Inside: Activision Blizzard, Elon Musk, and Opposite Jobs
Insider Comms for internal comms
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🚪 Insider Comms: scroll down to access:
A flurry of employee comms from Activision Blizzard
Google’s memo to employees on requiring vaccines to work on campus and delaying return to office plans.
What Elon Musk thinks of how communication should work at Tesla.
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1. 🚪 Activision Blizzard Memos and Letters
Catch up:
Activision, known for its hugely popular Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and StarCraft gaming franchises, has been thrown into an uproar over workplace behavior issues. The upheaval stems from an explosive lawsuit that California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed on July 20, accusing the $65 billion company of fostering a “frat boy workplace culture” in which men joked about rape and women were routinely harassed and paid less than their male colleagues. (NYT)
🚪 Insider Comms around the saga:
July 22: Blizzard president J. Allen Brack sent an email to staff addressing the allegations in the explosive lawsuit, calling them "extremely troubling" (via @jasonschreier)
July 22(?): Activision Blizzard executive Fran Townsend sent out a very different kind of email that had some Blizzard employees fuming (via @jasonschreier)
July 26: ~1,000 employees sign an open letter supporting the labor lawsuit (Bloomberg)
July 27: A letter from CEO Bobby Kotick to all employees
July 28: 1,500+ Activision Blizzard employees staged a walkout to denounce the company’s response to the discrimination lawsuit (NYT)
Ubisoft employees are expressing solidarity (Axios).
2. Where We Work When We Work From Home
The percentage of employees who admit to working:
On the couch (68%)
In bed (65%)
Outside (54%)
At the kitchen counter (51%)
In a closet (35%)
3. 🚪 Insider Comms
![Elon Musk: Tesla Is Like The "Baskin Robbins of Batteries" | CleanTechnica](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7thp!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F64e3c448-a5dc-4990-a55b-07eaed23cb63_1300x766.jpeg "Elon Musk: Tesla Is Like The "Baskin Robbins of Batteries" | CleanTechnica")
Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s memo to employees on requiring vaccines to work on campus and delaying return to office plans.
Old news: In a 2018 memo to all employees at Tesla, Elon Musk describes how communications should work at the car (tech?) company. Here’s an excerpt.
4. What Is Your Opposite Job?
You’ve fantasized about what you’d be doing if you weren’t in internal comms. Have you ever considered what job is most opposite to your role?
If you could do something completely different with your life, the NYT has an answer engine that shows opposite work based on U.S. government data.
Unfortunately “employee communications,” “internal communications,” and even “communications” isn’t a starting option. (What does that say about what the government thinks of our career choice?)
The closest I can get are “public relations specialist,” “writer and author,” and “editor.” The last one is a hoot.
I won’t spoil the surprise. Play the game.
Is your fantasy the same as the opposite job? That would be fascinating.
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Disclaimer: Besides running Mister Editorial, I work in employee comms at Splunk. The views in this newsletter are my own.