Chapter 15 Discussion: Communication Policy 8 8 unread replies. 9 9 replies. The Situation: In your short tenure as the manager of a restaurant chain, youve come up with some brilliant ideasthe Super Bowl parties, unlimited wings night, and who could forget 80s Karaoke Flashdance Fever? But one of your best ideas came a few months ago when you decided that your company needed to be on Twitter. Youve used it to announce promotions, concerts, special menu items, and even offer discounts. One day, you tweeted that the first 1,000 people to join your Twitter feed would get a free meal for four; about 2,700 people joined up in one hour. Your loyal Twitter followers have even spread the word of your restaurants overseas. Just the other day, a huge tourist group from Hong Kong stopped at one of your eateries (and spent a ton of money) because they heard about it on Twitter. Your venture into social media has been such a success that you want to use it for communication within the organization. Instead of phone calls, faxes, and memos, you envision sending a company-wide Tweet announcing policy changes, or identifying employees-of-the-month on the Facebook wall, or using text messages to alert chefs of menu changes. As you begin a trial run within the warehouse division, the possibilities seem endless. You get a sharp dose of reality, however, when some senior managers start calling you, frantically asking What does FTW mean? Someone sent me a performance review that said KUTGWwhat is that? Who the heck is @jimbo? One of my employees asked me to give them a tweetdoes that violate our sexual harassment policy? One even told you about how she thought LOL meant lots of love and sent it as a text message to an employee whose grandfather had passed away. All these questions made you aware of how much work was involved in integrating social media into your companys communications. It would not be as easy as giving people new computers or phones; they would have to learn a whole new language. All of the shorthand, abbreviations and symbols that seemed so obvious to a generation raised on the Internet are a dark and mysterious code to a generation raised on phone calls, newspapers, and hand-written letters. These managers arent ready to give up yetthey certainly see the vast potential for social media. But, they are askingdemandingthat you provide them with training so that they can tell the difference between FTW and WTF. In your opinion, what is the most ideal way to train people who are unfamiliar with social media on how to use it for organization-wide communication? Do you think it is appropriate to use tweets or text messages for organization-wide communication? Why, or why not? Share your thoughts. With all discussions, you are expected to make an initial posting (250-word minimum)