4.2 Finding your voice

One of the themes implicit within our focus on communication has been miscommunication: from interference in the signal, to problems decoding, from hidden meanings to the way that meaning changes over time. It also broached the issue of what is not being said, how our communications contain all sorts of content that we might not be fully aware of, whether it is the cultural norms we adopt, or simply the medium we choose.

In the previous activity you were asked to develop a persona of your ideal customer in order to address these potential issues. It is also useful to think about your enterprise’s persona.

Activity 5 Creating an enterprise persona

Timing: Allow approximately 20 minutes to complete this activity

Try to imagine your enterprise as a personality:

  • What kind of person is it?

  • Is the enterprise you? If it is not you, who is it?

  • How would this person communicate?

  • Where do they hang out?

  • Do they read trade journals?

  • Do they use social media? Are they on Twitter or Facebook?

  • What sort of language do they use? Is it formal or informal?

  • What sort of people would this personality appeal to? Are they the sort of people you want to attract?

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Discussion

As well as helping you refine the messages you send out to your stakeholders and customers, having a ‘voice’ for the venture will help you to understand the brand; for example, what kinds of things your brand would say and what it would not say. This is likely to be important as the venture grows. Having a personality for your venture will also help those who join you, and may end up being your ‘front face’ as it indicates how everyone ought to communicate.

4.1 Communication and value

Summary