WEC Europe agenda for 2013
The Coca-Cola Company, Novo Nordisk, Siemens, UNICEF, World Health Organization, Lufthansa, Syngenta, ABB plus panels and presentations from Bowen Craggs & Co.
➳ Download the conference brochure (PDF 186Kb)
DAY ONE (5th June)
Theme: Stories and conversations
Every organization wants to engage with its target audiences by using age-old technique of storytelling and conversation. But can it work – and how do you manage it in a world of ever-proliferating channels? The first morning gets top corporate practitioners to tell their stories.
The path to Coca-Cola Journey
Ashley Brown, Group Director Digital Communications & Social Media, The Coca-Cola Company
Coca-Cola’s new corporate site created huge interest when it was launched last November. Here was a company discarding traditions and replacing them with a lively online magazine, called Coca-Cola Journey. Ashley Brown, the man behind Journey will talk about why and how the group launched the site, what and has and has not worked, running the team behind it, getting the editorial right, going international, and more.
Making the most of content
Benedikte Larsen, Head of Corporate Digital Communications, Novo Nordisk
Like most companies, the pharmaceutical group Novo Nordisk used to have only a handful of channels through which to tell its stories: websites, stock exchange releases and briefings with journalists. With social media graduates are now blogging about their jobs, employees launch videos on YouTube and customers are talking about Novo Nordisk on local community sites. Ms Larsen will discuss the challenges this richness of media has brought: How do we decide what to communicate on which platform? How do we identify the right messages, create the content and ensure it’s being conveyed to the right receivers? Who is responsible for driving content to which platform? And how do we measure the impact of our content?
Making storytelling work
Florian Hiessl, Global Head of Online Communications, Siemens,
Siemens has been telling stories online for a number of years – on its website, social media channels and on YouTube. Its specially-made videos have gone from being curiosities to being, in some cases, close to internet sensations. Siemens had no idea if its experiment would work, but now it has plenty of lessons to share. Florian Hiessl will tell us where Siemens thinks the magazine approach can work, using data to understand what works on different channels, and will give his views on how to handle the channel proliferation challenge.
Stories & conversations panel
Scott Payton, Senior consultant, Bowen Craggs & Co.
With panellists: Ashley Brown, Benedikte Larsen, Florian Hiessl, Neil Atkinson (Unilever)
Theme: Governance
So many conversations at Bowen Craggs gatherings come back to governance – how to manage the website, social media, apps and whatever else comes along. The challenges keep on growing, as our speakers will discuss.
David Bowen, Founder, Bowen Craggs & Co.
Bowen Craggs has carried out a survey to find out how large organisations organise their activities. How big are their teams? How much is controlled centrally? And much more. David Bowen will give the first public run through of this new data.
Overcoming UNICEF’s internal challenges
Anita Yuen, Head of Digital, UNICEF
Sandrine Flavier, Communication specialist, UNICEF
As a global organization with offices in a huge number of countries, UNICEF’s digital team has two big challenges: building the internal capacity it needs and digital planning. Ms Yuen will describe, with case studies, the services her teams offers the offices: an internal forum, staff training, digital toolkits, support provided for planning, and more.
Aiming for consistent and integrated communications
Monika Gehner (Communications Officer), World Health Organization
How did WHO respond when polio workers were killed in Pakistan last December? Ms Gehner will use this difficult case study to show how the organization’s joined-up approach pays off. It puts great emphasis on the web, with 40 communications professionals constantly producing content, but there is also a determination to synchronize web, traditional media and social media whenever possible.
Theme: Mobile
Responsive design: the answer to your mobile challenges?
David Bowen, Founder, Bowen Craggs & Co.
Several companies in the FT Bowen Craggs Index have relaunched their sites using responsive design. Is it a magic answer to the ever-expanding range of screen sizes? David Bowen raises some tough questions based on this year’s analysis. Also: Is the corporate app on its way out? Followed by a panel discussion with people who have followed the responsive route and those who have not.
Mobile web panel
Scott Payton, Senior consultant, Bowen Craggs & Co.
With panellists: Ashley Brown, Florian Hiessl, +2
Day one ends with a gala dinner. (nb. all meals and refreshments are included throughout the two days)
DAY TWO (6th June)
Theme: Reputation management
The power of the internet both to increase reputational risk and to control it is increasingly acknowledged – yet few organizations can say they really have the systems and people in place they need to respond. There is at least no shortage of case studies, as this morning’s session will demonstrate.
David Bowen, Founder, Bowen Craggs & Co.
David Bowen is writing a book on online reputation management. Here he will look at the recent crop of crises – from horsemeat to grounded aircraft – to see how they have been handled.
Social media in times of crisis
Martin Riecken, Director Group Communications Europe, Lufthansa
Airlines are at the cutting edge of risk, and therefore of reputation management. Social media has brought a great new raft of risks – from the tragedy to the trivial – and communications departments are still trying to learn how to handle them. Mr Riecken will explain how social media is making them change their communication style and learn how to interact with stakeholders. He will shed light on Lufthansa’s social media crisis plan, and also explain why he believes that traditional media is more important than ever.
Plight of the bees
Sabine Kostevc, Head of Online Engagement, Syngenta
The debate over what causes bee colonies to decline has blown up into a row pitching the crop protection industry against its critics, with regulators passing laws that some feel necessary, others disastrous. As Greenpeace hangs a giant banner on Syngenta’s headquarters, the company fight back back with a raft of websites and digital tools: Bee Basics and the Bumble blog are just two. Ms Kostevc tells the story.
Reputation management panel
Scott Payton, Senior consultant, Bowen Craggs & Co.
With panellists: Martin Riecken, Sabine Kostevc, David Bowen, +1
Theme: Intranet and internet
The blurring boundaries between internal and external communications
Stephanie Chalmers, Senior Internal Communications Manager, ABB
Daniela Luzanin, Group AVP, Digital Communications, ABB
In the past, roles and responsibilities have fitted into predefined buckets: internal did content for employees and posted it in intranets; external did content for journalists, potential recruits and customers. But with social media and changing technology is this still appropriate? Internal and external comms managers from the same company discuss the issues and ask whether and how organizations need to adapt.
Theme: Learning from the numbers
Discoveries from the Web Effectiveness Network - using data to win internal battles and serve your online audiences more effectively
Dan Drury & Helen Lindsay, Bowen Craggs & Co.
Bowen Craggs has been building up a body of evidence from the analytical surveys it has been running on corporate websites and gathered from the web analytics data of many WEN members. What has it learned about website ‘reasons for failure’ and how web and social traffic compares between websites? Finally ,we ask: “how can social channels best be measured?”
You may have already have saved the date. Now it’s time to turn that into a firm diary entry – and a registration.