I invited Alison Davis, of employee communications firm Davis & Co., to my staff meeting last week to discuss her new book - Your Attention Please. Alison and her company have done several projects for us over the years, and have a strong understanding of what works and what doesn't when it comes to communicating to a diverse work force.

The systems individuals use to interact with information continues to rapidly evolve. We are all overloaded with information. Alison talks about today's employees as information managers- how much info can they take from corp + the division + the function + their specific plant or location. In this environment interesting is not enough. It has to have relevance and it has to be easy to digest - or it will go into that permanent reading file that never gets opened.

In her book she recommends breaking up information into relevant chunks using visual cues to guide the reader - blocks of text; sidebars; icons - (scissors to show cut or save this, etc.). She also advocates the use of stories – data alone convinces no one, but a story they can relate to will have impact.

Take a look at the book and Alison’s blog.