events, or create common groups, be they sporting, charitable or simply after work clubs where employees can get together and constructively socialise.

Mark K Curtis, an internal communications practitioner, backs this up and explains that Facebook would never truly work as an effective internal comms tool because its main mandate is to connect people socially and that any messages from employers to employees would almost act as an intrusion of privacy. It would be a bit like the boss coming round uninvited to your birthday barbeque dressed in his favourite Bermuda shorts and string vest.

“Facebook discourages multiple accounts. Therefore a user would need to give an employer the ability to post messages to their personal Facebook page. This may not be appropriate or something people would be happy to do with a social mesh. And employees have a right to keep their personal lives private. “They may be happy to subscribe to one-way channels though such as RSS – widely available on mobile phones and PDAs these days. This is certainly a question we shouldn't be afraid to ask,” he adds.

Karen Drury, the owner of fe3 Management Consulting says FB was never a corporate tool in the first place suggesting that it is took “lacking in control” for the majority of senior managers and was and still is time consuming to sort and search for the right information. Michele Egan, senior communications officer at The World Bank goes so far as to say that Facebook has “never” and “never should be” been a tool for internal communications. “What would be more interesting to find out,” she says, “is whether the features that make FB such an effective social networking tool are being adopted inside the organisation in any way”.

Curtis adds that one of the main challenges of social media is not the technology or its place at the heart of internal comms, but finding management and IT personnel that have the passion to support these new and often exciting channels. “In my experience the implementation of social media – even strictly internally – can be slow and the politics heavy. This is short sighted because, not long from now, employees are going to look at the management of email as cumbersome and ineffective – which many studies already suggest that it is.”

I tend to agree. Whether Facebook is or isn’t an effective tool to use within internal comms teams, is perhaps not the question. As Curtis concludes, the tools that Facebook, Linked In and Twitter employ can be extremely effective communication methods.

“The scalability and popularity of social media suggests that internal communications professionals must recognise its potential, particularity if they intend to be effective business communicators with the employees of the future. No one likes to be left behind.”

Then again, I’ve just received an email in my inbox informing me that Dr Twitty is now ‘following me” on Twitter. Some things are better off being left behind.

Wise words on reducing information overload

A recent message to the Editorial Board of Strategic Communication Management sparked an engaging discussion about how to deal with the problem of information overload, so we thought we'd share some wise words from Per Zetterquiest, one of the board Members and a consultant with Occurro Strategy & Communication in Sweden, in this week's Source Comms.

Per's first suggestion is: "Information overload is to a large degree the result of overcomplicating things. I think the main challenge for communicators is to take a fight for 'simplicity'." He offers many more ways to maintain a steady flow of information in the full article...