Eight commandments for corporate communicators

A guide to help you find your way in the wasteland of corporate communications

One of the big problems in corporate communications is that there are no rules, like there are in accounting or engineering or marketing. In accounting, you have to put the proper numbers in those irritating columns, or things get screwed up. In engineering, you have to pay attention to rules and formulas and laws, or products don’t work. In marketing, you operate off demographic studies and other numbers, and if you don’t get a certain response, people know it and you get in trouble.

In corporate communications, everything is up in the air.

Which format should you use for the employee publication? What’s the best venue for a town hall meeting? Can you change an executive’s quotes? What should your approval process look like? What’s the best way to reach employees? How in the hell can you measure what you do?

The answers to those questions vary, according to what company you work for. There is nothing “written in stone,” so to speak, when it comes to corporate communications. Well, it’s about time something was written in stone. Following is a list of eight corporate commandments that will work at any organization.

1. Thou shall not over-communicate.