Petra Berggren is information officer at the cultural administration for the City of Helsingborg, with responsibility for Sofiero Palace and Gardens. The text is taken from our publication “Sharing is learning”, about how we generate knowledge together.
Producing enjoyable and inspiring internal communications is a major challenge and something I think many workplaces should work harder at achieving. I’m referring to the kind of communication that invites spontaneous learning and knowledge sharing among colleagues.
My experience is that communication in separate projects usually goes well, but we don’t have a format in which we can discuss things in general that don’t fit in there.
We can always use a good place for tips, ideas, status updates, spontaneous thoughts, an eye on the outside world, having fun – that’s what makes the job better and so much more enjoyable.
Several workplaces have both physical and digital channels for this type of discussion, but getting them to work properly is difficult.
A virtual watercooler
This was one of my major challenges when I worked as strategic information officer at Media Evolution. My colleagues were working on a variety of exciting projects, often in the field. Occasions when everyone had time to gather and be inspired by one another and find synergistic effects among the projects were few and far between.
We wanted to find a digital channel where we could discuss day-to-day work, a virtual watercooler where everyone could gather. We tested a few different tools over a couple of months, but the results were always the same. They worked so-so for a couple of weeks, after which the activity slowed to a crawl and interest dwindled.
Photo by Gene Han CC BY-NC
Meeting place where everyone already is
To get the conversation rolling, we tested moving communication over to a closed Facebook group. At first, some people were resistant to letting job discussions slip into a forum that otherwise belonged to the private sphere, but it turned out to be a successful idea.
Everyone knew the rules on Facebook. Logging in was already part of daily life and talking with colleagues, sharing links and providing inspiration was easy and fun right from the start. After two weeks the discussions grew in number and interest never waned.
The desire to talk and learn from one another was always there and the accessibility that Facebook offers sparked the discussions.
For us, Facebook worked as an optimal internal communications tool, where Media Evolution colleagues exchange information, bounce ideas and inspire one another. It may not be the best place for project and document management, but that doesn’t matter, since other tools are more suitable for those parts.