There’s no shortage of theory, hyperbole and pure BS (or baloney, or hot air) about social media marketing. Learn what social media’s challenges and opportunities really are – in plain English – via case studies from three experts who are in the trenches with household name corporations.
Heads up … this is not another web conference about social media tools such as blogs, vlogs, podcasts, social networks and microsharing. The technology is important, of course, but not nearly as crucial as the need to understand how to engage in instant, two-way conversations stripped of safe corporate-speak or spin. Grasping that reality and executing it is the sweet spot of social media, and that’s where this webinar is focused. Learn by successful examples and studies of major brands who have pioneered in the space.
What You Will Learn:
- What your audience expects from your social media efforts
- What resistance you’ll meet from inside your own organization — and how to overcome it
- Top 6 reasons your company should not blog
- Top 5 reasons you should have a blog
- Why most corporate social networks fail
- How smart companies are using social networks now and how you can too
- The way to get your company banned from a social network
- Which social networks matter and which ones don’t
Who Should Attend
This webinar is primarily aimed at individuals responsible for corporate communications, public relations, corporate affairs, human resources, employee communications, media relations, and issues management. It will help those in the early stages of implementing or learning about social media, although it will also help more advanced practioners to focus their efforts. It is especially suitable for:
- Small and mid-sized business leaders
- Corporate executives who are new to social media
Presented by:
Christopher Barger is Director, Global Communications Technology. In this role, he leads the social media (blogging, podcasting, user-generated content, wikis, social networking, etc.) efforts for General Motors – both in developing the company’s own content and building relationships with influential voices outside the company. Barger is a communications professional with nearly 10 years experience at Fortune 20 companies. He is a seasoned media spokesperson, communications strategist, and public speaker. Barger’s specialties are “Social Media”/Web 2.0, social networking and media; public speaking.
B.L. Ochman helps companies integrate social media tools and blog advertising into their communications to engage their audience and increase their sales. She is an Internet marketing strategist to Fortune 500 companies including IBM, McGraw-Hill, American Greetings, Ford Motors, Simon & Schuster, Cendant, Kaneka Corporation and others. She is internationally respected blogger whose blog about Internet marketing, What’s Next Blog, is rated in the top 50 in the world by Ad Age Power 150, where she also is Number One among women business bloggers. She heads the creative team of whatsnextonline.com. Her articles and case studies about Internet marketing trends appear in MarketingProfs, MediaPost, Businessweek Online, and several other publications. Before turning her talent to the Internet in 1995, Ochman ran an award-winning New York PR firm that she grew to one of the 100 largest independent PR firms in the US, with clients including Stew Leonard’s, Miracle-Gro Plant Food, The American Dairy Association, Kaneka Corporation and many more.
Mike Prosceno runs “new” media relations at SAP. He is also a social media evangelist inside the company promoting both the internal use of social media for productivity gains as well as its use externally for reputation enhancement. Having been in corporate or marketing communications for 18 years he has held a variety of management and non-management positions in the IT, manufacturing and financial-services industries.
Attendee comments:
- “BL definitely added value for my particular perspective on what I am trying to accomplish.
- “Great overview by Ms. Ochman. Good, practical experience from GM.”
- Do your communication efforts tend to be “one-offs” that consume a lot of time and effort but don’t always generate the results you had hoped for?
- Do senior leaders’ eyes glaze over when you explain your latest “big idea”?
- Do you wish you had more time to spend learning about new things and less putting out fires?
While strategic planning is probably at the top of the list of things that most communicatorsdon’t want to do, the reality is that when done well, strategic planning can not only help to save time, and money, but can increase the odds of achieving desired communication outcomes. And, the good news is, effective planning doesn’t have to take weeks or months or result in dozens of meetings. In fact, the process can actually be quite simple and straightforward.
This webinar will offer easy-to-follow steps and provide practical tips and advice that can be used for any planning effort—from developing an internal communications plan to developing a marketing campaign—or even focusing on a single initiative.
What You Will Learn:
- How to position the plan for success by starting with the end in mind
- Why your mission statement is your friend
- How and why to align your efforts with your organization’s strategic plan
- A step-by-step process for developing a strategic plan
- Developing a process for plan updates – how to keep the plan alive
- How to build measurement into the plan
- How to make sure things get done!
Who Should Attend
- Communicators, PR and marketing professionals at all levels.
Presented by:
Linda Pophal is CEO of Strategic Communications, and a marketing and communication strategist with 20+ years experience in healthcare, education and not-for-profit marketing and communications. She has managed all aspects of corporate and marketing communication including employee communication, public relations, advertising, social media, market research, brand management and strategic planning. Pophal has developed and implemented strategic business, marketing and communication plans for healthcare and educational organizations and consultants, generating measurable results based on client goals. She has developed and delivered training programs for national and local audiences on all aspects of communication management and employee relations. She is author of The Essentials of Corporate Communications and PR and Complete Idiot’s Guide to Strategic Planning.
The profession of corporate communications is steeped with tradition. Though there are many new channels, we tend to use them to say the same old things. Employees have a multitude of ways to express themselves after hours, but at work, they tend to have much less voice. This imbalance leaves the unstated impression that all the important communications is done by the professionals.
Heather Rim, vice president of global corporate communications at Avery Dennison, and her team continually look for ways to expand employee voice and make communications fresh and fun. Blending simple ideas with the power of communication networks, her team is shaking up old ideas about what traditional communications looks like, includes and accomplishes. In this special webinar, she will show some of the unique Avery Dennison communication programs that are winning high marks from employees and leadership – and would be worth considering for your organization.
What you will learn:
- Starting with the philosophy – corporate communications should never be boring
- Behind “The Beat,” a global employee sounding board that just keeps growing
- Just launched: an intranet built on Google
- How a CEO video blog is sparking unexpected impact
- Blending formal and informal communications – Letting employees tell their own stories
- Less is more when it comes to social media policy
Presented by:
Heather Rim is vice president of Global Corporate Communications for Avery Dennison Corporation. She was named to her current position in January 2011. Heather joined Avery Dennison in 2010 as senior director, Internal Communications.
Heather is responsible for the strategic direction and management of all aspects of corporate communications for Avery Dennison including employee communications, corporate brand management, crisis communications, social media and digital communications, corporate media relations, and corporate philanthropy.
Before joining Avery Dennison, Heather held the position of vice president, Communications for the Disney ABC Television Group, where she designed and implemented global communications strategies to inform and engage employees across Disney’s entertainment and news television properties. Previously, she progressed through Corporate Communications, Marketing and Investor Relations roles at companies including WellPoint, Countrywide and KPMG.
Heather received a master’s degree in communications management from the University of Southern California and a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Azusa Pacific University. She serves on the boards of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles and the Pasadena Symphony, and is a member of the Arthur Page Society.
Kristin Wong serves as the lead for all corporate internal communications programs and channels. She drives efforts to ensure the company’s employer brand is activated throughout key employee touch points including the enterprise portal, global employee ambassador team, values and ethics programs, and corporate town halls.
Prior to joining the company, Kristin worked for The Walt Disney Company where she assisted in the development of internal communications programs for Disney’s ABC television business. She received a master’s degree in communication management from the University of Southern California and also holds a bachelor’s degree in media studies from Pomona College of the Claremont Colleges. Outside of work, Kristin is a blogger and pop culture junkie who’s passionate about the technology trends that will shape our digital future.
Are you tired of struggling to get—and keep—people’s attention and convince them to take action?
You can improve your ability to connect with and influence others by learning how our brain works and applying some simple techniques based in neuroscience.
Forget about right brain/left brain, an archaic concept. Instead, the “social brain” drives our thinking and our actions.
This session will briefly cover basic neuroscience principles geared toward non-scientists. We’ll then focus on how you can apply those principles to help yourself and others think better and perform at higher levels. By taking these actions, you can improve your influencing skills and actions.
Learn how to:
- Increase your self-awareness to improve your ability to influence
- Design the best environment for influencing
- Speak and write with intent to make better connections with others
- Make your messages more compelling and memorable
- Listen more effectively
- Slow down and quiet the brain to tap into the unconscious and speed up gaining insights and influencing
- Ask powerful thinking questions that increase focus and gain greater clarity
Your webinar leader, Liz Guthridge is an award-winning consultant, leadership coach and trainer who’s studied with Dr. David Rock of The NeuroLeadership Institute, Dr. BJ Fogg, founder of the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab and other luminaries in the fields of employee communication and organizational change. Liz has extensive experience supporting leaders improve their communication, develop new habits and adapt their organizations.
Liz Guthridge is an award-winning leadership coach, consultant and trainer with extensive change, employee communication and organization development experience.
As the founder of the boutique firm Connect Consulting, Liz works with leaders at all levels to help them move from blue-sky thinking to greener pastures actions. With her support, Liz’s clients enhance the clarity of their ideas, plans and actions. Her clients also improve the quality of their conversations, their ability to influence and their skill in building habits.
Liz contributed the chapter “Change Through Smart-Mob Organizing: Using Peer-by-Peer Practices to Transform Organizations” to the book The Change Champion’s Field Guide (Wiley 2013).
Besides being a certified coach in brain-based coaching, she is serving as a teaching assistant for the Executive Masters in NeuroLeadership program through the NeuroLeadership Institute co-founded by Dr. David Rock. Liz also is a graduate of Dr. BJ Fogg’s Persuasion Boot Camp and is one of his Tiny Habits™ coaches.
Copyright @ 2014 Communitelligence Inc.
Ok, if we professional communicators would all come clean, we would admit we’ve been paying a lot more attention to the sexy new digital communication workplace tools than we have to that oldest but most important social medium, face-to-face communications.
Unfortunately, practice and research says ignoring manager communication is a bad idea. In the midst of so much change, workplace stress, confusion and mistrust, there is a powerful human case to be made for attending to this most basic kind of communication. Gallup research shows that “managers from hell” are creating active disengagement, costing the U.S. an estimated $450 billion to $550 billion annually.
According to ROI Communication’s annual benchmark survey:
- One in four managers is not considered a credible source of information
- Only 55% offer recognition and appreciation for a job well done
- Only 25% clearly understand their communication role (which coincides with the fact that only 27% receive communication training), and
- Only 18% are measured for communication performance in their performance reviews
Roger D’Aprix has been preaching the face-to-face communication mantra since he was a communication manager at Xerox in the late 1970s. He’s convinced today’s workers want and expects more than command and control, top-down communication. In fact, if face-to-face communication is failing, there is an excellent chance that all of the other forms of communication in the organization are also failing.
Drawing from his new book, Creating an Engaged Workforce: the Face-to-Face Communication Toolkit, Roger will arm you with the basic strategies and tools to either launch or reignite your organization’s manager communication program in ways that will prepare them to fulfill the all-important role of interpreter for their people. It’s time to fire up your face-to-face communication program.
What You Will Learn:
- Why human satisfaction with work and business success both demand a face-to-face strategy for delivering critical issues to employees
- How to build the business case and form the key team you need to seriously impact face-to-face communication in your organization
- Why too many face-to-face communication programs fail and the secret sauce of those that sing
- The key tools and processes you need to make your face-to-face communication program a winner
Presented by:
Roger D’Aprix is internationally known as a practitioner in the theory, strategy and practice of employee communication. His ground-breaking work at Xerox Corporation beginning in the 1970s qualifies him as one of the pioneers in employee engagement. As a communication consultant, lecturer and author he has assisted scores of Fortune 500 companies in developing their communication strategies and designing their communication training.
In 1998 IABC named him ‘one of the most influential thinkers in the communication profession in the last 25 years.’ He was named an IABC Fellow, that organization’s highest honor, in 1978. For 15 years he held senior positions with two of the leading human resources consulting companies. He served as vice president and global practice leader for Towers Perrin’s human resource communication practice and as principal and service developer for Mercer Human Resource Consulting.
Before that, he led employee communication for Xerox Corporation and held executive communication positions at General Electric and Bell and Howell. Presently, in addition to his own consultancy, D’Aprix & Co., he is affiliated with ROI Communication as a member of its advisory board. ROI is a global consultancy that specializes in internal communication strategy and practice. He divides his time between residences in Rochester, New York and New York City.
A new generation of online tools can amplify the voice of business leaders and individuals and turn them into thought leaders with amazing speed.
Blogs, podcasts, digital video and social networks enable business people to bypass expensive advertising and media gatekeepers and take their messages directly to their stakeholders.
With expertise, dedication and savvy use of search engines and syndication, you can now reach a targeted audience with minimal cost and waste.
This webinar introduces the most popular social media concepts and provides step-by-step advice on how to put them to work.
What You Will Learn:
- How to choose from among more than a dozen social media options to fit the tools to your strategy
- Secrets of gaining traffic, search-engine visibility and business
- Why search engines love blogs
- How to use syndication to turbo-charge readership and awareness
- Debunking myths about ROI
- Matching social media to business strategy
- Packaging content for maximum visibility and search engine impact
- Read Q&A with Paul Gillin on social media marketing and becoming an influencer.
- Read excerpts from Secrets of Social Media Marketing
Presented by:
Paul Gillin is a veteran technology journalist with more than 24 years of editorial leadership. Paul was founding editor-in-chief of TechTarget, one of the most successful new media entities to emerge on the Internet. Previously, he was editor-in-chief and executive editor of Computerworld. Currently, he writes the social media column for BtoB magazine. His critically acclaimed new book, The New Influencers, is about the changes in markets being driven by the new breed of online publishers. Published by Quill Driver Books in spring, 2007, it is in its third printing. His second book, Secrets of Social Media Marketing, will be published in the fall of 2008.
Paul specializes in advising business-to-business marketers on strategies to optimize their use of online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. He is particularly interested in social media and the application of personal publishing to brand awareness and business marketing.
Paul is an accomplished speaker and media spokesman. He has keynoted more than a dozen technology conferences, including annual user group meetings for IBM, Oracle, Cognos, Business Objects and J.D. Edwards. He has also spoken at scores of other events about technology trends and social media.
His ability to translate complex technology topics into plain English has made him a favorite source for journalists. He has been widely quoted in newspapers and on the airwaves, including appearances on CNN, PBS, Fox News and MSNBC.
Paul is a research fellow at the Society for New Communications Research and he chairs the social media cluster of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council. He blogs at http://www.paulgillin.com.
Sometimes it’s good to step back and have someone help you re-think your strategy.
That’s why we asked Christopher Barger, author of the new book, Social Media Strategist, to peel back the social media strategy onion. He has labored in the social media trenches at two big corporations (IBM and GM). He knows the potholes to avoid and the things you can’t skip over.
In this special webinar he will be sharing the critical questions, decisions and maneuvers you must choreograph to bring true business value to your social media efforts.
Don’t miss this no-nonsense, cut-to-the-chase learning event, and if possible, attend with your entire team.
What You Will Learn:
- Who should own social media
- What internal potholes keep most social media efforts from truly taking off
- What departments and roles are critical to create a social marketing power team
- What are are the seven elements to a winning social media program for corporations and organizations
- Why organizations need to become content publishers to succeed in social media, and what that means
- How can a big company work effectively with bloggers to get social media results
- How to build a fire-proof social media crisis team and process
- How to create well-defined metrics and use the right tools to measure them
Presented by:
Christopher Barger is senior vice president of global programs at Voce Connect. He works with clients around the world to develop and execute social media strategies. Before joining Voce, he built and led GM’s social media program from 2007-2011 where he learned not only about how to build a corporate social program but about managing crises online. Before GM, he was IBM’s first “Blogger-in-Chief” for two years. His book, “The Social Media Strategist,” (McGraw-Hill, fall 2011) focuses on the unique challenges of building a social media program at a large brand or organization. Barger writes “The Social Media Report” for Forbes.com, where he covers the challenges companies are facing as they navigate the social web, trends and emerging technologies as they affect businesses and big brands, and how implementing social web tactics as part of your overall strategy can supplement and enhance your communications and marketing efforts.
Study after study confirms the link between good manager communication and engaged employees. Listen to this webinar and learn what managers can do to become better communicators – and stronger leaders. You’ll learn how managers can change employee attitudes and behaviors, the type of information employees demand, and which communication resources leading organizations provide managers. You’ll leave the session with practical tips, tools and frameworks that managers can apply immediately and insights into what separates outstanding managers from the rest.
What You Will Learn:
- Communication competencies every manager needs
- How to keep managers and employees informed and engaged
- Winning managers’ support for communication
- The best way to alienate managers
- How to convey information, field challenges and brainstorm solutions – in under 15 minutes
Questions that are answered:
- What are leading organizations doing to enhance manager communication?
- What feedback should communicators solicit from managers?
- What do employees want most from their managers?
- What can communicators do to help managers succeed?
Who Should Attend:
- Communications professionals who want to enhance their partnership and value to the business
- First line supervisors and managers who want to take their staff communications to the next level
Instructor:
Andy Szpekman provides human resource management and communication research, strategies and tools to improve business performance. His clients include Bank of America, BC Hydro, Cardinal Health, McKinsey & Co., Microsoft, News Corporation, Scholastic and Wachovia.
Earlier in his career, he led HR communication at Bank of America, served as communications manager for a global division of Warner-Lambert, and was a senior HR and communications consultant with Brecker & Merryman, Inc.
Andy is active in the Council of Communication Management and a former Officer of the Metropolitan New York Association of Applied Psychology. His work has been featured in national news and business publications and leading trade journals. He holds a B.A. in psychology from William Paterson University and an M.A. in organizational psychology from Columbia University.
Should you roll your own social network? If yes, how do you build it so they will come, and take action?
Presented by:
Mike Bonifer, writer, director, producer and author of GameChangers. The author of GameChangers – Improvisation for Business in the Networked World, and the co-founder of GameChangers, LLC, Mike Bonifer has consistently been in the forefront of emergent media in the workplace.
A graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a degree in Business and Philosophy, he has been a writer, director, producer and creative executive in entertainment and the internet for most of his career.
Beginning with his work as the publicist for the motion picture TRON, and his association with Toy Story, through a stint as the Chief Storyteller for 2007’s Live Earth concerts for the environment, his work at the edges of emerging business cultures has given him tremendous insight into the creation of wealth in the Networked World.
Past and present clients include The Walt Disney Company, JohnsonDiversey, DreamWorks, Frito-Lay, Mountain Dew, Hot Topic, Smithsonian Online, and a host of smaller, innovative new media companies like Pandora, ignition, Twelve Horses and myPractice.
In creating GameChangers, he has produced a curriculum that helps organizations and individuals communicate, learn and transform.
Wendy Cohen, Director, Digital Campaigns & Community, Participant Media. Wendy led the social action campaign for Waiting for Superman.
Wendy Cohen joined Participant in November of 2007 as the Manager of Community and Alliances and the founding editor of the TakePart.com blog. Wendy has developed innovative online and mobile initiatives for Charlie Wilson’s War, The Visitor, Food, Inc. and The Cove. She shepherded the digital component of the social action campaign for Waiting for “Superman”
Wendy was born and raised in Montreal and graduated first in her class from Concordia University’s Communications and Culture Studies program. Prior to Participant, Wendy was the first Community Manager for The Huffington Post in New York City and she co-founded the Screening Liberally film series, of which she remains the National Director. A native of Montreal, Wendy began her work in film in 2004 as the Programmer and Outreach Coordinator for the Media That Matters Film Festival and Media That Matters: Good Food project.. She also worked as the researcher and creative assistant on The Art of the Documentary (New Riders Press) and served as co-chair on the Urban Pathways Young Professional Board. She has been the co-curator of the Netroots Nation screening series since 2007 and continues to be a guest lecturer and panelist at festivals and schools around the country. In 2009, Wendy produced “Every Third Bite”, an award-winning short documentary about bees hailed as a “better bee movie” by New York Magazine. Wendy is a recipient of the 2010 New Leaders Council’s 40 Under 40 Leadership Award.
Internal Social Networks are starting to appear inside some organizations. Early adopters are finding positive business results by helping employees connect through “internal Facebooks.” By effectively harnessing these new networks, organizations are seeing positive impacts on internal brand building, as well as employee engagement, satisfaction and motivation — which leads to higher levels of productivity, revenue, and profit.
But the world of the internal social network is the opposite of command & control. That said, reasonable guidelines, a group of informal influencers, and a posse of community managers who help keep the dialog lively and the network on track.
It’s clear that no matter where your company is on the social media ladder, social networks and Web 2.0 skills are becoming a part of today’s work landscape. All businesses need to be aware of how to deploy networks for higher ROI, collaboration, innovation and customer service.
Listen to this webinar replay to learn what works and what doesn’t in this brave new world of internal social networks from companies that are already figuring out the path to success.
What You Will Learn:
- How to avoid pitfalls and leverage opportunities as you venture into the world of building and managing social networks and a Web 2.0 savvy workforce
- How best to overcome cultural barriers and introduce social networks into traditional organizations
- How to handle the sensitives of employee privacy; governing participants’ behavior; and ensuring that participants balance professional and social time.
- How to set up strategic, internal alliances which mitigate concerns of Command & Control leaders and help build positive momentum
Reasons to Learn About Internal Social Networks
- Get more out of your existing resources by finding, unlocking, and engaging hidden employee intellectual capital Reduce company cost, waste, travel expenditures, and carbon footprint
- Establish, grow and maximize a culture savvy with social networks.
- Further your PR and Branding dollars by unleashing the silent experts that exist within your companies today
- Enhance your employees’ motivation and satisfaction in your company as a place to work
- Develop products and offerings faster, without regard to organizational silo or organization
- Build a more sustainable company which should well serve your shareholders for years to come
Lee Aase is manager of Syndications and Social Media for Mayo Clinic. His team’s focus is developing quality medical news resources for mainstream media, and using social media applications to create more in-depth, extended relationships directly with key stakeholders. You can see examples of Mayo Clinic’s social media offerings through the Mayo Clinic News Blog at http://newsblog.mayoclinic.org/
By night, Lee is Chancellor of Social Media University, Global (SMUG), a free online higher education institution that provides practical, hands-on training in social media for lifelong learners. Visit SMUG.
Prior to joining Mayo Clinic in 2000, Lee spent more than a decade in political and government communications at the local, state and federal level. He received his B.S. in Political Science from Mankato (Minn.) State University in 1986.
Polly Pearson is VP Employment Brand and Strategy Engagement, EMC Corporation.
Polly Pearson is an employment branding leader passionate about Web 2.0 engagement tools with nearly twenty years of FORTUNE 500-level experience spanning marketing, human resources, branding, investor relations, public relations, advertising, and professional speaking.
Her employment branding work has recently been featured in media outlets such as CBS News, National Public Radio, Financial Times, Boston Herald, Dice.com and in the new Penguin Press business book, “Closing the Engagement Gap; How Great Companies Unlock Employee Potential For Superior Results.”
Her leadership in Investor Relations contributed to EMC being the NYSE Stock of the Decade for the 1990s, when it outperformed all other listed stock and increased in value nearly 90,000 percent. Polly was the first woman at EMC to be promoted to Vice President. Polly writes a popular blog dedicated to careers, culture and cool.
Paul Pedrazzi heads a small team of professionals (AppsLab) focused on emerging technology and novel business practices. Most recently, his interest has been on Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 and the transformation of the enterprise in light of these new modes of operation. Additionally, Mr. Pedrazzi spearheaded the creation of Oracle’s first two social network projects; Connect for internal users and Mix for customers, partners and media. Before heading AppsLab he ran product strategy for PeopleSoft’s Portal Product Suite, catapulting the flagship product into the leadership position in Gartner’s annual product evaluation. Prior to PeopleSoft, Mr. Pedrazzi held various other product strategy, marketing and consulting roles in organizations such as Deloitte & Touche LLP and Groundswell, Inc. Mr. Pedrazzi holds a BS in Managerial Economics from the University of California at Davis.
Who Should Purchase:
- Individuals responsible for employee communications, public relations, IT, corporate affairs, human resources, media relations, and issues management.
“The two case studies were excellent. Polly was a wonderful presenter; Paul was good too.”
“We’re in the process of developing a number of employee engagement communities so very timely.”
Executives say they want more strategic communication support. Yet they and others still have high expectations for tactics. Plus, communication team members also are often more comfortable delivering on the tactics.
So should you change your game? And can you change your game? And will you still be around to share your success stories? Yes, yes, and yes.
In this insightful webinar, Sreejit Mohan, Director, Public Policy and Communications of Bayer HealthCare, and Liz Guthridge of Connect Consulting will share tips from their playbook on how to move from player to player/coach and become an indispensible partner to the business. They’ll also share the five questions you must ask yourself.
Already a member? View Replay
The Challenge:
The challenges the Bayer HealthCare communication team faced are common to other corporate communication departments today. The Bayer HealthCare team had noticed a divergence in what they were doing day-to-day and what the workforce, including the executives, wanted in communication support. In consultation with executives, they realized they needed to provide more opportunities for:
- Executives and employees to engage in direct dialogue to build greater trust
- Employees to learn more about the business challenges facing the company
- Executives to improve their informal and formal communication skills.
You’ll learn:
- How to know when it’s time to make major changes
- The three key makeover phases (redefining purpose, streamlining processes to free up time and resources, and developing a leader communication effectiveness program) that Bayer used
- How to keep delivering on commitments while making changes as well as develop your staff to prepare for the new work and challenges they face
- How to adopt the mindset of a coach/teacher/leader
- Effective ways to build and capitalize on relationships with leaders.
Sreejit Mohan, Director, Public Policy and Communications, joined Bayer HealthCare in 2006 from Fleishman Hillard where he was a Vice President. In 2007, Sreejit was one of PRWeek’s “40 under 40” PR professionals—those younger than age 40 doing outstanding work.
Liz Guthridge is is a consultant, author, and trainer specializing in strategic change leadership and communications. Department leaders of Fortune 1000 companies hire Liz and her firm Connect Consulting Group LLC when they need their people to adopt new initiatives and change the way they work. Before she founded Connect in 2004, Liz was a principal with several global change and HR consulting firms.
In today’s dynamic marketplace, businesses simply cannot afford to leave strategy execution to chance. Organizations that succeed will be the ones that can effectively mobilize and engage their employees in implementing new business strategies to produce immediate value for customers. Making a solid case for the new business realities to employees is critical for any organization to survive and thrive. Employees who have seen change initiatives fail in the past are likely to avoid risks associated with change. They become roadblocks when communicating the new business realities to employees. Employees must buy into any business’ priorities to succeed.
What You Will Learn:
- The three biggest mistake companies make when communicating bad news
- Establishing and communicating performance expectations and accountability.
- Building trust with employee involvement.
- Establishing team norms for how work gets done.
- Modeling effective virtual behavior across boundaries with all stakeholders.
Who Should Attend
Individuals responsible for corporate communications, public relations, corporate affairs, human resources, employee communications, media relations, and issues management.
Presented by:
Dr. TJ Larkin and his business partner, Sandar, began Larkin Communication Consulting in 1985. The Larkins help large companies communicate major change to employees. Clients include: ABB, AT&T, Bank of America, Bankers Trust, Bell Labs, BHP Billiton, Boeing, BP, Caltex, DaimlerChrysler, ExxonMobil, GM, ICI, NASA, National Australia Bank, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. TJ and Sandar wrote the book, Communicating Change, now a McGraw-Hill Bookstore bestseller. Their paper, “Reaching and Changing Frontline Employees,” published in the Harvard Business Review has sold more than 40,000 reprints. The most recent papers by the Larkins can be downloaded, at no charge, from their Web site (Publications Page). TJ has a Ph.D. in communication from Michigan State University, and a B.Phil. in sociology from the University of Oxford.
Mary Lou Dlugolenski, with nearly 20 years of experience, has established herself as a solid communications professional in roles spanning employee communication, public relations, marketing communication, change communication, and crisis management. She has worked in a number of industries including healthcare, manufacturing, engineering, advertising and financial services. Mary Lou has been with MassMutual for 18 months and serves as the company’s vice president of strategic enterprise communication. Recognizing employee communication as a critical business driver, Mary Lou and her team lead a strategy of employee engagement and culture change that creates dialogue between executives and employees
through well-orchestrated communication tactics. Prior to joining MassMutual, Mary Lou managed internal and external communication at various public companies, domestic and international, including Philips, GE, ADVO and
Alstom. Mary Lou lives in North Granby, Conn., with her husband and two children.
How to wrap a blog into your overall content and communications strategy
Corporate blogging means the use of company-sponsored blogs as a way to connect with internal and external audiences. Interactive, instant, efficient, often revelatory, corporate blogs are no longer optional. With the total number of blogs surpassing 55 million, we’ve entered the era of Corporate Blogging 2.0. You need to know now how can you can use this new communications channel. Organizations as various as Dell, General Motors and McDonald’s are using blogs to spread their message, learn from stakeholders and create a body of knowledge encapsulated in a digital trail.
What You Will Learn:
- Who should write your blog and what the topic should be
- Case studies on what works – and what doesn’t in a corporate blog
- Blogging guidelines and other nuts & bolts of managing an internal or external corporate blog
- How to measure results
- How to assess whether your organization is blog-ready
Presented by:
Debbie Weil is a corporate and CEO blogging consultant and author of The Corporate Blogging Book (Penguin Portfolio 2006). She also writes BlogWriteForCEOs, considered one of the most influential blogs about business blogging.
As a consultant, she shows the big dogs how to use blogs as a next-generation marketing and communications strategy. She invites you to download Chapter 1 of her new book for a meaty introduction to the topic of CEO and corporate blogging.
Debbie has a unique background as a veteran journalist with an MBA and corporate marketing experience. She has worked as an Internet marketing consultant with startups as well as Fortune 500 companies (including HP and Wells Fargo) for over a decade.
She’s the publisher of award-winning WordBiz Report, an e-newsletter read by nearly 20,000 subscribers in 87 countries.
She has been quoted on the topic of corporate and CEO blogging in Fortune, the New York Times, BusinessWeek.com, the Washington Post and numerous other publications.
A graduate of Harvard with a degree in English, she has an MBA from Georgetown University and a Masters in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin. She is based in Washington DC.
http://www.debbieweil.com
http://www.BlogWriteForCEOs.com
http://www.TheCorporateBloggingBook.com
Launching a corporate blog takes more than an idea, it takes a plan. Successful business bloggers determine the needs of their audience, assess risks, get internal buy in and align the right resources for an ongoing dialogue with their customers. Get the tools you need to go from idea to action with two case studies from the pros. Learn how to scope a blogging project, get support for your initiative and manage a blog day to day.
What You Will Learn:
- Pros & risks of starting a blog for your organization
- Monitoring feedback & strategies for responding
- Strategies for including audio, video, photos
- Writing for authenticity and the right voice
- Managing multiple authors
- Policy dos & don’ts for employee bloggers
Questions that are answered:
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What should be included in a blogging plan?
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What resources will I need?
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What tools are available?
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How do I build internal support for a blog?
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How do I measure success? Determine ROI?
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What are the day to day best practices?
Presented by:
Nicki Dugan, senior director of corporate communications at Yahoo!, is editor of the company’s official corporate blog, Yodel Anecdotal. It launched in August 2006 as “Yet another self-serving corporate blog” with the mission of providing insights into the company, its people, its culture, and the things Yahoos think about in the shower. The blog covers emerging trends, behind-the-scenes commentary, employee profiles, user stories, guest opinions, and includes video, podcasts and photo essays. All this while attempting to faithfully avoid regurgitation of product press releases. Contributing voices range from CEO to summer interns and Yodel Anecdotal has been lauded for having the cahones to accept comments of all flavors.
Prior to joining Yahoo! in 2000, Nicki represented consumer internet brands such as Yahoo!, Mapquest and Reel.com at Niehaus Ryan Wong, the tech-only agency that presided over the halcyon days of the Internet boom (and may it rest in peace). She also served as editorial director at Sheila Donnelly & Associates of Honolulu and as senior editor at Travel Holiday magazine. Nicki received a B.A. in English from Franklin & Marshall College.
About Paula Berg
Paula Berg is a spokesperson and Public Relations Specialist for Southwest Airlines, the nation’s leading low-fare carrier and the largest domestic airline in terms of Customers carried. In addition to handling the company’s corporate blog, Nuts About Southwest Blog, Paula specializes in strategic communication, regional media relations, reputation management, and special event planning. Paula also supervised on-location production for three seasons of Airline!, Southwest’s reality series for the A&E Television Network, which filmed Southwest’s daily operations in four cities. After brief stints selling beer on Phish tour and working for the Colorado and United States Senates, Paula woke up and smelled the jet fuel and began her career at Southwest Airlines in 2001. Paula is a graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder where she earned a bachelors degree in communication and a minor in Political Science.
About Brian Glover
As senior manager of market strategy for Biz360, Brian Glover is responsible for activities that support the company’s product direction and marketing communications efforts. He is the primary author of the company’s MarketIQ blog and has eight years of experience in marketing and public relations. Prior to Biz360, Brian was public relations manager for Documentum, acquired by EMC in 2003, and a Biz360 client. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Rhetoric from the University of California at Berkeley.
The problem is how to get your organization’s top executives out in front of as many employees as possible and provide a genuine communication exchange. The solution, for the past 100 years or so, is what we now call the “town hall” meeting, even though companies are not towns, and hardly ever do they occur in halls.
For employees and top executives, town hall meetings can be the best of times, or the worst of times, depending on how they’re handled. This webinar will surface some tried and true ways to create a mass employee meeting that allows a genuine exchange of ideas, issues, concerns and opportunities. You’ll also get a good list of what you absolutely should not do when you plan and produce your next town hall meeting.
What You Will Learn:
- Checklist on planning an effective series of town hall meetings
- Best practices on prepping your executives
- Techniques to break the ice and make the meetings fun and anything but boring
- Planning for tough questions and awkward moments
- Crucial tasks after the event
- Tips and techniques on using the newest technology to simultaneous global town-hall meetings
Presented by:
Les Landes is President of Landes & Associates. His firm provides services in the areas of planning, marketing, public relations, organizational communications, team development, and quality improvement systems. Prior to starting his own firm, Les worked with Pet Incorporated where he served for 10 years as the company’s Director of Communications with responsibilities for corporate advertising, employee communication, public and media relations, consumer affairs, and creative services. He also played a major role in developing and implementing Pet’s quality management system.
Veronica Apostolico is Director, Internal Communication, Global Operations, for Smith & Nephew. Veronica has 18-plus years in the communications field and has worked across all communications disciplines, internal and external, but has focused mainly on internal (change management, leadership coaching, crisis comms, employee comms). She has held communications positions with Warner-Lambert (now Pfizer), Ciba-Geigy (now Novartis – part of the team that led communications during the merger), Knoll Pharma (now Abbott) and RTI International. Veronica has also had her own communications consultancy for 5 years with clients including Aventis, Merck and J&J.
Brands are living and dying on the 10-20 sites that come up in a Google search for your company, product, or executive names. This webinar will address two critical aspects of your brand’s dance with Google:
- Proactively — How do you create and place the type of content that will greatly improve the chances that you will be found on Google.
- Reactively — How do you react and manage issues that arise and sneak into your top Google results.
What You Will Learn:
- How everyone from celebrities to Fortune 500 companies are treating their “Google Homepage” as the key to their online reputation
- How top online players are combining search engine optimization (SEO) with social media to own all ten of their first page Google results
- Why PR is the right business unit to own search engine reputation management
- Simple tools to monitor your reputation through search engines
Presented by:
Paul Dyer is eMedia Director of WeissComm Group where he oversees social and new media programming for the firm’s healthcare and consumer brands. Paul’s experience includes leading social media and search engine strategy for a broad range of significant and Fortune 500 brands. Having built and managed his own web property to acquisition in 2003, Paul is adept at creating top to bottom web campaigns that incorporate SEO, social media, web development, media placements, and interactive assets. Paul’s current and former clients have included Virgin Megastore, IBM, Symantec, Coors Brewing, New Balance, Hansen’s Soda, Macanudo Cigars, Nature Made Vitamins, and Elan Pharmaceuticals. Paul is a frequent speaker on social media and SEO and authors the popular industry blog, Dyer Situations.
Sam Michelson is CEO of RepRelations. Sam’s first foray into Reputation Management came over 5 years ago when dealing with his company’s own reputation management crisis. Realizing there were no tools available to handle Reputation Management crises, he set out to develop a unique PR-based methodology, which is still the basis for the company’s RepRelations service offering. Prior to launching RepRelations, Sam created several online businesses, YouNeverCall (a leading cell phone website) CondominiumCentral (a licensed online luxury condos broker) and Five Blocks (a Search Engine Optimization firm). Sam is the inventor of two US Patents – one in text categorization, the other in interactive advertising. Sam holds a BA in Psychology from Yeshiva University and a Masters of Science in Management from Boston University.
Shana Costarella is Communications Manager, Community & Social Media at PetSmart in Phoenix, Arizona. PetSmart, Inc. is the largest specialty retailer of services and solutions for the lifetime needs of pets. Shana ushered PetSmart into the strategic use of emerging media for crisis/issue communication, reputation management and brand awareness. She oversees social media community and online reputation approaches for the retailer’s PR and marketing initiatives. In addition, she counsels business units on social media strategies for listening and engagement to achieve key customer service, recruiting, associate relations, loss prevention and philanthropy objectives. With more than a dozen years experience in marketing communications, Shana has spent the last 10 years honing and employing Web and web-based solutions to illuminate and involve audiences. In 2005, she joined PetSmart’s Corporate Communications department, responsible for developing and managing web-based communications projects for internal and external audiences. Shana holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Ottawa University.
How to grow the leadership capacity of your team to meet changing corporate demands
Learn how to cultivate the leadership potential of your staff and in the process become a better leader yourself.
So much to do, so little time. It’s a common complaint of communication managers everywhere. Demands increase while resources dwindle, and we find our value compromised by perpetual busyness.
How to solve this dilemma? The answer lies in leveraging the power of the people who work with you everyday. By developing the leadership abilities of your staff, you bring greater meaning and satisfaction to the work they do and increase the performance of your team and yourself exponentially.
In this seminar, you’ll learn how traditional management approaches limit the effectiveness of your staff and your potential as a leader. Elise discusses current research on the forces of change that make leadership a job for everyone and how you can appeal to the leadership potential of your employees, regardless of their particular areas of strength.
She also looks at some tools and processes you can start using immediately to create an environment of learning and leadership within your team, including your own personal leadership assessment and learning plan for change.
Learning topics:
- How the complexity of today’s business environment requires a new leadership approach by communicators
- The core competencies required for leadership in the practice of communication
- Discovering what motivates staff to excel
- Creating a learning organization within your own team
- Mapping out a learning plan to increase your team’s leadership capacity
- Making the transition from “doing” to “leading”
How-to Handouts in This CD:
- DOING MORE WITH MORE – 17 slides
- Leadership Interviews Exercise
- Core Competencies for Communication Leadership – Personal Checklist
- Core Competencies for Communication Leadership – Personal Learning Plan
Elise answers real-world questions on:
- How to choose the right leadership competencies for developing your staff
- How to balance the disciplines of managing and leading
- How to find the time to develop you staff when you have so many other things to do
- How to make leaders of staff who would rather be followers
- The best tools and channels to communicate with your team about leadership visions, competencies
- Five areas of leadership ability
- Why communicators tend to be too shy about stepping up to the plate as leaders – and how to over come this
- Recommendations on courses or training to advance your communication leadership skills
- Why communicators may be looked over or taken for granted by the executive leadership of organizations
- Common traits of leadership “heroes”
Who should purchase:
- Business leaders
- Corporate Communications
- Marketing
- Advertising
- Internal Communications
- Public Affairs
- Public Relations
- Organizational Development
- Human Resources
- Corporate Strategy and Development
- Senior Management
- College/university libraries and bookstores
Instructor:
Elise Roaf, MBA, ABC, MC, CHRPhas more than 20 years of experience as a communications professional and consultant in the private and public sector and with nonprofit organizations. Her areas of expertise include strategic communication, change management and organizational development. She has developed curricula, taught courses and facilitated workshops in university and corporate settings and is currently a sessional instructor in organizational communications at Kwantlen University College.
Elise holds a Master of Business Administration specializing in Human Resources Management from Royal Roads University, a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Western Ontario, and a Certificate in Public Relations from the University of Regina.
Her professional designations include an Accredited Business Communicator and a Certified Human Resources Professional. She has received numerous awards for excellence in business communication. Among them are the Master Communicator Award, the highest honor awarded to a Canadian member of the International Association of Business Communicators, and the IABC Chairman’s Award for contributions to the association and the profession as a whole.
With the passage of new laws and regulations to curb white-collar crime, executives are paying increasing attention to corporate governance and compliance programs. But what role do compliance programs play in employee behavior?
Research shows that compliance programs can actually do more harm than good when it comes to actual employee behavior. However, carefully designed compliance programs, supported by other elements of culture, can be instrumental in building an ethical culture that not only drives ethical employee behavior but also employee engagement and business results.
You will learn:
- Key research on the connections between ethics and employee engagement
- Four building blocks of ethical culture
- Elements of an effective ethics/compliance program
- Links between ethical culture and employee engagement
- Importance of ethical leadership and trust
- How character gets defined in leaders
- What is moral language, and how to use it
- Three strategies that can make a real difference in creating an ethical culture
- Three steps executives and managers can take to encourage ethical behavior within their organizations and departments
- Three audience segments you need to consider when designing ethics/compliance initiatives
Kate answers real-world questions on:
- Best practices in talking about ethics with employees
- How to reward employees’ for good ethical behavior
- Explaining the success of the hit TV show The Apprentice
- What channels work best when delivering the ethical rules of an organization
- Advice to those in an organization who have either observed or have strong suspicions of unethical behavior in their company
Presented by:
Kate Nelson is a consultant, Wharton professor and author specializing in ethics program design and strategic organizational communications.
- Formerly a senior fellow in ethics at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, she currently teaches business ethics at Wharton Executive Education and to executive MBA students at the University of Delaware.
- Co-author, with Pennsylvania State University Professor Linda Klebe Trevino, of Managing Business Ethics (published by Wiley; 4th edition due in August 2006)
- Consultant on ethics and communications for 15 years
- Formerly a principal and communication practice leader for Mercer HR Consulting in Philadelphia
- Formerly vice president and head of worldwide HR communications at Citicorp in New York City; held similar positions at Merrill Lynch and Honeywell
- Guest speaker on ethics and values at many conferences and organizations, including the Conference Board, World@Work, Society for Human Resources Managers, Young Presidents’ Organization, the Ethics’ Officers Association and Wharton Executive Education.
- She has designed and/or conducted ethics training programs for numerous business schools, including Harvard, University of Chicago, Columbia, Vanderbilt, NYU, MIT, Temple and Northwestern; and for numerous organizations, including GE, Johnson & Johnson, J.P. Morgan, Prudential Securities, Morgan Stanley, Aviva, Degussa, Shell Oil, AC Nielsen, Glaxo SmithKline, Citibank, Dupont, Lockheed Martin and NASA.
- The ethics game that Kate created at Citicorp, The Work Ethic, was awarded the Gold Quill of Excellence by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) in 1987 and was featured in numerous media, including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Fortune.
- Communications she created have been recognized by the American Institute of Graphic Artists, the Art Directors Guild, the IABC, and have been exhibited in the Whitney Museum of Art in New York.
- She received her B.A. from the College of Mount St. Vincent in New York City and has been affiliated with Wharton since 1991. Kate also is a 2002 graduate of Leadership, Inc., a Philadelphia organization that mobilizes the private sector on behalf of the community and trains executives to serve on boards of directors.
- She is a member of the Council of Communication Management (CCM).
How and why FedEx Employee Communications moved from focusing on creating more news to creating better business outcomes.
This webinar features Terry Simpson, head of employee communications for FedEx Express. After conducting a global communication assessment, Terry and her colleagues decided that the communication function needed to focus more on creating business outcomes rather than distributing more news. Working with FedEx Express leadership she identified and conducted a project in Los Angeles to improve US export volume through better managed communication. The result: 15% increase in volume and 23% increase in revenues with an overall 1,400 ROI.
What You Will Learn:
- How to work with senior leadership and a lot of data to identify opportunities to improve performance through better managed communication
- How to search for opportunities within the white spaces—the areas between functions and disciplines
- How to bring disparate groups together to improve performance through enhanced communication
- How to recognize root causes of performance problems
- The powerful role rewards play in communicating what’s important
- How to take a success and create an even bigger one with five more locations.
Questions that are answered:
- What’s the difference in managing communication to create output—a distribution business—and managing it to create outcomes—a solutions business?
- Is there a role for traditional communication practitioners in this process?
- What additional skills and knowledge do I need to move to this new level?
- How do I get started?
- How do I pick the right project that practically assures success?
- What’s in it for me if I make the shift? More money? More career opportunities? More fame?
- What’s the best way as a communication manager to move from output to focusing on solutions?
- What did FedEx stop doing when it embarked on this project? This goes to the question of staffing – were additions made to the department?
- Did you use any formal media channels to bolster your face-to-face solutions processes?
- Where do you go to get training to lead your department in this direction? What disciplines should you study?
- What pushback do you hear from communicators when you present this message? What’s the best way as a communication manager to move from output to focusing on solutions?
Who Should Purchase:
- Communications professionals who want to enhance their partnership and value to the business.
Instructor:
Jim Shaffer is one of the world’s leading thought leaders, consultants and authors, helping businesses engage their people to achieve ultra-high levels of organizational performance. His book, The Leadership Solution (McGraw-Hill), has been hailed by leading CEOs as “invaluable for someone wanting to lead an organization into the future” and a “practical common-sense look at how leaders use communication to solve business problems.”
Jim’s focus is on improving people performance: helping business leaders execute better by creating engaged people, who think and act like business owners. He blends his unique background in general management, product line management, organizational change and communication management and helps clients get at the root cause of people performance problems. His track record includes significant, quantifiable improvements in quality, service, costs, productivity and speed through a more engaged workforce.
Terry Simpson has worked in the Communications field for over 30 years in every area including broadcast, video, print, web sites, event management, strategy and content development. Terry is leading the change at FedEx Express and using communication solutions to solve business problems.
Simplify Your Social Media Strategies and Relations (and now….Breathe)
Q: What if you had five simple principles you could apply to all your social media initiatives instead of chasing after all those “best practices” and the coolest, newest tools, and then trying to mash them up to meet your specific situation?
A: You could confidently face your social media planning, campaigns or learning without panic, feeling overwhelmed or behind the curve.
Linda will simplify your life and arm you with just five principles that you can apply as “universal truths” in implementing social media. These five principles can act as your “check list” and be your guide whether you are trying to learn about social media, are embarking on engaging in social media relations or are building out a social media strategy. We aren’t saying you won’t have work to do afterwards, but it will be clearer what social media work is the right work.
If you ever asked yourself “how to I get started in social media?” “what social media tools should we be using?” “how do I keep up on it all?” or “how do I stop all the social media noise in my head?” purchase this webinar replay and start simplifying your life – really.
Replay
What You Will Learn:
- The difference between social media “best practices” and “best principles.”
- Why relying on best principles is better than continually searching for best practices.
- The five principles anyone can apply to be effective in doing social media relations, creating a social media strategy or learning about social media
- What is truly necessary to focus on to be successful in social media.
- Learn about at least ten resources that will simplify your social media life or learning.
- How to decide on the best social media tools to use.
- How to bring your newsroom into the social media century.
- At least one way to convince your boss on the value of using social media.
- Why you need a Creative Commons copyright license.
- How to limit the “social media” noise that can confuse you and your efforts and help you stay focused on what’s really important.
Presented by:
Linda Zimmer is a digital media consultant and modern marketing strategist, serving an international clientele. She specializes in assisting organizations in benefiting from, managing and innovating with new media for marketing, communications and internal and external collaboration.
Linda is CEO of Marcom:Interactive, sits on the Advisory Board of Web Wise Kids, and is a consulting council analyst for the Gerson Lehrman Group. She is founder of the Modern Media Institute, a professional development institute for new media practices (launching September 2008) and she regularly trains public agencies for the State of California. She currently is an advisory board member for the Extension University at California State University, Fullerton on developing Web 2.0 curriculum.
Ms. Zimmer has more than 25 years of experience in applying emerging media to organizational issues. During her career she has provided digital services to many of the Fortune 100/500 companies and Internet startups; the FDA, U.S. Forestry Services, and U.S. cities and counties; non-profits of all sizes; colleges and universities, and entertainment properties. Linda serves as a resource to the news media and she publishes extensively on the Web. (http://freshtakes.typepad.com)
If you think performance counts now, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! Jim Shaffer, who pioneered the results-driven approach to managing communication, will explain what others have done to become indispensable to their leaders, because they are over and over again putting money in their leaders pockets. Literally! Jim’s lively and provocative CD will reveal what companies are doing to surgically shift their priorities and focus on those parts of the organization that can drive performance results most. Using real case studies, Jim will show how companies can generate two- and three-thousand-percent returns on their internal communication investments. He’ll explore the Three Stages of Organizational Communication Maturity and explain how a department can attain increasingly higher levels of operating and financial performance.
Learn How:
- FedEx, Owens Corning and others have created significant performance improvements with returns on their investments exceeding 1,400 percent
- Honeywell cut its billing cycle by 10 days and eliminated 1.4 million process steps while improving quality
- Sara Lee reduced waste by 18 percent in five weeks at one its bakeries
Learn Why:
- Dave Brown’s CEO said: “We are absolutely convinced that there’s a competitive advantage to be gained by engaging our people through better managed communication. We’ve seen it pay off already in measurable improvements in costs and productivity.”
- Owens Corning’s senior vice president of manufacturing said, “We’ll take as many 700-percent returns as we can get.”
Discussion Topics:
- Why the communication function in every business must measurably increase the value it adds—or die
- What other companies are doing about it and how they’ve moved from an output to an outcome-generating organization
- What you can do next to take your department to the next level on the maturity curve
- What questions to ask to identify what matters most to your business
- How to set up an outcome-based project that generates huge financial returns
- How to measure your impact and your return
- How to shift your work from low value-adding to high value-adding
- How to get junk off your plate, because it doesn’t contribute to the bottom line
Who Should Purchase:
- Corporate communications
- Non-profit communications
- Media relations
- Public affairs
- Public relations
Instructor:
Jim Shaffer is one of the world’s leading thought leaders, consultants and authors, helping businesses engage their people to achieve ultra-high levels of organizational performance. His book, The Leadership Solution (McGraw-Hill), has been hailed by leading CEOs as “invaluable for someone wanting to lead an organization into the future” and a “practical common-sense look at how leaders use communication to solve business problems.”
Jim’s focus is on improving people performance: helping business leaders execute better by creating engaged people, who think and act like business owners. He blends his unique background in general management, product line management, organizational change and communication management and helps clients get at the root cause of people performance problems. His track record includes significant, quantifiable improvements in quality, service, costs, productivity and speed through a more engaged workforce.
Jim leads the Jim Shaffer Group, a consultancy devoted to creating compelling places to work—where people are actively engaged in building and sustaining winning organizations. Previously, he was a principal, senior consultant and leader of a Towers Perrin center of excellence. He was one of the architects and leading practitioners of the firm’s global change management consulting practice. Prior to that, he served as press secretary to Kansas Governor Robert B. Docking, headed public relations and advertising in two Chicago-based businesses, and served as a marketing product line manager.
Jim is a recipient of the International Association of Business Communicators’ prestigious Fellow award, and he was named “Communicator of the Year” by IABC’s Washington, D.C. chapter. Jim is a regular contributor to many business publications and a frequent speaker at leadership groups and professional associations. He has taught in the graduate schools at George Washington University and The University of St. Thomas. His clients have included IBM, The Mayo Clinic, Verizon, Toyota, FedEx and many more.