How much time are you spending just keeping up with producing the various content it takes to market and promote your company?  How about the content you need to communicate your vision, values, and philosophies to your internal audiences and other stakeholders?

In more than a few recent conversations with different organizations, it has become apparent that people are having a hard time keeping up with pushing out their message and are spending little to no time on learning new ways to connect their messages to their audiences (and vice versa) - let alone finding ways to help their audience help them spread the word.

I’m a big fan of Stephen Covey and still remember reading 7 Habits of Highly Successful People and number of his other books (check out his new web community).  As a presenter and writer, he understands the power of visual models.  The power of showing how you can fill a glass vessel (your day) full by starting with the big rocks (important tasks), then smaller stones (minor tasks), and finally sand (trivial tasks).  And when you try it the opposite way, it doesn’t work.

As I was driving on the road today, I pulled another one from my memory banks that relates directly to the problem of keeping up with content vs. finding new ways to share that content.  It’s the metaphor of how leaders are like adventurers hacking through the jungle with machetes.  By following your compass (your values & principles), you can navigate the dense, thick jungle.  

However, it is crucial to climb a ladder from time to time to find the horizon.  When you peak above the forest canopy, you will see where you are in relation to the goal and can adjust your path accordingly.  And, more importantly, you can make sure you’re even in the right forest.  Because, why put all that effort, if you’re not.

As I think about those organizations who are struggling to keep up with generating content to fill their communication vehicles, I know they can all benefit from climbing the ladder and seeing if there’s a better way out of the jungle.  In just the past couple years, we have seen some amazing new communication tools come of age, making life much easier for everyone using them (Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Twitter, etc.)

Taking a comprehensive look at your digital presence will help you figure out how to best integrate recent concepts like blogs, social networks, Twitter, RSS feeds, and a host of other social media that make it easier and more enjoyable to share your powerful story with the world and let them tell it for you.  

What are some of the things you doing today that you might be able to stop and replace with something better? 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 10:47 pm and is filed under blogging, change, social networks, strategy, web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.