The Hindu Business Line : IT helps align messages books2byte

Common language and speed are the two ways in which new digital media is dramatically shaping the practice of integrated communications, says a new book from Sage ( www.sagepublications.com).

“Digitisation has created a shared language that allows employees, without technical skills, to exchange and share information (numbers, text and images) across different functions and geographical locations,” write Lars Thøger Christensen, Mette Morsing, and George Cheney in Corporate Communications: Convention, Complexity, and Critique.

As example of integrating language, the authors speak of how XML (extensible markup language) is capable of describing many different kinds of data and, consequently, to facilitate the sharing of data across different systems, particularly systems connected through the Net.

More important, one may say, is the other effect of digital media on communication, viz. speed, because IT (information technology) is making it faster and easier to compare messages across different media and different audiences. “The new information technologies allow organisations to identify inconsistencies in their messages and symbols and, accordingly, support their insistence on coherence in everything the organisation says and does,” the authors observe. Contemporary IT has thus “accentuated the call for integration within and across the organisation’s formal boundaries.”

For starters, a simple definition of ‘integrated communications,’ according to the book, is “the practice of aligning symbols, messages, procedures and behaviours in order for an organisation to communicate with clarity, consistency and continuity within and across formal organisational boundaries.”

A read that can add value to your messages.

The connected President

In the first few weeks after Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam became President, he received an e-mail from a young girl in Agra. “It said, ‘Uncle, in our area, there is only one park and in that park, there is only one see-saw. And that has been out of order for the last ten days. Nobody bothers.’ And this e-mail came up for discussion in the morning meeting,” narrates P.M. Nair in The Kalam Effect: My Years with the President ( www.harpercollins.com).

“‘So, what do we do?’ Kalam asked me in his typical style. I said, ‘Sir, I shall speak to the Collector.’ I did and the job was done. And Kalam gets an e-mail from the girl, ‘Uncle, thank you. The see-saw is working now.’ She added, ‘But uncle, when can I meet you, you are so good.’”

Nair, who served as the President’s secretary all through the five years of APJ’s tenure, reminisces how Dr Kalam’s keenness that all the letters and e-mails be attended to and answered cast ‘a very heavy burden’ on the entire Rashtrapati Bhavan establishment.

“Kalam’s permanent refrain in all his speeches everywhere that anyone could send messages to him on his e-mail ID and that he would get a reply within 24/48 hours made the situation absolutely uncontrollable. His mailbox swelled out of proportion, bursting at the seams, and stretching us to the limit too in the bargain.”

Inevitable, that was, because Rashtrapati Bhavan had become the ‘People’s Bhavan,’ notes Nair, towards the conclusion. The five years saw ‘a veritable electronic revolution in Rashtrapati Bhavan,’ he adds. “Accessing the first citizen through e-mails that ran into a few hundreds almost every day became a way of life with people all over the country.” The author also makes a mention of the state-of-the-art multimedia studio commissioned in the bhavan from which the President could address ‘many a foreign audience in far-off countries.’

Interesting account.

Recipe format

Herb Schildt is a well-known author of books on Java, C, C++ and C#, with over 3.5 million copies sold worldwide. “Because of the rapid revision cycles of those languages, I spend nearly all of my available time updating my books to cover the latest versions of those languages,” confesses Schildt. However, a new book from TMH ( www.tatamcgrawhill.com), was one of his most ‘enjoyable projects’: Java Programming Cookbook.

Based on the format of a traditional food cookbook, the author “distils the essence of many general-purpose techniques into a set of step-by-step recipes. Each recipe describes a set of key ingredients, such as classes, interfaces, and methods.”

Good programming books should have two elements, insists Schildt: solid theory and practical application. “In the recipes, the step-by-step instructions and discussions supply the theory. To put that theory into practice, each recipe includes a complete code example… The examples eliminate the ‘guesswork’ and save you time.”

He clarifies, however, that code examples in the book are not optimised for performance. “They are optimised for clarity and ease of understanding. Their purpose is to clearly illustrate the steps of recipe. In many cases you will have little trouble writing tighter, more efficient code.”

An appetising addition to the avid programmers’ shelf.

Musical matchmaker

In an era when our celebrity-obsessed society hangs on every word and deed — both good and bad — of a handful of hot properties, it’s easy to forget that hundreds of thousands of talented artists go almost unnoticed, rues Jim Champy in Outsmart! How to do what your competitors can’t ( www.pearsoned.co.in).

One of the cases discussed in the book is about Panos Panay, who saw a $15-billion market in the untapped opportunity for musicians, and founded Sonicbids, to give every band an international stage, using technology. “The wedding band business, by itself, totals $2.5 billion, plus there’s another $11 billion in bookings at small bars, clubs, coffeehouses, festivals, colleges, and private parties.” Most talent agents collect a fee equivalent to just 10 per cent of their client’s earnings, so they see it as a waste of time and energy to book, say, a wedding band that gets only $800 for a night’s work, explains Champy. Here’s where Sonicbids leverages technology. “Some 10,000 promoters use the site to connect with Sonicbids’ 1,20,000 musician members, a quarter of whom are from abroad.

The site facilitates connections via a community forum and an advanced search tool that enables members to narrow their quest by location, date, and genre.”

Acting as musical matchmaker, Sonicbids works on the other side of the aisle too by prodding the musicians ‘to show their best face to suitors’ through an EPK (electronic press kit) that includes ‘an MP3 sample of their music, photos, biographical material, and press clippings.’ Promoters pay the musicians directly, and Sonicbids charges musicians, not commissions, but a membership fee of $50 to $100 a year.

An intangible that Panay offers both the promoters and the musicians is a proactive customer-service operation, finds Champy. “One of the problems you have in an online business is that you don’t have a physical presence, like a restaurant where people can walk in and smell and touch. You don’t have that kind of legitimacy by virtue of where you exist. We try to make up for that by the language we use, the way we communicate,” reads a quote of Panay in the book.

The people who answer the phones are young and sympathetic to customers’ needs, particularly those of struggling young musicians, writes Champy. “Aware of their insecurity, Panay insists that the musicians be treated respectfully. There is a standing rule, for example, that e-mails must be answered the same day they are received.”

Great insights.

Tailpiece

“To keep the students awake in the class…”

“You make the lecture interesting?”

“No, we get the students to use their mobile phones off and on because portions of the lesson are tele-delivered!”

dmurali@thehindu.co.in

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