Talking Internal Communication...

Surviving Change - an audience with Damian Hughes

Here's what I think will be a great little event - the first event in what promises to be an exciting autumn/winter season for CIPR Inside.

Join former football coach and founder of the LiquidThinker change management consultancy, Damian Hughes, for an informative and practical evening that will help you to cope with the pace of change in the workplace.

No stranger to change himself, Damian was Unilever's youngest ever Human Resources Director and led a turn around in performance at the UK's oldest manufacturing site in Port Sunlight before carrying out similar work in Africa and US.

And with exclusive insights from Tiger Woods, Sir Terry Leahy, Frank Dick and the GB Rugby League coach Tony Smith, Damian will keep you entertained and enthralled at the same time.

What's more, as part of the event you will receive a complimentary copy of Damian's brand new book, The Liquid Thinking Survival Guide to Change.

This event will take place on 3 September from 1800-2000. Venue is Balls Brothers at The Minster, London, EC3.

At just £35 for CIPR members, £45 for non-members, this event is bound to sell out fast - so reserve your place now by e-mailing ciprinside@ntlworld.com.

L

Super unions

The news yesterday that Unite, the UK biggest trade union, is joining forces with United Steelworkers, the largest private sector union in the US and Canada, marks the beginning of a new chapter for the trade union movement.

The new organisation, Workers Uniting, will be the first global union, representing more than three million workers from Britain, Ireland, the USA, Canada and the Caribbean and covering a wide variety of industry sectors.  A precursor to full merger, the new organisation will initially operate alongside for the two existing unions.

And it won't stop there - the plan is to merge with other country and region-specific unions to create a multi-national 'super union'.  This will no doubt include unions in the big off-shoring centres like India.

A direct response to globalisation, the move will lead to the synchronisation of collective bargaining in companies with operations on both sides of the Atlantic.

This is an interesting development which could have major implications for global employers over the coming years.  A genuinely global union with the size and clout of Workers Uniting will be a force to be reckoned with and will no doubt make activities like off-shoring and global outsourcing all the more difficult.

It will be interesting to see how the other unions respond to this move and how Workers United begins to make its presence known.

L

Something to say about internal comms? Here's your soapbox...

I'm writing this post with my CIPR Inside hat firmly on my head.

We're currently putting the finishing touches to an exciting programme of professional events for the autumn/winter season (watch this space for details) and beginning to turn our attention to planning for 2009.

During my year as chair I'm keen for us to deliver a really interesting, educational, entertaining and thought-provoking programme of events - and we're now on the lookout for UK-based practitioners with big things to say. So if you're up for sharing your wisdom, views or opinions with fellow practitioners, here's your chance...

We want people with interesting things to say about our profession - or about specific topics like leadership comms, research and evaluation, storytelling, etc. We also want to find practitioners - particularly in-house operators - with great 'what's working' case studies or other experiences to share.

Most of our events take place in London, but we will be looking to deliver a number of regional events too - so don't let location put you off.

Please get in touch with me if you'd be interested in speaking at one of our events. You don't need to commit at this stage - I'd be happy to buy you a coffee and simply to chew over ideas.

Happy to host an event?

On a related note, as a small not-for-profit organisation we're currently seeking no or low cost venues in London and elsewhere - so we can deliver maximum value to our members and supporters.

If your employer has a conference facility that regularly sits empty - either inside or outside work hours - please let us know.  As well as the undoubted glory that comes with hosting a CIPR Inside event, we'll reward you and your colleagues with a number of free places at our events. Once again, please get in touch with me if you'd like to find out more....

Lee

Social networking lands inside BT

BT's new internal social networking site, My BT, has just been launched.

Here's a cracking example of a UK company adopting social networking inside the enterprise to improve employee communication, knowledge sharing and more.

And it is, on the face of it at least, a pretty impressive site.

My BT comes with many of the 'bells & whistles' communicators dream about - features include profile pages that automatically link you to colleagues with similar interests and skills, Twitter-like status updates showing what your contacts are up to, Q&A functionality, and Del.icio.us-style social book marking, enabling you to share intranet and weblinks with your pals. Nice.

Check out Richard Dennison's blog for details.

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