The Karen Wickre Story
In the latest episode of my Meet The Storytellers series, Karen Wickre talks about her career in business communications, writing and editing.
Karen - who describes herself as a connector, editor and communicator - is the former editorial director at Twitter, where she landed after a decade-long career at Google. As a communicator-for-hire, Karen is currently a senior advisor at the Brunswick Group's San Francisco office, and the author of Taking the Work Out of Networking. She is also a strong supporter of journalists and journalism, and currently serves on the boards of The John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford and the News Literacy Project.
“It’s not just happy news and it’s not just ‘here’s how we prefer to be seen.’ When you’re posting about a complicated issue, that’s an important part of the story.” Karen on being an editorial director.
“It has to be from the heart, it has to be genuine. These days it’s imperative to be listening to and paying attention to employees because they have their own voices now and they’re not afraid to use them. You have to do a lot more internal communication than external during these hard times.” Karen on communicating difficult news during C-19.
“That ship has sailed, that we have a bright line between personal and professional. The era of social media - whether you participate or not - has softened that boundary for everybody. The expectation is that we know something personal about people. We’re past the time when you can keep everything in silos. Knowing a leader’s story can influence your sense of the company.” Karen on the relationship between personal stories and professional lives.
Watch it below:
