8:00 a.m.
Registration & Continental Breakfast

8:30 a.m.

Chairperson's Welcome, Opening Remarks & Presentation

The Read/Write Intranet:
How To Drive User Engagement And Productivity

Commitment. Trust. Credibility. Focus. Hallmarks of engaged users and high-performance organizations...and the holy grail for most communications strategies.

So what does the Read/Write Intranet have to do with employee communications and engagement? Everything. Growing percentages of your user population prefer - and increasingly expect - to interact with their organizations in the very same way.

With the power of user-generated content roaring across the internet, organizations have been slow to enable such read/write capabilities on their existing intranets and enterprise portals.

At this stage in the rapid evolution of social media, there are many different strategies, tools, and approaches. Some organizations are thinking about basic collaboration, others about two-way communications, and still more about workflow, motivation and a range of other issues.

In this session, we will explore the various facets of user-generated content, and how such robust technology can be harnessed within the enterprise.

You won't want to miss this top-rated session from one of the experts on new technologies for communications!

Michael Rudnick, Global Intranet, Portal & eComms Practice Leader
Watson Wyatt Worldwide

9:40 a.m.

Speed Networking

Become acquainted with your fellow conference attendees in this fun and fast-paced forum! You'll have a chance to meet and greet your colleagues.

10:40 a.m.

Building The Corporate Community: How One Company Launched A Social Network To Engage Employees, Reduce Costs And Create Efficiency

Sabre Holdings knew it needed to connect its disperse workforce around the world. The global travel marketing and distribution company's employees were feeling disconnected and needed to find ways to work with little-known colleagues in other offices.

Sabre could have tried lots of traditional communications efforts, excessive travel, job swapping and other more expensive ways to bring people together. Instead it launched SabreTown, a breakthrough online corporate community that generated 65 percent adoption among Sabre’s 9,000 employees worldwide in just three months after launch, with even 50-somethings joining in. Thousands of questions have been asked and answered, hundreds of groups formed, with countless people found, walls knocked down and geographic barriers overcome. All of it has led to more efficiency and cost savings. Now other companies are following suit.

• How social networking inside a company can save time and money
• How social networking in the workplace can beget real business results
• How to sell-in social media to the C-suite by using physical-world analogies
• What to avoid when setting up your social network
• How to get people who are turned off to terms like "social networking," "social media," "Web 2.0" and "corporate community" turned on to actually doing these things

Al Comeaux, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications
Sabre Holdings

11:35 a.m.

How To Energize Employees And Create Internal Buzz Around Corporate Change Using Social Media

Started in 2000, New York-based JetBlue Airways shook the airline industry with brand new planes, live television, exceptional customer service and a stylish look, all with a goal to deliver their promise to "Bring Humanity Back to Air Travel." For the past eight years, JetBlue has not only established itself as a major player in the industry, but has also received high marks for its stand-out brand and superb customer service -- recent honors include being ranked as Highest in Customer Satisfaction Among Low Cost Carriers in North America by J.D. Power and Associates and as a Most Admired Company by Fortune Magazine.

With skyrocketing fuel costs, and an ever-changing economic, competitive and social environment, JetBlue decided it was more important than ever to re-focus on their customer service and quality product. So, earlier this year the airline said good-bye to flying and all that goes with it and said hello to Happy Jetting in a national advertising and brand campaign. The brand change not only replaced words like "fly", "flying" and "flyer" with "jet", "jetting" and "jetter" but also highlighted what JetBlue offers that others don't. With this kind of statement, JetBlue had to make sure its crewmembers understood the business strategy, stood behind the campaign and delivered on its promise. This was done through several internal components including an internal YouTube-style website.

• Introduce new mediums for peer-to-peer communications – including new
  social media tools similar to YouTube
• Use employees to help communicate brand messages
• Utilize the Intranet as a two-way communication tool
• Align internal and external brand messages
• Get employees to feel ownership and stand behind a corporate change
• Successfully communicate and internally launch a brand campaign

Kimberly Ruvolo, Brand Manager
JetBlue Airways

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

2:00 p.m.

How To Use Social Media Tools To Turn Your Global Organization Into A Community

Social networking has become a buzz-phrase, but what does it really mean and how can your organization benefit from it? As a company with over 300,000 employees in over a hundred countries, IBM employees have a real need to be able to connect and feel part of a team with people who may not share the same location or language. To unite the company IBM CEO, Sam Palmisano, issued a mandate to "make IBM small."

• Social networking and how you can tailor programs for your large or small organization
• Global jams where thousands of employees around the world can voice ideas that get turned into real corporate programs
• Simple tools, used to drive culture, such as instant messaging to create an atmosphere where everyone from individual contributors to vice presidents is accessible
• Existing and emerging tools – open source and otherwise – you can use today to start building communities

It's about building a culture and content and, good news, it doesn't have to cost a fortune!

Kevin Winterfield, Internal and Executive Communications
IBM

3:10 p.m.

Don’t Be Afraid Of Employee Bloggers: How To Guide The Power Of Employee Blogging To Engage Employees, Drive Change And Enhance Transparency - - On A Shoestring Budget

The Goodwill Ambassablog is a unique approach to employee blogging at the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority, the public agency that operates historic San Diego International Airport at Lindbergh Field. As a regional government agency, the Airport Authority was uncertain how, if at all, to enter the blogosphere; so it launched an employee blog with a twist – one that not only engages employees and offers them a creative outlet for educational expression, but also communicates positive messages about the Airport Authority and enhances its transparency to external audiences in a unique and compelling way.

The Goodwill Ambassablog is proving to be a stellar, ultra-low-cost, "new media" supporter of the Airport Authority's Goodwill Ambassador Program, which recruits agency employees to serve as 'goodwill ambassadors' about the Airport Authority and Lindbergh Field to their friends, family members and community contacts. The blog features ongoing employee-written posts & comments, video & music clips, photos, quizzes, polls, convenient forwarding features and more. The Ambassablog recently won a national "silver medal" award in the 2008 Airports Council International-North America Excellence in Marketing & Communications Contest.

• Implement an employee blogging program in the public sector
• Create a blog similar to the Goodwill Ambassablog and get it operating successfully on a shoestring budget
• Effectively implement and monitor a dual-purpose (internal/external) blog for public entities
• Overcome technical challenges
• Gain upper management understanding and support

Steve Shultz, Deputy Director, Public & Community Relations
San Diego County, California, Regional Airport Authority,
San Diego International Airport

4:05 p.m.

Giving Employees A Voice:
How H&R Block Built An Online Community

Web 2.0 is facilitating the evolution of organizational cultures in critical ways that go beyond improving internal communications. At H&R Block, America’s sixth largest retailer, the internal communications team implemented social media tools into their corporate news site to drive bottom-up and two-way communications. This strategic shift provided a venue for the H&R Block associates to be heard. Using these new tools resulted in more employees who are better-informed and have a means to express their opinions and ideas to key leaders who consider their feedback.

• Improves strategic alignment
• Increases employee engagement
• Improves the quality of decision-making
• Enhances the rate and quality of product and process innovation

This session will help all communications professionals understand what type of organizational culture will benefit from social media as well as what benefits can be expected.

Kristina Patrick, Senior Project Manager, Outreach & Business Development
H&R Block

Michael Lee Stallard, CEO and Co-founder, author of Fired Up or Burned Out
E Pluribus Partners

5:00 p.m.

End Of Day One

5:15 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 San Francisco’s fine dining while you continue to network with your colleagues.