8:00 a.m.
Continental Breakfast & Networking

8:30 a.m.
Chairperson’s Opening of Day Two

Jeff Brooke, ABC, Principal
Organizational Change & Communications
MITRE
former Director Employee Communications Office at U.S. Government Printing Office

8:45 a.m.

How To Leverage Social Media: Evaluating Effectiveness On A Limited Budget, Communicating Across A Global Workforce And Integrating Numerous Social Media Channels

Communicating health and safety issues to a global workforce of military and civilian employees is challenging -- the U.S. Navy Medical Department is a global healthcare network of 63,000 Navy medical personnel around the world who provide high quality health care to more than one million eligible beneficiaries. The organization provides health education information so that personnel can make informed choices on matters of health and wellness to maintain a fit and ready force in support of U.S. national security requirements.

Using examples from the 2011 flu season immunizations, you will gain an in-depth understanding of the communication challenges and successes and how to measure communication effectiveness with your employees. 

In addition, you will learn why it is vital to include numerous social media channels while developing communications for a global workforce, including:

• The general attitudes on the use of digital media for organizational information 
• Using social media to communicate internal information to a global workforce
• Optimizing the use of content and messaging and manpower while using social media platforms
• Evaluating communication effectiveness on a shoe-string budget

Captain J.A. "Cappy" Surette, APR, Public Affairs Officer
U.S. NAVY BUREAU OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY

9:30 a.m.

How To Move Beyond Informing And Educating To Developing And Empowering Employee Engagement

The internal communication function has increased in prominence in recent years, with the addition of dedicated communications professionals who strive to keep staff well-informed not only about human resources matters but also about the broader goals of the organization itself and the issues and challenges the
organization faces day to day in accomplishing its goals. But with increased scrutiny and criticism of the public sector at all levels, it has become important to foster employees who understand how their individual work
contributes to the organization's broad goals and who can act as ambassadors to family, friends and others in their personal circle when challenged about the organization's work.

• How to create employee ambassadors
• Provide a range of practical steps to implement programs
• Steps that can be accomplished within the strict budget guidelines

Finally, this session will consider ways to measure success, always an important aspect of new programming in a time of rapid change and budget restraint.

Bobbie McCrackin, Vice President and Public Affairs Officer
FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF ATLANTA

10:45 a.m.

Engaging Your Employees To Drive Innovation, Transparency And Collaboration

A short time ago, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ranked 214th out of 216 Federal agencies in “Best Places to Work” in government.  FAA leadership had clear indications that employees wanted to feel valued, they wanted to connect with each other and were eager to collaborate on solutions. It was also clear that they needed a place to submit their ideas to improve the FAA and have their ideas heard and acted upon.

How do you engage such a large and diverse workforce, as well as ensure everyone has a voice in how the agency is run, while building a safe and vibrant community? The answer - - IdeaHub: An Ideation platform that spans the entire Department of Transportation.  In its first year, IdeaHub engaged 25% of the FAA workforce, and had over 4,000 ideas submitted, over 55,000 ratings applied to those ideas, and over 12,500 comments Department-wide.

Learn how IdeaHub has quickly become an active source for ideas to improve the agency, how it helps drive innovation, transparency and active engagement, and how it’s changing the way management and leadership communicates with their employees.

• Structure your ideation platform
• Manage the idea lifecycle
• Leverage employee ideas for a better workplace
• Use “Facebook-like” features to enhance participation

Deb Green, IdeaHub Program Manager
FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION

11:30 a.m.

Involving The Right Partners To Engage Employees And Drive Results Across A Widely-Dispersed Workforce Within A Variety Of Work Environments

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is comprised of more than 60,000 employees located in more than 640 locations (including 450 domestic airports) throughout the United States and abroad. The frontline workforce includes Transportation Security Officers, Federal Air Marshals and others who do not operate in traditional office environments and have limited access to computers during the course of their workday.

On a daily basis, information varying from mission-critical to general awareness needs to be created and communicated to this widely-dispersed workforce to achieve and maintain TSA’s operations as a high-performance, counter-terrorism organization.

Since their creation on November 19, 2001, they have fostered a culture of collaboration and innovation to find interim and long-term solutions that address employee communications challenges that arise from the type of work that field employees perform, coupled with their mobile nature, the variety of work environments, and their limited access to IT equipment.

Their collaborative and innovative approach operates best when they set out to deliberately identify and recruit the right internal partners across TSA to ensure employees are engaged to meet their mission of protecting the nation’s transportation systems.

From the experiences at TSA, you will walk away from this session better equipped to successfully communicate with your own widely-dispersed workforce as well as with those who have limited computer access. 

Mike Simons, Director, Employee Communications
Transportation Security Administration

Join a group of your colleagues for a themed lunch with an informal discussion surrounding a specific topic. Take this opportunity to join others in a small, interactive group setting to network and brainstorm solutions to your most pressing internal communications concerns.

1:45 p.m.

Group Exercise: Brainstorm Solutions And New Ideas You Can Use

You asked for it, you got it! Interact and discuss solutions to your internal communications challenges with your fellow attendees and our experienced speakers. You will leave with new tools and hands-on experience and ideas for more successfully applying best practices to your own internal communications initiatives.

2:30 p.m.

Using Social Media Tools To Gain The Attention Your Organization Deserves From Your Employees Without Losing Sight of Your Internal Objectives

You’ve spent endless time creating mission statements, you’ve fine tuned your objectives and set standards for performance, but no one seems to be paying attention. They’re watching YouTube videos from somewhere else, and reading Tweets for other organizations.

Social media is one area you can explore to engage staff, stakeholders and even politicians who are already online and having fun doing it. You can use the tools while remaining practical and without losing sight of your internal objectives.

In this session, you’ll hear some ideas and tips to bring as much creativity and energy to your internal communications as your employees are finding online, or that your organization is putting into its public outreach, including:

• Selecting the right social media course for your organization and for the message at hand
• How to make efficient use of your content

Take a moment in this session to step back to the basics of communication and spark some imagination at the same time.

Mike Spear, Director of Corporate Communications
GENOME ALBERTA

3:00 p.m.

Afternoon Refreshment & Networking Break

3:15 p.m.

How To Apply External Communication And Engagement Techniques To Internal Challenges To Foster Collaboration And Drive Change

The Smithsonian has been asking and answering questions about science, art, history and culture since 1846, sharing its knowledge with the world through its many museums, research centers and libraries, its vast collections and thousands of experts — inspiring the learning, creativity and curiosity in everyone.

Being part of a large and diverse mission-driven organization like the Smithsonian is a privilege, but it can also be a challenge. People are demanding more meaningful and more inspirational experiences from organizations like the Smithsonian. And in response, Smithsonian employees need to do more to meet the changing expectations of their audiences and of the world. This requires working together, crossing boundaries and sharing ideas like never before. But while they are competing in the 21st Century, many of their internal communications tools and approaches are leftover from a bygone era and need to be refreshed in order to meet today’s challenges.

Hear from the Smithsonian on how you too can integrate traditionally external techniques to improve your internal communications efforts.

Pherabe Kolb, Associate Director of Strategic Communications
Smithsonian Institution

4:00 p.m.

How To Improve Collaborative, Engagement And Efficiency With An Enterprise-wide Social Network

You want to improve collaboration and engagement across your organization and think social media should play a role. After all, isn’t that what these tools are for? You know that “everyone” uses them outside of work so it should be easy to roll out and get people onboard. Such a move will be so popular and the advantages so obvious that it will immediately go viral, right? Well, not so fast.

The National Institute of Health (NIH) implemented an enterprise-wise social network and found it isn’t that easy. Initially begun as an informal pilot and then transformed into a formal one, the agency learned that enterprise-wide social networking benefits from a plan and specific activities. It took a combination of “going viral” and specific events to develop a thriving network. Cross-NIH collaboration and information-sharing now occurs on a regular basis, reducing costs and increasing efficiency. Fewer meetings are needed but staff feels more connected. The best part: email inboxes are much smaller and more manageable.

In this session, you will hear how NIH got started and the steps that led to their successful adoption of the enterprise social network, including:

• Developing “use cases” to get people to join your community
• Identifying key influencers and coordinating usage behind the scenes
• Careful “gardening”
• And more…

You will walk away from this session with new ideas for improving your own employee engagement and collaborative efforts.

Donna Berry, Communications and Program Specialist
Sandra Scarbrough, Change Management Specialist
National Institutes Of Health

4:45 p.m.
Chairperson's Recap: Key Takeaways And What To Do When You Get Back To The Office

We’ll recap the highlights of the past two days and ask you to share key insights and next steps with the group.