In this fast-paced opening session, you will get to know your fellow peers, hear their biggest internal communications challenges, and can learn a few fun facts.

Technology has enabled an endless stream of options to receive information. Being able to be heard in a noisy world requires the art and (brain) science of effective communication. Communication expert Kristin Graham will share insights and actions you can take to improve your day-to-day communication.

This opening session includes:

• Research on attention spans in today’s online environment
• Insight on why multitasking is a myth
• How to craft bite-sized content to get people’s attention

From the very beginning of human history, storytelling has been used to share knowledge, make sense of the world, and teach values and behaviors. Today, storytelling can (and should!) play a significant role in building culture and shaping the employee experience.

Most internal communications professionals are pretty good storytellers, but we don’t use stories strategically to achieve our goals and deliver results. When Robert Munsch wrote the classic book The Paper Bag Princess, he set out to empower young people to be themselves by turning the princess stereotype on its head. As internal communicators, we need to follow Munsch’s lead by establishing clear goals and then find and tell stories that help us achieve them. We need to tell stories that give employees the insight they need to flourish in the workplace while supporting successful business outcomes.

In this workshop, you will learn how to:

• Understand how storytelling can build your brand and culture from the inside
• Find out how to uncover stories that will help you achieve your goals
• Discover an easy framework for creating compelling stories
• Learn how to build an authentic storytelling guide for your organization

This might feel counterintuitive to our hyper-busy, too many items on the to-do list lives as communications pros, but before you draft that next employee story, I’m asking you to slow down. Let’s slow down the content churn and focus on the best way to tell a story and consider if it might be even better to give that employee the platform to tell it themselves. Let’s take some time at the beginning to give that employee’s story a better chance at a lasting impression.

In this session we’ll talk about:

• Evaluating the best channel and medium based on the story
• Slowing down to give the story our best effort
• Letting go and taking advantage of the benefits of employee-created content

Learn some new and old writing tips from the unique perspective of a newspaper reporter, almost therapist and corporate comms director/writer. You’ll learn how to speak across generations and laugh at/share our cultural differences. Warning: Speaker hopes to be funny. Memes may be involved. She will try to keep it as clean as possible.

Hear from a panel of communications peers who will provide tips and practical advice on your most pressing communications questions and hurdles.

Get back into the event and share lessons learned from day 1.

What Father of the Bride teaches us about storytelling in the workplace

It’s a surprisingly simple story of a daughter’s upcoming wedding, told from a father’s perspective, yet it continues to capture hearts seven decades and three feature films later. When the new Cuban-infused version of family wedding pandemonium debuted this year, we couldn’t get down the aisle fast enough, collectively creating HBO Max’s biggest audience ever for a streaming-only film. Has that happened with your most recent communication efforts? Whether you’re a romcom fan of the flick or the “party pooper every party has,” you have to wonder: What is it about the Father of the Bride story that continues to captivate, and what can it teach us about organizational storytelling? In this session, we’ll explore the foundations that keep people coming back to this endearing narrative and how they can inspire your incredibly important work.

• Discover the power of personal perspective to make it real
• Tap into multiple workforce generations and evolving cultural norms, making room at the table for traditionalists and those ready for new experiences
• Anticipate the chaos and know that someone will always push for the swans and flamingos
• Learn to question and to accept that it doesn’t have to be perfect to be amazing

Communications and marketing are two worlds that should work together seamlessly in organizations, but often times, don’t cross paths. However, from audience segmentation and calls-to-action to strategically developed storytelling techniques there’s so much that we can learn from one another.

In this session we’ll discuss:

• The importance of starting with a strategic, marketing-led communications strategy
• How to create a full-funnel approach for your content distribution
• Segmentation & channel distribution

Internal communications should build employee trust, boost engagement, inspire action and make staff feel seen and valued. Before employers can accomplish these goals, they must understand the power of storytelling to reach employees on a core level. How can you do this? First, by being proactive in seeking diverse thoughts, opinions and feelings. Second, by listening to determine who doesn't feel seen or as if their voice matters. Third, by telling authentic stories that inspire an emotional connection.

In this session, you will learn how to:

• Break bad communication habits and explore alternatives to spark consistent interest
• Simplify and make your stories grab and hold attention
• Better anticipate what is top of mind for your audience and answer unasked questions that are crucial to gaining trust

Companies purposefully humanize their brands to better connect with customers every day. Internal storytelling that tugs at heartstrings and celebrates achievements can have the same positive influence on your employees. But are some stories just too emotional to tell?

In this session, Entergy Mississippi shares how their communications team uses emotionally challenging stories to highlight some of the toughest workers in the utility business…and how those types of stories can transform your company’s culture.

You will learn:

• How to find emotional story gold
• Ways to leverage your company culture to get employees to open up
• Strategies to maximize this kind of content beyond internal channels

Company leaders understand the value of giving back to the communities they serve and the power of a civically engaged workforce. While community involvement may be encouraged or even expected, it can be difficult to motivate employees to support company philanthropic goals that are outside the scope of their daily work. This can be especially tricky with remote, hybrid and undesked workers. We’ll explore how storytelling can connect employees to your corporate citizenship goals and motivate teammates to serve their community behalf of the company.

In this session, we’ll use Duke Energy’s annual giving campaign to explore what works—and doesn’t work—to inspire employees to get involved in their community. Specifically, we’ll cover how to:

• Share your vision with employees without dictating
• Use personal storytelling to inspire your workforce
• Turn inspiration into community action