Holtz Communications + Technology

The leaders of Allergan’s Human Resources department—about a dozen of us—spent a weekend in the early 1990s at a retreat in the mountains somewhere not too far from corporate headquarters in Irvine, California. The retreat was designed to host a “ropes course,” an experience that’s supposed to help strengthen a team.

These courses—also called a “challenge course”—engage participants in outdoor activities involving cables, ropes, and obstacles, along with “low”…

A special note on this week’s wrap photo. That adorable newborn wrapped up in a hospital blanket? That’s my granddaughter, Madeleine Ann Holtz, born yesterday. Now, on to business: The Friday Wrap is a review of news, posts, reports, and other items appearing in the last week that will help you stay on top of the forces shaping communication in this…

Most of the buzz around the mobile app Yik Yak is focused on universities, where its founders intended it would be used. Make no mistake. As surely as Facebook expanded beyond its university roots to become the top social network employees use in their day-to-day workflows, Yik Yak will make its way into the workplace.

The inevitability of employees adopting the…

On Thursday, I’ll deliver a brand-spanking-new presentation at an internal communications conference in Las Vegas on a concept I’ve been exploring for the last year or so. I’m calling it the Work Experience. The idea is simple: Approaching job satisfaction, morale, employee engagement, and other employment programs in the piecemeal fashion that characterizes most workplaces is inadequate in today’s world of work. Employees have…