Companies need continuity officers.

My mom has a friend who used to be a script (aka continuity) supervisor. She (or he) is the person on a film set who makes sure that the actor’s shirt is buttoned the same way after lunch as during morning filming and that the cereal box on the table is in the exact same place from take to take. Because once you finalize a scene it’s helpful when your visuals aren’t bouncing all over the place like a flip book.

Who makes sure your communications are in sync?

My friend Sheila Strand observed recently that movie sets aren’t the only places that need some continuity discipline. Businesses too often are managed by silo. So are associations, and nonprofits, and government agencies. Meanwhile a lot of consultancies build empires around selling to clients silo by silo. So we have sales departments developing sales speak. And PR departments pushing out PR messages, ad folks designing ads, and digital departments creating online content.

Continuity can mean the difference between a seamless audience experience and a jarring jumble of confusion.

If we can’t get rid of business silos, can we at least make them a little less detrimental to business success?

Photo by Thomas Leuthard (Flickr).