IABC - International Association of Business Communication, Wellington, New Zealand

Join us for a pre-Christmas knees up at Wellington’s famous Backbencher pub, where ‘The Nation’ presenter Sean Plunkett will once again be our special end of year speaker.

Fresh from another fruitful year of political debate, investigations and interviews, Sean will download his thoughts on the eventful year that was 2010.

Date: Wednesday, 1 December

Time: 5.15pm

Venue: The Backbencher pub, Moleworth St (upstairs bar)

Price: FREE to IABC members, $20 to non-members (non-members pay at the door)

Please let us know ASAP if you will be able to attend. There will be free drinks and nibbles until the money runs out, so don’t be late….

Click here to register

It’s that time of year when everyone in management gets a bit more squinty-eyed looking at their budgets. One particularly stubborn challenge can be the ballooning costs of proprietary software licences, which consume IT budgets before breakfast …

Former IABC Wellington President Simon Pleasants, reporting on IABC Wellington’s latest event, captures some of the highlights.

Chris Hall, IABC Chief Information Officer

IABC Wellington members and guests last week hosted IABC Chief Information Officer Chris Hall, over here from IABC World Head Office in San Francisco, at the Technology on a Shoestring event.

Chris suggests amongst other things:

• A full suite of office software — wordprocessing, spreadsheets, presentations etc: www.openoffice.com
• Manipulate all sorts of images with a Photoshop emulator: Gimp (for power users) or Irfanview (lighter weight)
• Create portable document format files with pdfcreator instead of Adobe Acrobat
• Stop that RAM-munching malware with Malwarebytes: http://www.anti-malware-2010.org/
• Get a multi-located team working together better with online collaboration tools … Chris mentioned Basecamp is useful, but there’s a small monthly charge.
• More happy delving in the cornucopia of geeky delight that is the open source community at Sourceforge.

Read more »

Our first Forum of 2010 promises an unmissable insight into how a small New Zealand industry organisation used smart tactics to successfully take on one of the world’s leading newspapers.

Last September, the New Zealand seafood industry woke up to a front page story in the New York Times which questioned the sustainability of New Zealand’s hoki fishery. It became the most read NYT story of 2009.

The online version of the story - on the most popular news site in the world - contained a link to the hoki species page on the New Zealand Seafood Industry Council’s website. This seemingly insignificant connection was the opportunity the Council needed to mitigate the story’s impact. Rather than enter the usual accusation-response cycle of news reporting, the industry chose tactics which garnered praise from media commentators around the world.

New Zealand Seafood Industry Council Communications Manager Sarah Crysell will talk about how the Council managed a critical media event in a multi-million dollar market place and the importance of understanding peer media and its emerging role in ‘the news’ industry.

When: Wednesday 24 February, 5.15 pm start
Where: The Wellesley Club, 2 Maginnity Street
What: Drinks and nibbles, AGM, Sarah’s presentation, more drinks and nibbles
How much: $20 members, $50 non-members
Register now (registrations close Friday 19 February.

Sarah’s presentation will be preceded by a short Annual General Meeting, when outgoing President Shona Brown will report on the year and a new board will be elected. Nominations to the new board must be received by 19 February 2010.

New mobile technology allows people to be completely connected with all their contacts and information sources without sitting at a computer all day. New smart phones and netbooks are taking off in popularity, websites are optimised for mobile devices and Twitter groups are bypassing website communications entirely.

Where does all this leave communications managers when they’re asked to advise the boss on how to adapt to this changing communications environment? How can we measure the progress of our efforts in the mobile environment?

Stuart Wilson from Modica understands what’s possible with mobile technology. He will introduce the topic and provide some interesting case studies on this powerful new technology.

Click here to register

Don’t miss this rare chance to hone your strategy development skills with a world-leading communications practitioner!

Lorri Lennon has an ‘IABC-recommended’ listing as an Accredited Business Communicator (ABC) on the IABC’s International Speakers Bureau.

Lorri Lennon (ABC)

She is a communication strategist at Business Interconnexions, a Sydney-based consultancy that she founded in 2006.

Her extensive experience includes more than 22 years as a trusted communication advisor to organisational leaders in Australia, South Africa and the Middle East. She has worked for blue-chip companies such as GE Capital, Gold Fields, Billiton, Gencor, Alusaf, Alba and Comalco.

She was Head of Group Internal Communication with Westpac Banking Corporation, where she established a successful in-house communications consultancy based on fee-for-service principles. Within two years the consultancy grew from one to 60 people, and drove a 23 percentage point improvement in employee commitment over five years.

Lorri has been awarded three consecutive IABC Gold Quill Awards of Excellence.

For more on Lorri and her work, see http://www.businessinterconnexions.com.au/

This interactive master class delivers the following benefits:

• Skills and knowledge in applying a performance-based and outcome-focused approach to your communications.

Training in a simple seven-step methodology for developing a communication strategy that delivers measurable results.

A CD of templates to map out a well-defined implementation plan in a ready-reference format.

The chance to interact with fellow communication professionals and develop hands-on experience.

A copy of Lorri’s new book Tactics in a Box: 101 ways to communicate with employees. It’s a 248-page ‘how-to’ manual that puts a unique collection of ideas, tips and techniques at your fingertips.

 
Date: Friday 9th October
Time: 9 am – 5 pm
Venue: Crossways Community Trust, 6 Roxburgh Street, Mt Victoria

Prices:
Earlybird – members $399, non-members $499 – register by 14 September
Standard – members $499, non-members $599 – register by 2 October

The day includes delizioso catering from La Bella Italia! Morning tea, lunch and wine/nibbles to finish – please let us know if you have special dietary requirements.

Click here to register

Up to a quarter of your organisation’s staff might not care about the future of the organisation and aren’t prepared to put in any extra effort at work. Register now to hear from three IABC speakers who can help you help your managers turn this around.

Employees’ engagement is one of the most important forces behind how successful organisations are. Engaged employees are committed to the organisation, they find their jobs satisfying, they take pride in their work and they will go the extra mile.

Organisations with large numbers of engaged employees are also more resilient and productive, they retain staff more easily and their customers are more satisfied with the service they get.

Surveys by Gallup and JRA are becoming more common, and regularly tell employers that significant numbers of employees — often as many as a quarter — aren’t engaged at all. It’s no wonder more and more organisations are turning their minds to ensuring their employees are engaged with their workplace, whether it’s at times of crisis or uncertainty, or during business as usual.

As organisations look at ways of increasing engagement, they will turn to their communications staff for advice and support.

IABC has brought together three people with significant experience inside organisations, who can give us tried-and-true pointers and techniques on working with managers to increase staff engagement.

This is not about change communications; it’s about the day-to-day relationships that help organisations reconnect with their staff.

Presenters

Anna Kominik — Anna is a founding partner of Wellington consultancy, Ideas Shop, and is a specialist in strategic internal and external communications and change management. Anna was internal communications manager at the New Zealand Rugby Union, and Head of Internal Communications and Head of Sponsorship for Telecom New Zealand.

Mike Shatford — Mike is General Manager of Communications at the Ministry of Social Development, and before that he was the Director of Public Relations at the New Zealand Defence Force. Mike served in military for 20 years, and has significant experience in change communications and maintaining engagement in large, diverse organisations.

Brighid Kelly — Brighid is Corporate Services Group Director at Te Papa, and before that, has held roles as Project Management Practice Manager, IT Consultant, Capability Development Manager and Head of Organisational Development. She has worked in the forestry, banking and telecommunications industries. Brighid will bring a strong people management and organisation development perspective to the discussion.

Event details

Thursday 27 August 2009
3.30 Coffee/tea
3.45 Start of forum
5ish Wine, nibbles and networking
5.45 Event finishes

Location

Railway West Wing - Room RWW315 (Pipitea Campus)
Entrance to left of Wellington Railway Station main entrance. Go to 3rd floor

Costs and registration

• $50 for IABC members
• $75 for non-members

Click here to register now