New technologies have always driven improvements in our ability to communicate but recent years have thrown up fresh developments that are working to change the way information is delivered and shared. Changing from “push” and “mass media” to a situation where employees are willing customers of information. But how can you use them and how can you integrate these tools with the more formal channels of communication?

Top 10 New Technologies for Internal Communicators, written by Shel Holtz, is the most authoritative report available on how to communicate using new technologies like RSS feeds, blogs and wikis. You’ll find out how these new technologies work, how you can use them in your communications and what the implications are for your business.

What will Top 10 New Technologies for Internal Communicators do for you?

• Learn how you can use RSS feeds in your communications and why it’s so critical for you
  “ If every employee had a news reader with a default RSS feed to vital all-employee news, you would be able to push the news to them.” See how Siemens are using RSS feeds to keep employees informed.

• Understand what you can achieve with blogs and how to get blogs right from the start
  “Blogs represent the fulfilment of the internet’s promise to shift the balance of power. Because of blogs, organizations no longer control messages. The audience controls the message.” Learn how Notiva use blogs for project management.

• Discover how wikis work and how they are different from other interactive media
  “A wiki is a website that allows users to add content and edit the content of the site.” Find out how the IBM, Google and the University of Minnesota use wikis on intranets.

• Find out how you can save time and money with podcasting
  “What transforms an audio file into a podcast is the manner in which it is delivered. With a podcast, you subscribe to the audio in advance.” We show you how this newest of technologies has applications for your business communication.

• Solve your employees’ lateral communication problems with social networking
  “Social networking on the web connects people through the accounts they maintain or through other software-driven mechanisms.” Discover how it works and what the potential is.

• Help employees reduce time searching for information with social tagging
  “This is another technology that allows us to upend the ‘information overload’ model...Social tagging allows a way for specialists to share navigation in their own language, quickly and easily.” Intranet bookmarks, content tagging, event calendaring, personal goals and image sharing are just some of the ways social tags are applied to an intranet. This chapter looks at each in turn.

• Improve quality and reduce costs with Skype (Voice over Internet Protocol)
  “Assuming you already have a broadband internet connection, you can place a 50-hour call from your Skype account in Britain to a colleague with Skype in Australia, and it would cost you... absolutely nothing at all.” Find out how you can tap into the Skype revolution.
  

• How to make the most of online video and streaming multimedia
  “The uptake of high-speed, always-on access has altered the Net’s very makeup. Suddenly video is becoming part of websites.” Find out how video can become a much bigger part of global web communications.

• “As powerful as Flash-enabled navigational aids are, it’s the application’s storytelling abilities that provide the most exciting use of the program.” How you can use Flash to convey a lot of information in an entertaining and short presentation.

In this 80-page report:

Social software:

• RSS “Really Simple Syndication”
• Web logs “blogs”
• Wikis
• Podcasting
• Social Networking
• Social Tagging (or”folksonomies”)

Broadband web:

• Skype (Voice over Internet Protocol)
• Online video
• Streaming multimedia
• Macromedia Flash