We've spent the last 2 weeks of January to looking at each of the components of waggledancing - Location, Motivation and now we come to  at Communication.  Which is not about what you might want to tell customers or the marketplace. But how to clearly convey to those who are going to take the idea to the next stage where it is and what to do with it.

And we start with a question. A hard lesson for marketing people to learn because mostly marketing is used to starting with a budget - and an audience is guaranteed. Which is why we set up long meetings to agree the message and then how we wrap up the message in a creative idea. And so on. This is not normal. Marketing has been like a division of artillery. And it isn't nearly as much about firing communication shells as it used to be. And the rest of the world doesn't work that way. So start with a question - what will engage those you are communicating with? What are they expecting to hear from you? Slightly more risk question - what do they think of you? You are not trying to inform them but to get them moving. And to do that you need to engage. This isn't a party political point about modern advertising. Its a fact of nature for all communication that matters. It was only the concentration of media in the middle of the 20th century that enabled those with a lot of money to ignore their audience and to stream messages at them.  For your closer audiences you will need to think about what they are scripted to do by default.

Its not all bad news - most are paid to produce - they are project driven. So give them the correct inputs and off they'll chug. That's how companies work. It may not be the most effective way of moving your idea along. They may merely transport it to the next stage and ensure it arrives on time.  The idea will be even better if they put some of themselves into it. But recognise by default they may not bother or freel they have permission to do so.  The reason for starting with a question or two is that instead of deciding who has to help and what they need to do you might want to think about the terms of engagement - if they were to do an outstanding job then what would that be like and how can you persaude them to do that. This is why brainstorms get tried a lot even if many of them aren't that effective - because they are capable of creating that sense of participation which draws individuals in.

To summarise this post. Communication starts with involving those with whom you're commumicating. The measure of your success is how involved you can make them. Through this week I will post about a number of different audiences - corporate customers or clients as they are often known, suppliers, team members, and bystanders.