8:00 a.m.
Registration & Continental Breakfast

8:30 a.m.
Chairperson's Welcome & Opening Remarks

Mike Panetta, Partner
BEEKEEPER GROUP

8:45 a.m.

How To Use Strategic Internal Communications To Ensure Success In Organizational Change Management

Change is never easy, particularly when that change involves moving governmental agencies, changing their reporting relationships, and merging and then “slicing and dicing” that entity into new organizations. Employees are challenged with new missions and asked to realign their loyalties, many after decades of service to their “legacy” agencies. And each entity brings with it a culture and historical narrative developed over its history.

Eight years after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was established, employee communications is still a vital work in progress. In this session, you will hear how the challenges have been, and continue to be addressed and overcome, explore how the best practices of each component are being applied, learn about the methods now being employed to communicate with a 230,000-person workforce, and how these 7 operating, and 21 support components, are building toward an organization wide approach to facilitate employee communications to become harmonized as “One DHS.”

• Impact the performance of internal communications
• The channels and vehicles your department can use to communicate with an entire workforce, including those without access to email
• The challenges that result when the internal communication function is not centralized and how to overcome them
• The status of DHS internal communications and next steps

9:30 a.m.

How To Use Social Media And Traditional Communications To Foster Positive Employee Satisfaction And Improve Morale

Retaining a qualified, and effective, workforce can be challenging within the limitations of the public sector especially during tough budget times. Employees who feel appreciated and know senior managers are listening to them are more content and productive, and internal communications plays a vital role in fostering employee satisfaction.

Both traditional and new media communication tools can enhance the interaction between employees and senior managers and help improve employee morale and cultivate a positive work environment.

In this session, you will learn how to use effective communication tools, internally, including blogs, videos, and anonymous suggestion boxes to:

• Keep employees engaged, connected and informed
Help employees accept change and transition
• Recognize employee achievement
• Maintain high employee morale

Sarah Lane, MCDM, Internal Communications & Social Media Manager
WASHINGTON STATE OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

10:15 a.m.

Break-Out Blitz! Network And Discuss Strategic Internal Communication Challenges With Your Fellow Conference Attendees

This session will open the conversation by connecting you with other conference participants and gain greater understanding into many similar issues, concerns, and challenges that your peers are also facing. Become acquainted with your fellow conference attendees in this fun and fast-paced forum!

11:15 a.m.

Strong Communication Starts At The Top:
Strategies For Enhancing Leadership Communications

Senior leaders play a critical role in keeping employees informed about an organization’s goals, progress, changes, and strategic direction. Learn about a variety of activities in the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) that are being used to enhance communication from top senior level management down through the rest of the employee staff.

You’ll hear how the CDER is working to strengthen internal communications through techniques which include a newsletter column called ASK JANET, quarterly town hall meetings, e-mail messages, audio podcasts, and videos.

You will leave this session with a new understanding of how to:

• Provide effective communication support for your organization’s leaders
• Engage employees by soliciting their questions and feedback
• Use a mix of internal communication avenues to reach employees

Michelle Meadows, Director, Internal Communications Program
Center for Drug Evaluation and Research
U.S. FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION

12:00 p.m.

Communicate To Motivate:
How To Get Your Employees Aligned With Your Organizational Goals

Every employee is motivated, but not necessarily motivated to do the things you want them to do. Employers and managers mistakenly believe that a paycheck provides enough motivation for employees to do their jobs, but studies have shown that money alone is not a motivator.

As we know all too well, government agencies are limited in the kinds of incentives they can provide. So what reward can a leader offer to motivate their workforce?

• Using leadership communication to build employee trust
• Helping leaders maximize their potential as internal communicators
• Enabling employees to redirect their own motivations in order for them to align with organizational goals

John S. Verrico, Director of Communications
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATORS

12:45 p.m.
Lunch On Your Own -- But Not Alone!

Join a group of your colleagues for lunch with an informal discussion facilitated by one of our expert speakers. Take this opportunity to join others in a small, interactive group setting to network and brainstorm solutions to your most pressing internal communications concerns.

2:15 p.m.

How To Become A More Effective And Efficient Communicator By Improving Your Communication Style

Have you ever had a conversation and wondered why you just couldn’t seem to get through to that person? Do you sometimes feel that your boss just isn’t listening? Proper communication styles ensure that employees at all levels have the correct information when they need it in order to make the right decisions.

In this lively and interactive session, you will discover skills to use in the workplace, and in your daily activities, to improve your communication style.

• What “color” communicator you are and what this means for your communication style
• Why men and women communicate differently and how to mitigate these differences
• Biggest body language blunders to avoid so that you deliver the appropriate message
• Signals and clues you should look for when communicating
• Skills to implement in order to become a more effective and efficient communicator

Teresa A. Rivera, PMP, CME, Outreach & Awareness Manager
Acquisition Services Directorate
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

3:20 p.m.

Overcoming Internal Barriers And Setting Social Media Expectations With Your Employees

After 9/11, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Department of Defense (DoD), found itself in need of a secure space for internal collaboration. Old procedures, mindsets, and policies stood in the way of transitioning from a "need-to-know" to a "responsibility-to-provide" environment. To overcome these internal barriers, the ODNI and DoD needed to supply a collaboration space to the Intelligence Community that combated these regressive forces and ushered in a new era of open information exchange.

Listen and learn from the following session, lessons on how to:

• Communicate internally effectively - let your users know what's going on (metrics, progress, set-backs)
• Overcome internal set backs
• Control internal communications with external communications - media can drive  more users to the environment more than anything transmitted internally
• Make your users your advocates

Brian Drake, Staff Officer
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

4:05 p.m.

How to Use Social Networking Tools to Foster Collaboration and Enhance Your Internal Communications

Knowledge management projects are of limited value without a critical mass of content from end users. Content managers generally do a good job of pushing the information out to end users; however, end users often feel a lesser need to communicate back. ;Most have something of value to contribute but are often unwilling to do so, particularly if there is any technical learning curve. This situation can result in a generally one-way conversation, and therefore sub-optimized internal communications.

This is precisely the scenario the Air Force Medical Service found itself in a few years ago. Hundreds of content managers were contributing content into a robust system that make the content easily discoverable, but there was little interaction with end users. The answer? Bolt-on an Enterprise 2.0 toolset that adds social networking features to an existing internal knowledge sharing platform. This resulted in turning a one-way conversation into a two-way conversation and greatly enhanced internal communications.

• Benefits of implementing Enterprise 2.0 capabilities in a
  federal government environment
• Lessons learned implementing Enterprise 2.0
• Knowledge Management 101 vs. social networking

4:50 p.m.

End of Day One

5:10 p.m.

Networking Reception: Please Join Us!

We invite you to join us for a drink as you relax with your peers. All conference attendees and speakers are welcome to join us for this special opportunity to continue networking. Don't miss this chance to benchmark new ideas over complimentary drinks!

Sign up during the day for dinner with a group. Take advantage of Washington, DC's fine dining while you continue to network with your colleagues.