This Bird Has Flown
How do you reach out to lapsed members? Statistically, they’re by far the best prospects to become current members. Don’t count them out. Here are some tips for keeping in touch with them and welcoming them back as current members.

       Make sure lapsed members know about the member months in which the reinstatement/application fee is waived. IABC holds two international member months each year, and each chapter can pick a third.

       Make sure they know about IABC’s newest benefits. Marketplace, eXchange, and SR link are all new member benefits that may have appeal that the other benefits don’t.

       Show them the note written specifically for employers about why IABC membership is valuable for their employees and their company: Why Your Employees Should Be IABC Members.

       Make sure you invite them to every event and send them chapter publications (if they’re not specifically for members). Perhaps even hold a special event in which former members pay the member price to attend-if only to reconnect with their old buddies.

       Ask chapter leaders and even chapter members to reach out to former members they know and invite them back.

       Hold a focus group of former members to find out why they no longer belong to IABC. Engage them in the process of making IABC a better fit for their needs.

As a communicator, you’ve acquired a portfolio of skills and abilities that you use successfully in your current job or projects. However, the job or projects you are working on today may not be what you will be working on in five years. Most of us will have multiple jobs or specialties throughout our careers.

Given that you want to progress, challenge yourself professionally and achieve your goals, you must manage this portfolio to ensure it is current, practical and useful throughout your career. The following are six steps to help you direct your professional development.

1. Expand your base of knowledge.
The greater your level of knowledge and abilities, the more options you have. Avail yourself of new opportunities and career directions by acquiring multiple skills and playing multiple roles. While it’s important to be an effective generalist communicator, it’s equally important to develop at least one or two specialties for greater flexibility and leverage. You will limit your opportunities if you confine yourself to a single specialty or industry niche.

Find out what expertise and skills are in demand now—and what will be in demand in the future. Identify trends that are influencing the need for certain expertise. Study how the communication sector is evolving. Find out what work your colleagues are doing that interests you.

Try to acquire, every year, at least one new area of expertise that is important to your career.

2. Create a professional development plan.
To manage your career effectively, you need to manage your professional development.

This means identifying your current areas of expertise and ability, determining what you need to improve or expand, and developing an action plan to do so. The following chart can help you prioritize this process:

       List your career goals for the next few years. To help you get started, refer to the business and personal goals you identified in Chapter : How Do I Create a Business Plan?

       Identify the skills, knowledge and experience required to achieve these goals.

       Identify the gaps between where you are now and where you want to go.

       Determine the actions you must take to acquire or improve this expertise. At this point, it’s helpful to know and apply your learning style so you can create a plan that will appeal to you and be easier to follow. For example, if you learn best by reading, your action plan might include reading books on how to manage databases. If you learn better by doing, you might want to take a course on database management.

       Set deadlines and add these to your time schedule or “to do” list.

If you are having difficulty creating this plan, you may find the assistance of a professional career counselor helpful. Ask your communication colleagues for recommendations.

Once you have created your professional development plan, be sure to evaluate your progress in achieving your goals on a regular basis. Most important, keep going.

3. Market your expertise.
When you develop new expertise, you should advise the people who can benefit from this. Inform your clients and colleagues, and communicate the ways in which your abilities can help to meet their needs.

4. Stay current.
You need to stay current not only with developments related to your areas of specialization and the field of communication, but also with the marketplace and the world generally. What’s happening near you and around you affects your business and your clients. You need to filter this information in the context of your career and the work you do for others.

Tune in. Look, listen, read, ask and talk about business, social, economic, religious, cultural and political developments.

5. Reward yourself.
Professional development is a personal pursuit, therefore you won’t be receiving accolades from others. The ability to derive satisfaction from your accomplishments is an important survival skill for consultants.

You need to nourish and reward yourself. Celebrate your own successes. When you reach a goal in your professional development plan, give yourself a pat on the back by doing something special for yourself.

6. Pursue new opportunities.
If you lose your primary clients tomorrow, you need to be able to replace them—fast.

You must be prepared for new challenges, people and situations.

Pursue opportunities that take you beyond your “comfort zone.” Stretch yourself to change, to try new areas of work. Don’t allow lack of experience to hold you back. Integrate new competencies into your professional development plan. Never stop learning.

This article is an excerpt from The Successful Communication Consultant by Corinne LaBossiere, ABC, APR, available from the IABC Knowledge Centre.

by Les Potter, ABC

A communication plan looks very much like a strategic plan or a marketing plan. Remember, to be called strategic, it must share some of the same elements and methodology of accepted planning formats.

My model for a strategic communication plan contains the following sections:

1.     Executive summary.

2.     The communication process (a description for instructional purposes). Not all decision makers are trained in communication, PR or integrated marketing communication. This section builds the business case for using communication as a strategic management tool. Omit it if your decision makers get it. From my experience, few do.

3.     Background. How did you get to where you are today? What are the major milestones in the organization’s history? What has led the organization to its current situation?

4.     Situation analysis. This includes an analysis of current issues—problems and opportunities— plus an analysis of publics/stakeholders/audiences. This is your research component. Included should be a SWOT analysis, a strategic planning tool that documents strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats the organization faces both now and in the future.

5.     Strategic summary. In this section, you set goals and objectives—the expected outcomes of your communication activities—and formulate your message strategy for each public/stakeholder.

6.     Schedule. This section documents the implementation of your tactics, your specific communication tools and activities that touch each stakeholder.

7.     Budget. Enough said.

8.     Monitoring and evaluation. This section documents how you will monitor implementation and measure success in achieving goals and objectives.

This eight-step model is ideal for an annual communication plan or for a shorter duration plan that deals with a specific issue, such as planning a major trade show or a nonprofit’s annual fundraising event. It also works quite well for a plan containing internal, external and other components, such as some advertising/promotional tactics or community relations activities. The planning model works equally well for internal communication.

In the reality of day-to-day use, you will probably use many of these steps in combination, without using the complete model step for step. That’s okay. The beauty of strategic thinking is just that—you think strategically, that is, you know the purpose of your organization; you examine the environments in which your organization operates and the issues it faces; and through this systematic analysis, synthesis and evaluation, you develop a plan of communication action to help the organization achieve its mission. You may frequently use only five elements—issues, publics/audiences/stakeholders, message, media and evaluation—in counseling and advising the people you support. If you use them in that order, you are still practicing strategic communication management. You are recognizing the cause-and-effect relationship of communication and the achievement of your organization’s mission. Consider the issues (cause) and what they are making happen (effects), then develop communication activity that will help the organization achieve its goals.

This article is an excerpt from The Communication Plan by Les Potter, ABC, available from the IABC Knowledge Centre.

Note: IABC Tampa Bay is beginning to post regularly about topics generating buzz in the communications world. We’re calling it Hot Topics. If you’ve got a suggestion for a future Hot Topic or want to submit an essay, let us know.

• Manage your professional development
• What does a communication plan look like?

In late 2009 and early 2010, more than 2,500 business communication professionals from around the globe shared their views on these questions in a survey conducted by IABC. The results offer insight into business communicators’ perceptions, actions and interests, providing key lessons about how an association can stay relevant and become even more essential in supporting a professional’s career.

Highlights from the survey findings include:

1.     Business communication professionals take the profession of business communication seriously. People in our profession choose their work early in their careers and commit themselves to stay on top of what the profession needs.

2.     Business communication professionals take being up to date in the profession of business communication seriously, and want to be recognized for their accomplishments.

3.     Business communication professionals believe in the value of membership in a professional association.

4.     Business communication professionals believe content is the deciding factor in why they access a professional association’s products and programs.

5.     Business communication professionals join IABC to advance their careers.

6.     Business communication professionals believe content is the key to deciding to join, and stay with, IABC.

7.     Most business communication professionals believe IABC should invest in content.

8.     Most business communication professionals believe the IABC Research Foundation should invest in content.

9.     Business communication professionals also believe IABC should invest in career development and networking.

10.  Most business communication professionals believe IABC is an effective professional association.

Over the next few months, the IABC executive board will engage volunteers from the association’s chapters and regions—as well as former leaders and key stakeholders in the profession—to continue to examine the findings from the research and to identify short- and long-term steps for the association to pursue.

Read the Executive Summary of the survey for detailed findings and discussion.

Our organization is seeking an experienced public relations professional with a successful track record of engaging with the media and garnering press coverage.  

Job Description

Media Relations: Primary duties include writing press releases, media pitching, managing press coverage/clips and implementing PR campaigns. Liaises with managers, administrators, reporters and other external parties. Researches and writes releases, fact sheets, news pitches, bylined articles, position papers, op-eds, press kits, background information, talking points and other press materials. This position will support increasing press activity – including proactive media outreach and pitches. Identifies and prepares spokespersons for interviews. Maintains company newsroom page.

Public Relations: Supports company PR activities and events. This position will cultivate relationships internally and externally – to include our local media. 

Position Requirements

Education:  BA in Mass Communications, Public Relations, Journalism or related field

Experience:  3-5 years related experience in media relations and public relations within a fast-paced business environment, with the ability to multi-task. Must be media savvy, connected to current industry news events and a self-starter. Creative mind with a track record of generating and implementing new ideas and story angles. Excellent media, PR, writing, proof-reading, editing and pitching skills required. Must be proficient in MS Office products with a high level of proficiency in MS Word.

Other Skills:  Background in public relations and Web/new media experience preferred. Ability to research, read, comprehend and write complex communications. Ability to effectively present information in large and small group environments. Must have excellent communication and interpersonal skills. Analytical skills, Excel and Power Point proficiency a plus. Must have demonstrated multi-tasking skills and be able to work both independently and with a group.  

Interested candidates please submit resume with salary requirements to http://www.realogy.com/careers vacancy #  IRC18562. Try this direct link as well: https://careers.realogy.com/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?akRegionCode=IRC_VIS_VAC_DISPLAY_PAGE&akRegionApplicationId=800&OASF=IRC_VIS_VAC_DISPLAY&OAHP=IRC_EXT_SITE_VISITOR_APPL&transactionid=1145498525&retainAM=N&addBreadCrumb=RP&p_svid=18562&p_spid=484002&oapc=7&oas=XpXFvd1-yL9yhenm3WVuuw..

Excellent benefits: medical, dental, vision, life insurance, paid vacation and holidays, 401K.  EOE.

Through his work as a consultant, writer and seminar leader, Steve Crescenzo has helped thousands of communicators improve both their print and electronic communication efforts. Recognized as one of the nation’s leading experts in employee communications, Crescenzo is the leader of four popular workshops: Strategic Employee Communication Vehicles, Integrating Print and Online Communication Vehicles, The Master Class of Employee Communication, and Creative Communications. 

He is also the author of his popular blog, Corporate Hallucinations and is the host of his podcast, Creative Conversations. Voted number one seminar leader for IABC 2008 and 2009 International Conference, Steve has taught seminars at IABC’s International Conferences since 2001, as well as at numerous IABC chapter and district events throughout America and Europe. 

Suzanne Salvo and her husband/partner Chris are co-owners of Salvo Photography, an international award-winning studio with bases in Italy and the U.S. The Salvos has traveled to over 65 countries on assignments ranging from ad campaigns, annual reports and editorial projects. Their images have been featured in numerous juried exhibitions including FOTOFEST 2008 and can be regularly seen in publications such as Newsweek and the UK Financial Times. At IABC, Suzanne served on the 2003-2004 International Executive Board and she is a past president of IABC/Houston, which named her Volunteer of the Year in 2002. She is the current VP of Growth and Development for IABC Southern Region. Additionally, Suzanne writes the informative on-line column, “Visually Speaking” for CWBulletin, conducts action-packed workshops on photo topics throughout North America, Europe and Asia and is a multiple Gold Quill winner. Suzanne was the recipient of the 2007 IABC Chairman’s Award.

For more info: www.salvophoto.com

For more fun: www.salvoatlarge.blogspot.com

Suzanne on Twitter:@suzannesalvo

Ron Shewchuk, ABC, MC

Ron Shewchuk is one of Canada’s leading communications professionals, with a 20-year track record of delivering positive results. Ron has served in senior positions in corporate public relations, employee communications, marketing, and PR consulting. He is an Accredited Business Communicator (ABC) and in 2002 was named Master Communicator by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), becoming one of only 35 Canadians to be honoured with this designation since it was established in 1980. Ron’s career is marked by innovation and excellence. In the 1980s he was the world’s first public relations consultant to offer his services online, even before the existence of the World Wide Web. His writing talent and progressive approach to employee communications has earned him three Gold Quill awards, and he is a popular commentator and a sought-after speaker on communications issues. Ron is the host of For Your Approval, a blog about employee communications, and the author of Writing and Editing the Internal Publication: Delivering Employee Communications with Impact, Integrity and Style, published by the IABC Knowledge Bank. He currently works as an independent consultant in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Website: http://www.ronshewchuk.com/

Twitter: @ronshewchuk