education

IABC Research and Measurement Conference

Communication Management and Measurement in Complex Organizations

Program

Browse the program below.

conference news

IABC/Toronto will host a networking event on Wednesday, 22 October. More information is available below and on IABC/Toronto's web site.

Download this brochure (PDF, 1MB) to view the entire
Research and Measurement Conference program.

Schedule at a glance

Wednesday, 22 October

Thursday, 23 October

Friday, 24 October

Conference Program

Wednesday, 22 October

1–1:30 p.m.
Workshop registration

1:30–4 p.m.
Pre-conference workshop:

Staying afloat in a sea of media
As the online media environment becomes as relevant as mainstream media, it’s increasingly important to define the criteria for assigning scarce public relations resources to the various types of media. Should communication professionals invest more resources in online media, or strike a balance between online and mainstream media? In this hands-on session, K.C. Brown argues that choosing the right channel depends on a wide variety of factors. The outcome might surprise you. This workshop will help practitioners determine and develop the right media strategy for communication campaigns.

K.C. Brown, senior vice president of client development for Cision, is in charge of maintaining and growing the business relationship with Cision’s clients in the U.S. Previously, Brown was a senior vice president in Cision’s evaluation and research-based consulting arm, Delahaye, where he managed the research and advisory services group. While at Delahaye, he led many of the firm’s methodological and technological innovations and founded the Delahaye Index (now known as the Cision Index).

Fee to attend this optional pre-conference workshop is US$195 and is not included in your conference registration fee.

5:30–8:30 p.m.
IABC/Toronto meets at The Vibrant King Street District Hub for a night of networking
Enjoy the company of fellow IABC members in an evening of sparkling conversation and refreshments sponsored jointly by McMaster University’s Certificate/Diploma in Public Relations through the Centre for Continuing Education and the Masters of Communication Management program through the DeGroote School of Business jointly.

Located steps away from the Research and Measurement Conference held at Le Méridien King Edward Hotel, this is an opportunity to get a head start in getting to know fellow conference attendees or to simply meet new colleagues. Join us in discovering what makes Toronto well known for its cuisine by tasting a variety of local fare. It’s the perfect way to kick off the conference or to meet new fellow communicators.

Register online.
Price includes: 1 drink, hors d’oeuvres and great networking opportunities.

Fees to attend this optional IABC/Toronto event are not included in your conference registration fee.

Thursday, 23 October

7:45 a.m.
Conference registration and continental breakfast

8:30 a.m.
Welcome remarks

8:45–10 a.m.
Opening Keynote:

Secrets of social marketing

Social media marketing has taken the business world by storm. The compelling speed, cost-effectiveness and customer-engagement benefits of social media campaigns are rewriting the rules of marketing. But, since so much is happening so fast, it's impossible to monitor all the options. The good news is that you don't have to boil the ocean—stay focused using a disciplined approach to setting strategy, choosing tools and building customer affinity and you'll be fine.

In this keynote session, you will learn best practices from examples, vignettes and video clips including:

• Tips from early innovators, covering everything from technology selection to results tracking to return on investment
• Ways to simplify choices
• Strategies for building effective campaigns

Paul Gillin is a writer and content marketing consultant specializing in technology and new media. He advises business-to-business marketers on strategies to optimize their use of online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively at different stages of the buying cycle. With more than 23 years of editorial leadership experience, Gillin was founding editor-in-chief of TechTarget, editor-in-chief and executive editor of Computerworld and authored The New Influencers, which chronicles the changes in markets being driven by the new breed of bloggers and podcasters. His next book, Secrets of Social Media Marketing, will be published in 2008. Gillin is a research fellow at the Society for New Communications Research and chairs the social media cluster for the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council.

10:15–11:15 a.m.
Select and attend one of two breakout sessions:

Workshop One / How L'Oréal is managing its monitoring services in a changing media landscape
How can corporations and brands track their editorial share of voice in a changing media landscape? What are the challenges of managing different brands and divisions’ conflicting media monitoring needs within the same corporation? In this workshop, Jennifer S. James, senior vice president of corporate communication and external affairs at L’Oréal USA, will discuss the challenges L’Oréal USA experienced in setting up—and maintaining—media monitoring services in a fast-moving media environment.

You will learn:

• Ways of monitoring—quality versus quantity
• Strategies for meeting both brand and corporate needs
• Effective use of lessons learned

Jennifer S. James, senior vice president of corporate communication and external affairs, is responsible for all external corporate media relations at L'Oréal USA, the U.S.’s largest beauty company and a key subsidiary of L'Oréal SA, the world’s largest beauty company. James oversees both the ongoing development and the execution of L'Oréal USA’s corporate media strategy, in support of all corporate functions and the executive suite. She serves as a spokesperson for the corporation, and represents L'Oréal USA in broader industry media initiatives. Previously, James worked at Time magazine in London, The Wall Street Journal Europe, Bloomberg News, and Condé Nast Publications in both London and Australia.

Workshop Two / Two different systems, one goal: Measure!
Join us in what promises to be a spirited meeting of the minds on the merits of measuring editorial media coverage and the benefits of two different systems: the industry-created Media Relations Rating Points (MRP) measurement system versus the Cision media evaluation methodology. Led by an independent moderator, K.C. Brown, senior vice president of client development at Cision, will represent the Cision methodology and go head-to-head with Tracey Bochner, APR, president of Paradigm Public Relations, representing the MRP system. Both debaters will present the benefits of their respective measurement systems and the moderator will lead the discussion with questions. Audience participation is highly encouraged.

Moderator / Eric Bergman, ABC, APR, MC, a communications professional for more than 26 years, has worked in virtually every facet of organizational communication—from government PR to corporate advertising. During that time, he has gained extensive experience in conducting media relations campaigns on behalf of his clients. An accredited business communicator (ABC) and an accredited public relations practitioner (APR), Bergman was named a master communicator in 2002, the highest distinction that can be bestowed on an IABC member in Canada. He also authored the train-the-trainer guide for media training, Media Training With Excellence: A Balanced Approach, published by IABC.

Presenters / Tracey Bochner, APR, is president of Paradigm Public Relations, a full service communications agency in Toronto. Bochner chairs the Canadian Public Relations Society's (CPRS) measurement committee, the volunteer group of public relations industry professionals responsible for creating the Media Relations Rating Points (MRP) system, a qualitative and quantitative system for the measurement of editorial media coverage. Introduced in 2006, the MRP system has more than 350 subscribers in Canada.

K.C. Brown, senior vice president of client development for Cision, is in charge of maintaining and growing the business relationship with Cision’s clients in the U.S. Previously, Brown was a senior vice president in Cision’s evaluation and research-based consulting arm, Delahaye, where he managed the research and advisory services group. While at Delahaye, he led many of the firm’s methodological and technological innovations and founded the Delahaye Index (now known as the Cision Index).

11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Select and attend one of two breakout sessions:

Workshop One / Authentically delivering Waste Management's sustainability message
Imagine a world where no one picks up the 4.5 pounds of waste the average North American generates each day. Scary, right? Most people don’t think about or even know where their garbage goes. That’s the challenge for Waste Management (WM)—telling the story of how the company not only safely manages the waste created each day, but how WM creates green, renewable energy from waste, while recycling more residential waste than any other company in North America.

Learn how Waste Management:

• Communicates the message that garbage really is green
• Measures the impact of this message and the importance of doing so
• Analyzes what’s working and what’s not

Lynn C. Brown, vice president of corporate communication for Waste Management, supports both internal and external communication, as well as reputation management with her team. Previously, Brown was vice president of corporate communication for Greyhound Lines, Inc. and worked for Texas Instruments, Inc. and the Raytheon Company, where she held various operations and support roles in the defense and electronics business. Brown serves on the community advisory panel for the Junior League of Houston and sits on the Leadership Houston Board of Directors. Awards include the Hammer Award from Vice President Al Gore’s Reinventing Government, PR Week Multi-Cultural Marketing Campaign of the Year, and Gold SABRE for the 40th Anniversary Freedom Rides Celebration.

Workshop Two / Catalyzing a cultural renaissance: How communication revived the New Orleans Museum of Art
Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf South in August 2005. Learn how the New Orleans Museum of Art creatively utilized product development and communication efforts to revitalize the brand, admission and membership.

Learn how to:

• Create strategic objectives linked to the bottom line
• Utilize community support to drive success
• Build alliances to increase customer loyalty

Anna S. Whitlow, communication strategist at Deveney Communication, has coordinated events celebrating the inaugural Cajun/Zydeco GRAMMY award, arranged familiarization trips for bloggers in conjunction with the Voodoo Music Experience and led press familiarization trips for some 50 media, all on behalf of the Louisiana Office of Tourism. In addition, she led the public relations efforts for the New Orleans Museum of Art’s Femme, femme, femme and George Rodrigue’s Louisiana exhibitions, leading to record attendance and membership numbers for the museum. Her work on behalf of the New Orleans Museum of Art earned her two IABC Gold Quill Awards and a PRSA Anvil award.

12:30–2 p.m.
Keynote Luncheon:

Brand public relations integration: Best practice or PR limitation?

Public relations integration can help brands achieve results beyond expectations. However, integration also has the potential to limit PR creativity, credibility and authenticity. In this bold presentation, you will witness the power of PR integration in enhancing overall results, learn how to measure success and hear how PR can be the secret weapon to build brand equity and advance market penetration. Award-winning strategies and case studies will bring this thought-provoking presentation to life.

Learn how to:

• Impact the bottom line with a PR strategy based on research, creativity and innovation
• Negotiate PR activity alignment versus integration
• Position and evaluate PR to successfully redefine its role in the marketer’s mind

Judy Lewis is co-founder and executive vice president of Strategic Objectives, one of Canada's leading independent public relations firms. Lewis provides strategic senior counsel to many of Canada's leading organizations and brand teams to help advance their market position, media profile and public reputation. Her firm has won more than one hundred national and international awards, including the UN Grand Award for Outstanding Achievement in Public Relations and multiple IABC Gold Quill Awards of Excellence.

2:15–3:30 p.m.
Select and attend one of two breakout sessions:

Workshop One / Communicating for a change
Corporate social responsibility and sustainability are hot topics in today's business world. What are the fundamental socio-economic shifts driving corporate responsibility and sustainability? How are stakeholder expectations evolving? Rick Petersen, head of the corporate responsibility practice of NATIONAL Public Relations, will make the case for a newly integrated and strategic approach to corporate responsibility communication from basic principles to proven research methods.

Using real-life examples and language, this session will discuss:

• The concrete actions that must be and are being taken
• The skills, tools and attitudes that communication professionals need to utilize for success
• Strategies for changing deeply ingrained behavior and corporate culture from the inside out

Rick Petersen is head of the corporate responsibility practice of NATIONAL Public Relations, which was recently ranked among the Top 10 in the world for communications firms by Corporate Responsibility Officer magazine. Described in a recent issue of Marketing magazine as “one of the world’s leading experts in corporate responsibility,” Petersen serves on the advisory board for the Conference Board of Canada's annual Carbon Disclosure Project and is the author of the Capital Markets and Sustainability report for the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. He is also responsible for the Tremblant Forum on Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability, an annual international conference . Petersen’s articles have appeared in Corporate Governance Quarterly, Marketing, and the book, Sustainable Development & Communications.

Workshop Two / Engaging customers and critics in a Web 2.0 world
Social media has given an unedited voice to consumers, critics and fans on a broader scale than ever before. Engaging in this new environment can be daunting—your company may be attacked by bloggers who condemn your product’s quality, lambaste you for poor customer service or question your business practices. If your company hasn’t faced this kind of unbridled public criticism before, panic can set in fast and people will look to you for answers. How can you engage bloggers and members of online social networks in ways that will bring the attacks to a halt, or better yet, prevent them from occurring in the first place?

In this session, you will learn how Cision:

• Uses social media platforms to address critics and initiate a conversation
• Engages social media sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to address client concerns and improve customer service
• Stays current on industry trends and issues using these tools

Heidi Sullivan, director of media research at Cision US, Inc. oversees all research of Internet, broadcast and print media. She has presented at conferences and written numerous articles on the changing industry and social media. Sullivan joined Cision in 2004.

3:45–5 p.m.
Afternoon Keynote:

Put your message where your mouth is: Strategies to turn consumers into advocates
A panel of social media experts will discuss emerging and innovative methods for entering in consumer conversations through identification, analysis, measurement and engagement. Learn about social media metrics used to show value behind strategies as well as digital advocacy methodology guaranteed to create successful campaigns and results.

At this session, discover how to:

• Seek a target audience and develop an identification and reporting process designed to reveal emerging trends and consumer preferences
• Collect results and search for emerging trends and consumer preferences
• Initiate outreach to these online influencers, calculate success and identify what methods were the most effective

Moderator / Margot Sinclair Savell is the vice president of media intelligence and measurement for traditional and social media at Weber Shandwick. With more than 20 years of experience, Sinclair Savell leads a team of analysts who review blogs, forums, discussion boards, social media networks, and traditional print and broadcast media to measure and evaluate marketing and public relations programs. Previously, she was an editorial manager at AOL and oversaw all marketing and content planning for CBS-TV web sites. She also managed her own public relations business, and, as a broadcast, print and online journalist, her reports appeared on ABC Radio, AP Radio, CBC Television and CBS Television, in addition to the Financial Post, L.A. Times, The New York Times and The Globe and Mail.

Panelists / Stacy DeBroff founded and serves as CEO of Mom Central Consulting, a leading national firm specializing in viral marketing to moms. Mom Central Consulting has partnered with over 80 national brands, Fortune 500 companies, PR firms and venture-backed start-ups to build brand awareness and activate Moms to significant retail purchases or online participation. DeBroff’s expert marketing advice and insights have been featured in such publications as USA Today and the Wall Street Journal, and on news programs from CNN’s American Morning and Headline News to network news channels Fox and Bloomberg.

Howard Greenstein is a social media strategist and president of the Harbrooke Group, which specializes in helping companies communicate with their customers using the latest web technologies. Greenstein has worked for business and nonprofit organizations such as the Twin Towers Fund, Microsoft, JP Morgan, New York University, and several start-ups. A contributor to New York Enterprise Report and Optimize and InfoWorld magazines, he is a blogger for Inc. Magazine’s StartUp Blog. Co-founder of Social Media Club, Greenstein leads the club’s New York chapter. A blogger since 1999, an organizer of PodcampNYC and an early adopter of everything Web, Greenstein lives the social media dream.

Tim Marklein, executive vice president and general manager, Northern California and Weber Shandwick global measurement practice leader, has more than 17 years of PR research and measurement experience. As an agency and in-house leader, Marklein has conducted hundreds of communications research projects to help launch businesses, develop new markets, drive competitive positioning, build reputations and win proxy fights. As part of Weber Shandwick's measurement task force, he contributed to the creation of the firm's new outcomes-driven and client-customized measurement model. Marklein previously served as external communication leader for HP’s US$30 billion enterprise business where his research and measurement work contributed to HP’s post-merger reputation recovery.

Friday, 24 October

7:45 a.m.
Continental breakfast

8–9 a.m.
Speed experting
If you’re familiar with speed dating and speed networking, you’ll want to attend this session. Speed experting presents a unique opportunity to meet with key speakers from the conference program in small group discussions.

You will have an opportunity to:

• Meet with conference speakers one-on-one to explore and debate key communication issues
• Discuss topics in small groups in a high-energy and fast-paced format
• Move among groups to cover different areas of interest that are relevant to you

9:15–10:15 a.m.
Morning Keynote:

Calculating the return on investment (ROI) on your communication

Measuring the effectiveness of communication isn’t enough anymore. Senior management is asking for more direct correlation of the money spent on communication with the business outcomes resulting from it—how it increases revenue or reduces expenses.

The session will:

• Provide you with documented examples of how communication has affected bottom-line issues at other organizations
• Explain how to collect data for the ROI calculation by tracking changes in audience behaviors before and after you communicate
• Teach you how to use an ROI worksheet to calculate the return on your own communication campaigns or channels, which can also be applied to government and nonprofit organizations

Angela Sinickas, ABC, IABC Fellow, is the president of Sinickas Communications, Inc., an international consulting firm specializing in communication research and strategy. Her prolific publications—over 100 articles posted on her website already—and speaking engagements in 24 countries have made her name synonymous with measurement of organizational communication. She is the author of the manual How to Measure Your Communication Programs. Angela’s work as a corporate communicator and as a consultant has been recognized with 16 IABC Gold Quills, including two for her web site. Her clients include 21 percent of the Forbes Global 100 largest companies.

10:30–11:30 a.m.
Select and attend one of two breakout sessions

Workshop One / Managing communication in a decentralized business structure: "One of our 11,000 spokespeople will be right with you"
Minimizing the number of people speaking on behalf of your company is generally desirable—it helps assure your message is consistent and aligned with the enterprise's corporate image and business goals. But what if the key to your firm's success is a widely-dispersed field sales force, including thousands of entrepreneurs encouraged to be high-profile—and often-quoted—members of the communities they serve? How do you maintain message consistency (and avoid embarrassing and damaging negative news) with 11,000 company spokespeople?

John Boul, manager of global media relations for financial services firm Edward Jones, will describe how his firm meets these challenges and offer suggestions for:

• Creating a structure that exploits opportunities and limits risks
• Providing training for spokespeople with varied levels of media savvy
• Tightly monitoring output and making adjustments

John G. Boul, manager of global media relations for financial services giant Edward Jones, is an award-winning communication professional with more than 30 years of experience in public relations, corporate communication, journalism, marketing communications and government affairs. For the past nine years, Boul has served as public relations counsel to senior management at Edward Jones, managing internal and agency resources providing media relations support for more than 10,000 branch office locations in North America and the U.K.

Workshop Two / Do you hear what I say?
Do you ever wonder why your audiences seem to have a different perspective on your company than the one you thought you communicated? Communicating and managing your company’s reputation is complex in a world where social media influence perceptions quickly and with little “corporate” control. Companies that measure and monitor the reputational elements important to their stakeholders can align their corporate communication appropriately, with more flexibility, and have better success being heard.

This case study of a Canadian pharmaceutical company will illustrate how to:

• Identify and track the key drivers of reputation among your key audiences
• Measure and harness employee support to build your reputation
• Deliver corporate communication and public relations that positively influence your reputation

Susan Quinn-Mullins, Ph.D., helps clients build, maintain and measure a positive reputation among key stakeholders and employees. She successfully developed and executed the reputation strategy for the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca Canada, as director of corporate reputation management. She has more than 20 years of communication and marketing experience and has won numerous communication awards, including two Gold Quill Awards and a CPRS Award of Excellence.

11:30 a.m.–1 p.m.
Keynote Luncheon:

How (when and why) to package a leader for a new consumer

Of all the demographic changes to impact business, perhaps the most profound is a fresh collection of expectations from a new “consumer” of the work experience. This consumer brings a short attention span, a need for confirmation and clarity, and, most of all, a demand for senior leadership to recognize, respect and reward. So what’s a leader to do? In this session, Mark Schumann, ABC, will present new findings from the Global Workforce Study conducted by Towers Perrin and lead an enlightening discussion of how to package senior leaders for this new consumer.

This discussion will focus on:

• How an organization can effectively recruit and retain these workers
• Ways a senior leader can remain authentic, credible and accessible
• The effects of this new approach to a senior leader’s positioning on the organization and its talent strategies

Mark Schumann, ABC, a 15-time Gold Quill winner, is the current vice chair of the IABC executive board. He is a managing principal of Towers Perrin, based in Houston, and the co-author of Brand from the Inside.

Top