Earlier this week, I took part in SMILE London, an annual digital workplace conference. While I soaked
up lots of information on new ideas with implications for internal comms, I was
also struck by one enduring issue: the requirement to build stronger
relationships with internal stakeholders.
Whether we’re working in-house or as extensions of in-house
teams, internal communicators rely on the relationships they establish. Input
from executives, HR teams, marketing colleagues and other protagonists within
the business is absolutely crucial. If we can’t engage and involve these
stakeholders, we’ll have little to work with and even less chance of unlocking the
full potential that internal communication offers the organisation.
The IT team is another of these stakeholders. Always has
been. From the evolution of email to the development of intranets, internal
comms practitioners have always needed to work closely with IT. The evolution
of more complex tools and channels, such as the range of tools and
opportunities discussed during SMILE
London, simply increases the importance of such liaison. But the tenor of
some discussions during the conference suggested we still haven’t got it right.
It’s not that relationships are adversarial – I don’t see much
evidence of that – it’s just that, from the tone I discerned, they aren’t as
symbiotic as they could or should be. Within our organisations, we’re sometimes
still arguing over who ‘owns’ what rather than developing a shared agenda
between our complementary roles and activities. That can only undermine the
potential of some of the innovations now on offer. Without a profound and practical
working relationship with IT, the introduction of any such mechanism will be
akin to a house built on sand.
The intersection between IC and IT has never been more important:
we should play our part in strengthening the relationship.
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