Corporate Communications

Marlene M. Somsak is the very model of the modern wireless executive. A business and general assignment reporter at the start of her career, she spent 13 years in corporate communications at Hewlett-Packard Company before joining Palm, Inc., two years ago. Last August, she was elevated to Vice President of Corporate Communications, and is in charge of all of Palm’s media, industry analyst, financial and executive communications.

Listening to Somsak talk about the role wireless communications plays in her daily work life is like stepping onto a zippy on-ramp that’s barreling into the future.

The three pieces that make up her on-the-go Command Central are her Palm i705 handheld personal digital assistant, her cell phone and her wireless laptop. Though her cell phone is a major player in her work life, enabling her to be able to keep in touch at all times, the true core piece is her handheld. With it, she can access and answer all of her corporate e-mail, update her corporate calendar, forward documents with attachments, get the latest stock prices, news headlines, and information on her stock portfolio, and even transport and forward PowerPoint^® documents for presentation.

Her laptop, which is equipped with a Wi-Fi card, enables her to tap into the fast-developing wireless wide area networks. This gives her even better remote access to the documents on her desktop, as well as access to the Internet “as if I were inside my office,” she says.

Somsak feels wireless technology truly enables the kind of timely, thorough service necessary today to be a strong and effective corporate communications executive. “If I can get back fastest to a reporter on deadline with a piece of information, I’m a much more effective competitive weapon for Palm,” she says. “It’s easy to get back to someone fast, but having accurate, insightful and quotable responses – that’s the ticket to doing your job well.”

One of her most frequent uses of her laptop’s wireless capability is in meetings where Internet cruising capability is important, such as during quarterly analyst calls. “Here’s where I can really be of service to reporters,” she says. “I leave a message on my voice mail telling them that e-mail is the best way to contact me during that hour. I’m certainly not going to pick up my cell phone! But that’s exactly the time when reporters on deadline will need to double-check a fact or get an important chart to run with a story.”

The handheld also lets her access and route information speedily when she is offsite. “Some reporters at a conference needed the text of a speech,” she says. “I had the text sent to me as an attachment, and then, while I was still at the conference, I was able to forward that e-mail, with the attachment, to the reporters who requested it.”

On the whole, it is unlikely that handhelds will replace laptops or desktops in the news business. “We’ll still need [the latter] to create lengthy documents and spreadsheets, or beautiful graphics,” Somsak says. But handhelds’ evolving capabilities are making them far more useful in situations where a laptop has been more de rigueur.

At a recent Comdex meeting, for example, Somsak watched a reporter type his stories on a handheld equipped with a peripheral collapsible keyboard, and then lift the antenna to file. His setup came in particularly handy when phone service in the pressroom went down. “That reporter was still doing his job. The rest were waiting for phones to be restored,” she says.

Wireless technology can also assist job-related situations that may not be strictly business. “During the Palm IPO road trips, one of the most appreciated functions on our handhelds was the Starbucks finder,” Somsak says. “Those trips are grueling, and we really needed our Starbucks breaks.”

Though wirelessness can, and does, add a great deal to a communications executive’s arsenal of tools, etiquette issues have emerged, and need to be addressed. With 24-7 access more and more a reality, “what’s missing is a sensible, Miss Manners approach to technology we can all adopt,” Somsak says.

For example, most people have realized it’s rude to let a cell phone ring in a restaurant, a movie, or a conference. But “it’s a relief to know a frantic colleague or family member can reach you in an emergency if the phone is on vibrate,” she says. Still, even though 24-7 reachability is great, “we do need to know our employers and friends will respect downtime,” she says.

Also, with wireless e-mail access, catching up on one’s e-mail during a meeting can be particularly tempting. “But it’s rude!” Somsak says. “I know I’m there to listen and participate, not to catch up on my in-tray.”

Somsak does see the day coming when the majority of corporate communications work will be done wirelessly. Her reaction? “Bring it on – I can’t wait!” she says. “More and more, I’m leaving my laptop at home and traveling with my handheld.”

© 2004 Heyman Associates, Inc.