Jump-start your conference experience by attending these interactive and practical workshops. These information-packed sessions are a great opportunity to network with fellow attendees while taking a hands-on, common-sense approach to mastering specific strategies that will enhance your understanding of the informative, case study presentations throughout the entire conference.

*** Choose A or B or BOTH for Maximum Value and Learning ***

"I've Chosen My Communication Tools, Now What?" How To Develop And Implement Compelling Content For Your Internal Communications Strategy To Drive Employee Engagement

You’ve narrowed down the tools you want to use for your internal communications plan – that’s a great first step.  Now, how do you go about creating content to utilize those tools effectively?

In this workshop, you will be guided to greater understand the ins and outs of creating compelling content for use in your internal communications.  You’ll learn practical approaches and tips to developing content that grabs the attention of your audience, allowing you to not only share your message, but more importantly, to create a personal connection that opens the door to further communication.  Case studies will be presented to illustrate how video content was created and implemented for internal communications purposes, and demonstrate how in some cases, this content can serve double-duty as an outward-facing strategy.

In this compelling, hands-on workshop, you will be shown:

• Key items to consider when creating a content strategy
• Best practices for developing content
• How to create content that utilizes new tools such as Facebook Groups to communicate with your audience where they’re spending their time
• How to implement video content in a wide range of internal communication approaches: from emails and newsletters to online magazines and beyond
• How to apply these approaches to your specific content needs

WORKSHOP LEADER: Denise McKee is COO at AboutFace Media Inc. AboutFace is a content marketing agency that creates short form documentary videos for their clients, and then optimizes that content for use within social media. Specializing in the documentary genre, their directors are award-winning filmmakers whose work has been screened at Sundance, South by Southwest and the Tribeca Film Festival among others. Clients include Sears, Kmart, Wilson, CNH, 3M, Trek Bikes, Quill, Florida Tourism and The Merchandise Mart.

Denise speaks at events across the country on the topics of social media video content strategy and distributed web marketing, and has presented alongside companies including Youtube, Microsoft, Nike, IBM, and Ford.

11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Afternoon break/lunch on your own

1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
PRE-CONFERENCE AFTERNOON WORKSHOP B

Engaging Employees In The Business Strategy For
Performance-Driven Results

In these turbulent times, it is more critical than ever to ensure that employees clearly understand the business strategy, how it relates to the larger marketplace and what they can do to help achieve results. To ensure that everyone is aligned with the business priorities, communication needs to be focused and reinforced, leaders and managers should be aligned and engaged in communicating about the strategy, desired behaviors must be clearly defined and reinforced, and communication methods must “break through the clutter” to gain employee mindshare.

• Ensuring that employees understand the marketplace context for the business strategy
• Developing clear and concise messages that resonate with employees
• Clearly articulating and reinforcing the desired culture and behaviors
• Defining and supporting the leaders' role in communicating about the business
• Identifying and meeting the unique needs of various employee groups
• Using creative ways to energize employees and truly engage them in the strategy

WORKSHOP LEADER: Chris Gay, ABC, is a Co-Founder of Bridge Consulting, a network of engagement and communication professionals who provide full-service solutions to organizations of all sizes, industries and geographic locations. She and her organization partner with companies to connect people and strategy through employee engagement, communication, and change management strategies that truly have an impact on business results.

Rave Reviews From Past Bridge Consulting Sessions:

"One of the best sessions of the conference."

"Useful information with tactical strategies to use!"

"I liked the case study and breakout elements."

"So many questions stirred up. Great paradigm!"

8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
POST-CONFERENCE MORNING WORKSHOP C

How To Build The Business Case And Demonstrate The ROI Of Your Social Media Programs That Will Capture Your Employee's Attention And Drive Change

Social media has been growing at incredible pace. Companies are driving engagement with their customers and their employees using social techniques. They are able to receive rapid feedback, use engaging viral marketing techniques and build their brand both internally and externally.

However, many companies still struggle to build an effective business case to engage their senior leadership and secure the budget and the resources to make a social media initiative practical.

After hearing great ideas for the use of social media at the conference, you will be ready to take them to the implementation level. Senior leadership buy-in will be critical to achieve your goals for social media. In this workshop, you will learn a methodology for building a business case to use social media and you will create a customized business case framework for your organization.

In this practical and engaging workshop, you will:

• Learn the secrets of a winning business case
• Develop a template for building a business case for your organization
• Understand the risks in a social media project and how to mitigate them
• Determine the road map for achieving buy-in and securing resources and budget

WORKSHOP LEADER: Dana Hurley, a Consultant with Towers Watson, specializes in developing and implementing communication strategies that capture employees’ attention and drive behavioral change. She works on a wide range of projects that promote physical and financial wellness, launch benefit changes, shape performance management programs and transform how work gets done within HR. Underpinning it all is a firm belief that one size does not fit all. Dana works with her clients to find the right mix of media to communicate effectively and achieve results that are in line with organizations’ goals.   

11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Afternoon break/lunch on your own

Linking Communication Measurement To Business Goals: How To Communicate In A Way That Fulfills Your Organization’s Strategy

Executives usually ask for one of two types of help from communicators: to create a communication tool or to increase awareness/understanding of a topic. This session will help you get beyond communicating just for awareness or understanding of broad organizational messages, to communicating more specifically and concretely to deliver business results by measurably influencing your audience’s behaviors.
 
You will learn the difference between communicating about a business strategy, like engagement and communicating in a way that fulfills the strategy—sometimes without even mentioning the strategy itself. It also provides a step-by-step process for engaging your executive management in communication planning in a way that feels like other, logical business processes they are comfortable doing.

• Determine which stakeholder groups are most important in helping to achieve a particular goal, like engagement
• Identify the ideal behaviors for each stakeholder group to reach the goal
• Discover through informal research which knowledge and attitude messages are contributing to the current (incorrect) non-engaged behaviors and which messages would better motivate the ideal behaviors
• Choose the best channels for the ideal knowledge and attitude messages
• Set measurable objectives for the messages and channels
• Conduct measurements that will connect your communications with achievement of the ideal behaviors and organizational goals

Rave Reviews From Past Sinickas Communications Sessions:

"She was the best presenter of the whole conference. Very, very good
information and covered depth of subject."

"Very good. There was a great deal of information provided that can be
used immediately in my workplace."

"Measurement of employee publication content is a great idea!"

"Very enthusiastic presenter. She made the issue clear and easy to grasp.
Measuring results seems possible!"