Use the conference strategically
10th April 2006 by Meryl David, ABC, GAICD
I’m looking forward to the conference in Vancouver. To hearing about strategy and counsel from people whose work I know well - such as Bill Quirke (his book “Making the connections at work” is my bible at work) and Jim McNamara (who is known all round the Asia-Pacific region as the guru of media measurement) - and from people that I’ve never encountered before. I’m excited about hearing from Louis van der Merwe about “Scenario-based strategy” - not only because his leadership centre is based in the country of my birth but because his topic is important to strategic communicators.
I’ve been attending IABC conferences regularly since 1994. One of the best things about them is meeting people who live in other countries like Bill and Louis in person. They give a sense of the diversity in our communication community but also of the universal nature of the situations we face on a day-to-day basis in our work. In my view, strategic communication is about applying common sense to the process of determining how you want to reach your organisational and communication goals but the first step is to be able to recognise common sense.
That’s something that IABC’s accreditation process keeps on reminding me about. As a porfolio grader, I see many examples of other people’s projects and am constantly amazed at how often people overlook the basics in favour of, say, a “creative approach”.
Being strategic and creative in your solutions is of no use if you can’t implement them effectively. So it’s really valuable to hear other speakers present their case studies. They constantly remind me that the basics must be there otherwise the solution has less value - perhaps none at all. So I am going back again for more of the same - the chance to use the IABC conference strategically to move me along another step in my professional life - and also to get some great new ideas from my communication heroes. See you there!
April 11th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
I’m attending the conference in Vancouver as I’m sick of people telling me I missed “the best ever conference”. While I’ve been to a lot of IABC international conferences over the years, it’s the few that I didn’t attend that people told me “you should have been there - it was incredible”. I’ve heard this about Toronto, Los Angeles and the last one in Vancouver.
In fact the last Vancouver conference was popular not only because of the content (and I still refer to David Clutterbuck’s great presentation I managed to get when he did a live video-telecast from the Conference to IABC members in Australia) but also because I head that “Vancouver was a great place to visit”. So I’m not going to miss out this time. I’ve even had my airline ticket booked since last June.
Naturally Meryl, like you I’ll be interested to see how many people can get out of bed early enough for a 7.15am think tank on the first morning. But at least my session is about “getting a seat at the table” rather than the sensitive issue of ethics!
My tip to attendees is to chat to anyone and everyone. IABC conferences are the friendliest you can attend. You never know who you’ll hit it off with. I’ve met some amazing people who I’ve stayed in touch with for many years. Naturally the formal events help you meet people, but sometimes you just have to say “Hi” (or G’Day if you come from where I come from)and introduce yourself.
The best conference tip I learned at the first orientation session I went to in Dallas in the early 90s is to get up and leave if a concurrent session is not to your liking. We Aussies would not normally do this, but it’s great advice - there are so many good sessions to attend.