Internal Communication 2.0 - Formanchuk & Asociados

Internal Communication 2.0 

A Cultural Challenge 

Alejandro Formanchuk

Internal Communication 2.0: A Cultural Challenge 

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Formanchuk, Alejandro. 

Original title: Comunicación interna 2.0: un desafío cultural. 1ª ed. – Buenos Aires: Edición 

Formanchuk & Asociados, 2010. 

© 2010 Alejandro Formanchuk 

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Version 0.1 – November 2010 

All the ideas contained in this e-book are under construction. This is the version 0.1 and I really 

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Version 0.1 – Alejandro Formanchuk 2


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1. Starting to Think and to Rethink 

Today many companies use 2.0 tools to manage both their internal and external communications. 

Is this a revolutionary practice? 

Wait a minute. Don’t answer right now. 

Let me tell you that many European monarchies as well as the Vatican and dozens of 

ultraconservative political parties around the world use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Wordpress 

and Flickr. 

What’s your opinion now? 

First conclusion: 

Any organization which is a little bit less formal than the British Crown should dare to be present 

in the social media. After all, if a queen or the Pope sign up on Twitter or create a blog, why 

should the director of a company be afraid to do so? 

Now I pose a new question which is a little bit more challenging: 

Why are these traditional institutions ready to use something which is supposedly so innovative? 

The answer is simple: because the fact of having “2.0 tools” doesn’t make them “2.0 

organizations”. To put it in a proverb: 

The suit does not make the man. 

Therefore, organizations may use social media (that is to say, they may use technology) both for 

internal and external communications without having to modify their culture. 

Is this of any good? Not so much. Cosmetic changes are only superficial. 

Where shall we start, then? By what is central to organizations: their culture. 



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2. Organizational Culture 2.0 

I want to talk to you about what I know, about my work experience and about what I have found 

out (and I find out every day), about rights and wrongs. Companies from Latin America have been 

hiring us for years to strengthen their internal communication and to help them to design 

“internal communication 2.0” strategies. 

But what does this mean? What do they really want when they ask for “internal communication 

2.0”? Basically what they want is “technological tools”: they want us to create blogs, to open 

Twitter accounts, to design wikis, etc. 

I’ll be honest with you. Those are the easiest things to sell. 

But those are the things I never sell (or at least I never sell them at the beginning). 

Because, to me, the universe 2.0 is the following: 

A cultural platform 

rather than a collection of technologies in “perpetual beta” 

A model which challenges classic ways of significance, 

participation and organization 

rather than a new harmless tool of communication 

One of the most important (and also irreversible?) 

decisions which a head of communications may take in a 

company 

rather than an insignificant decision 



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Then, what is my approach? 

Culture. Culture. Culture. 

First, we analyze the organizational culture and its practices. Second or third, we plan the media 

and tools which should be used. 

I have a confession to make: I’m not sure if this is what companies want but I think that it is what 

they need. And, to be honest, I want to sleep tight every night. I like to offer projects to transform 

companies and to add value in the mid and long term. I like sustainable projects. 

Internal communication 2.0 calls for a culture 2.0! 

Therefore, we should distance ourselves from the “techno-centered” viewpoint focused on the 

media. Or maybe: 

• Do companies do “internal communication” when they publish an “internal magazine”? 

• Do companies have more communications when their magazine has more pages? 

• Do companies have a better communication if the magazine is in color instead of in black and 

while? 

• Do leaders communicate better when they meet more often with their team? 

• Do companies update their communications when they use social media? 

Let’s use the culture as a “Platform to launch communications”. People express themselves 

according to their personality. The same happens with companies, but instead of talking about 

personality we use the word culture. 

Culture is communication in movement. 

I love this phrase! 



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CULTURE: FROM 1.0 TO 2.0 

1.0 2.0 

Employee Collaborator 

Internal public Multidimensional actor 

Human resource Person 

Struggle for power Change of power 

Centralize Decentralize 

Giant structure Movable units 

Competition Cooperation 

Information Dialogue 

Boss and sobordinates Different collaborators 

Linear structure Close-knit structure 

Director Facilitator 

Focus on hierarchy Focus on talent 

Respect gained due to position Admiration gained due to capacity 

People are herded People are attracted 

Work hard Work better 

Bureaucratic conglomerate Non-stop and toll-free highways 

Engraved on a stone Written on the sand 

Leader knows the most Leader is with those who know the most 

Hobbes Rousseau 

Keep Create and recreate 

Don’t fail Learn from mistakes and try again 

Administrators Entrepreneurs 

People adapt and repeat tasks People are nonconformists and creative 

Always give orders Build alliances 

Linear and alphabetic logic Mental maps and images 

Yes, Sir! And why? 

Obsession with reducing expenses Pasion for creating value 



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3. Organizations Here and Now 

Culture 2.0 is not futurism. Organizations change. HERE AND NOW. 

I would like to tell you a story. One day I was teaching Corporate Communication at the 

University of Buenos Aires. I was explaining the different media of communications which may be 

used in a traditional company. At one point, a student raised his hand and told me that what I 

was explaining might not work for his company because: 

• He works for a “hybrid company”: two European companies merged 

two business units and created a third company. 

• The first day he got to work he had to pick up his notebook himself to 

start working. Literally, he approached a window, introduced himself, provided his personal 

information and got his computer. 

• He doesn’t have an office. The company occupies four floors and he can connect his computer 

wherever he wants. What’s more: he is encouraged to move constantly to 

meet new co-workers. 

• His boss works in Brazil and he has never seen him 

personally. They contact every day through MSN, Skype, e-mail or phone. But 

they have never shaken hands. 

• He takes part in many global projects simultaneously. Every project has a 

leader. Therefore, perhaps one month he has to report to 4 different people who are spread 

all over the world and he has to take part in several virtual teams. 



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• 600 people work in the Buenos Aires office. Only 200 have been hired directly by the 

company. The rest are employed by human resources companies so they are 

outsourced. 

• Five people work in his area. His boss, who is in Brazil, is the only person who has been hired 

directly by the company. He and his co-workers come from four different human 

resources companies. 

• 30% of the staff are foreigners. Some of them stay in our country for 3 days and 

then leave for other countries, others stay for 3 months, some others stay a little bit longer. 

The people get in and out all the time. Some Argentineans also leave and lead projects in 

different countries for the whole year, staying in one country per month, on average. 

• To counteract the “Babel” effect, the company has decided that absolutely all internal 

communications should be written in English. The employees should write their e- 

mails in that language even if the recipient is Argentinean. Spanish or the local language is 

only allowed for informal communications. 

This is not a company of the year 2020. Nor is it located in California or 

Tokyo. It is located in Argentina in the year 2010. HERE AND 

NOW 

It provides a great opportunity to play in speculative scenarios and to practice and to exercise the 

brain, which, up to now, is the only organ which can perceive the future. 

Now let’s think what it would be like to manage the internal communications in a company of the 

present-future where: 



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• The people don’t have a fixed office and never meet in the same place. 

• They have never seen their boss. 

• They report to different leaders who are in different parts of the planet. 

• They take part in global teams which are formed and dissolved easily. 

• They may lead projects and be in charge of somebody who was his “boss” up to yesterday. 

• They have temporary responsibilities and hierarchies. 

• They have as many coworkers as projects they are involved in. 

• They have 2 kinds of coworkers: those who they see personally and those they have never 

seen before. 

• They communicate more digitally than personally. 

• Meetings are something of an anachronism. 

• They don’t collect information because it’s impossible and unintelligent to do so. 

• They think that they’ll stay in the company for no more than 18 months. 

• They consider themselves “individual companies” which provide services. 

Are we talking about futurism? 

No. We are talking about HERE AND NOW. 

Can we understand this? 

This is the point of view of an old man who is 33 (my age at the time I am 

writing this book). 



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This is me as a child. 

First difference: I was fair-haired. 

Then my hair turned brown. (My mom’s Italian genes 

beat my dad’s Polish genes.) But the differences don’t 

end there: 

• I was a fan of “Mazinger Z” and I could only get to see it at tea time and on only 

one medium: the tv. 

• I used to read “Anteojito”, a children’s magazine, which I used as the only source 

to do my homework. I used to “cut and paste” literally. 

• My mom also used to read “Anteojito” when she was a child. 

• I had to pay for all the information I got. Encyclopedias were very expensive. 

• My grand-mother used to borrow a neighbor’s phone to make phone calls. 

• In 1986 I was given a Commodore 128 computer. At that time, people were 

amazed by computers because of their capacity to process data. 

• The same year my dad bought a CD player which he used for many years. This 

technology lasted for at least 20 years. 

• I had only one category of friends: the ones I knew personally. 

Teaching is a pleasure but it is also a need. I get in touch with people who are much younger than 

I am. I think teaching would be a good exercise for many of the mature men who manage mature 

companies in mature economies. 



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GOD SAVE THE GREEN! 

THE WORLD IS BECOMING A BETA 

VERSION! 

This means that it is ever more difficult to draw maps. We don’t know the geography and the 

coasts are being continuously eroded, filled, changed… The “Lost island” moves constantly. But 

we should not let these facts discourage us. 

Alvin Toffler, in his brilliant book “Future Shock”, says that “having a faint idea of what to expect 

is better than not having an idea at all and, in many cases, extreme accuracy is completely 

unnecessary”. 

Therefore, what is important is not to get the prediction right but to exercise the 

vision. 

In particular when you notice that the technological imagination does not work with the 

technology as an object but as a main myth which contains it, that is: if we stopped believing in 

“Communications” as a value, the Internet would no longer be a communication technology. 

Let’s take a look at what “Internal Communication 2.0” is and may be. 



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4. Internal Communication 2.0 

Culture is communication in movement. I think that communication 2.0 moves following several 

of the following paths: 

1. Access and availability: 

Internal communication 2.0 implies that companies provide their staff with a broad 

access to information. (I’m tempted to say: EQUAL ACCESS!) Such access makes 

a lot of data available. In the past such data was forbidden or reserved to an 

exclusive group. 

Is this a test of faith? Of course it is! As it implies relying on the people to make 

responsible use of such information. 

Does it pose many risks? Yes, a lot! 

But let’s be honest: although many companies are willing to keep some 

information for themselves (their profit-and-loss statement, for example), 

nowadays it’s very easy to find whatever you want if you “google” it properly. 

The “Maginot line” is as useless as ever. 

2. Equality: 

Equality. Big word. But what does it mean in terms of communication 2.0? 

Reducing the symmetry between those who can create contents and those who 

are only authorized to read and accept contents. 

To a certain extent, it reminds me of the “prosumer” concept, which internally 

means that the roles of information producers and information consumers are 

interchangeable in an organization. 



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3. Usability 

Improving “usability” is a priority to reduce the limitations arising from the lack of 

technical competences. Strong will is not enough. Companies have to provide the 

necessary resources for “the reality not to forbid what is permitted by 

law”. 

4. Involvement: 

The people have to pave their own way within the communication monoblock. 

They should be encouraged to create, enrich, release, discuss and 

reformulate contents. 

This calls for the organization to be sensitive to different experiences and 

individual representations and to avoid being tempted to reduce them or group 

them under only one model of things able to be said o thought. 

Then, in practice, you’ll see if the people want or deem it necessary to take 

advantage of these spaces to create contents or if they prefer to engage in lurking 

and consume information without commenting anything or taking part in the 

debate. 

Lurking is real. And it may be a symptom of many things, such as the following: 

• The people are afraid to give their opinions 

• They do not trust in the real reasons behind the change 

• They are not interested because they consider the change useless or false 

Involvement and trust are two sides of the same coin. Involvement is a learning 

process, a test of value. You don’t get involved overnight. And even less when the 

previous logic was one of punishment, arrogance, unidirection or order. 



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5. Interaction: 

2.0 involves an interactive communication where the staff has the chance to 

create, share and take part in contents under a network paradigm and not simply 

under an ascending-descending bidirectional paradigm. 

That is the reason why an internal communication 2.0 scheme requires a design 

which is not focused on strengthening or multiplying the capacity to spread 

contents but on maximizing the interaction. 

There is a change from broadcasting or a platform to spread contents to the 

creation of a public square which encourages decentralized, multidimensional, 

multi-hierarchical and free dialogue. 

6. Collective Construction and 

Collaboration: 

We need to accept that good ideas come from anywhere. Yes, especially from the 

“bottom” of the pyramid. 

Internal communication 2.0 adheres to the cooperation in the open 

preparation of contents under a “Wiki” model for instance. And this requires 

many things. First and foremost, leaders need to validate the fact that certain 

contents may be produced by people who are not at the top or in the centre of 

the pyramid and that “meritocracy” outweighs formal hierarchy at the time of 

validating participations. 

The challenge is to organize diversity, to articulate the differences and to get 

micro-actions or ideas together before they are dissolved. 

The benefit: to strengthen collective intelligence and to change from implied 

knowledge to expressed knowledge. 



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7. Listening, replying and taking action: 

In a 2.0 model, expression is the main value. When companies adhere to this 

culture, they minimize the logic “broadcasting” and get ready to listen to the staff 

because they are really willing to know what they think. They also take on the 

responsibility to reply to whatever is said and, most importantly, to do 

something about what they listen to. 

A typical counter example: a company creates an internal blog because they are 

eager to know what the people think. Everything is fine until criticism arises. 

What happens in 90% of the cases? 

• They don’t reply 

• Those messages are erased 

• There’s a witch hunt to find out who wrote those messages 

8. Respect and ego reduction: 

Good Communication is only possible when people respect and value each other. 

Ans this is the mantra of communication 2.0, either internal or external. 

Here’s an example: 

In a company we suggested that the “Customer Care Manual” should be prepared 

by the employees under a Wiki model where everybody could give their ideas and 

where the best ideas would be chosen regardless of the author’s formal hierarchy. 

We faced a really big challenge (see point 6): get the leaders to accept and believe 

that the people who dealt with customers were smart, knew a lot, knew even 

more than them (that turned out to be heretic on my part and I was almost 

hanged!) and therefore, they were encouraged to do the following: 



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• To think together 

• To write together 

• To decide together 

After all, who deals with the customers every day? THEM! 

I was inspired by Dan Gillmor, (journalist and author of the classic "We, the 

Media") when he said: 

“My readers know more than I do, and that’s a good thing”. 

Leaders should recite this mantra: 

“My employees know more than I do, and that’s a good 

thing!” 

This is how the story ended: the “Customer Care Manual” turned out to be 

excellent, with millions of productive ideas, many more than if it had been written 

by a boss or a know-it-all consultant. A blow to the ego? Yes, all the 1.0 leaders’ 

egos were bruised”. But the CEO, who I know well, told me later: “Ale, so far I 

didn’t know that my company was full of so much talent at the base of the 

pyramid. Maybe it is time to redesign it. Thanks for showing it to me.” 

9. Network and interaction: 

A communication 2.0 scheme requires a participating and flat organization, where 

the interaction is not affected by classic hierarchies or unidirectional relationships. 

Where roles, tasks, borders, leaderships and interchanges are more flexible and 

dynamic, where the center and the surrounding areas are contingent, situational 

or blurred because of a network of interactions. 



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10. Control reduction: 

Thanks to all these guidelines the company is ready to “lose” control over what is 

said, thought or decided. Opening the game to the model 2.0 means to stop 

wondering “how do I control what the staff says?” and start thinking “how do I 

take advantage of what the staff says?” (as Manuel Castells put it: “The only 

question which does not admit the Internet is how to control what the people 

publish”). 

• Key concept: Equipotentiality. Potentially everyone has equivalent capacities to 

publish information. 

• Additional idea: Permeable media. 

We should stop using Henry Ford’s phrase: “You can have any color you want as 

long it’s black”. Reedited: “You can say anything you want as long as you are 

respectful and constructive”. 

11. Disintermediation and Horizontality: 

The architecture to take part in the universe 2.0 entails a process of 

disintermediation in the production and spread of contents. The active role of the 

“communication prosumer” requires a space where opinions may be freely 

interchanged and debates may held for as long as necessary, always taking care of 

basic principles of respect. It is a “peer to peer” interconnection with a 

minimum intervention to ease the contact or the creation of the public square. 



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INTERNAL COMMUNICATION: FROM 1.0 TO 2.0 

1.0 2.0 

Information Dialogue 

Communication as a product Communication as a process 

Sender and receiver Communication prosumers 

Unidirectional communication Peer-to-peer comunication 

Descending and ascending paradign Networks 

Many affirmations Many consultations 

Blah, blah, bla h Listening to people a lot 

Data Significance 

The power of the megaphone The power of the neurons 

Vertical messages Horizontal chats 

Information monoblock Live communication networks 

A lot of passwords A lot of access 

Classified information Public and open information 

Maginot Line Google 

Reserving information Sharing dialogues 

Power of information Power of conversation 

Media focused on information spread Media seeking interaction 

“Bottle neck” Architecture of participation 

Broadcasting logic Decentralized interactions 

Information panopticon Public square for communications 

Egyptian pyramids Global networks 

Hatred of critism Celebration of dissent 

Fear of what is heard on the grapevine Celebration of conversation 

Big media Great people 



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5. Courses of action 

If I had to create a tag cloud for this text, the words which would stand out would probably be: 

active role – collective construction – sincere listening - 

decentralization – open mind and access – architecture of participation 

- willingness to talk – fluent interaction – public square - symmetry - 

collective intelligence – actors and authors – neuronal layout - 

equipotentiality 

Now I’d like to share with you some thoughts that cross my mind: 

1. It’s not that easy to do internal communication 2.0 

Implementing an internal communication 2.0 scheme is a big challenge because it implies 

reconfiguring the company culture, practices, powers, dynamics and ways of organization. 

Therefore, it’s “dangerous” to do it because it will cause stress and there will be dissidents, 

“insiled” (people who feel exiled within the same company), but also adepts. 

It’s not easy. Unless we just want to create blogs and wikis and open Twitter accounts. 

As Michel Houellebecq put it in his book “Platform”: “Things should be clear: life, as it is, is not 

bad. Some of our dreams have come true. We can fly, we can breathe underwater, we have 

invented electric appliances and computers. The problem begins with the human body”. 



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2. 2.0 is not a univocal or universal destination 

Not all the organizations are ready to implement communications 2.0 or must do it. I believe that 

you, as a communicator, must solve problems and not add problems. And sometimes if you force 

some companies to adopt the paradigm 2.0, you will give them a box full of unnecessary 

difficulties. 

3. It’s very hard to create communication 2.0 if the culture is 1.0 

Culture is the key. Culture and communication go hand in hand together. If the culture is 1.0, 

communicating using a 2.0 model will be false, unproductive or even worse: counterproductive. 

What are our culture numbers? Sometimes they are even negative! 

4. Companies may be 2.0 without having digital tools 2.0 

My favourite conclusion. My most practiced and best implemented idea in companies. Let’s start 

by being 2.0 without technology! 

Let’s see: Rather that a tool, 2.0 is a culture or an attitude. Therefore, a company can embrace 

this paradigm without having to design or create “social media”. For example, I recommend that 

companies should reconfigure the classic work meetings under a model 2.0. 

A meeting can be 2.0 because 2.0 implies participation. And the meeting goals are met: to ease 

communication, to achieve interaction among participants, to share information instantly, to 

create knowledge in a collaborative way, etc. In addition, a meeting has two advantages: 

synchronic communication and reduction of “lurking”. 

Technologies like Wiki for example can strengthen this attitude and act like an “anabolic steroid” 

in an open communication. But a simple meeting can also be 2.0. And free! 



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5. Introducing tools 2.0 may affect the culture 

I am always asked what will happen if tools 2.0 are introduced in a “broadcasting culture”. Is it of 

any good? I think that it’s better to act first on the culture itself. But in case that’s not possible, 

we should keep in mind that structures are both structuring and structured. Structured by the 

same practice they structure. That sounds paradoxical, doesn’t it? 

Introducing tools 2.0 may then have an impact on the culture because in their NDA they carry a 

way of Communications, an implied logic, an energy field. They look harmless or neutral but 

they aren’t. 

It is like when you want to start working out. First, you “buy the tool”, which is the easiest thing 

to do. For example you buy a pair of shoes. Then alter a few days you take a look at your shoes 

which are in your bedroom, you take a look again, you think about the 200 dollars you spent and 

finally you decide to wear them. The tool encourages you to take action and, if everything turns 

out to be fine, your working-out routine may even be long-lasting and sustainable. 

Sometimes tools 2.0 may be like these shoes. And they may help you to tell the leader: “If we 

already have the blog, the wikis, etc. why don’t we really take advantage? 

6. Deciding what kind of social media you need to implement 

Let’s suppose we have the culture. We have the practices. Do we want tools? Let’s think which 

ones we need because they aren’t the same. For example we can focus on the following: 

• Expression: If we want to strengthen and ease the creation of contents on the part of the 

staff. We use: Blogs, Twitter, etc. 

• Interaction: If we are interested in easing or strengthening the communication among the 

company staff, creating communities or forums. We use: Facebook, Linkedin, Friendster, 

MySpace, Orkut, Skyrock, Netlog, Hi5, Tuenti, etc. 

• Collaboration and education: If we seek to create collaboration and learning, we should 

open a space where the staff can cooperate to create contents and ask for help or give 

help. We use: Wikis or social bookmarkers such as Delicias o StumbleUpon. 



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Other angles I think about are: 

• What is the capacity of social media to mediatize contents? What model of 

communication, architecture or communication layout do they recommend? 

• In what ways do these social media allow or don’t allow the articulation of relationships 

between senders-receivers-prosumers? What is the logic? 

That is, the mediatization of contents and relationships. 

7. There isn’t an IC 2.0 scheme and a regular IC scheme. There is an IC 

scheme. Period! 

There isn’t a “virtual” world. All is real. And all is mediatized for a reason. This book you’re 

reading now is real even though you may be reading it through a “virtual” medium. If I insult you 

in the next sentence, you will ask me why and I won’t be able to tell you: “Ah, no, that happened 

in the virtual world, don’t get mad at me”. If a company’s image is torn apart on a YouTube video, 

their shares will fall in the “real” world and not in the market of “virtual values”. That is, we and 

our communications are always “real” and always have consequences. Therefore, there isn’t a 

communication scheme 2.0 and a regular or real communication scheme. There’s 

communication. Period! 



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8. We’re always talking about the same thing 

Internal communication 2.0 is important because old matters are reanalyzed. Matters which I 

consider really important when working on internal communication: 

• Models of organization 

• Power structures 

• Architecture to spread information 

• Interaction policies 

• Organizational culture 

• Ego 

We’re talking about the same thing. 

We aren’t talking about technologies, we’re talking about models. 

About the same models we’ve always talked about. 



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9. A bad message is always bad even if it’s published in media 2.0 

Mi first e-mail account was mariscal@fsoc.uba.ar and I opened it in 1996. A few months later I 

hired the internet service at home (while I surfed on the net I couldn’t use my phone) and that 

year I also created my first personal page at “Geocities”, in the category “SouthBeach”. (All this 

may seem prehistoric for many people who’re reading this book). 

I was really happy with the Internet, I thought it was too good to be true. One day I invited my 

grandpa home and I proudly started to show him this new wonder. He looked at me, made a 

poker face and told me: “Yes, it’s very nice. But a fool with the Internet is still a fool.” 

I didn’t dare to ask him if he was talking about me. 

“What internal communication media should I use for my company? What do you think about 

starting an internal video channel? Should our CEO have a blog?” 

I’m often asked this kind of questions. In companies, at seminars, in my blog. And I use my 

grandpa’s anecdote to explain that a bad message is still a bad message even when you give it 

through the most innovative, attractive or cool media. 

Media should not be chosen. We should separate the media from the strategy. 

The use of media 2.0 shouldn’t be a choice. 

The use of media 2.0 should be a need arising from the organizational culture 

itself and from the strategy. 



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10. Technology changes, human don’t. 

I love this comic strip. It has a negative side which reminds me of that debate about whether the 

world moves forward or not opened by Ernesto Sábato in the book “On Heroes and Tombs”, 

when one of the characters says: “Why do you assume that the world has moved forward? Yes, I 

understand why. It’s better to kill human creatures with Napalm bombs than with bows and 

arrows”. 

Hard, isn’t it? 

But this thought has something positive: the continuance of certain behaviors, the possibility to 

hold on to something while the currents drag you. 

Technology changes all the time. All is in perpetual beta. There are so many things to learn and 

we have so little time. Many times I feel that whatever I do, I’ll be outdated. That someone will 

always come and tell me: “But how come don’t you know this tool, page, software, guru, 

platform, etc.?” 

I already accepted that this is inevitable. 



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But it’s also true that men don’t change so much and that communicators are always addressing 

similar matters, common problems, shared emotions. 

When we work, we focus on people and not on tools. Our goals are to give long-lasting 

messages, to do believable actions, to have trusting conversations, to have welfare and to find 

professional and personal fulfillment. 

We are still people who communicate with people. 



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6. Questions to keep moving forward 

In many of my seminars on corporate communication I ask the participants to close their eyes 

and imagine the future of our professional discipline. I challenge them to think and debate what 

they think internal communication will be like in a couple of years. 

To round up, I’d like to share with you some of my favorite questions to think together. 

Education: How will we teach communication in the future? How will a communicator be 

educated and who will determine such education? What will we have to know, learn, study, 

practice and experience? 

Political asset: Where will the figure of communicator be in a company? What political asset 

will he have? How will he manage to get such political asset? How will he interact with other 

areas? What will happen to the hierarchy and to the area where he will work? How will he build 

power? 

Tools and media: What will be the internal communication tools or the media of the 

future? What will happen to the digital universe? What will 2.0 turn into? 

Culture: How will the corporate culture be built, shared and passed on? What will the model of 

“good employee” and “good leader” be? How will the management climate, culture and sucess 

be measured? What will happen to hierarchies? How will the people be promoted? What will be 

the values to be communicated? 

Planning: What will a communication plan be like? What will it depend on? Will crises become 

constant and will they cause ever shorter plans to appear? Will we have to plan with fire 

extinguishers in hand? Will we have to make plans, plans B and the opposite plans? 



_______________________________________________________________________________ 

Interpersonal: What will be the role of interpersonal communications in our society and in 

the companies of the future? What will happen to informal communication? Will we hear things 

on the grapevine or will we read them on blogs? What will work meetings be like? Will there be 

anyone seating face to face withsomeone else? How will we form and strengthen teams? How 

will teams be leaded? 

Creation and circulation: How will the communication circulate in a company? What will 

happen to the ascending, descending and horizontal communication flow? Who will produce 

information and who will communicate such information? Will the “Wiki” be extended and will 

the knowledge be generated in teams and by anyone? Will the information still be equivalent to 

power or will it be the most distributed asset in the world”? 

This is the ending I like: with questions. 

Let’s go on thinking. Thanks for joining me up to here. 



_______________________________________________________________________________ 

Support: 

Alejandro Formanchuk. He was born in Buenos Aires in 1977. 

He is a Bachelor in Social Communication with an Honors Diploma granted by the 

University of Buenos Aires (UBA). He specializes in organizational communication. 

He is the President of the Argentinean Association of Internal Communication. He is 

the CEO of Formanchuk & Asociados, a ccmmunication consulting company. He 

leaded projects for more than 250 organizations in Latin America. He teaches at the 

UBA and taught in more than 20 universities in the region. He is an international 

speaker and has given conferences in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, 

Peru and Uruguay. Producer and Host of “Conversaciones TV”, the first on-line show 

on corporate communication. He has been a playwright since he was 20 years old. He 

loves photography and traveling. 

• Web: www.formanchuk.com.ar 

• Blog: www.formanchuk.com.ar/todosignifica 

• E-mail: alejandro@formanchuk.com.ar 

• Twitter: @formanchuk

Internal Communication 2.0 - Formanchuk & Asociados

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