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 strategic internal communications strategies that will enhance your understanding of the informative, case study presentations throughout the entire conference.

Choose ALL FOUR Workshops for Maximum Value and Learning

How To Master Engagement Within Your Organization:
An Audience-Centric Approach To Building Strategic Communication Campaigns

Communicators can produce more effective employee communications by developing a deeper understanding of their audiences. In this engaging workshop, you will walk away with a unique methodology for building strategic communication campaigns.

The Bonfire audience-centric approach employs a collaborative mapping technique that harnesses the collective insight of your communication and design teams. It has resulted in successful enterprise-wide programs for companies such as Gap Inc., General Electric, Wells Fargo, Starbucks, Oracle, and Genentech.

In this comprehensive and hands-on workshop, you will leave with tools for:

• Selecting and integrating new technology into your organization’s culture, based on specific learning styles and audience concerns
• Utilizing the basics of the six-lens, audience-centric communication planning methodology
• Integrating thinking models from change management, learning and communications design
• Discovering new ways of identifying and meeting the needs and preferences of your audiences and stakeholders
• Building multi-dimensional campaigns that sustain mindshare and momentum, and change attitudes and behavior to meet business objectives

WORKSHOP LEADERS: Preston Lewis is Co-founder & Director at Bonfire Communications. An expert in branding, employee engagement and strategic internal communications, Preston is an energetic and creative leader intimately involved with all aspects of the Bonfire business. As an active participant in current projects and responsible for nurturing new relationships, Preston consistently demonstrates the core values that steer each Bonfire project to success. His current and past clients are some of the most reputable companies in the world including Starbucks, Roche/Genentech, General Electric, Harrah’s Entertainment, salesforce.com and HP.

Matt Herlihy is Director of Strategy at Bonfire Communications. For nearly two decades, Matt has devoted his professional life to the intersection of brand and storytelling, helping companies change conversations and drive people to action. He has worked intimately with some of the world’s most revered brands, helping define such world-class organizations as General Electric and Procter & Gamble as well as iconic brands like Harley-Davidson and Jack Daniel’s.

Testimonials From Past Bonfire Communications Sessions:

"Outstanding; lots of new learnings; very interesting!"

"I think this was so helpful. It gave me a lot of good information to
think over and work through. Thanks!"

"I’m completely energized to get started on implementing my learnings."

11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Afternoon break/lunch on your own

Engaging Employees In Bringing Your Business Strategy Through Social Media And Traditional Communications: Cutting Through The Clutter To Deliver Critical And Consistent Message

Managing information overload is one of the biggest challenges facing employees these days. As they struggle to keep up with email, voicemail, and barrage of other media (both internal and external), how can communication professionals cut through the clutter to deliver critical messages and engage employees in the business strategy? To gain—and retain—employee mindshare, it takes a well-orchestrated combination of simple and compelling messages, fun and creative communication techniques, and a dose of social media.

A business strategy will only be realized if employees make it real on their jobs every day. In this workshop, through a combination of best practices and an interactive case study, you will learn to:

• Ensure that leaders have the information, processes and tools they need to fulfill their critical role in engagement
• Use messaging frameworks to align leaders to ensure they are all communicating consistent messages
• Engage employees in unique, compelling ways, using a variety of media
• Incorporate social media as part of a holistic communication and engagement strategy

WORKSHOP LEADER: Chris Gay, a Principal at Bridge Consulting, partners with companies to connect people and strategy through employee engagement, communication, and change management strategies that truly have an impact on business results. Chris has earned international and national awards for her communication and engagement work, including three IABC Gold Quills, a PRSA Silver Anvil, and recognition as one of the top 20 Human Resources case studies in the world according to the International Benchmarking Association.

Chris has worked in corporate America for 25 years in the retail, manufacturing, and financial services sectors. Her extensive experience spans both Human Resources and Communication, and her corporate experience has allowed her to develop strong skills in both strategy development and execution.

How To Link Communication To Your Business Strategy And Measure Its Impact

It’s hard to connect our work with business results unless we plan our communication strategies from the beginning to help deliver those results. This workshop will give you an easy-to-follow, step-by-step process to connect communication to business goals—and then prove the value of the communication.

Specifically in this session, you will learn the difference between communicating a business strategy and communicating in a way that fulfills the strategy—sometimes without even mentioning the strategy itself. You will also be provided with 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 with, including:

• Determining which stakeholder groups are most important in helping to achieve a particular goal
• Identifying the ideal behaviors for each stakeholder group to reach the goal
• Discovering through informal research which knowledge and attitude messages are contributing to the current (incorrect) behaviors and which messages would better motivate the ideal behaviors
• Choosing the best channels for the ideal knowledge and attitude messages
• Setting measurable objectives for the messages and channels
• Developing measures that will connect your communications with achievement of the ideal behaviors and organizational goals in terms of a return on investment

WORKSHOP LEADER: Angela Sinickas is President of Sinickas Communications, Inc. (www.sinicom.com), a consulting firm dedicated to helping organizations achieve business results through focused diagnostics and practical solutions. An award-winning organizational communicator since 1974, she has been measuring the effectiveness of communication since 1981. She wrote the manual "How to Measure Your Communication Programs" and has developed a range of Communication Starter Kits on CD-ROM and online modules available by subscription that provide tools for communicators to conduct their own focus groups, surveys and strategic planning.

11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Afternoon break/lunch on your own

How Crowdsourcing (Two-Way Communications) Can Tap Into The Full Creative Power Of Employees: The Future Of Internal Communications

The crowdsourcing phenomenon, using information drawn from the public on the Internet, has rapidly made inroads into just about every industry, for a myriad of purposes. From engaging employees, customers and partners in co-creation and problem solving, to identifying new business opportunities, to building brands, just to name a few. Crowdsourcing can help shape a new way in which companies can tap the full creative power of their employees. But with this new method comes both tremendous opportunities and challenges.

This workshop will explain why crowdsourcing is gaining so much momentum, and will walk you through a typical internal crowdsourcing engagement. You will gain a firsthand overview about everything that goes into planning a successful engagement including the planning process, crowd recruitment, incentive structures, and moderation.

• What crowdsourcing is and where it's being used
• How crowdsourcing is revitalizing older management practices
• Why employees of companies who have used crowdsourcing report higher levels of employee satisfaction
• What is critical to crowdsourcing success, and which pitfalls to avoid
• Where crowdsourcing might apply to your organization, and how to get started

WORKSHOP LEADER: Eric Collard is a consultant with the Intersol Group Limited, now specializing in stakeholder relations, social media and crowdsourcing. Eric is a seasoned communications professional, with over 10 years’ experience in government, NGO's and the private sector. He has vast experience in strategic & crisis communications, event management and in media relations. Throughout his young career he has hosted many functions, from small technical briefings to national presentations. He has also been involved with many endeavours as an on-camera talent, commentator, writer, interviewer, and more recently as a speaker. @_eclinc