Back to school?

Hurrah! I have just returned from the University of Manchester after handing in my mammoth MSc dissertation. I’ve been studying part time for the best part of five years and I’m absolutely delighted to reach the final hurdle. It means I can now look forward to donning cap and gown to receive my MSc in Corporate Communication and Reputation Management in December.

This little celebration, together with the fact that the kids have gone back to school this week (have you noticed the traffic?!), has prompted me to think about learning and development. It’s an area I’m passionate about and, painful as it sometimes is, I do practice what I preach.

A few years ago I was part of a small group of people from across the internal comms world which developed the Inter-Comm professional development matrix. With backing from all the key players in the industry, it was a first step towards creating a clear and consistent development framework for communicators. It’s looking a little dated now (we’re planning a refresh soon), but it’s still a robust piece of work and a great starting point if you’re contemplating your development.

As every good HR person will tell you, there are numerous options – formal training, coaching and mentoring, educational courses, visiting other organisations, secondments, volunteering to support one of the professional bodies, and so on. I will return to this subject, but for now I want to concentrate on degree and post grad courses. 

I’m often asked to recommend a good degree course for internal communicators, something I really struggle with. It’s not that the courses out there are no good, it’s just that there are so few of them to choose from. These are the only three dedicated IC courses in the UK I know about: 

• Kingston University - post graduate diploma and MA in IC management
• Bournemouth University - post graduate certificate in IC management

Let me know if you’re aware of any others.

There are, of course, lots of wonderful PR-based courses catering for the sexy end of our profession, but most of them pay mere lip service to internal comms (apparently Lincoln University has a module called 'internal PR' in its PR degree!)  The course I studied was different and very relevant. I'm sure there are others like it.

And don’t get me started on MBAs and broader business courses – though they often cover change management, most of them wouldn’t give employee communication a second thought.

I find this whole area rather frustrating, but it’s indicative of the immaturity of our ‘profession’. Before we can earn the right to use that tag we need academia to wake up to IC, we need the disparate associations to come together, we need agreement on what it means to be an IC professional, and we need practitioners to be required to undertake continuing professional development. These, for me, are vital ingredients of professionalism.

We’ll get there, but it will take time. Until then it’s up to each of us to take learning seriously. If you haven’t already got one, take the opportunity to draft a personal development plan this week. 

Comments

[Aniisu K Verghese]

Hi,

I have been searching high and low for an internal communications body in Asia to register with. I work in Bangalore, India as an internal communications professional for a global investment management and research firm. Have been keen to share best practices from my earlier stints with Accenture and i-flex solutons ( ex-Citibank outfit) but unfortunately have never found a forum to do so.

There is a motley group of communicators from the IT industry in India but we have never come around to sharing ideas and practices.

So, I was happy to read your post.

Have posted a link to an article I wrote recently on how outsourcing firms should view communications in India.

http://www.simply-communicate.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=761&d=68&h=0&f=0

Would appreciate your views.

Cheers

Aniisu

[Lee Smith]

Hi Aniisu
Sorry for the delay in responding - I've been incredibly busy over the last week or so.
As far as professional bodies go, I'm really struggling to know where to point you in India. The IABC (www.iabc.com) is the closest thing to a global body for communicators, though I suspect it has a limited presence in Bangalore. There is, as you suggest, a real gap in the market, particularly given the huge working population out there and the major corporations you are supporting.

I liked your article on Simply Communicate. I share many of your views and agree that organisations operating in the outsourcing arena need to make sure their staff are properly engaged. The importance of internal branding - ensuring employees know what the client brand stands for and interact with customers in a way that reinforces it - cannot be underestimated. I suspect that there is an over reliance on one-way electronic channels and agree that the emerging media (blogs, wikis, podcasting) offer enormous potential in that context. I look forward to reading more in the future...

Good luck with your work and your networking.

All the best.

Lee