From Kristi Sanders of PlanYourMeetings.com:

Meetings will never go away. As businesses continue to tighten the bottom line, some meetings will get canceled, consolidated, reduced in size or executed virtually, but people will always need to meet face to face. The way meetings are conducted, however, is going to change. And meeting planners need to stay on top of technological advances, corporate initiatives, budget restrictions, attendee expectations, meeting innovations and organizational goals or risk becoming obsolete. Don’t just adapt; innovate. As a meeting professional, you have more power than you think. In this session, Plan Your Meetings Editorial Director Kristi Casey Sanders will teach you three simple ways you can make a big difference.

Related: See ROISpeakers.com for a free special report on how to maximize the value of your speaker bookings and enhance your meetings.

Posted under Event Management, Planner Tips

photo credit: JeffSands

This blog post is for business leaders, meeting professionals, and others who plan events. At The Speakers Group, clients expect us to offer innovative speaker suggestions to help them make their next event the best ever, and it has become clear that the topic everyone wants to know about today is social media. Social media sessions at conferences – whether breakouts or keynotes – are some of the most-attended and highest-rated, and the subject is in such demand that social media-specific conferences are selling out easily. If you plan events, we hope this post will help you in considering how to integrate social media into your agenda.

In case you haven’t noticed, social media (or new media, or social networking) is everywhere. Blogs. Facebook. LinkedIn. Twitter. YouTube. Flickr. The list of social media tools and applications goes on and on, and it’s multiplying every day. As recently as a few months ago, businesses and professionals were asking, “Is this relevant to me/my organization/my industry/my profession?” It’s hard to question relevance, though, when:

• Facebook alone now claims over 250 million members. It’s estimated that there are another 300+ million people engaged in other social media channels. Odds are, some of those people are your colleagues, employees, customers or prospects. You want to connect with them, right?
• Over the next five years, Forrester Research estimates social media marketing to grow at an annual rate of 34 percent – faster than any other form of online marketing and double the average growth rate of 17 percent for all online mediums. That means social media marketing spending will hit $3.1 billion in 2014. The question is not whether you need to invest in social media marketing, but how do you spend wisely?
• TIME magazine recently featured “10 Ways Twitter Will Change American Business.” Has your business been impacted yet? If it hasn’t already, it’s very likely that it soon will be.

Whether you plan meetings for an association, non-profit, corporation, healthcare organization, Chamber of Commerce, government entity, or institute for higher education…

Whether your meeting objectives are to boost sales, increase employee engagement, build customer loyalty, or improve the quality of healthcare…

Social media is one topic you can’t afford to leave off of your meeting agenda.

No matter your industry, no matter your profession, social media matters. Here are a few examples:

Social Media and Associations

Buzz2009, the first “Social Media for Associations” event was held on July 9 and focused on helping association executives learn social media concepts and strategies that would allow them to:

• Recruit more members
• Energize their events
• Activate their community online
• Engage volunteers by leveraging your social capital
• And much more!

In addition to featuring several social media “expert” speakers, one of the sessions featured a panel discussion with real stories of how associations are implementing social media programs to deepen their connections to existing members. Read this post on SmartBlog for some of the highlights, including examples from the American School Counselor Association, Property Casualty Insurance Association of America, IEEE and CEA.

Social Media and Healthcare

What role does social media play in healthcare? A fascinating one! From Aurora Health Care broadcasting a surgery on Twitter as means of patient education to physicians tweeting and blogging to strengthen the doctor-patient bond, the medical community is finding that there are many relevant applications of social media. (Here’s a blog post about Three Ways Healthcare Brands Can Leverage Social-Media.)

Leading healthcare organizations such as Cleveland Clinic, Duke University Health System, Henry Ford Health System, Mayo Clinic, and Emory Healthcare recently gathered at the Healthcare New Media Marketing Conference in Phoenix to learn and discuss best practices. Watch this short video featured at the conference to see exactly how social media is impacting the healthcare industry:

Social Media and Human Resources

Human resources professionals are especially interested in social media, whether because of the unique challenges it presents for corporate IT policies, or because of the opportunities it presents to increase community and engagement among employees, or because of the potential it holds in attracting and retaining top talent. The topic was explored at the most recent Annual Conference of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and also at  the Social Media for Talent Management Conference in New York and the Innovating Employee Engagement Meets Executing Social Media event in Chicago.

In August, the Advanced Learning Institute’s 26th forum on Internal Branding: How To Use Strategic Communications To Drive Employee Engagement, Build Your Brand, & Impact Your Organization’s Bottom Line, will be held, and among the companies involved are Hyatt Corporation; AAA Northern CA, NV & UT; American Express Canada; Benetton USA; Pitney Bowes; U.S. Department of the Interior; and Booz Allen Hamilton.

Social Media and Government

On one hand, government is all about the people, and social media is where the people are. On the other, government is usually not thought of as being the most forward-thinking in terms of technology. With government budgets being tighter than ever before, though, representatives at the federal, state and municipal levels must find new, more efficient ways to support their constituents over the web. Social media provides that solution, offering a great way to connect and mobilize a community.

The Advanced Learning Institute just held their 11th Forum on Social Media for Government: How To Engage Your Employees And Citizens By Using The Latest Web 2.0 Technologies To Drive Communication Results.

Social Media and Corporations

BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media is an upcoming event that will feature eight case studies of big businesses successfully using social media, including General Mills (How the parent of Betty Crocker, Yoplait, and Pillsbury uses social media), McDonald’s (Social media for internal and external communication), Walmart (Using social media to connect with 200 million customers), and Ford (Sharing your story through social media).

At the previous BlogWell event, Josh Karpf, PepsiCo’s manager of digital communications, shared some insights based on their social media strategies. Read some highlights here.

Social Media and Small Business

Like all businesses, small businesses depend on their customers for survival. What makes small businesses different, though, is that their budgets are more limited than their big business competitors, and they often depend on superior, hyper-personalized customer service to compete with their larger competitors. Social media is valuable on both counts.

Because connecting with customers and prospects is the foundation of all successful social media programs, blogs, forums and social networks allow small businesses to bring the voices of their customers directly into their organizations. And to top it all off, most of these social media tools are free or very affordable. That’s why BusinessWeek columnist Steve McKee says social media is worth a small business’ time.

Recognizing the relevance of social media to small business, The Frederick County Chamber of Commerce in Maryland recently held a full-day social media conference to help business leaders in their community consider whether or not to use social media, and if so, how to use it strategically for maximum effectiveness.

Social Media and Higher Education

You don’t have to look far to see how social media is becoming a focal point for colleges and universities. A recent Mashable.com post highlights “10 Ways Universities Share Information Using Social Media” – among them, to showcase student and faculty work, broadcast events, and create a dialogue with students. An April article in The Chronicle of Higher Education explains why college admissions offices overwhelmingly consider social media important for recruiting students and cites studies that show more institutions are creating blogs (41%) and online social networking profiles (61%). And now students are even learning about social media in the classroom.

In Conclusion

We could go on and on with examples, but what does all of this tell us?

1. Social media has near-universal relevance – it’s hard to find an industry or profession that cannot benefit from either internal or external (or both) applications of social media.
2. There is a craving for wisdom and guidance in navigating the ever-changing, often-overwhelming world of social media – people and organizations are looking for help!
3. If you don’t address social media on your meeting agenda, your attendees are going to turn to another event that does (such as those listed above).
   

As you look to help your attendees by incorporating social media content into your program, we at The Speakers Group are here to help you, having already researched numerous social media practitioners and authorities so you don’t have to. Search the web and you’ll find hundreds, if not thousands of “social media speakers” for consideration, but if you have other things to do, check out 10 Social Media Speakers who are guaranteed to deliver the kind of cutting-edge, proven insights your attendees expect.

Posted under Event Management, Organizational Excellence, Planner Tips, Social Media Speakers

The Speakers Group congratulates Diane Sieg, Denver-based professional speaker and author of STOP Living Life Like an EMERGENCY!, for achieving the National Speakers Association’s Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation. Sieg is one of 30 in the international class of new CSPs honored  on July 19th at the 2009 NSA Convention in Phoenix, Ariz.

“I was first introduced to Diane almost 10 years ago,” said Shawn Ellis, founder and president of The Speakers Group, “and she has become a great friend and one my most-booked speakers in my career. This is a much-deserved honor for her!”

The CSP is the speaking profession’s international measure of speaking experience and skill. Fewer than 10 percent of professional speakers worldwide hold the designation, which is awarded only to accomplished professional speakers with a proven track record of continuing speaking experience and expertise as well as a commitment to ongoing education, outstanding client service and ethical behavior.

“A Certified Speaking Professional is an insurance policy for the meeting planner’s success,” says NSA’s CSP Council Chair, Patrick Donadio. “Hiring a CSP will make a meeting planner’s job easier as speakers who earn the CSP designation give their audiences a proven track record of continuing speaking experience and topic expertise and know how to deliver client satisfaction. A CSP provides a solid place from which to begin your search.”

From the chaos of the emergency room to the calm of her yoga mat, professional speaker, published author, life coach, and certified yoga teacher Diane Sieg shares lifesaving strategies with audiences nationwide. With high energy and life lessons learned from over 20 years working in the ER, Sieg demonstrates how to take care, take charge, and take action in every area of your life!

For additional information or to inquire about booking Diane for your next event, visit her profile page on The Speakers Group’s web site.

Posted under Speaker News, inspirational speakers

photo credit: nextconference

Looking for a social media speaker for your next event? With hundreds of options to choose from, and with new “experts” popping up every day, how do you know who is the best — and more specifically, the best for your event?

Knowing that social media is one of the most in-demand topics for meetings and conferences today, we have scouted books, articles and conferences for leading authorities who meet the following criteria:

1. The individual must be established as a uniquely successful practitioner of social media and/or be frequently called on to share his or her expertise in the field — specifically as it relates to corporate and association social media practices.
2. The individual must have a proven ability to discuss social media in a way that is easily understandable and relevant to each unique audience.
3. The individual must be able to effectively engage the audience (every “expert” who writes an article is not necessarily someone you want on your platform as a speaker).

Based on those criteria, we’re assembling a powerful roster of social media speakers to help you address this highly relevant, in-demand subject at your next meeting or convention. Following are 10 such speakers from our roster to help you get started in your search (in alphabetical order):

Chris Brogan
Co-Author of Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust

Ryan Paddock of Digital Scientists says it best: “Chris Brogan, true to his reputation, is the authority when it comes to helping companies discover and implement social media into their business model. Chris… challenged the attendees to think differently about how to generate ROI in a strict corporate culture using social media and digital tools. His participation and prowess in the field undoubtedly added to the success of the event.”

Scott Klososky
Former CEO of Three Successful Startups; Specialist in Analyzing and Forecasting Technology Trends

Scott Klososky has proven multiple times that by combining technology knowledge with information on social trends, a person can have a huge impact in growing a business. In his presentations, Scott can help audiences understand “Digital Plumbing” (how to make data more valuable by leveraging the business intelligence layer), Social Media (how target and proximity marketing are playing out in the advertising and marketing space), Technology and White Collar Lean (using technology to lower back office and operations costs) and Web 2.0 Tools (Blogs, RSS Feeds, social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook,Twitter, crowdsourcing, other “hot” tools, plus Scott’s 10 favorite websites of the month). After all, he says, “Technology is simply a tool. Without the people who utilize it, there is no value.” Read some of Scott’s insights in this recent Q&A.

David Kralik
Director of Internet Strategy for American Solutions; One of the “Top Ten Changing the World of Internet and Politics”

While qualified to discuss a broad range of issues related to social media, David’s specialty is discussing the benefits of bringing Silicon Valley culture to Washington, DC. (He recently spoke about this during a Policy Talks@Google session which you can watch here.) David asks: What if the government ran on 20% time? David can help governments from the municipal level to the federal level understand how social media can help them tell their stories online, build and engage a following, and communicate with their constituents.

Mike McDerment
Co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks – One of Entrepreneur Magazine’s “100 Brilliant Companies”

FreshBooks, in business since 2004, now serves more than 800,000 people and has more than doubled the size of its staff in the past year. Though the business is 100 percent online, a key factor in their success has been their ability to engage with and get face-time with their customers. Read about FreshBooks As A Social Media Case Study and get a glimpse of the social media insights Mike can offer as a speaker for your audience.

Clayton Morris
Co-host of “FOX & Friends Weekend” and the Technology Show, “Gadgets and Games with Clayton Morris”

Clayton appeared on a panel with Rick Sanchez, Ann Curry, Brian Solis and others at the groundbreaking 140 Characters Conference and shared insights on how social media is changing the world of broadcast news. He is continuously uncovering best practices in social media by speaking with thought leaders such as Jeff Pulver, Robert Scoble and Gary Vaynerchuk, among others — see his chat with Jeff, Robert and Gary about the future of social media on the June 26 episode of Gadgets and Games.

Joe Rotella
Industry Expert on Usability, Web Design and Social Media

People are hearing fantastic stories about successful social campaigns that cost little or nothing to implement, and perhaps you’re considering putting your organization’s toe into the social media marketing pool. But are you really ready? Joe’s expertise can help you get ready. Joe recently spoke about social media and usability at the Ohio Hospital Assocation’s Annual Meeting and Tiffany Himmelreich, Manager of Media & Public Relations at OHA, said, “Attendees were frantically scribbling down pearls of wisdom, which proved to be challenging as they were simultaneously laughing at Joe’s humorous and engaging delivery. We have never received so many compliments about a speaker.”

Chris Sacca
Advisor to Twitter; Former Head of Special Initiatives at Google and Technology Advisor to President Obama’s Campaign

Based on his experience as an advisor to Twitter, and as former Head of Special Initiatives at Google Inc. and as an advisor on Telecommunications, Media, and Technology to President Barack Obama’s campaign, Chris is uniquely equipped to speak about how the Internet, social networks, and social media are being used in business as well as in government and democracy, exploring what it means for both entrepreneurs and citizens.

Andy Sernovitz
Author of Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking

Whenever there’s been an innovation in marketing, Andy Sernovitz has been there. An 18-year veteran of the interactive marketing business, Andy has spent years helping companies learn how to do better marketing. Andy recently delivered the opening keynote presentation at Buzz2009 – dubbed the “Social Media for Associations” event – in Washington, DC, and spoke about the core concepts that drive word of mouth, how social media plays a part, and what associations can do to create buzz around the great work they do. Andy is equally capable of helping corporations adopt best practices in social media, and does just that with his company’s BlogWell: How Big Companies Use Social Media event. Andy can help his audiences learn everything from how to get started, how to get past roadblocks, and how to make their social media programs phenomenal.

Peter Shankman
Authority on PR and Marketing; Creator of the 100k-member-strong Social Media Success: HARO

Peter’s PR and Social Media clients have included the Snapple Beverage Group, NASA, The US Department of Defense, Walt Disney World, The Ad Council, American Express, Discovery Networks, Harrah’s Hotels, and many others. Peter is perhaps best known for founding Help A Reporter Out (HARO), which in under a year has become the de-facto standard for thousands of journalists looking for sources on deadline, offering them more than 100,000 sources around the world looking to be quoted in the media. HARO is currently the largest free source repository in the world, sending out over 1,200 queries from worldwide media each week and adding thousands of new members each week.

Brian Solis
Considered One of the Original Thought Leaders to Pave the Way for Social Media and PR 2.0

Brian often asks his audiences, “Who do you want to be online?” Since what you do, say and post online defines who you are and broadcasts this image ahead of you wherever you go, how you (or your company, or your people) design your online public image will influence your chances of success in this new social economy. Brian is an active leader in spotlighting and cultivating new startups and emerging visionaries in Silicon Valley and beyond, and as a speaker, he helps audiences understand what the rapid evolution of products and services means for their businesses and careers.

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To find the perfect social media speaker(s) for your unique audience, meeting objectives and budget, contact us at The Speakers Group and we would be happy to offer some guidance and help you uncover opportunities to utilize social media in enhancing your business and your events.

And for additional help in your search for a social media speaker:

Be sure to read Peter Shankman’s “Is Your Social Media Expert Really An Expert?”

Not sure if a social media speaker is right for your meeting program? Read our blog post about the widespread interest in social media across numerous professions and industries.

Connect with The Speakers Group through Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter (company, president and vice president).

Bookmark our Social Media Speakers page to stay up-to-date as we add more authorities on this topic to our roster.

Posted under Innovation Speakers, Planner Tips, Social Media Speakers, Speaker Recommendations

By Harry Paul and Ross Reck, PhD
Coauthors of Instant Turnaround!
Getting People Excited About Coming to Work and Working Hard

Pundits, politicians and even President Obama are all saying that getting the economy back on track is going to take a long, long time.  This is very depressing and it’s not what the American people want to hear.  They want to hear about a quick fix for the current situation—an instant turnaround that will put the economy on a fast track toward recovery today.  That’s the kind of news that will get the American people excited about their future.

Is there such a thing as a fast track out of this recession?  The answer is YES and it’s FREE.  Right now many of the executives running American businesses are hunkering down, tightening their belts, laying people off and looking for additional ways to conserve.  The problem is that these are the very things that prolong a recession instead of shortening it.  What so many of these executives fail to realize is that the key to the fast track out of this recession is right under their noses—their front line employees.  These are the people who do the work that the company gets paid for.  The better these people do their jobs, the faster the company’s revenue stream will begin to grow and that’s what the fast track out of this recession is all about.

The question then becomes: how do businesses get their front line employees to apply their best efforts to performing their jobs?  The answer is simple, but it does require a mindset change on the part of managers and executives.  We learned from the Hawthorne Studies nearly a century that the better you treat employees, the harder they’ll work.  This being the case, you would think it would be the goal every team leader, supervisor, manager and executive to treat their employees as well as possible so they would work as hard as possible.  As it turns out, in most cases the exact opposite is true.

In 2007, Zogby International conducted 7,740 online interviews of a panel that is representative or the adult population of the US.  The survey found that not only were tens of millions of workers not being treated well, but 37% or an estimated 54 million American workers had personally experienced an extreme form of workplace abuse referred to as “bullying.”  The study defined bullying as “repeated health-harming mistreatment” that takes one or more of the following forms:

• Verbal abuse—shouting, swearing, name calling and malicious sarcasm.
• Offensive behaviors—threatening, intimidating, humiliating and inappropriately cruel conduct.
• Work interference—sabotage which prevents work from being done.

The study also found that an additional 12% of the American workforce or 17.5 million people had personally witnessed bullying behavior.  This means that 49% of the workforce or 71.5 million American workers have been touched by this extreme form or workplace abuse.  And, who are these bullies?  Seventy-three percent of them were bosses—managers!

This is not only an outrage; it’s immoral, cruel and barbaric and, it’s keeping us in this recession.  When employees feel abused, their motivation is to get even and find another job somewhere else.  In their book, The Invisible Employee, Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton estimate the cost of employee turnover in America to be $1.7 trillion annually.  Then, if you factor in the other things employees are motivated to do when they feel they’re being abused such as taking more sick days, missing work more often, stealing from the company, doing less work and a poorer quality of work, convincing other employees not to work as hard and refusing to share their ideas on how to improve products and services, we’re probably looking at a four to five trillion dollar price tag for this abusive behavior.  This is huge especially give the fact that the size of the entire American economy is only $14 trillion.  Just think of the shot in the arm it would be to our economy if American business could recover a sizeable chunk of this amount.

The question then becomes: can this mess be turned around?  The answer is yes, and it can be turned around immediately, but it’s up to the senior managers who run American businesses.  They could easily reclaim the lion’s share of these four to five trillion dollars if they would do the following three things sincerely, consistently and well:

• Set an example for the managers below them.  Senior managers often grossly underestimate their function as role models for managers throughout the organization.  This means they need to be far more visible than they normally and they need to seen positively interacting with employees at all levels of the organization—especially front line employees.
• Adopt a zero tolerance program for abusive behavior.  Abusive behavior has no place in a modern business organization—it’s immoral, it’s extremely costly and we’ve looked the other way far too long.  If an abusive boss can’t be rehabilitated, he or she must be shown the door.
• Train managers at all levels on the proper way to bring out the best in the employees who work for them.   We’re talking about basic behaviors like being nice instead of nasty or indifferent, noticing the good things employees do and saying thank you.

These are three simple things that cost absolutely nothing.  Companies that choose to implement them from the top down will put themselves on the fast track to recovery.  Those that don’t will one day wonder how they got left behind.

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Kick-start the turnaround process at your organization by scheduling Harry Paul to speak at your next meeting or conference – we can help! Contact The Speakers Group today to learn more.

Posted under Leadership Development, Motivational Speakers, Organizational Excellence