Our last day in Rome! We started off with a visit to Enel, a global utility company with an amazing in-house broadcast system, we found out about, thanks to our Italian journalist friend, Anna Vitaliani.
We took a very, very, very long tram ride to the headquarters after a very, very, very long wait for the tram itself. It’s puzzling how quickly some of it works and how awful some of it works. But being a bit late didn’t faze the Enel staff members waiting for us.
Ivano Ferioli, who heads internal communication, explained to us how important communications is to the 63,000 employees in 32 countries. Ivano said his staff has to help spread the corporate culture in six different languages. “People are the main asset of the company,” he said. They provide them with communication that is creative, engaging and interesting. Moreover, the tools used have to be current. Those tools stretch from an Intranet, eRadio, eChannel for video, email, a company magazine and a vertical web platform.
Those 32 countries include the United States now. I saw an Enel image ad during our incredibly long layover at JFK Airport.
We listened to Ivano and Igor, the leader of the radio and TV operations, in the company’s Creative Space, complete with bright Pantone color chairs and a fan reed thimble-like chair that several brave students took a turn at spinning in. (And we all received bright colored bags with equally bright umbrellas. So kind!)
The editorial guidelines, Ivano said, are timeliness, informative, specialty format and storytelling. Much of what employees learn is also externally communicated.
The internal staff live streams company events and external activities. Radio is used for multiple programming formats, and Igor said it is used to broadcast company news and activity reports. Teams of journalists, he said, work on both the radio and TV platforms.
The bimonthly gorgeous company magazine has two parts to its content: the first section is generated by global headquarters, and the last 16 pages are local to Enel’s locations around the globe.
Igor closed off the session by taking the students in small groups to work in the TV and radio facilities. He came to Enel after working for the BBC, CNN and several United Kingdom television stations. Our broadcast students wowed him with what they could do.
We had some rest before the grand finale of our stay in Roma – an Italian cooking class, which our broadcast students produced and shot, and I can’t wait to see their work. We learned to make gnocchi and ravioli, having a great time doing the pasta dance to stretch out the dough we made in unbelievable lengths. You’ll just have to wait for the video to see it! That will be edited and finished shortly after when we get back.