The Ragan Experience
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Last week I had the pleasure of presenting, for the first time ever, at Ragan Communications’ 2009 Corporate Communicators Conference in Chicago. As someone who’s wistfully devoured the CCC brochures every year, this was a big thrill for me.
My session on strategic communications planning took place a week ago today; unfortunately I wasn’t able to stay over and attend the “unconference,” so missed meeting many of the wonderful and smart people I’ve gotten to know on Twitter. I did get to meet Amy Mengel (whose Ragan recap is absolutely killer), Ann Marie van den Hurk, APR, and Lee Aase among others, catch up with the lovely Angie Jeffrey, APR, Katie “queen” Paine and the amazing Jim Ylisela, and have a fabulous lunch and walk with the effervescent and super-smart Kate Zimmer (see how happy we are?).
The Skinny on the Presentation
The presentation itself went well (I think); I must admit I was tickled by having to move from a breakout room to the main ballroom in order to accommodate all the attendees. I very much hope it was worth their while.
When I’m asked to make these presentations, I often wonder – as I’m sure all speakers and presenters do – what I can provide to the audience that will be of most value. Or am I going to say the same things everyone else does, but with a slightly different accent?
So Beth Harte’s recent post, “Social Media’s Dirty Little Secret” really resonated with me. If you haven’t read it yet, you should, as well as click through to Dan Keeney’s post to see the video she mentions and read all the comments.
See – I agree with Beth. Social media is nothing new. And I’m going to go one step further and say that 99% of the time, PR is nothing new. Strategic communications is nothing new.
A vast majority of the time, I find the tweets, blogs, LinkedIn questions, yadda yadda, that I follow and read/respond to… nothing new. And that includes the stuff I say.
Before your jaw quite reaches the floor, I think that’s OK.
We’re not – as the rest of the world loves to say about us “PR types,” rocket scientists, tech geniuses or wildly-brilliant theorists. Most of us will probably never rise to the level of a Les Potter or Jim Grunig.
But that’s OK.
Where we add value – I hope – is in reinforcing time-tested communications best practices with practical examples of how we’ve achieved success for our clients or organizations, and showing others how they might adapt those practices for their use. I have to believe that younger professionals in particular derive great value from this.
And perhaps we’re saying it in a new voice, or a new style, that people identify with, and which drives them to adopt the aforesaid practices.
That’s what I hope attendees got out of my presentation which, in a nutshell, tried to reinforce the importance of starting with your end in sight, putting measurable objectives in place, and figuring out your strategy accordingly. (Gosh, where have I heard that before? Here, and here, and here.)
So if you were expecting a flash of brilliance from my presentation, I’m going to apologize in advance for disappointing you.
Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, here it is.
A special word of thanks to everyone who contributed to the presentation, particularly Lauren Vargas for reviewing it beforehand, and Bryan Person and Jenna Woodul of LiveWorld for a fabulous case study.
Filed under Communication, Measurement, Public Relations | Tags: amy mengel, angela jeffrey, ann marie van den hurk, beth harte, bryan person, ccc09, dan keeney, jenna woodul, jim grunig, jim ylisela, kate zimmer, katie paine, lauren vargas, lee aase, les potter, liveworld, Measurement, pr, Public Relations, ragan, strategic communications, strategic planning | Comments (8)
Of Job Hunting, Cologne… and Twitter
On April 2, a few friends and I put on the “Dream Team” hats that Ned Lundquist, ABC, bestowed on us some years ago, to help folks “Pimp My Job.”
What on earth is “Pimp My Job,” you ask?
If you subscribe to Ned’s free, weekly “Job of the Week” newsletter, which I sometimes guest-edit, you know what we’re about. But in essence, we’re a group of communicators from near and far who provide advice – sometimes mercilessly – to those brave enough to ask for it. They submit their on-the-job – or job hunting – nightmares to us, and we have at it, maintaining their privacy. Advice is compiled and published in the newsletter. You can read previous PMJs here.
PMJ Meets IABC
A few years ago, when I ran IABC/Washington‘s programming, I thought it would be fun to do a real world version of PMJ – and sure enough, it was. A couple of weeks ago, we reprised our “act” at IABC/Washington’s Senior Communicators Council meeting (disclosure: I’m President-Elect for the chapter, currently also Acting President).
Given how dramatically the economy has changed in the past few years, I wasn’t quite sure how the SCC meeting would go (it’s one thing to pimp your job while you still have it, quite another when you, and more and more of your peers, are out of work).
It was wonderful. Folks shared their experiences, asked for advice, gave advice, and I felt a tremendous sense of camaraderie among the attendees. We had some fun too: can you guess which Indian goddess the Dream Team is trying to portray here?
“It’s Not Rocket Science”
Now, none of what we said is rocket science (I couldn’t resist). Career advice abounds, especially these days. But there were two things that stayed with me:
1) It’s easy to get depressed when you’re in a go-nowhere job/laid off/have been job hunting for years, etc. But as Kate Perrin of PRofessional Solutions said, you cannot afford to let the “stink of desperation” cling to you. That’s when you’re in such a poor frame of mind that it comes across no matter where you are, who you’re talking to, or what you’re talking about … and that will come through in your interviews. Do I need to give you examples? I didn’t think so.
2) Senior communicators must start understanding and using online social networks. Being… well, me, I gave the attendees a quick demonstration of Twitter which, as we all know, is just one of the many platforms you can use to connect with people. Time and time again, I hear “we don’t get it,” “I’m not technologically savvy,” what the heck is the point of (fill in your epithet network of choice) anyway?”
The point is two-fold: first, it’s networking. If you have experienced the advantages of meeting and communicating with your peers outside of your work, you cannot afford to ignore online venues that afford you the same opportunities. Yes, you have to then take your online network offline and put it to work for you. But you can’t do that if you don’t have an online network.
Second, you are probably finding that these days, more and more jobs require a knowledge of the online sphere and social media. How can you be competitive if you don’t explore the spaces potential employers need you to have an understanding of? It doesn’t matter if you don’t consider yourself an “expert” (there are too many wannabe experts floating around these days anyway, as Beth Harte points out in this most excellent post). But you’ve got to be able to talk knowledgeably about it – and you can’t do that if you don’t engage.
In my enthusiasm to bring a Twitter dimension to the meeting, I asked my tweeps to submit questions for the Dream Team to me via Twitter, hoping to be able to answer them live from the session. Many thanks to all of you who did (you can read the entire event-related tweetstream here). The meeting had so many facets to it that we weren’t able to get to all the questions, but they (and the answers) have been published in today’s edition of JOTW.
A final word: if you don’t subscribe to JOTW, I strongly recommend you do. It’s completely free and you will experience the “positive, unanticipated consequences of nedworking” first-hand. Subscription (and unsubscription) instructions are at the top and bottom of every email. The annual March 32nd issue itself is worth the price of admission.
The Bottom Line
Yes, it’s tough out there. But it’s tough for everyone, not just you. So check your desperation at the door and start using the networks around you. That’s what they’re there for, and you’ll be the better for it.
(Thanks, Ned for the use of your photo)
Filed under Career, Networking, Social Media, Twitter
| Tags: beth harte, Career, iabc, jobs, jotw, kate perrin, ned lundquist, Networking, Social Media, Twitter |
Comments (4)
