Conferences, Travels and Lessons Learned as a First-Time Business Traveler

Congratulations, your company is sending you to your first conference across the country, to learn more about a topic that interests you! Once the excitement settles down, reality hits. Now you have to find a way to get there and you’ve procrastinated on booking a flight and hotel.

I wasn’t sure where to get started, but I knew I had to start somewhere. I found myself spiraling down the rabbit hole of reviews, pricing, pictures, pricing again, and realizing how expensive it is to learn and network. After reminding myself several times that I’ll be reimbursed before hitting the purchase button for flight, hotel and rental, I finally allowed myself to focus on the conference. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was excited to find out!

The conference I attended was called the Internal Communications and Employee Engagement conference hosted by Ragan Communications, Inc. and Facebook. Currently, as Upside’s Office Operations & Events Manager, I handle tons of communication to our internal team, but I was unaware of the untapped potential of engaging my team by providing content about them and for them. Over the next two days, I felt like a small fish in a big pond, and tried to absorb as much as I could.

The first session was led by Leanora Minai, the Executive Director of Communications at Duke University, on how to raise employee engagement and your organization’s profile through storytelling. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that large companies were using journalistic techniques to connect internally with their employees. Minai mentioned that her team asked employees at Duke to create a 6 Word Story, after Ernest Hemmingway’s legendary 6 word story of, “For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn.” The idea is to challenge people to tell meaningful stories in a six word frame, and people really delivered.

I’ve married my background of photojournalism in with my current role in the past by creating a culture video, taking headshots for the team page and snapping pictures at our events, and was excited to bring my multimedia and creative background to the forefront again. I learned that internal communications can help nurture, build and create culture. It’s inspiring to see internal communicators find and share compelling and engaging stories that highlight their employees, tell their stories and connect people to one another.

So let’s ask ourselves, why does content matter? Do companies understand what drives their employees, what’s important to them and how does a company show that they care? What creative ways can be communicated to show potential candidates that your company is indeed, a great place to work? Start with those who show up everyday and make a difference at your company. Everyone needs to feel like they’re a part of a community and they want to know that they’re being seen, heard and valued.

One of my favorite sessions was presented by Kim Clark, a leader of Internal & Culture Communications and Diversity & Inclusion Communications for Ragan Communications. Clarke’s session focused on strengthening your company’s D&I efforts with intentional internal communications. She provided insight and tips on increasing awareness to how language can hurt or heal. Don’t just tolerate diversity, accept it and appreciate it. Have the conversations around metrics, turnover and the tough feedback loops on what’s working vs what’s not. How can communication help each employee feel included from day 1 to day 1000, and what can be done to show employees the impact of their feedback?

Some key takeaways from the conference were:

1. Most people are visual learners. Find ways to show them the important stuff
2. BLOT — bottom line on top, get to the point and be authentic.
3. Encourage never-ending feedback. People need to know they’re being heard.
4. Language is important! Make sure your words are healing (not hurting).
5. Know your audience. Find ways to connect people.

Overall, the conference was inspiring and informative. The speakers were incredibly passionate and gave great advice about ways to promote engagement in your organization. There were several ideas that came to mind for me as I thought about our team, business model and culture at Upside. I was left with more questions than answers and went home buzzing with ideas on how to tell all the unknown stories at my company.