Resources for communicators

For many of the projects that we work on, people in a communications role (internal and external) are major stakeholders or program sponsors. Whether it’s an employee portal, an enterprise website, or community extranet, communicators help shape the vision for these employee and customer initiatives. With the evolution of organizations into the murky world of the digital workplace, we feel there’s a great opportunity for communicators to lead into this new future.

We’ve been collaborating with IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) chapters across Canada, and have spoken at the 2016 IABC World, 2017 Canada West, and 2018 World Conferences to validate and share our thinking and approach. You can view a recording of our webinar of our 2017 conference talk in case you weren’t able to be there in New Orleans!

To help support this journey of transforming organizations into modern digital workplaces, we've curated this list of resources for communicators, which includes some of our most relevant Insights posts, as well as a few tools and templates. If you'd like to learn more about how to apply these inside your organization, just reach out to me!

Resources for communicators

Intranet trends for internal communicators

The intranet space is changing dramatically and this top 10 list helps to summarize some of the key trends and opportunities that may be cropping up at your organization.

Creating great workplace experiences (PDF)

In our experience, too many organizations jump straight to a solution before considering a more holistic approach to the workplace experience. This reference guide helps to explain why you can only create great workplace experiences by solving the right problems.

Setting a compelling vision

This tried and true process walks you through how to create a vision that puts your audiences at the centre of the process and aligns your team around a shared vision and experience.

Using a roadmap to bring your portal to life

What's the right plan for your initiative over the next six, 12, or 18 months? Learn how to align your team around the right decisions to create an iterative plan that moves your organization closer to its goals.

Using co-creation tools to find opportunity

We use many of the methods in the Gamestorming toolkit when working with employees, stakeholders and other audiences in our research and visioning process. Empathy mapping is probably one of the single most powerful tools you can bring to your team to help them "walk a mile" in the shoes of your audiences.

Forming a team for your initiative

Structuring a team for success when embarking on a project helps to avoid a lot of problems down the line. Learn what roles to consider for your team, and recruit the right people from the start!

Here are some of our tools, templates and toolkits to help you and your organization get started:

Roadmap (Excel)

Roadmap (InDesign)

Journey mapping workshop toolkit (.ZIP)

Empathy maps (PDF)

Feature idea cards (PDF)