Mark Jacot

Click on the picture for the video

Do you wonder about how to get staff reading boring IT announcements? This is the title of the note about our latest Firefox browser update. No, I didn’t get it either; my new IT service comms person had to explain it to me – click on the picture for an explanation – 489 million youtube hits! A different world.

Nicola has just joined my team to look after IT Service Comms. I’m reminded of a very senior CIO who taught me a long time ago that there are things he knew were important but did not understand. His advice was recruit someone who knows about it and trust them. I’ve just done that!. Not comfortable at times but having a great positive impact.

Anyway, after I suggested we needed to make the titles and content of our notes more interesting she has done just that. A clear structure, injecting some fun and humour. As a token gesture she included a useful information section including a link for those who did not get the title!

The result – 100% positive feedback about the announcements being better, even from some very senior execs at the OU. I now look forward (with a degree of trepidation) to what she is going to come up with next (The ball is in the back of the .NET – recent .NET upgrade; ah ah ah Staying Secure (Bee Gees song) – recent security update……). So this just proves it is possible to make IT communications interesting and fun. I’d be interested in other ideas that you have for getting engagement and communications better, please comment and let me know. If you found this blog useful, you may be interested in this blog on comms and blogging