IABC Café

One of the stops on my recent trip was Cape Town, South Africa, for  the African Regional Conference.  I heard a number of good speakers today, but one in particular impressed me.

She is Janine Lazurus, a former journalist, current media consultant.  She offered a simple formula to handle crisis situations.  I thought in today’s climate, this might be useful.  It has three parts:

–Connect emotionally with the audience (”We are deeply sorry about the impact on people’s lives that our actions have caused”)

–Refer back to the past (”This current situation is unusual for our company.  We have a very good record in XXX)

–Refer to the future  (”At this time we are taking the following steps to ensure that this situation does not happen again.”)

I found this to be a simple, yet effective approach to communicating in difficult times.

I just returned from a 10 day trip that included visits to the Heritage Region Conference in Hartford, CT, the Africa Conference in Cape Town, South Africa, and the Tanzanian chapter in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.  Many new thoughts and ideas to share with you.

Barb Gibson is good about blogging while she is on the road, but I find it challenging.  For one thing, I am usually busy with events or presentations.  For another thing, in some places in the world, internet connections are a hit and miss affair.

In the interest of not neglecting my blogging duties while I plow through my inbox, I thought I would share something I read at the museum in the Cradle of Humankind north  of Johannesburg.   It is this:

“There are no passengers on the spaceship earth; we are all crew.” 

                                                                                  Marshall McLuhan

I am in Hartford, CT, right now at the Heritage Region Conference.  I flew here on U.S. Airways.

This is the first time in awhile that I have flown on U.S. Airways, which means it is the first time I have flown on an airline that charged me for water, coke and coffee.

I understand the business reason that they did this, but I confess, it really annoyed me.  In fact, it annoyed me so much that on my layover, I bought water in the airport, which cost me more, just so I would not have to buy a beverage from U.S. airways.  I think providing water, soft drinks and coffee should be part of the price of the ticket.

Now, I realize that some people may think that IABC charges for too many of its programs. They want the conference or the manuals to be part of the price of membership. They want it all bundled together.  I wonder, though, whether they would like to pay the membership fee that we would need to charge to cover ALL our programs.

Other members would like us to do some unbundling, for example, offering an internet only membership.

There are examples of associations pricing membership both ways.  IABC is trying to walk a middle ground.  We include some programs for all members–CW, CW Bulletin, the website with the online library, eXchange, MyComm, the Job Centre.  Then there are others that only some members use–the World Conference, Small Conferences, Web Seminars and Teleseminars, and Knowledge Products–that have an additional price tag.  Our rationale is walking the middle ground allows us to maintain affordable dues.

We are not going to become the U.S. Airways of associations.  Instead, we are going to try to add as much as we can to the bundle.

And I am going to be sure that I have my own bottle of water when I step on the plane tomorrow.