Why attending the IABC World Conference was the right decision

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Mark Schumann

I’m in New York attending the International Association of Business Communicators’ 2013 World Conference (#IABCwc13). It’s a big commitment of time. And an expensive trip. And proving to be well worth it.

Why?

The chance to see thought provoking presentations by Mark Schumann, Shel Holtz, Katie Paine, and Richard Edeleman. And that’s only in the first day and a half of the conference. Still two days to go – and many other promising presentations ahead.

Shel Holtz

The opportunity to renew relationships with old friends and meet people in real life whom I’ve come to know online. IABC draws people from around the globe to its conferences. This international focus makes its World Conference a truly global affair. It seems like the whole world comes together here.

Yes, I’m happy I came to the IABC World Conference. And if you didn’t but are thinking about attending next year, remember this post. I promise you, it’s worth the effort. A great conference. A great learning experience. A great networking opportunity. And this year, the chance to be in New York. A great city that never gives up.

IABC launches online social media workshop for communications professionals

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International Association of Business Communicators

Professional communicators who want to extend and deepen their knowledge of  social media will be interested in a new online social media workshop being offered for the first time this month by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC).

The course, Develop and implement an integrative approach to social media, will be delivered through online training modules that participants can review at a time convenient to themselves combined with live sessions with the instructors. The program material has been prepared by Shel Holtz and me – and we will be the live instructors for the first set of sessions.

We’ll start with an orientation session on January 9 during which Shel and I will outline the course content and answer questions from participants. Following this orientation, the first two of eight learning modules will be available to participants to review at their convenience. Then we begin the weekly live sessions on January 19 and they will run through February 23.

Each module will focus on a different aspect of social media:

  • Module 1: Social media’s role in communications and PR
  • Module 2: The key categories of social media
  • Module 3: Monitoring social media
  • Module 4: Strategizing and measuring social media
  • Module 5: The core skills communicators need to acquire
  • Module 6: Social media behind the firewall
  • Module 7: Adapting corporate culture to embrace social media
  • Module 8: Social media during a crisis

So, in just eight weeks, you will acquire up to date knowledge on how social media is being integrated into corporate communications and the best practices you can apply in your organization.

Does this sound like something you can use? If so, click over to the IABC site to register for the IABC’s social media online workshop.

This will be only my second experience offering online training. So, I’m very much looking forward to sharing what I know with the participants and learning from their feedback.

 

Why Communicators Must Give a Twit: IABC Golden Horseshoe PD Event

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iabc-golden-horseshoe

I’ll be speaking about social media next Tuesday morning at a professional development event organized by the IABC Golden Horseshoe Chapter. The Golden Horseshoe Chapter is the newest IABC chapter in Ontario. So, it should be a good opportunity for communicators from Hamilton, Halton, the Niagara Region,  Haldimand-Norfolk and Brant County to meet one another and get a sense of the benefits of an active IABC Chapter.

I’ve been asked to present a hands on demonstration of social media tools. The room will have a WiFi connection and I plan to show people how to set up persistent searches using Google Blog Search and Twitter search. I’ll also show everyone how I use Radian6 to track references to Thornley Fallis and issues relevant to us. I’ll make sure that everyone is set up with a working Twitter account, iGoogle profile and subscriptions to RSS feeds in Google Reader. That’s the nuts and bolts.

Of course, I’ll also talk about how social media should be introduced into an organization only if the culture is ready for it and if the leadership understands that the organization will be served only if the community first is served.

If you are in the Hamilton-Niagara region next Tuesday morning and want to talk about social media, why not join us at the IABC Golden Horseshoe Social Media PD Event. You can find the details on the IABC Golden Horseshoe Website and register at EventBrite to attend.

I hope to see you there.

IABC World Conference rescheduling is a disservice to Canadian IABC members

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Here’s an unfortunate situation. The International Association of Business Communicators has rescheduled its annual World Conference to the same weekend as Canadian Public Relations Society National Conference.

The CPRS announced some time back that the 2009 CPRS National Conference will be held in Vancouver June 7-9, 2009. Now, I’ve received word in the IABC’s member newsletter that the IABC World Conference has been rescheduled to overlapping dates, June 7-10, in San Francisco.

Canadian Public Relations SocietyLike many Canadians, I belong to both the IABC and the CPRS. The principal benefit I receive from these associations is the opportunity to attend their professional development conferences. By attending these conferences, not only do I have a chance to keep abreast of the latest thinking about communications, but I also have a chance to meet and discuss these ideas with other communication professionals from across Canada and North America.

Scheduling these conferences to occur on the same weekend is a terrible waste of resouces and potential.

In this case, it appears to me that the party responsible for this conflict is the IABC, which changed its conference date. Now, some might say that this doesn’t matter. They may see IABC as primarily a US-based organization. But to those, take a look at the number of active IABC chapters in Canada, including the largest IABC Chapter in the world, Toronto.

So, here’s my call to the leaders of the IABC: Serve your members better. Coordinate your conference dates with the CPRS so that your Canadian members can have the opportunity to participate in all of the professional development conferences that you offer.

Update:

I wasn’t alone in my annoyance at IABC’s move. PRWeek reports that “Derrick Pieters, director of communications, Department of Justice Canada, Prairie Region and the North in Edmonton, and CPRS president, said they were surprised, and not initially warned, of the date change. “It is unfortunate there is a conflict, but it was just an unfortunate set of circumstances as to how it happened,” Pieters commented. The article quoted me as saying that “the IABC, as the bigger, international organization, has ‘not played nice in Canada.'”