Veteran communicators ask: Why are we here?

What the bigwigs are talking about. In December, a correspondent—a Senior Employee Communicator who has retired from his corporate job but who’s still active in the profession—sent us a hot-as-politeness-allows exchange between him and an Exalted Communication Consultant. The SEC had taken exception to a remark the ECC had made in an exclusive online forum for communication management types.

After a forum member posted something about assessing the value of organizations’ intranets, the Exalted Communication Consultant responded:

“The one thing I’d want to know that’s not included here is how intranets measurably help the business—from a CEO or shareholder perspective. I appreciate how they give me access to news and information about the company. I appreciate all that’s said here about the process part of communication. This is useful and sometimes important. But from a business perspective (which I’d think should be our communication perspective), I’m interested in outcomes or business results created by intranets. …”