Chapter 8. Driving Communication Effectively

Whenever there is a major project happening in your business, you will typically see one or a series of e-mails from your leaders, you might see a poster or two, a few trinkets or artifacts here and there, attend a few town-hall meetings, and read about it on your company's intranet. The primary purpose of all of these is to tell you and other employees about the project, get you engaged, and talk about the benefits of the project.

In the case of Big Data initiatives, you need to do more. There are three primary reasons for that:

This is a new subject and is heavily laced with technology and advanced statistics.

You want people to develop a better understanding so that they are adequately engaged and can apply the capabilities correctly. Otherwise, like a lot of other technology initiatives, many of the new capabilities will get developed but adapting those capabilities will be difficult after the initial euphoria. In this process, you might miss...

Identifying your communication needs

The first step for you in identifying your communication needs is to recognize the various audience groups and the content you want to deliver to those groups. We feel you can divide your audience groups into three broad categories:

• Internal

• External

• Shareholder

The Internal group includes employees and contractors working in your organization, even those not belonging to your particular business unit. There are sections of this group that will be impacted more by your Big Data initiatives than others. We recommend that you consider everybody for your communication plan; if required, modulate the intensity and extent of your communication based on the impact levels. The External group includes customers; ecosystem partners in your business, such as suppliers; and business influencers—people such as analysts and consultants who can potentially sway your customers' opinion about your products and services. If your business has shareholders, we recommend that...

Selecting your communication channels

Globalization and technology have made the commercial environment very complex and dynamic. This leads to a number of challenges for effective communication in the business world; some of the top ones are as follows:

• A lot of persistent information overload is happening at a rapid rate

• Attention spans are reducing drastically, and listening skills are eroding sometimes

• Too many distractions are increasing noise levels for people

• The lines between personal and professional communication are becoming blurred

• In-person interactions between employees are reducing, with an increasing reliance on technology

• A high convergence of different communication channels and methods is occurring

• Hierarchical management is being replaced by more participatory management

• Privacy and confidentiality of any communication has become more porous

Businesses today are expected to take quick and decisive actions in a dynamically changing and often globally integrated or influenced...

Building your communication strategy

Effective communication requires a potent strategy. Your communication strategy is built from many considerations:

• Your goals and objectives: You have already worked on them in Chapter 1, Building Your Strategy Framework and Chapter 2, Creating an Opportunity Landscape and Collecting Your Gold Coins

• Your audience and their needs: We discussed this earlier in the current chapter

• Developing key messages for the various audiences: You can develop this by overlaying your goals and objectives with audience needs

• Understanding the various channels of communication available at your disposal: Understanding the reach and effectiveness of the channels of communication available to you

Based on the preceding list, you need to clearly articulate your communication strategy, which describes which key messages you want to convey to your audience and why, how, and what do you expect to achieve out of this exercise.

Let's take an example to clarify how to build a communication...

Building your communication plan

A communication plan is a detailed tactical action outline used to execute your communication strategy. It is important to keep in mind the difference between a strategy and a plan. Strategy revolves around developing the key messages that you want to convey to your audience, and why, how, and what do you expect to achieve out of this exercise. A plan is a tactical design for delivering that strategy. You should involve the communications department of your organization to build this. If you are a small business and do not have a formal communications department, enlist the services or advice of a specialist. Your Big Data strategy and your communication strategy are the two guiding pillars for building the plan, so review them in conjunction before you start the development process.

Your communication plan will comprise many pieces of information, such as the following:

• Objective

• Audience

• Key messages

• Message delivery format

• Delivery channel

• Individual or group...

Engaging executives effectively

The executive leadership of your business has a very significant role to play in your communication program. If you are one of them, there is extra responsibility on you to make the Big Data program a success. This is imperative because of the following reasons:

• You want Big Data to be at the front and center in the strategic agenda of your business

• You do not want your project to be treated like just another technology fad

• You want people to believe that Big Data and all that you are doing around it is here to stay and will play a considerable role in the future of your business

• You want the influence of your leaders to rally the people

• You want them to help tackle any noise that may arise

• You want them to frame the prospects and possibilities in a very articulate manner to the external world, including your shareholders

• You want them to sponsor you and steer you

In order to engage your executives effectively, you need to brief them very well just in case they have...

Monitoring and modulating your communication program

Ultimately, your business results are the best reflection of the effectiveness of your Big Data initiative and all your related communication efforts. However, since this could be a protracted journey, it is best to seek feedback, measure participation, and manage effectiveness as you progress through the stages of the initiative.

Effectiveness metrics

Meanwhile, as you are going through the process, there are many tools and metrics you can use to measure the effectiveness of your communication program. It is important to decide the metrics and plan for collecting the feedback upfront as you venture into developing your communication plan. Some of the popular metrics are as follows:

Percentage outreach

This is the percentage of the audience population your message has reached. Technology today allows the statistics for most of the digital communication platforms to be collected–be it social media or some other kind of online tool. For direct...

Summary

About a 100 years back, the famous Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw remarked that "The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place". Often, we venture into business critical projects, share it with our other colleagues, and perceive that everybody is rallied around it. Often, we are wrong, and Big Data initiatives are not immune to this problem; in fact, due to its novel nature, a Big Data project needs more extensive communication. In this final chapter, we have addressed this issue.

We started the chapter with understanding why effective communication is so critical for Big Data projects. Then, we delved into identifying the unique communication needs for various audience groups—internal, external, and shareholders. Famous American entrepreneur and motivational speaker Jim Rohn said, "Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% what you feel about it". So, it is important that any communication is tailored, considering the background...