Silvia Cambié, who was the keynote speaker at the STC France Chapter Annual Conference in February, spoke at the IABC France general meeting yesterday evening. The subject was on using social media in corporate communications. Although you might think that we technical communicators have little to do with business communicators, there really is a bit of overlap.

She spoke about blogs, wikis, and even twitter (sms-style blogging for phones) - and the difficulty of determining what's fad and what's going to be a permanent feature of corporate communication strategy.

Silvia also touched on the subject of how difficult it is to determine ROI and she showed some statistics that are compelling. For example, 4 out of 5 Internet users are blog readers and about a third are blog writers. I'm sure that within the next year they will have an ROI study done for blogs in the corporate world.

She spoke on the delicate subject of getting the CEO to blog. To do it alone or in very close cooperation with the ghost-writer. To contribute on a regular basis and to monitor it, reply to comments, and to monitor other blogs and leave comments. To accept criticism. The company gains credibility and visibility. But, of course, there has to be a strategy behind it.

An interesting point is that most of the new employees are "Millennials". Born after 1980, they have grown up with technology. They use messaging constantly. They share information (rumors, too). Gaming - and the collaboration it builds - means that they will collaborate and seek collaboration without regard to hierarchy. This is where wikis come in and they are probably emerging from R&D or Technical Communications! Some of you may remember Stuart Culshaw's presentation about wikis and he mentioned the phenomenon at ILOG.

Silvia is an engaging speaker. She is very excited by this social media and sees how important it is to stay abreast of new technology and to adopt it. The same is true in technical communication. Since we may already be one step ahead, we may be the vectors of new communication technology to the rest of the company. Although I have been trying to get the wiki out of R&D so that Product Marketing (and TechPubs) could use it, I have not been very successful. I learned some of the arguments that I could use in my company for even greater expansion. And if Marcom wants it, it will happen.

Silvia has a personal blog on cross-cultural issues. I think it's a good read: http://chandacom-xculture.com/

The next meeting is on July 5: "Personal Branding & the Bio" - how to communicate your personal brand both online and offline, with speaker Bernadette Martin, Founder of Visibility Branding, LLC.

STC France members can attend IABC events at the member rate. Take advantage of it. It's not just for those of us who want to move into business communications.