Getting Back to People

Whoo-boy it has been a while since I last posted – so this topic is relevant in a number of different ways.  So, quick question: Anyone ever feel they have a lot of people trying to reach them (see pic below):

Image by deltaMike via Flickr

Today, people can reach you by phone, e-mail, IM, blog, Facebook, Linked-in, Twitter, etc.  And having all these channels, it sometimes can be difficult to get back to people.

Baloney!

Don’t blame your time mismanagement on technology.

At the end of the day, you are accountable to get back to people.  Period.  If you cannot get back to people, then you should:

• close some of your communication channels down (ie: delete your twitter account, stop blogging)
• delegate to those who can respond for you
• take some work ‘off your plate’

I always believe that a good rule of thumb is that you should treat every communication asif it was coming from the CEO of your company.   Would you take 1 week to get back to them?

So, even though you might not mean it, the non-verbal message you are giving to people is that they are really not important.  An who knows…one day they may be your new CEO.

So, get back to people.  Even if it is to say “I received your message…I will get back to you”.

Is Barack forcing future transparency?

Interesting how different the Obama administration is already in communicating to the public.  As you may know, Obama will be broadcasting a weekly address on you tube.  There is also the white house blog, www.recovery.gov, www.barackobama.com, and  (I won’t even go into what he had before he was president).

Today, I just read about the UK government “one site superstop for citizens”: Directgov.

Is this what we will now expect for ALL governments (Canadian government..cough…cough)?  Can a new US governement be elected and not follow what the Obama administration has started?

It will be interesting to see if this continues.