Internal communication professionals will be gathering in London this week for the latest Digital Communication Summit from Melcrum.
It is on Wednesday and Thursday and I’m looking forward to attending and hearing directly from speakers about how they are finding improved ways to communicate with their employees and stakeholders, and of course meeting with other like-minded IC pros.
I’m especially looking forward to meeting Chuck Gose who is flying in from Indianapolis for the event, after tweeting with him for years. 2013 is definitely turning out to be the year I finally meet people in real life that I’ve know ‘virtually’ for a long time.
The summit is taking place at Dexter House, near Tower Hill, and I will of course be writing about my thoughts here post-event to share with other IC pros who weren’t able to go. Are you attending?
There are a couple of sessions being live-streamed, so if you can’t, do check out the link and how to watch online. You’ll also be able to follow the conversation online via the hashtag #melcrumDCS on Twitter.
What’s the theme?
Edelman’s latest Trust Barometer from 2012 revealed that the credibility of a “person like yourself” as a source of information grew an incredible 51% from 2011 to 2012. Equally, the trustworthiness of a “regular employee” went up by 47%, surpassing that of CEOs. (You can see a guest article I wrote about it here).
Rebecca Richmond, Chief Operating Officer at Melcrum said: “This increasingly powerful channel of employee voice presents both a challenge and an opportunity for companies across industry and geography. The best are leveraging recent developments in digital media to amplify the voice of the employee and engage stakeholders across the board, bridging internal and external communication in an increasingly transparent and connected world.”
Therefore the theme of this year’s Melcrum Digital Communications Summit is exploring ‘How you can empower employees, through digital channels, to embody and communicate your brand in a far more authentic and compelling manner.’
What’s on the agenda?
It’s a sterling line-up of speakers including Kasper Risbjerg, Social Business Manager from IBM on Brand building beyond the firewall – giving a glimpse into how IBM’s experts have been creating a unique digital footprint by equipping senior level employees to become brand advocates through digital interactions.
Laurie Hibbs, HR Director at LexisNexis is talking about Linking networking to business value. I like the fact they have merged social data with organisational data and the employee survey to explore who is active and influential on their internal social networking site. I’ve referenced Laurie a number of times in the past and am expecting great things!
Unfortunately I’m going to miss some of day one as I also have a CIPR Social Media Panel meeting on Wednesday afternoon, but delegates are in for a treat because Emily Gibbs, Corporate Communications Manager at The Financial Times will be speaking on Educating employees to embrace the digital age. I’m going to try and find someone to capture notes from that session, so will share when I can.
Day two includes half of the excellent Intranetizen team: Jonathan Phillips, Senior Manager of Digital Communications at Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), and Luke Mepham, User Experience Architect at Aviva (great title!).
Jonathan is speaking on Communication, collaboration, transaction and mobility: the winning formula behind CCE’s social intranet. I’m particularly looking forward to hearing how they’ve gone mobile, and what employees think.
Luke’s presentation is The Big Bang Theory for intranets: Prolonging the wow factor through small and incremental improvements to Aviva’s intranet. The user-centric (or employee first) approach Aviva has sounds smart and I like the idea of prolonging the wow factor.
Want to know who the speakers are? I’ve created a list on Twitter so you can follow them. I couldn’t find them all, do so please let me know if you track down one I’ve missed and I’ll add them to it.
Are you going? If so do let me know, you can comment below or tweet me @AllthingsIC. One of my fellow The IC Crowd co-founders, Dana Leeson, will be there too. Will any of @theICcrowd be in attendance? Do say hi.
To find out more about the Melcrum Digital Comms Summit, check out their website and you can watch an overview of last year’s event below, Rachel:
