I think I’ll write an article about router configuration.
I know a tiny bit about routers, so I could probably sound a little like I know what I’m talking about. I’m a good enough writer that I could make it sound authoritative. Why not? Over at JupiterMedia’s Datamation website, IT writer Paul Chin has written an article about corporate communications. It’s superficial, misses key points that any entry-level communicator would catch, and paints a narrow picture of the process. If an IT person can write about corporate communications, I can write about IT.
Chin’s article is titled The Evolution of Corporate Communications, but it’s really just about the channels for delivering the communication. Even then, he talks about intranets, message boards, and email, not touching on print (it’s not dead, Paul), RSS, or other emerging media…not to mention face-to-face.
(By the way, isn’t media the plural of medium? When did it become okay to use mediums, which I would think you would find only at a convention for psychics?)
Missing from the article that purports to address corporate communications’ evolution are such trifling issues as measurement and outcomes. The article also seems to define corporate communications as employee-only.
I don’t know for sure that Paul Chin is an IT professional; the articles he’s written for Datamation contain no biographical information and Googling his name returned too many Paul Chins to sift through. The IT channel focus of the article leads me to believe he works in IT, though. The next time Datamation wants an article about communications, they might consider asking a communicator. It’s too bad the readers of this article will walk away with incomplete information.
Shel Holtz is principal of Holtz Communication + Technology which focuses on helping organizations apply online communication capabilities to their strategic organizational communications.
As a professional communicator, Shel also writes the blog a shel of my former self.
