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This humourous, yet brilliant, example demonstrates how how PowerPoint can be the death of even the greatest story.
Rowan Manahan gives his talk ‘How PowerPoint makes EVERY story better’ at Ignite at the Science Gallery, Trinity College Dublin, in February 2011
Question of the day:
What other tools do you use instead of PowerPoint to tell your stories?
 Facebook is promising improvements to Pages that include: better communication, more opportunities for expression, improved relevancy…and it’s not even Christmas!
Want the official Facebook explanation? Here you can also preview the changes and get started using them.
For all the details around Facebook pages, take a peek here
Questions of the day
Will these changes change how you use pages? If so, how?
Happy 2011 everyone!
This is the time of year when many of us make promises, set goals, create that list of resolutions for the year to come. As leaders, what we do and how we do it influences so many. During this time of reflection we have a new opportunity to take the first steps in creating lasting change. Now’s the time to reflect, look ahead and create a plan that plays to our strengths, minimizes or overcomes our weaknesses and sets us, and our organizations, up for a great year ahead.
How many of these are on your list or resolutions for 2011?
1. I will work less.
2. I will work more.
3. I will spend more time with family and friends.
4. I will delegate more.
5. I will develop a succession plan.
6. I will try new things.
7. I will take risks.
8. I will experiment.
9. I will examine what we do, how we do it and why.
10. I will work harder.
11. I will work smarter
12. I will take vacation time.
13. I will trust those I work with.
14. I will clearly communicate my expectations.
15. I will empower people to do their jobs.
16. I will reward and recognize jobs well done.
17. I will say “please” and “thank you”.
18. I will encourage ongoing quality improvements.
19. I will invest in my own professional development.
20. I will promote ongoing learning and development for staff at all levels.
21. I will encourage a culture of innovation and creativity.
22. I will respect the power of ideas.
23. I will celebrate both small and large successes.
24. I will learn lessons from the failures and missed opportunities.
25. I will encourage constant improvements in all that we do.
26. I will embrace new technology and social media and the possibilities they present.
27. I will be a better time manager.
28. I will support some time for play in our work day.
29. I will develop and participate in a personal learning network.
30. I will be a better communicator through the use of new tools, better listening, greater transparency and improved strategic focus.
31. I will be more approachable.
32. I will be honest and respectful in my dealings.
33. I will call people on inappropriate actions or behaviors.
34. I will learn more about the people I work with.
35. I will rediscover my passions both in and outside of work.
36. I will improve my fitness/health and wellness.
37. I will give back to the community and encourage staff to do the same.
38. I will be watchful of our competition and learn what I can from them.
39. I will ensure the company’s history is communicated and revered.
40. I will be customer centric and ensure our people, processes and systems are too.
41. I will develop better ways of listening to our staff, our customers and our partners.
42. I will do my best to meet the needs of all our stakeholders.
43. I will actively promote a sense of community within these stakeholder groups.
44. I will make public appearances and be the face of the organization where required.
45. I will maximize the return on all of our investments, including our people.
46. I will take my role seriously and do it to the very best of my ability.
47. I will be open to feedback, criticism and suggestions for improvement.
48. I will make the tough decisions as fairly as I can.
49. I will teach, coach, and cheer lead.
50. I will move on if it is in the best interest of the company for me to do so.
Photo credit
happy new year 2011 by 1suisse – used under creative commons attribution
I WANT TO WORK HERE… Karl, can ya get me in?
Merry (digital) Christmas to you and yours!
With the adoption of emerging advancements and the use of new tools comes a resulting lexicon.
Here’s a great post from the fine folks at HubSpot explaining some of the terminology associated with blogging.
Question of the day:
What other terms have you learned/coined through your blogging efforts?
Sometimes I forget how lucky I am. I am blessed to know some fabulous people around the world. I had a skype chat yesterday with Bryan Person and we touched on the power of community, the importance of moderation and where this concept of community and conversation is headed for marketing and brands, in particular.
The power of community is here to stay, but it’s the how, when and where people, brands and organizations choose to use this power that will really change the make the difference. Is this a fabulous time to be in marketing, or what? As community and conversations evolve, it’s an exciting adventure for us to find our niche in this dynamic process.
Bryan is a social media evangelist and he’s an interesting and very insightful guy who is not afraid to take action on a new idea. , so in the spirit of building community, I’d like you to meet him. Here’s just a short conversation about one of his key milestones, the development of the social media breakfast.
Questions of the day:
Who in your network is worth introducing around? And, why?
We deal with leadership, we deal with change, we know how tough both can be.
This video is a fabulous illustration of a key component in creating a movement.
Have a watch….the transcript also appears below.
Questions of the day
Are you a lone nut, the first follower, the second follower or one of the crowd?
Everyone has a role in change…what’s yours?
Transcript:
If you’ve learned a lot about leadership and making a movement, then let’s watch a movement happen, start to finish, in under 3 minutes, and dissect some lessons:
A leader needs the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous. But what he’s doing is so simple, it’s almost instructional. This is key. You must be easy to follow!
Now comes the first follower with a crucial role: he publicly shows everyone how to follow. Notice the leader embraces him as an equal, so it’s not about the leader anymore – it’s about them, plural. Notice he’s calling to his friends to join in. It takes guts to be a first follower! You stand out and brave ridicule, yourself. Being a first follower is an under-appreciated form of leadership. The first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader. If the leader is the flint, the first follower is the spark that makes the fire.
The 2nd follower is a turning point: it’s proof the first has done well. Now it’s not a lone nut, and it’s not two nuts. Three is a crowd and a crowd is news.
A movement must be public. Make sure outsiders see more than just the leader. Everyone needs to see the followers, because new followers emulate followers – not the leader.
Now here come 2 more, then 3 more. Now we’ve got momentum. This is the tipping point! Now we’ve got a movement!
As more people jump in, it’s no longer risky. If they were on the fence before, there’s no reason not to join now. They won’t be ridiculed, they won’t stand out, and they will be part of the in-crowd, if they hurry. Over the next minute you’ll see the rest who prefer to be part of the crowd, because eventually they’d be ridiculed for not joining.
And ladies and gentlemen that is how a movement is made! Let’s recap what we learned:
If you are a version of the shirtless dancing guy, all alone, remember the importance of nurturing your first few followers as equals, making everything clearly about the movement, not you.
Be public. Be easy to follow!
But the biggest lesson here – did you catch it? Leadership is over-glorified.
Yes it started with the shirtless guy, and he’ll get all the credit, but you saw what really happened:
It was the first follower that transformed a lone nut into a leader.
There is no movement without the first follower.
We’re told we all need to be leaders, but that would be really ineffective.
The best way to make a movement, if you really care, is to courageously follow and show others how to follow.
When you find a lone nut doing something great, have the guts to be the first person to stand up and join in.
… and now for the compliments suggestions and criticisms
Applause, Applause – What #IABC10 Did Right
1. Great location
2. Warm and welcoming staff and volunteers to provide assistance throughout the conference
3. Fabulous opening ceremonies and Gold Quill Award ceremony
4. Engaging keynote speakers who challenged us to think beyond the business of communications
5. Well orgainized tourist support and dine around options
6. Great pre-conference tours
7. A worthwhile community project
8. Wide variety of global speakers to provide a diversity of perspectives
9. Good selection of topics within each stream
10. Addition of another interactive component (UNconference)
11. Attracted a fabulous group of delegates
Suggestions for #IABC11
1. Repeat unconference concept – expand it to include ANY communications topics and increase the time allotted to it – perhaps the whole first day
2. Provide free wifi everywhere – wifi is the contemporary communicators oxygen (frankly, I’m tired of excuses, if four people running an unconference can arrange for Rogers to step in and provide wifi support with a couple of phone calls and emails a week before the conference, then the conference committee should be able to come up with a viable solution over the course of the next year – and when you do, make sure it’s advertised heavily as it’s lack of availability can be a deal breaker for some delegates)
3. Have online or smart phone app of the conference schedule
4. Embrace a revised format for the conference brochure – it’s old tired and time it was retired
5. Redesign delegate name tags – include email, twitter names, etc….in the delegate name tags, speaker profiles, etc….
6. Continue to provide ways for delegates to connect beforehand (further in advance)
7. Include a greater concentration of hands-on/workshop type sessions
8. Don’t run out of things that are supposed to be included – like coffee and lunch – you know how many people are in attendance, plan for them. Include one for each and if there are leftovers, donate them to a food bank, but don’t run out!
9. Better utilize social media tools to promote the conference AND make it easier for us to promote it to our respective networks– (great start this year though)
10. Add a “Minga” to the agenda- have all delegates concentrate on one key communications issue or world problem and create a number of solutions for it
11. Have opportunities for people to provide feedback at the conference – a speaker’s corner type booth – feedback ambassadors who gather video or audio feedback as sessions finish and in the halls of the conference – give us more opportunities to share our thoughts about the experience or schedule a formal debrief/feedback session (we held one of our own)
12. Provide online feedback forms as well as hard copy forms for session evaluation
13. Record/podcast sessions and share them with conf delegates so that we can see sessions we missed and/or share these ideas with our colleagues back at the office.
14. Needs to encourage a greater sophistication of speaker presentation material – powerpoint with bullets is not engaging and frankly communicators should know better – this approach is powerpoint-less!
15. Create a short video to honour the Gold Quill Winners and play at the closing ceremonies, post it on the web, feature it on YouTube to further promote these folks to the greater IABC community
16. Better promote/communicate the community projects in advance – perhaps even to local media
17. Would love to see a visual at start of the conference showing how many people from what cities in what countries we have attracted to the conference – really show our global diversity
18. Like to see videos/photos/presentation put together that summarizes each conference and gets used from chapter to chapter to encourage attendance the following year – need to have some additional energy demonstrated in marketing this great conference
Question of the day
What would you add?
In addition to the fabulous people, professional sessions, terrific networking opportunities and heaps of fun,here are a few of my views about this year’s conference…
The future looks fabulous!
As communicators we’re a lucky bunch! Our future looks fabulous. It promises to be dynamic, challenging and rewarding. But, to take advantage of the opportunities that await us, we’ll need to actively embrace this dynamic future. In order to remain strategic and relevant we’ll need to better understand our own skills and strengths, we’ll need to embrace new skills, tools and technologies and add them deftly to our tactical toolkits. We’ll need to willingly embrace and respond to the expanding demands that require us to be consultants, change advocates, educators, coaches, publishers, conversation agents and story tellers. And, for those of us who do, we’ll have one key advantage. We’ll actually have a future.
There’s action required
A repeated theme of this conference for me was around Gandhi’s mantra of “Be the change you want to see”. The TorontoTalks was proud to have the opportunity to do just that with our Unconference session. We had an idea, we pitched it and we delivered it. We took action.
Many of this year’s sessions stressed a focus on action. Of course, feedback is fine, dialogue is necessary, but action is what makes the real difference. It creates change. Action is tangible.
Whether it’s everyone focused on achieving one action, as Craig Kielburger’s minga example, or the action is distributed through lots of people, each doing their share to create a small part of something larger, action by one or by many is a what gets things done. As communicators we need to realize that dialogue is great, but dialogue that creates action is better.
Great communications require great courage
We need to have the courage to break out of the traditional communications mold. We need the moxie to venture down new paths. We have to have confidence to challenge the status quo, to champion change, to create new tools, processes and solutions. We need to flex our strategic muscles and stand up for what we believe in, what we know to be good communication practices, to quote Guy Kawasaki, “don’t let the bozos grind you down” – have the courage to rise above them.
Trust has never been more important
As a profession, we’re still juggling the residual implications of the GFC, the challenges of Boomers, Gen X and Gen Ys working alongside each other trying to establish some common vocabulary and practices. Our ongoing reality includes an enduring lack of job security. We’ve faced dramatic change and had to do more with less.
There’s an expectancy for greater transparency in communications. There are more channels to choose from and faster ways of delivering your message. Everyone can have a voice and a broadcast platform,
We are at the highest level ever of distrust within organizations. There are rampant challenges to employee engagement.
To deal with these issues and move productively beyond them, we need to trust. We need to trust our employees, our managers, our leaders, our stakeholders and we need to earn, keep and treasure the trust once it has been established. Organizational engagement, productivity, innovation and evolution all depend on it.
The conference offered lots to applaud, lots to consider and lots to do…
Question of the day:
What were your conference thoughts, themes and takeaways?
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