8:00 a.m.
Continental Breakfast & Networking

8:30 a.m.
Chairperson's Opening Of Day Two

8:40 a.m.

How To Facilitate Strategic Communication Planning With Your Internal Clients To Deliver More Effective Communication That Yields Results

During this session, hear how one of today's innovative public sector communicators is using strategic internal communications to achieve business results.

• Apply a structured approach to contracting with your internal clients, partnering with them, and delivering communication that yields behavior change and business outcomes
• Facilitate planning sessions to determine the nature of your client's change effort and deliver an appropriate communication strategy
• Measure communication results and business outcomes

Jeffrey Brooke, ABC, Director of Employee Communications
U.S. Government Printing Office

9:35 a.m.

Getting The Attention Of 60,000 Employees In A Highly Dispersed, Non-Tech, Unionized Environment

How do you make sure all 60,000 employees in your organization have heard the same messages that will drive change effectively in a highly unionized environment? Add to this the complication of employees that are dispersed throughout the country and that the majority of them do not have access to a computer or email.

• Developing communication competencies within team leaders
• Analyzing your key stakeholders and target audiences
• Ensuring you identify and address employees' concerns
• Communicating information to remote locations or areas with limited technological capabilities
• Assessing the message and the appropriate communications medium to deliver it
• Measuring communication results and tying them to organizational objectives
• Establishing an Internal Communications Gatekeeper to ensure you focus your messages within the organization to cut the clutter and deliver messages effectively

Diane Patell-Pernari, Director, Employee Communications
Canada Post

10:50 a.m.

How To Use Strategic Internal Communications To Reestablish Trust And Confidence With Your Stakeholders During A Crisis

Following Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was viewed by many as the agency primarily responsible for the federal government’s inadequate response. As a result, FEMA lost nearly a quarter of its permanent full time personnel due to burn out and poor morale. This session will give you an insider's perspective of how FEMA worked aggressively to reestablish its reputation and retain its employees and institutional knowledge.

Building on the fundamentals of excellent communication programs, this session will show you how communication policies, organizational culture and core competencies contribute to helping FEMA regain its position as the nation's preeminent emergency management and preparedness agency.

• The critical role of leaders
• The importance of vision
• Embracing communications as an organizational core competency
• Incorporating the fundamentals of excellent communications, including: transparency; credibility; collaboration; clarity; integration; and alignment

John P. "Pat" Philbin, PhD, Director, Office of External Affairs
Federal Emergency Management Agency,
U.S. Department of Homeland Security

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.

1:15 p.m.

Communicating Your Organization’s Strategy:
Making It Simple, Making It Stick -- How A Local Health And Human Services Agency Has Learned To Simplify In Order To Have The Greatest Impact

The Health & Human Services Agency (HHSA), County of San Diego, has learned that the "way" strategy is communicated is just as, if not more, important than "what" the strategy is.

To this end, HHSA works to translate complex ideas about mission, goals, actions and results into simple messages that are eye-catching and easy for staff and stakeholders alike to access and understand. For example, a one-page strategic plan and corresponding performance "flash reports," help staff at all levels see how they contribute toward shared goals. Also, by distilling and displaying program and performance data, the Agency promotes dialogue about data and what strategies could improve performance.

Better, simpler and engaging ways of communicating also help the Agency to promote its accomplishments to the public, and, conversely, to enlist stakeholders in devising solutions when the Agency falls short on important goals.

Why is communication such an emphasis at HHSA? Communication is vitally important in an agency as large and complex as HHSA. Some of the complexities that HHSA has to contend with are: a large budget and staff, six geographic service regions, four centralized operating divisions, and several support divisions, and over $300 million in contracts.

• Getting everyone moving in the same direction
• Leveraging limited resources
• Having the greatest positive impact on clients and the community-at-large

Jackie Werth, Performance Management Coordinator, Strategic Planning &
Operational Support Division, Health and Human Services Agency
County of San Diego, California

2:10 p.m.

Using A Balanced Scorecard Approach To Manage And Measure Your Internal Communications Program

What do you want your employees to know? Your vision, values, and strategies? That you are changing your accounting system and so the expense data entry will change? Or do you want to build consensus between two important stakeholder groups? If you talk to almost any senior executive, you learn that in organizations of five or 50,000 employees, getting the right information to the right people at the right time is a persistent problem.

The effects of poor internal communication are many: misinformation takes on a life of its own, misinformed employees make bad decisions, employee trust erodes, low employee engagement, increased conflict between employees and managers. But there is a great way to build your communication success: use a scorecard.

The balanced scorecard is best known as a measurement or performance reporting process. But it is also among the most useful structures for managing, measuring, and reporting on the effectiveness of internal communications.

• Participate in building an internal communications scorecard
• Hear the story of effective communication
• Be able to apply a balanced scorecard approach to your own communication plans

Deborah L. Kerr, PhD, Senior VP for Human & Organizational Development
and Organizational Development
American Heart Association
Former Director of Audits & Chief Strategy Officer
State of Texas

3:20 p.m.

The Power Of Collaboration:
Learning How To Establish A More Proactive Approach To Strategic Communications By Engaging Your Managers And Employees, And Enhancing 2-Way Communications In Your Organization To Drive Transformative Change

In this informative session, you will learn how the National Institutes of Health (NIH) implemented comprehensive change management and communications strategies at their HR Transition Center for Change Management and Communications to support employees, managers, and leaders through organizational restructuring and A-76 studies, ultimately improving retention through major transitions.

• Prepare an actionable communications Strategy and Plan (at NIH, "Project Inform") that shares information within and across stove-piped organizations
• Enhance and leverage partnerships with internal and external organizations to better manage planning and delivery of messages to the workforce
• Develop standards, guidelines and processes to improve communications and follow-through

Critical to the success of change management efforts are effective communication strategies that address time constraints, the absence of a structured, collaborative process, the absence of critical decision makers, and too little input from key stakeholders. Without a solid communications plan, projects and initiatives are likely to fail due to budget overruns, poorly-functioning systems, inefficient processes, burnout, and skepticism.

Communications is a key element of a change management framework, and is often overlooked in many transformation strategies. Through this session you will learn how you too can develop and lead a comprehensive communications effort using creative, effective communications approaches.

Melanie Keller, Executive Officer for the Center for Scientific Review
National Institutes of Health,
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

Mark Rushing, Principal
Capgemini Government Solutions, LLC

4:15 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.

Anne Kelly, CEO & Director
The Federal Consulting Group