PCMA Convening Leaders in Less Than 180 Seconds

I was able to be a virtual partipant at PCMA‘s Convening Leaders (#pcmacl) in Orlando January 14-16, 2013. Thanks much for the opportunity, PCMA. I present to you my notes and tweets from a few of the sessions I participated in.

Monday, January 14, 2013:

Morten T. Hansen: “Great by Choice: How to Thrive in Uncertain Times” 

• Fanatic discipline= consistency of action, makes difference between the great & the average.
• Reliable growth is better than spectacular growth; it’s a long march to greatness.
• Experiment. Fire bullets, not cannonballs. It’s how you innovate.
• Plan for everything going wrong. Productive paranoia. The path to greatness is not paved with risky bets.
• SMaC Recipe- Systematic: Formulas; Methodological: Works; Consistency: Durable

Greg Fuson:

• Great conferences create vibrant, active communities.
• Don’t be a conference that tries to add community. Be a community that holds in-person meetings.
• Invitational marketing- a community saying, “Come be a part of us.”
• Online engagement is about building social capital, giving more than what you’re asking for.
• Foster (but don’t force) connection.
• Identify intangible indicators of success.
• Large events: Incubate small experiences.
• What resonates with you? What aspects of your job do you feel yourself come alive for?
• If you don’t feel passionate about the topics you’re organizing, you can’t expect your attendees to.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013:

• Digital isn’t as risky as renting a convention center.
• Socialize your content because it helps promote your brand.
• Content management for a virtual event is key. 20 minute presentations instead of 90.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013:

Here I am virtually participating in PCMA’s Convening Leaders 2013. My second year joining in this way!

Tom Friedman, New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning author:

• The biggest thing happening on the planet today: the merger of globalization & the IT revolution.
• In 2004 LinkedIn was a prison, and Skype was a typo.
• Phone calls from top of Mt. Everest begin w/ “Mom, you’ll never guess where I’m calling you from!”
• Employers are looking for employees who can do problem solving, redesign their jobs while they’re doing them.
• High wage, middle-skilled job has disappeared.
• 25% dropout rate in US.
• Think like an immigrant. Think like an artisan. Think like a starter-upper. Think like a waitress at Perkins Pancake House.
• Think like an artisan. Give so much extra that you want to carve your initials into what you do.
• Think like a starter-upper in Silicon Valley. Always be in beta.
• Passion + curiosity always trumps IQ.
• Think like a waitress at Perkins Pancake House. May not control much. Deliver extra. Think like an entrepreneur.

David Novak, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Yum! Brands: “Taking People With You: The Only Way to Make Big Things Happen”

The man behind cool ranch Doritos AND the crunch wrap supreme… David Novak! Photo and caption by Sarah Beauchamp, PCMA

• What perceptions, beliefs, habits do you have to change, build or reinforce to grow the business?
• Two reasons people leave a company: they don’t feel appreciated or they don’t get along w/ their boss.
• David Novak is an All-World Ripper-Offer. He likes learning from others, getting ideas from other areas.
• Celebrate other people’s ideas more than your own. Tell people you want to hear them.

Other great resources and blog posts from PCMA Convening Leaders:

“My Day Attending a Hybrid Meeting” by Thom Singer

PCMA Session Recap: Thomas Friedman, a Storify by Meeting Change

Convening Leaders Roundup: One Attendee Shares What She Learned by Jena Tesse Fox 

I’d also like to thank a few others I learned from and interacted with virtually. Thanks for adding to my experience and my understanding, Christine Melendes, Traci Browne, Sarah Beauchamp, Angela Carr, and Barbara Palmer!

It should be noted that there will be a Convening Leaders Redux on January 30, 2013, where some of the most popular sessions will be re-broadcast virtually. I’ll most likely tune back in. Will I meet/see you there?

What were your takeaways from Convening Leaders? What other sessions did you learn from? What would you add to my notes?

Thoughts and Readings on Collaboration, Innovation, and Engagement

I’m sitting here on a Monday afternoon, and I’m trying to synthesize the various things that I’ve learned about over the past week or so.

First, Kent Allaway asked at the end of his PCMA blog post on Blurring Lines, ” If information truly is the key, how do we share knowledge among the community, in order to benefit ourselves and our customers…?” In this post Kent talked about competition, cooperation, and co-opetition. More and more, organizations need to find ways to add value to the lives of their customers. They made need to go outside their four walls. They may need to provide wins for others while staying focused on their own goals.

It calls to mind a recent chat I had with Hilary Marsh. We were talking about content management, content curation, content strategy, content marketing (you get the idea… content). Hilary gave me this great illustration which has stuck with me. Imagine a museum. Suppose 70% of their exhibits come from their own holdings. To make up the difference and provide their patrons with a great experience, they have to “partner” with museums and other entities and borrow from their collections. Who wins? Both do! The local museum is not looked down on because they had to borrow from a museum in Philadelphia or Chicago or San Francisco. Rather the perception is favorable. The curator made the efforts necessary to expose the local audience to exhibits they might not otherwise see. And if those individuals find themselves in one of those cities, they might be more apt to visit that museum and see the rest of what they have on display. In my thinking it’s giving up control to gain prominence.

Interestingly enough, I heard or read two references Friday to 3M, historically known as one of the most innovative companies in the US. In 5 Ways Process is Killing Your Productivity, Lisa Bodell, author of Kill the Company: End the Status Quo, Start an Innovation Revolution, wrestles with the question, “When people’s jobs depend on meeting metrics and maintaining the status quo, can you fault them for their reluctance to expend any energy toward creation and invention?” Process keeps people in meetings and writing reports. How do we create, foster, and nurture an environment of innovation, collaboration, and engagement? (see how I used 3 of my 5 MIICE words for 2012 right there?)

The other reference to 3M came from a recent Bloomberg Radio interview with Thor Muller and Lane Becker, authors of  Get Lucky: How to Put Planned Serendipity to Work For You and Your Business. Their perspective is that one has to have a commitment to goals while having an openness to other ideas and directions. Muller and Becker believe in training oneself to be able to “link together unrelated concepts in order to generate meaningful insights”. An individual also has to be in “motion” to get out of a routine and be able to “run into new ideas in new contexts“. 3M has put itself in a position to be innovative by creating this kind of work environment. Thus, by following these kinds of approaches, the “accidental” discovery of Post-It notes was not really accidental.

And, of course, I wouldn’t have gotten to this without reading Dave Lutz’s blog post on Creating Planned Serendipity For Your Conference Success. He has some great ideas on how to foster engagement and connections at conferences. I like his take on an “army of connectors”. Putting attendees in proximity to other people and connecting them and then creating an environment conducive to conversations are key components to this concept of planned serendipity.

What additional insights can you share on collaboration, innovation, engagement, and planned serendipity? What has challenged you recently to think differently about your organization’s goals and strategies?