What is the good stuff?

Separated at birth?

My name is Bill Walters and I am a scout bee. Yes, I know real scout bees are always female, but that's OK. The point is that they go out and find the good stuff (pollen, for instance) and show their peers how to get there.

I'm primarily a content guy: an editor, writer/reporter and moderator. But I also have some technical ability and a lot of experience in large organizations.

If you bring content chops together with technical savvy, customer-service empathy and steadfast integrity, you can make online communications sing — and that, of course, more fully engages the audience. That's the good stuff. I'm documenting it a little at a time and I can show you how to use it.

Why the stuff is good

I found good stuff a few years ago when I integrated elements of social media with more typical employee communications, including email, newsletters and an intranet. Engagement measures quintupled in that community in less than two years. They sustained that level over four subsequent years. Then I left, so I don't know what happened after that. But wouldn't "quintuple the usual" make a nice participation base for the next change-management initiative in your hive?

Lest we forget: At this late date, plenty of workplaces and similar communities are still tormented with news borne in swarms of single-topic emails — and recipients "replying all" until the servers groan. At others, people are still obliged to swallow a week or even a month of news in a single serving that would choke a boa. Such subsistence-level communications can help conserve budgets, whether in money or time. But they're expensive in their effects on the whole hive's morale and productivity. The good stuff offers such suffering communities a hand up.

It's key that the good stuff is not primarily concerned with technology upgrades. It's a set of principles, guidelines and resulting techniques for how to authentically connect with your people through whatever technology you already have. You can sketch the good stuff in four broad strokes:

• Optimize governance
• Integrate channels
• Focus content
• Nurture participation

They're flexible and will shake out differently at your particular hive than at others, so defining them further means winging it a little. That's what I'm documenting here, a little at a time, and I can also help more directly as a consultant.

Good stuff for hire

If you and your hive are still doing the old stuff — or if you feel you haven't quite figured out the new stuff — maybe I can help. You don't need to buy expensive stuff; in fact, my demo project, Haiv News, is a working example of how to use free stuff.

In any case, I can work with you to plan and build and apply the good stuff in your hive until you feel comfortable doing it on your own.

Go ahead; drop me a line below and let me know what's bugging you.