2010 Ragan Corporate Communicators Conference

Ragan Corporate Communicators Conference
Next month I’m giving two presentations at the 2010 Ragan Corporate Communicators Conference in Detroit, MI. It’ll be my first ever visit to Motown and my first time at this conference. The event is hosted by General Motors.

I’ll be podcasting interviews with attendees and presenters and grabbing some video with my Flip video camera to post to YouTube. It all fits with the theme of my own workshop, scheduled for 3:30 – 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday May 5:

Speechwriting in the age of social media: Magnifying the impact of a speech to increase your reach

Social media add exciting new options to the traditional speechwriting toolkit. From researching audience interests to developing speech content, tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and blogs can save you time and make your speeches more compelling—if you know how to use them.

Speechwriters can now leverage social media to greatly improve the value of their services in the planning, preparation and scripting of a speech. Then, once the speech is written, social media can magnify its impact beyond the confines of the auditorium.

After attending this session, you will know:

  • How to identify trending topics that will grab an audience’s interest
  • Where to find facts, opinions and stories to include in the speech
  • How to create buzz in advance of a speaking event using blogs, Facebook and Twitter
  • The risks and rewards of engaging an audience in an online conversation—while the presenter is on-stage
  • How to leverage the viral power of podcasts and video to reach a global audience

A full preview is available at this Presentation Home Page.

On the second day of the event I’m giving a presentation from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

What can go wrong in executive communications: Common mistakes and how to avoid them

It’s sometimes the logistical minutiae that cause irreparable damage to executive speeches. From scheduling conflicts to malfunctioning equipment, a presentation can bomb for any number of reasons. You’ll hear about a number of improbable and unexpected (even hilarious) ways in which things have gone wrong for hapless executives and threatened the careers of their communications staff. You’ll then learn ways to avoid these embarrassments, including:

  • Why it’s your responsibility to sweat the details
  • A range of best practices to avoid an onstage melt-down
  • Safeguards that help prevent product demos from crashing
  • The value of checklists and standard operating procedures
  • Ways to recover from the inevitable mistakes

Again, a full preview is available at this Presentation Home Page.

Feedback and Ideas Needed

I’m eager to hear from anyone with comments on how to focus these two presentations. Go to the presentation home pages and leave me your suggestions; things you’d like to hear me cover (especially if you happen to be going to the event); war stories I can include and even witty items for my Top 10 List on “Things a client does not want to hear from a Speechwriter the night before a presentation”. (Things like “Boy, you should have been here for Obama’s talk last night, now HE was good.” – you get the idea…)

Follow the conference on Twitter at #ragangm

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