It is no different here at Enigin or amongst our Enigin Distributorship network around the world.

Communication is out of control and it is taking all the fun, and productivity, out of work.

Communication is as important to business success and organisational effectiveness as it used to be. There’s just too much of it.

For whatever reason, the old problem of protecting domains by limiting the flow of information has morphed into a new problem of hyper-collaboration where everybody’s included in everything.

If you ask me, the communication pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction, although I’m not really sure why:

• Is it simply the umpteenth fad, an overemphasis on communication, collaboration, and teamwork because that’s the way we’re supposed to do things now?
• Is it an overreaction to the virtualisation of the workforce, an attempt to control and reel in all those remote teams, telecommuters and flextime users?
• Is it just because we can, now that we’ve all got smartphones, a million ways to message and chat, social media, virtual meeting and collaboration tools?

Whatever the reason, communication overload has reached epidemic proportions and it’s killing precious productivity and effectiveness at a time of economic strife and global competition, when our already overwhelmed and under-resourced management teams and workforces can least afford it.

Here are 10 Ways to Stop Communication Overload:

1. Every meeting - physical or virtual - must have an objective, an agenda, a start time and an end time; everybody who attends every meeting must have a specific and definitive purpose for being there.
2. Stop adding people to processes and groups. Every person you add to every process, group, communication, team, whatever, adds complexity and reduces productivity because people tend to say and do things, then others tend to respond, and so-forth. It’s always easier to herd fewer cats.
3. Question the broad use of predefined email distribution lists, reconsider every individual you cc on an email, and most importantly, don’t automatically hit “Reply to All.”
4. Reconsider internal meetings to prepare for other internal meetings, layers and layers of review meetings, the wisdom of “all hands” meetings, and panicked, kneejerk reactions to involve the whole damn world in a crisis.
5. Encourage and reward employee accountability, risk-taking, and initiative for resolving problems on their own.
6. If anybody out there is still trying to make matrix management work, stop. It’s a brilliant organizational concept that’s nearly impossible to execute without creating mass confusion and, ultimately, way more problems than it solves.
7. Be wary of noncritical management fads that are sure to create tons of meetings with amorphous results. Remember OD - Organization Development?
8. Question the ubiquitous “I want to be involved” and “keep me in the loop” micromanaging / controlling mentality.
9. Don’t use collaboration or communication tools for the sake of using them. If the net ROI isn’t clear, don’t do it.
10. Never forget that, now more than ever, time is everyone’s most precious asset.

Look, I’m not suggesting we return to the old school of isolated silos that control the flow of information. It’s just that we’ve gone too far the other way and need to take some of this communication and collaboration stuff off the table and create a little balance or, if nothing else, some time for people to actually get some work done.

At Enigin we try to keep aim to keep our content to a high standard, but it takes effort and skill to do so. For Enigin Distributors and others int he energy saving business it will require the same - but what skills, experience needs to be developed or hired?

Here are the final six of 11 skills needed:
6. A Community Leader
If your editor is developing your content from scratch, or rehabbing it from the studs out, chances are she’ll need to work a bit to develop the necessary contributor contacts, either inside your company or outside of it. This ability is especially critical if you can’t pay outside contributors, but hope to attract them to write for you for the exposure, glory, and honor of it.

“It’s one thing to develop the editorial at a site like Salon.com,” I wrote in 2000. “It’s quite another to schmooze contributors to write for a little-known site with only a trickle of traffic and no cash flow.” That’s still true today, even if the benefits are a little clearer these days.

7. Social DNA
Is your candidate a social butterfly online? Does she enjoy interacting via social channels? This point is also from Rick, who notes that the best content creators “promote their own content. They build and nurture relationships, and they know how to use these relationships to spread their own content, without abusing them.”

In other words, look for folks who are social butterflies online, even if they may not be in the real world.

8. An Open Mind
Many of the journalists I’ve worked with would sniff at the idea of taking a corporate job. They think doing so is demeaning or equates to selling out, compromising themselves, marginalizing their talents, ruining their reputations, smiting their families, bringing shame upon them, or permanently installing themselves on the dark side.

The key is to find people who understand and embrace the fundamental thesis of Content as Opportunity: Businesses now have both an imperative and the incentive to produce top-shelf content. (Also, a side note to journalists who might be wrestling with the notion of “selling out”: You’ll make more money on the dark side. Just sayin’.)

9. Knowledge of the Industry… or Not
This is a tricky one. Although industry knowledge can certainly help, it’s not going to make a content creator sink or swim. A bright person who’s a quick and motivated study can swim, buoyed by little more than a float or two, despite no immediate knowledge of a specific industry.

I’d rather have a crack writer with sound business skills who’s a noob in an industry (and can maybe lend a fresh perspective) over an insider who’s intimately familiar with the subject. Why? Because the latter sometimes speaks the language of the industry rather than that of the audience.

Remember a fundamental rule of journalism: “No one will complain because you made something too easy to understand.”

10. A Winning Personality
I’m only half joking. Remember that the person in charge of your content sets the tone for your site. It’s her editorial voice, very often, that will speak the loudest to your readers. Hire someone with little discernable personality, and chances are their writing voice will be just as flat.

11. Editorial Skills
Oh yes, and then there’s the small matter of editorial skill. Can this person write? Look for the ability to write circles around your competitors, attention to detail, and sound editorial judgment. It’s a tall order to find someone who excels on all editorial counts, so also look for a willingness to admit where the weaknesses may be, and plan to hire accordingly. For example, copyediting is not my own strong suit, which is why I don’t copyedit.

By the way, it’s not by chance that editorial skill appears as the last item on the list. Someone who is both a good writer and a good editor is a find, true, but the other 10 points here are equally important.

At Enigin we try to keep aim to keep our content to a high standard, but it takes effort and skill to do so. For Enigin Distributors and others int he energy saving business it will require the same - but what skills, experience needs to be developed or hired?

Here are the first five of 11 skills needed:
1. Training as a Print or Broadcast Journalist

Journalists are trained to tell a story using text, images, or audio, and they understand how to create content that draws an audience. Good journalists’ innate understanding of audience also gives them a critical outsider’s perspective… a nuanced perspective that marketers can sometimes lack. They might be on your payroll, but they are better at expressing neutrality—a distinct advantage in creating content that resonates with your audience.

2. Nose for a Story
The best content creators are the ones who can smell a good story. They also recognize the bones of a story easily, and they instinctively know how to develop the content to make it human and interesting. Is your candidate bursting at the seams with ideas for content that your business might create? Does she think in terms of content? Do you hear her utter phrases like “that would make a great blog post!”?

3. Digital Intuition
Rick Burnes of HubSpot says good content creators understand how the Web works. In a post on his blog, he writes, “The web is an ecosystem, and if you don’t intuitively understand the dynamics of this ecosystem—how Twitter can drive traffic to a blog; the kinds of headlines that attract attention; the simple things you can do to build blog subscriptions—you won’t be able to help your company attract online visitors.”

A shorthand would be to seek out those with ADOS*—which stands for Attention Deficit… Ooh! Shiny! These are the folks who have a passion for new digital tools. They are always looking for the newest and shiniest object: They always have (or covet) the latest gadgets, they are experimenting with the most cutting-edge technologies, and they have the coolest apps on their smartphones. They can be handy people to have on your team, because they can help you figure out how those technologies apply to growing your business. (*Thanks to Peter Shankman for this term.)

4. Business Acumen
Unless you are a novelist or a feature writer, content for content’s sake isn’t really useful. So: Can your candidate articulate the business goal of content?
As Rick points out, “For businesses, content is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. Every article, tweet, and video is assessed based on its ability to generate visitors, leads, and customers, not on any subjective judgment of content quality.”

And as I wrote on ClickZ in 2000: “Developing editorial product requires more than an ability to write and edit. It also requires some sense of the market and an ability to know what kind of content will help sell your product. What you are actually selling doesn’t matter; it could be physical product, consulting services, or ad space on the site. What matters most is that the content attracts the audience you need to attract to accomplish your business goals.”

5. An Amateur Passion
Look for people who are already online and creating content, even as amateurs. (Fun fact: the root of amateur is the Latin word for love.)
Does your candidate maintain a personal blog? Create videos? Share photos on Flickr? Is she on Twitter? Obviously, your winning candidate doesn’t have to do it all. But people with a true passion for content don’t create and share it just because they are paid to do so.

“Why does content matter?” writes Erika Potter at the OrangeSoda blog. “It’s simple: credibility. Without credibility, your chance of converting viewers into customers goes downhill fast. It’s vital that visitors to your site see your online business as a trusted resource.”

To help you ensure that your online content is credible, Potter offers advice like this:

• Always, Always Use Spell Check
  No matter what product or service you sell, misspelled words and incorrect grammar can have a disastrous effect on your credibility.

  If you’re sloppy about an article, the reader will fairly infer you’re sloppy in other areas, too. Even professional writers make mistakes; be sure to use a spell checker and proof read before you publish.

• Less is More – Don’t Be Too Wordy
  People read online content differently than printed material; too much information on one page can work against you. So get right to the point and break up larger chunks of copy with headlines and bullet points.

  “If you choose to create pages with an extensive amount of content,” notes Potter, “just make sure it’s relevant.”

• Don’t Use Distracting Elements
  It’s okay to emphasise the occasional word or phrase with bolding or italics, but you’ll only annoy readers if you pepper your copy with exclamation points, all caps, unnecessary capitalisation or bright colors.

  “Instead of using distracting elements,” she suggests, “it’s usually a better idea to re-word your text to convey the intended meaning.”

• Always Get A Second Opinion
  Nothing could be more valuable to your site than having an actual viewer give you input about what you could do better. Ask a friend, relative, or colleague to look over your text and formatting. You might be surprised to find there were things you initially overlooked.

These are just a few of many tips that can help improve your site content and add credibility to your business. The extra time you spend making sure your content is in good shape will definitely pay off in the long run.

The inspiring Eden Project, just minutes away from Enigin headquarters, in fact we use to take Enigin Distributors here during their commercial training. Again an excellent opportunity to visit such an attraction and they offer a years entry when you visit the first time. And once again, it is a wonderful place to have a ticket to, to visit and spend a day.

Once again our son loved being able to explore and see everything. And it is such a reward to see him starting to get to an age that he can experience and enjoy things in such a way.

It can be very entertaining at times. Obviously we would not want to encourage putting random titles into a search engine as unfortunately there are clearly some bad aspects of the internet, but entering friends and family names is quite an harmless little game.

It is not a difficult game, your simply start with your own name and work through any friends and family, typing their full name into a search engine such as Google. The idea of the game is to find what you or these other people perhaps do in another life!

It needs to be a first and second name. So for example here at Enigin we have Mr Stephen Hill. Now in his other lives, according to Google, he is a specialist in classical and flamenco guitars. He is also the producer, creator and host of a US radio program. And the third “other life” I simply cannot mention.

Another aspect of this little “game” which is quite entertaining is the photos of the searched “subject”. Again seeing how they perhaps look in their “other lives”.

It can also be intriguing in terms of the subjects real live. Perhaps pictures they have on the internet forgotten about, blogs they have, websites they may run, pages on social networking sites, these would also flag up. It is a great way to monitor actually and see how you are doing yourself out there on the world wide web. Perhaps if you work using the internet for business use this silly little “game” as an opportunity to put a smile on your face but also test where your business and internet advertising is ranking on such search engines as Google.

There is an opinion that all sales people are the same, but this is a myth.

Yes, it is trues that ALL salespeople must, for example, be able to have a conversation with a customer, but different sales aims or jobs demand different personality types and skill sets.

Howard Stevens, CEO at the Chally Group has identified four primary types of sales jobs and an ideal type that adapts well to those jobs.

This post describes the fourth and last basic type.

Sales Person 4: The Order Taker

Order takers help the buyer to buy after some kind of display (in store, catalog, or web) has already convinced them to buy. This kind of selling requires little personal involvement, relatively little risk of personal rejection, and a compensation or reward system that does not depend on actually completing the sale.

This type of salesperson (a retail clerk, for instance) gets paid even if the customer fails to buy. Many retail salespeople fit this category, as do bank tellers and other salespeople who are on total salary and receive little or no commission. Some telemarketers (but not high-pressure telephone sales) also sell from a catalog or a website and thus fall into this category.

Of course, there is nothing WRONG with being an order taker. Quite the contrary. They’re frequently responsible for huge amounts of revenue. However, the skills required to be successful at it (like patience and a nice phone voice) are more common than the more rarefied skills need to be successful at the other three types of sales jobs.

There is an opinion that all sales people are the same, but this is a myth.

Yes, it is trues that ALL salespeople must, for example, be able to have a conversation with a customer, but different sales aims or jobs demand different personality types and skill sets.

Howard Stevens, CEO at the Chally Group has identified four primary types of sales jobs and an ideal type that adapts well to those jobs.

This post describes the third basic type.

Sales Person 3: The Relationship Builder

Relationship salespeople like independence. They like the freedom of sales, the feeling that they are their own boss. They exercise discipline and take responsibility for their actions. Not surprisingly, relationship salespeople become resistant if management tries to control their actions too much, or if management tries to change the rules.

Relationship sales requires great patience over a long period to finally cement a customer. This practically eliminates one’s concern with failure on a day-to-day basis because the sale is heavily dependent on the relationship between the salesperson and customer.

A “good” relationship will generate at least some business eventually. Many industrial selling situations and both territory and route sales typify relationship sales. Relationship selling is characterized by the ability of salespeople who move to a competitor to take business with them. Local stock brokers, industrial suppliers, distributors, etc., typify Relationship sellers.

There is an opinion that all sales people are the same, but this is a myth.

Yes, it is trues that ALL salespeople must, for example, be able to have a conversation with a customer, but different sales aims or jobs demand different personality types and skill sets.

Howard Stevens, CEO at the Chally Group has identified four primary types of sales jobs and an ideal type that adapts well to those jobs.

This post describes the second basic types.

Sales Person 2: The Consultant

Consultative sales situations usually are reserved for bigger ticket items, high technology items, or intangible “intelligent” services; for example, telephone systems, computer systems, consulting services, law services, etc.

Being successful at this requires both patient, interpersonal contact and a certain amount of aggressiveness as well. Forget the personal touch of the relationship, or fail to persist long enough for the deal to close, and a consultative sale will be lost.

The consultant performs extremely well with “prestige” and “image” products and services. This type of sales environment requires consultation with customers to meet their specific needs. Consultative salespeople are unusually career oriented.  The consultant also tends to be more “academically inclined” than the other sales types.

That being said, the consultant is not, as a rule, a daring risk-taker. The best ones do take risks, but only after careful thought and calculation. They pay a high level of attention to detail and have an above-average level of aggressiveness.

However, the “super sellers” of this type are definitely able to handle personal rejection and the fear of failure. They exhibit self-confidence, patience, and the ability to quickly develop interpersonal relationships with all business prospects.

There is an opinion that all sales people are the same, but this is a myth.

Yes, it is trues that ALL salespeople must, for example, be able to have a conversation with a customer, but different sales aims or jobs demand different personality types and skill sets.

Howard Stevens, CEO at the Chally Group has identified four primary types of sales jobs and an ideal type that adapts well to those jobs.

This and the following posts describes these four basic types - here is the first type.

Which type are you?
Sales Person 1: The Closer

All salespeople must use closing skills at some point during the sales process, but here, we are talking about a personality type.

This type starts with nothing and, therefore, must aggressively initiate customer contact. In most cases, one or two contacts are made with the prospect.

The risk of failure is high because there is little time to interact with the customer. Therefore, this type must not have a high fear of personal rejection. This sales environment requires that salespeople quickly establish a prospect’s emotional desire and need for their product.

Demonstration sales, new high-tech equipment, trade show promotions, pyramid sales and high-ticket executive vanity items (like corporate jets) are examples.