Learning Catalog

This webinar by James E. Lukaszewski, one of America’s most thoughtful and visible crisis advisors, will take participants through a high level strategic discussion of the crucial elements of crisis readiness. Lukaszewski defines a crisis as, “a people-stopping, show-stopping, product-stopping, reputation-redefining and trust-busting event that creates victims and/or explosive visibility.”

While his initial response strategy discussion will focus around his five crucial steps to take during the golden hour of crisis, he’ll also talk extensively about readiness and avoiding the most predictable gaffs and problems that can torpedo even a well-designed and practiced response process.

Lukaszewski will talk about the readiness process, what leaders should be doing when crises occur, as well as how to prevent crisis; the crucial missing ingredients of most crisis plans; victim management; response triggers; what you do first; the ideal grand response strategy; how to forecast your greatest vulnerabilities; and how managers can recover their leadership and the organization’s reputation as they respond appropriately during these powerful events.

Crisis situations present extraordinary threats to organization leadership and reputation. Much crisis readiness activity is geared toward managing the explosive media coverage that often occurs when crises erupt.

What you will learn:

• The five crucial steps to take during the golden hour after crisis erupts
• The seven crucial tests any readiness plan must pass to effectively manage crisis and recover your reputation
• The seven crisis response failure profiles and how to avoid them
• The four crucial things leaders need to do when crisis occurs
• The seven mistakes and gaffs leaders need to avoid
• A perfect response communicated poorly will always be remembered as a poor response

James E. Lukaszewski is the author of a dozen books and manuals on crisis management, being a trusted advisor, and overcoming various crisis situations. He’s a member of the Crisis Management and Business Continuation Council (CMBCC) of ASIS, and has served on several ASIS standard setting task forces, including Workplace Violence. Corporate Legal Times described Jim as, “one of 28 crisis experts who should be on your speed dial when all hell breaks loose.” PR Week describes him as, “one of 24 crunch-time counselors who needs to be at your fingertips when crises occur.” In 2013, Trust Across America listed him as one of the “Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior.” Jim’s clients will tell you that his strategy of doing things quickly, that are simple, sensible, constructive and positive is a powerful formula for success and reputation protection.

His latest book, Lukaszewski on Crisis Communication, What Your CEO Needs to Know About Reputation Risk and Crisis Management, released in March 2013, is now available at Amazon.com. You can follow James on Twitter and read hisCrisis Guru blog.

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.

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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. 

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.

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.

So often communicators surrender to time and budget challenges jumping into tactics or solutions without ever conducting a complete communications assessment. But without a baseline, it is nearly impossible to measure the success of ones efforts. It is also more challenging to demonstrate ones strategic abilities. Thus, communicators cannot afford to not conduct a complete communications assessment.

What You Will Learn:

• Why it is crucial for communicators to take time out to conduct a communications assessment and understand business needs.
• What formal and informal communications assessment tools/tactics will support your time and budget.
• How much time and budget is required to support formal and informal communications assessment tools/tactics.
• How to effectively communicate your assessment findings.
• How to leverage your findings to create a solid communication strategy and plan.
• What lessons can be learned from real world communications assessments conducted for NEC, Adidas-Solomon, UOP, ServiceMaster and other leading organizations.

Who Should Attend

This session is perfect for any level of experience, from those who are just starting in the field or those who have never conducted an assessment, to seasoned communication veterans.The seminar is designed for communication professionals who want to take their programs to the next level or arm themselves to move from tactician to strategic planner. Size of organization does not matter. It is especially suitable for individuals in:

• Internal and Corporate Communications
• Public relations
• Media Relations
• Public Affairs
• Marketing
• Small and mid-sized business leaders
• Corporate executives who are new to communication and measurement

Presented by:

Julie Baron is Principal of COMMUNICATION WORKS. She has over 18 years of communications experience.  Julie is a resourceful communications strategist with demonstrated ability to work internally within the organization, as well as externally within the community.  Her functional expertise includes executive/employee communications, speech writing, cultural awareness and marketing communications.With a proven track record of positively impacting financial and operating results through communication, Julie’s client list includes Abbott, adidas-Salomon, HUB International, National Association of Realtors, Revell, and Pepsi Americas. Prior to opening the doors of COMMUNICATION WORKS, Julie held senior level communications positions for NEC Technologies, Inc. and Motorola, Inc.  She also has agency experience.Julie has published several communication and training articles and has lectured on communications topics including CEO communication, culture development, global communication and internal marketing.  She’s been recognized for her leadership abilities, team focus, creative strategy, execution and effective working relationships.An active member of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), Julie has held many volunteer leadership positions including president of the IABC/Chicago chapter, the association’s second largest chapter worldwide. Julie graduated from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, with a master’s degree in communications. She holds a bachelor’s degree in broadcasting from SUNY Buffalo.

Sean Williams is the owner of Communication AMMO, Inc. He helps leaders improve their communication skills, build strategic communication plans, strengthen internal communication capabilities and effectively measure the results. His clients include the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and KeyBank. Follow him on Twitter at @CommAMMO.

Most recently, Williams was vice president of Corporate Communications for a financial institution, leading the internal communication, and internal and external public relations measurement and evaluation functions during the height of the financial crisis.

Previously, he was manager of Editorial Services for The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, responsible for internal communication and video production, photography and event production management.  While at Goodyear, Williams lead the team rebuilding the corporate intranet, using editorial content from around the world.  He also served as the primary internal communication consultant to the company’s senior leadership and produced videos and still photography for a variety of external and internal constituencies.

Susan D’Alexander, ABC, is Senior Communications Consultant at Motorola Global Communications. Susan has a 25-year career with Motorola with more than 18 years experience in communication management, including corporate, HR, marketing and corporate social responsibility communications. Susan is a member of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) earning an accredited business communicator (ABC) certification in 2008. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Western Illinois University and a MBA from Roosevelt University, Chicago, Illinois.

Alex Vass has been a communicator,  telling stories and creating messages, all of his working life.  He is presently a communications advisor with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police responsible for internal and external communications for the Codiac Regional RCMP detachment based in Moncton, New Brunswick.  He along with his fellow RCMP communications colleagues in New Brunswick recognized the need for a
communications audit to demonstrate to senior management the value communications has within the organization and how communications must become part of the organization’s core business.  The RCMP in New Brunswick is now on a path towards doing just that.  Prior to joining the RCMP in 2005, Alex spent over 25 years as a journalist in Atlantic Canada, 16 years of which was as a reporter with the CTV television
network.

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.

There’s too much silliness, noise, and crap coming at you, and you want a shut-off valve. You want to make more of a difference, working on only what truly matters. Right?

There’s too much information to manage and too many key messages for people to focus on, right?

Then you don’t want to miss this teleseminar! Best-selling author Bill Jensen will share tips, tools, and practices from two of his most recent books, The Simplicity Survival Handbook: 32 Ways to Do Less and Accomplish More and What Is Your Life’s Work? And he’ll tailor all those tips for communicators trying to break through the clutter and get their messages heard and acted upon.

What You Will Learn: 

• Practical tips for doing less because you’re working smarter.
• Tips for educating your teammates and senior executive clients.
• Feeling jazzed that you have a lot more control over morebetterfaster than you thought you did! 

Real World Questions That Will be Answered:

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.

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.

Is your communication planning approach connected to the goals of your business? Can you measure the value of your communication planning efforts once the plan has been executed? So often as communication professionals we are asked to create plans that focus on communication tactics, without assessing the real strategic impact of what the plan will accomplish. This Webinar provides a step-by-step approach to developing a communication plan that is truly strategic and connected to your business.

What You Will Learn: 

• Creating a vision of the desired future state, based on the current situation
• Identifying what is important to focus on, based on the vision
• Developing clear objectives based on your priorities
• Aligning messaging, strategy and tactics to your objectives
• Gaining buy in for your plan, based on the impact it will have on the business

Questions that will be answered:

• What does is mean to be strategic?
• How do you develop a meaningful vision?
• How do you determine which elements of the vision are most important?
• What are the strategies and tactics that will have the most impact?
• How do you gain support for your plan?
• What are effective ways to measure impact?

Who Should Purchase?

• Communications professionals who want to enhance their partnership and value to the business.

Instructor: 

Barbara Fagan-Smith is the founder and CEO of ROI Communications, Inc., an award-winning internal communications consulting firm focused on helping large organizations adapt and succeed in times of change. Building on more than two decades of experience in corporate communications and journalism, she leads ROI’s work with Fortune 500 companies, helping them develop and manage effective internal communication projects that deliver clear business results.Since its launch in 2001, ROI Communications has worked with a broad array of major clients, including Hewlett- Packard, Sun Microsystems, Adobe Systems, Blue Shield of California, Cisco Systems, The Gap, Maxtor, Oak Technology and DreamWorks.  ROI Communications was most recently recognized with multiple awards from the American Society of Professional Communicators and the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) for its standard-setting work in change communications.Prior to founding ROI Communications, Barbara was the director of employee and electronic communications at Quantum Corporation and director of interactive communications at Simply Interactive, Inc.

Before her career in corporate communications, Barbara worked as a London-based television producer for ABC News, where she covered the revolutions in Eastern Europe and the 1991 Gulf War. Earlier, she covered international business and produced national radio programs for ABC. She holds a B.A. in Journalism and Communications from Humboldt State University. 

Learn how to gain control of your production processes, no matter how obstacle-ridden they might be.

The creative fun of communicating can be quickly overshadowed by the headaches of getting things through the process. Whether the source of your migraine is source reviews, management approvals or just keeping all the moving parts in sync, relief is on the way. You can gain control of your production processes, no matter how obstacle-ridden they might be, and this session teaches you how!

The six-person Editorial Services team at Philip Morris USA produces hundreds of stories, speeches and other writing projects per year. Add to this huge volume the challenges of working in a closely watched industry and the approval process becomes extremely complex. Hear how this team created tools — from a Job Request Form to an online Content Tracker — that keep stories moving at an amazing rate. Find out how they use client feedback, not only to improve their writing but also to improve their content management tools.

Learning topics:

• Why and how to create content management tools, and why you should keep tweaking them
• How to master the tactics of communication production, while staying focused on strategy
• How to minimize management and legal approval headaches — before they start
• How to manage internal clients’ expectations
• How to influence others in your company to follow your production processes

Robert and Denise answer real-world questions on:

• The decision to outsource writing and the tools that have helped make this work smoothly
• The response rate on post-work survey, and how to encourage clients to fill the forms
• Phillip Morris’ Content Tracker
• Additional tools in the works
• Integrating proofreading into the system and other quality control measures
• Typical turnaround time on review processes
• Getting information released

Who should purchase:

This practical, information-packed learning opportunity is ideal for managers and professionals in:

• Corporate Communications
• Internal Communications
• Public Affairs
• Web Management
• Speechwriting
• Publication Management
• Anyone who is responsible for producing content
• College/university libraries and bookstores

About the Instructors:

Robert J. Holland, ABC, is owner of Holland Communication Solutions LLC in Richmond, Va. After more than 12 years in corporate communications with AT&T, Lucent Technologies and Capital One, Robert formed his company in 2000 to help clients align communication programs with business goals. He has helped leading organizations such as the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Freddie Mac, Media General and Wells Fargo with services ranging from strategic communication planning to measurement. He is a frequent regional and national speaker, and he writes an award-winning column, “Communication at Work,” for Richmond.com. He is author of Prove Your Worth: The Complete Guide to Measuring the Business Value of Communication, published by Ragan Communications. Robert is also co-leader of the Communitelligence Internal Communications community.

Denise Koenig is manager of Editorial Services for Philip Morris USA in Richmond, Va. She has worked for the company since 1984, from coordinating and editing plant-level communications in Louisville, Ky., to managing communications for multiple manufacturing plants in Richmond. Beginning in 2003, she built the team of five editorial consultants she now manages, all of whom work in their individual offices. Denise manages the team’s production of content for executive communications, the pmusa.com Web site, the intranet, speeches and special publications. She is a graduate of Ball State University with a bachelor’s in journalism and political science.

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.”