Has anyone joined Melcrum's internal comms online network?

I joined a few weeks ago and I've just been looking at some of the groups and stuff on there and thought it looked quite interesting. If you don't receive Melcrum's emails then go and have a look here: http://www.communicatorsnetwork.com/

I'd be interested to hear what others think (and yes I know it's very American).

Next meeting scheduled for the 24th July

For those that were able to attend on Tuesday, thanks for a very enjoyable evening! Particular thanks to Geoff and Bee for their informative presentations and to everyone for their contributions to the Communicators Clinic.

Bee Pears from Waikato DHB presented highlights from an intranet workshop she attended presented by James Robertson. More details are available on his site http://www.steptwo.com.au/

Geoff Timblick from Vodafone gave a presentation on Internal Communications measurement and how Vodafone were addressing this.

Details of the next meeting are as follows:

When: Tuesday 24th July
Time: 5.30pm – 7pm Venue: Auckland Regional Council, 21 Pitt St. Committee Rm 2
Cost: $5 per head to cover wine, soft drinks and nibbles - pay at the door
RSVP: Friday 20th July

The topics for the next meeting are:

Reputation Management – Results from a new survey of top 50 companies and discussion of how this relates to Internal Communications –Sue Milne from Senate Communications

Role of Internal Communications and how to ‘get a seat’ at the executive table – Mariska from Deliquo

Plus, of course, the Communicators Clinic where the group can brainstorm specific issues individuals are facing.

Hope to see you there!

Clarifying Values

Last night's meeting and discussion highlighted that some senior managers seem to be confused about corporate values, vision and mission statements, so thought the following might be a useful reference for fellow ICN members:

Corporate values - capture and define the way an organisation does things. ie risk averse or risk takers, conservative or entrepreneurial, pragmatic or creative etc. However to succeed they must be based on reality and be true reflection of the business or organisation. Not to be confused with brand values that are really brand attributes or personal values that are important to people on an individual basis.

Vision statement - a long term vision of what you want your business to be/aspire to in the future.

Mission statement - says what you are going to do to achieve the vision.
Hope this is helpful.

Networking meeting on 12th June at 5.30pm

The agenda for this meeting can be viewed here. Some of you will have attended the PRINZ conference, so, at the beginning of the meeting, we will review the agenda and amend accordingly with regard to what people want to spend the time on.

If possible, please RSVP to help us organise the room set up and volume of nibbles. However, if you have not sent an RSVP and want to come along on the night, you will be most welcome!

For managers: How (and why) to show employees you really don't care all that much – a video clip to brighten the day…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH1MuJcKUJk

I found this hilarious video clip on www.myragan.com.

I’m still evaluating www.myragan.com “Where Communicators meet”. I’ll blog more about this once I have finished my evaluation. It looks really interesting and is definitely worth checking out. Does anyone have any thoughts, experiences or insights they want to share regarding this site?