8:00 a.m.
Registration & Continental Breakfast

8:30 a.m.

Chairperson’s Welcome, Opening Remarks & Presentation:
Like Janus Astride Two Worlds – Communicators Today Must Be Both Original And Transitional. How Can We Use New And Familiar Media To Get Our Messages Out Effectively?

Communicating with employees in 2012 is challenging. Multiple messages and distractions compete for your employees' attention. Traditional communication channels don’t appear to engage the majority of employees – yet many of today’s practitioners didn’t grow up in the online world and feel like they’re in “catch-up” mode with their target audience. How to be successful doing what we know how to do (and care about deeply!) while working with the training wheels on?

This opening session will highlight the challenges facing communicators today and look at how we can leverage a strategic mix of new and traditional media to be successful while we work hard to stay abreast of trending tools.
 
We’ll look at:

• Life on the e-list - how the changing communication landscape affects both our communication abilities and our audience expectations
• Balancing “getting it perfect” with “getting it out” as social media timelines = right now
• Overcoming fear of the unknown/uncontrollable and winning internal support for social media channels
• Three things you can do this year to “get your feet wet” in the social media pool

9:30 a.m.

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

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

10:30 a.m.

Internal Social Media Collaboration – The Enterprise Is Social,
Now What?

Wells Fargo has been blogging, using wiki's and SharePoint for document collaboration internally since 2004 to enhance its internal communication channels and engage team members.  However, since the merger of Wachovia and Wells Fargo in 2008, there was a need to integrate user and corporate communications, as well as help foster a 'new way' of supporting their customer.

Wells Fargo has built a team dedicated to strategize on internal collaboration, partner with existing communication teams and be the support and education point for all things social.

Learn from Wells Fargo and take away lessons on how your organization can apply:

• Internal collaboration team guiding principles
• Key learnings from two specific internal communications gone social case studies- the good, the bad and the ugly

Kelli Carlson-Jagersma, VP – Collaboration Strategy
Wells Fargo
@Northstar

Nathan Bricklin, Head of Social Strategy
Wells Fargo
@socialbrick

11:20 a.m.

Leading In The 21st Century: From Exhausted To Effective

Hear about an innovative, research-based approach designed to increase employee engagement by building and exercising 21st century leadership competencies.  Managers still play an important and vital role on employee performance and retention.  Now, see how a long list of possible managerial activities and competencies was reduced to the “vital few accelerators” that have the most impact on improving both employee engagement and leadership effectiveness.  This approach ensures that managers remember fundamental activities that create positive energy by recognizing and appreciating what is working (success), which produces greater engagement and momentum for change; ultimately achieving “breakthrough” increases in organizational results. 

This powerful session will help you and your organization grasp:

• The “vital few accelerators” that drive outcomes of employee engagement and leadership effectiveness
• How to apply the “vital few accelerators” on-the-job.
• The value of using an appreciative inquiry based approach to leadership

Jim Trinka, PhD, Director, Executive Director, Senior Executive Leadership Development Program
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
@jat_pilot

12:10 p.m.
Lunch On Your Own -- But Not Alone!

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 communication concerns.

1:40 p.m.

Strategic Internal Communications case study coming soon!

2:45 p.m.

How To Communicate To And Engage With Employees At All Levels: Aligning Employees With Your Strategy

The LEGO Operating Model is the platform where all leaders across the value chain gather to make the key, cross-functional decisions in the company. The challenge presented is to educate and engage employees at all levels about the Operating Model, especially those that are finding themselves implementing cross-functional decisions, even when these decisions are not rooted in their respective departments. Therefore, it is crucial to communicate strategies successfully and engage employees across the entire company. The success of a company lies in the employees’ understanding of the overall strategic direction.

• Create strategic framework maps for leaders to see how the big picture fits into the concrete activities
• Communicate the key decisions in an editorial content - SharePoint articles, newsletters, etc.
• Report the key decisions to the team leaders across the value chain who in turn, are respon
• sible to cascade the relevant information down to their employees
  Utilize the creation of a board game to educate employees about the Operating Model
• Interview leaders across the value chain to explain how the Operating Model impacts different areas of the business
• Incorporate the Operating Model to the corporate E-learning, which explains the key process at LEGO

3:35 p.m.

How To Cut Down On Content While Increasing Engagement: Using New Technology To Get To The Heart Of Your Message

Imagine, each month, you had to read a book the length of “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee during your normal business hours without any dedicated time to read. Now imagine that your professional success was reliant on the information you read in that book and your ability to recount the narrative on demand.

Rogers Communications Inc, a national Telecommunications organization in Canada, was sending 93,000 words per month, the amount of content in “To Kill A Mockingbird” to our customer care representatives to review without dedicated time to read and understand it.

In this session, you will hear the results of the pilot study on the solution that included a combination of read-time and Snapcomms (a new communications software).

Using this pilot as a case study you’ll learn how to:

• Use new ideas and new technology to cut-through your email problems and get to the heart of the message
• Build a solid business case using communications measures in combination with key business measures to gain senior leadership support
• Navigate employee responses to new communications solutions

Nicola Hanson, Manager Operational Communications and Job Prep
Rogers Communications Partnership
@Nicola_Hanson

4:25 p.m.

More "How To's" To Help You Get The Work Done:  An Interactive Panel Discussion With Today’s Participants
Need to dive deeper into specific topics?  Want more details?  Here’s your chance! Digest what you’ve learned and apply it to your own initiatives to get feedback and ideas for improvement.

5:00 p.m.

End of Day One

5:05 p.m.

Networking Reception: Please Join Us!

We invite you to join us for a drink as you relax with your peers. All seminar 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 Vancouver’s fine dining while you continue to network with your colleagues.