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Step Two intranet design workshops: Sydney and Brisbane, November 2010

In mid-September, we at Step Two Designs were super-pleased to publish Designing intranets: creating site that work, the world’s first textbook for intranet teams.

If you’ve read the book, now you can hear from the author, James Robertson, in person, in a full day intranet design workshop (if you haven't read the book, head to the order page to purchase a copy!).

This workshop will enhance your understanding of intranets, and give you the knowledge and techniques needed to ensure that your planned design or redesign project is successful.

Be inspired by examples of great intranets from around the globe, and learn from one of the very best experts in this field.

Sydney
Tuesday 23 November 2010, 9am – 5pm
Mercure Sydney (near Central Station)

Brisbane
Tuesday 30 November 2010, 9am – 5pm
Rydges Southbank

$825 + GST
(25% discount for Intranet Leadership Forum members)

Find out full details on the Step Two Designs website.

Enterprise 2.0 Exec forum - registration now open

Ross Dawson has posted full registration details and earlybird offers for the 2009 Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum - February 24, Luna Park, Sydney.

As said a couple of weeks ago, the 2008 event in February was excellent and featured smart, insightful and practical thinking on the subject of Enterprise 2.0 and the use of social tools in business. It's less the mindless crystal ball gazing and dreaming (as alluded to in my previous post) and more about the real-world benefits, realistic implementation and intelligent cognition on what this could mean for the future.

I'm also pleased to say both myself and James Robertson have been asked to facilitate a couple of the 20 minute mini workshop sessions (mentioned here), which should be good fun. Other speakers for the day include Kate Carruthers, Stephen Collins, James Dellow, David Holloway, Chris Lampard, Laurie Lock Lee, Steven Noble, JP Ragaswami, Nathan Wallace, Ross himself and more to be announced.

Full details of the event are available here or click here to quickly download a flyer. Last year was a sell-out, and based on the numbers and interest at the Online Social Networking event last week, I'd bet tickets to this will go pretty quickly.

Also, my posts around the 2008 event can be found at the links below, and there's a great summary of content and coverage still freely available on the event's microsite.

Exploring the future of Enterprise 2.0

Make it easy on yourself (and your colleagues)

Janssen-Cilag Wiki-Intranet case study

Taxonomies 2.0 presentation

Below is a Slideshare of yesterday's presentation at the Key Forums Taxonomies 2.0 event in North Sydney. It was a small event, only about 13 people left for the last slot that I was occupying, and only a couple more present when I got there at about 1.45pm.

After several sessions on Taxonomies, a presentation on "Gaining buy-in for social media" was an interesting way to end the day. It seemed to go down well for at least a few people, with some good interaction and comments.

The thrust of my presentation was on focusing on your champions, not over-selling the benefits (especially at the moment when there's plenty of social media fatigue), and demonstrating that you can actually build an ROI case, despite lots of people saying it's too hard or you shouldn't try.

There's lots more, but take a look at the slides and if there's something that piques your interest and needs further explaining, let me know.

 

Gaining buy-in and support for social media initatives

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: social+media support)

PRIA 08 Slides: Using social media to engage your workforce

Below is my slide deck from the PRIA 08 Annual Conference event in Fremantle, Perth, Western Australia.

It was a short session, just 30 minutes, so I whisked through it in 25 and left room for questions, of which there were quite a few (and at coffee afterwards too).

The crux of this presentation was to focus on the opportunities presented by social media. At the PRiNZ event back in May, some attendees said they found the current comms/media landscape scary. But there's really little point in being worried and retreating. You have to take the bull by the horns if you want to stay at the front of the pack.

Focus on some of the amazing things you can do now with all the forms and levels of communication available, not the bad stuff you're worried could happen.

I also skimmed over the point of professional communications having an increasing image problem, with trust in "formal" communication being lower than ever before and a lot of work to be done in becoming a "new communicator" ("The New Communicator" being the tagline of the conference). SNCR's Jennifer Clune covered this aspect in some detail earlier in the day. A broader review of day one is to come later.

NB: This was a presentation I did on behalf of Melcrum, as it was organised while still working there. I am now of course working at Step Two Designs.

Alex Manchester PRIA 08 Slideshare

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: public+relations internal+communication)

Speaking at Taxonomies 2.0

I discovered this two-day conference on Intranet 2.0 and Taxonomies 2.0 a little late (they'd already filled the agenda), but was pleased to hear from one of the Key Forums organisers saying a spot had come up and could I step in.

Absolutely.

On day 2, Thursday 30 October, I'll be exploring the topic of getting support for social media initiatives within organisations. Not overly taxonomical, but highly topical, and something I've written about several times before. Details on the rest of the conference are below.

My presentation will include stuff on tactics, strategies and examples on what the main blocks are to success, who you need to get on board and how you can find them, data to back up some points and more.

Of course, risk taking - large or small - can figure in this. Euan Semple explains in his case study on the BBC, "I knew most of the people who could fire me and I took the chance".

While rarely on the scale of a world-famous media broadcaster, you hear similar stories quite regularly. People pushing back against top down, strangulating internal communication systems and eroding them from within (or maybe the edge dissolving the centre?).

As is the case with almost every presentation I have ever done on social media, the focus ultimately comes down to the shifting of perspectives: from fear to opportunity and the understanding that improved communication, in any shape or form, will never be a fad.

Key Forums Intranet 2.0/Taxonomies 2.0 details.

29-30 October 2008
North Sydney Harbourview Hotel
17 Blue Street, North Sydney
NSW 2060, Australia

Tel: +61 (0)2 9436 4255
enquiries@keyforums.com.au