iabcUK

Update and question - What conference have you spoken at recently?

Hi everyone,
I'm just sending out an email update to all IABC UK members in a minute so I've done a quick recap below of some of my comments. I also posted a question in there where I asked people to answer this question on the blog: 'What conferences have you spoken at recently?' I have this big idea about asking our members to promote IABC when they do presentations about best practice at external conferences. I facilitated Marketing Week's Employee Engagement Summit last March and I found it was a perfect opportunity to talk to a captive audience about the benefits of IABC and membership. I'm hoping to inspire some others out there - because we'd really like to grow our chapter to 250 by June (we're at 193 right now). See below for our big event on 17 Jan.

Recap of my update to IABC UK members:

* Happy New Year and welcome to an exciting winter season for IABC UK.*

Looking to act on your 'career' New Year's resolutions? This winter's schedule has three big events that will make the most of your membership:
* networking at Member Introduce Member - 17 January
* job prospects at New Year, New You - 22 Feb
* inspirational self-discovery at Personality Profiles - 29 March.
http://uk.iabc.com/pages/events.html

'Member Introduce Member' in London on 17 Jan is a first for us. We're acting on feedback that members and prospective members want to know how to get the most out of IABC and talk about hot topics with forward-thinking, influential people. IABC Member John Smythe will talk about employee engagement followed by a light buffet and networking. We hope to see you and your friends there. Members please sign up by 16 January: http://uk.iabc.com/pages/Events/MemberParty.html
Print or send the invite to your guests: http://uk.iabc.com/pages/events/guest_invite.pdf  Guests rsvp to Sharron@fonhouse.co.uk

Since my last update, the UK Board has continued to amaze me and here are just a few highlights: Eurocomm, chaired by President-Elect Andrew Riley, was a smashing success. Marketing head Kevin Keohane's branding work is bringing us some great new thoughts. And thanks to wise spending of the Board and Finance head Ellen Coomber, our 17 Jan event is a low-cost one for members and free for prospects. We are also sponsoring two Board members to go San Diego for the Leadership Institute on 25 January. It's an important investment that will strengthen us in years to come. While there, we'll give $1000 to the IABC Research Foundation. We've also applied for five chapter management awards this year, so wish us luck.

I hope I'll see you at one of the events before March as that's when I go on maternity leave and Andrew Riley will take over as president. At least you'll be able to find me easily - just look for the large bump in front. Although I'll be bringing a membership prospect to the world, he won't be quite ready to volunteer for a while. So this new year, I'd like to hear from IABC UK members about any outcomes you'd like to get as a volunteer and I'll help you find an opportunity. Best regards, Amy

Collaboration for busy communicators

The IABC UK Board has started to use an online collaborative tool/website to share documents, messages, to-do lists. The main idea behind it was to alleviate the large number of e-mails going around with important documents attached, that may or may not have copied in everyone, and that are difficult to locate when you need them.  Sound familiar?

There some amazing, easy-to-use, inexpensive (or free) tools out there:  BaseCamp, Zoho Projects and ActiveCollab. 

Basically, with a very simple set-up (it took me 5 minutes and less than £5), you can give teams of people access to a secure website where they can post documents, messages, to-do lists, milestones, or write and edit collaboratively.  There is a built-in e-mail alerting function - so when you post something new, you can send a message to other members to go and look at it on the site.  It's all very logical and civilised.

These collaborative tools/sites have been very popular within the geek tech community for a while now.  More and more communication professionals have begun using them as well, which is great because they are an excellent example of a new generation of web tools (notice I don't say web 2.0), which are applicable to all audiences and easy to use, (no matter how un-tech savvy you are). 

If any of our IABC members (or blog readers) would like to share their thoughts or experiences using these any of these tools from a communicator's perspective - we'd love to hear from you!

Praise for our blog

Our young blog has received praise from across the Atlantic... Judy Jones, president of the IABC New York chapter mentions us in NY IABC Chatter:

Just wanted to clue you in on a lovely conversation that's going on across the pond.  Eva, by way of IABC UK, is maintaining that chapter's blog. It's got lots of interesting features (I've got blog envy!) but what I enjoy the most is the friendly approachable tone, making it a pleasant stop for that chapter's membership.

Well done! And keep on communicating -

Thanks Judy!  We've been a bit quiet the past month - a bit too quiet.  You've inspired us to get back to the keyboard. 

Our members in the UK should take a look at Judy's blog as well.  There's a lot on there, (she's been writing it since April 2005). 

I was particularly interested in her recent piece entitled Credibility + Transparency = Employee Communications, and for something a bit more critical - Is the party over?, which discusses why employee communication feels "as deflated as last week’s birthday balloon," and which contains an inspired rant:

"While [unimaginative] leadership culture continues, employee communications will remain reaction and transaction oriented, painting Potemkin villages in the sky for staff - for which employees are supposed to be grateful."

Brilliant stuff!

As always, we would love to hear from our members.  What do you think of the blog?  Do you agree with Judy? Is there anything you would like to add? Or, any suggestions?  All comments are greatly appreciated.

London sun, Intranets and new IABC members

A rare sunny autumn afternoon in London, and newest members to the UK IABC joined some Board members for at a lively welcome lunch last Friday (15 September 2006).

Thanks to the typical London Underground fiasco I arrived late, and didn't get a chance to speak to everyone.  Thankfully, I did arrive just in time for the first course!

I had a brief chat with Hillary Scarlett who runs an independent internal communications consultancy, Scarlett Associates, and Val Finch who works for The Writer.

I also met Tamra Rule from Ernst & Young who recently moved to London from Sydney, and joins the UK Chapter as an existing IABC member.

Dan Gray, another new member, has decided to take a career break to pursue an MBA. He is hoping that the added insight into business management and strategy will enhance his abilities as a senior communicator.

Most of our new members cited access to other communication professionals as their main reason for joining.

At my end of the table there was much discussion about Intranets. 

It is always a pleasure to see the relief that crosses people's faces when they realise that every Intranet is a mess - not just theirs!  Anyone who has worked at the same organisation for a long time will naturally believe that the world has moved on, and it is only their Intranet that is falling apart.  Unfortunately, save a few very lucky/progressive or small organisations, the dismal state of digital internal communications is prolific. (Don't even get me started on all-employee e-mails!!)

Now, if you work for the BBC, you probably don't have this perspective since their Intranet is renowned for being one of the best.... 

Chris Hipwell, another one of the IABC’s new members, has spent most of his career at the Beeb, so he will be shocked to see what the rest of us have had to put up with!  Chris currently works as an Internal Communication Partner at White City, but is looking for new career opportunities.  Chris's told me his ideal role would be to managing communications for the London Olympics.   If any of our members has any Olympic connections, please do let us know.

My apologies to the other new members who I didn’t get a chance to speak to, or who weren’t able to attend:

Debbie Bragger from Beetlenut, Maria Brookes from Grainger Trust, Sarah Robinson from BP, Mike Pounsford from Couravel, Joanne Lilley and Rachel Clarke from Ernest & Young, Andrew Hyde from Siemens, and Jacky Freer from Shell.

Please leave a comment with your interests or motivation for joining the IABC, so we can help raise your profiles as well.

After lunch Ellen Coomber and I had a coffee and chatted about how friendly and interesting IABC members are.  We must thank Marc Wright and his volunteers for arranging such an enjoyable event.  (Sorry I didn't get a photo of you!)

IABC Resurgent

We sat in the room in Whitehall favoured by former Chancellors of the Exchequer for the annual AGM of the IABC.  It was an historic occasion.  Sir David Varney, Chairman of an organisation (HMRC) that collects money at a rate that makes Bill Gates look like a VP of Trooter Inc, talked about how he engaged people behind the mission of his organisation.  OK, he's a civil servant - but he got here via running Shell, British Gas and O2.  So he probably could tell us a thing or two about leadership. 

But the historic bit came - not from Sir David - but from the IABC.  The Association that represents corporate communicators around the world appeared confident, successful, and determined not just for the UK, but for the whole of Europe.  So thanks to Eleanor Curtis, outgoing President, Russell Grossman who hosted the event, and Amy Moser who takes over as Chair, for launching the next 12 months of IABC with a brio, style and a confidence that made me feel convinced that this is an association that is going to kick awareness, attitudes and actions in the year ahead.

Eleanor quoted Eisenhower:  "You can achieve anything as long as you don't mind who takes the credit" 

IABC UK is just that.

But the historic bit came - not from Sir David - but from the IABC.  The Association that represents corporate communicators around the world appeared confident, successful, and determined not just for the UK, but for the whole of Europe.  So thanks to Eleanor Curtis, outgoing President, Russell Grossman who hosted the event, and Amy Moser who takes over as Chair, for launching the next 12 months of IABC with a brio, style and a confidence that made me feel convinced that this is an association that is going to kick awareness, attitudes and actions in the year ahead.

Eleanor quoted Eisenhower:  "You can achieve anything as long as you don't mind who takes the credit" 

IABC UK is just that.

welcome to our digital world

Well, last night at the IABC Board meeting at Enterprise IG in Clerkenwell, everyone was pretty wowed with Eva's unveiling of the new web site and this blog.

Eleanor, who was sitting next to me, kept tapping my shoulder in wonder. There were all kinds of ideas on how we could attract new members and tag articles using del.icio.us.

We even about using the blog to market Eurocomm, our upcoming conference on 13 - 14 November in the lovely city of Dublin. It's like a whole new digital door has opened up for us!

Amy

Soft blog launching

As a little experiment, I am not letting anyone know about this blog until the next UK Chapter Board meeting in mid-September.  I am wondering how long it will take for the first visitor to arrive... or if anyone visits at all!

A Technorati link will probably help move things along....

If you have found this site - please leave me a message and let me know how you stumbled upon it, and whether you have heard of the IABC.

I'm very curious to see if we'll have any curious visitors.