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Ensuring the Future of the Arthur W. Page SocietyCommunications Committee Plan

Paul CapelliPeter Debreceny

Background

The opportunity is to examine and significantly enhance aspects of our value delivery system.

The communications committee is tasked with addressing one of eight high-level “themes” developed from the Strategic Offsite, towards changing how AWPS delivers on its value proposition:

4. Make content user-friendly and packaged in a way to allow CCOs to go back to companies and interact with the C-suite effectively

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Background

Working with the Annual Conference and Spring Seminar committees, the communications committee is charged with making sure we bring full value from our events to all members

Background

In addressing “Make content user-friendly,” it is important to make the distinction that there are three target audiences we have the opportunity to address:

1. CCO members (participants in conferences and non-participants)

2. Corporate Communication teams of members

3. C-suite colleagues of members

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Why is this important?

AWPS Strategic Vision emphasizes “Preparing CCOs for the challenges that lie ahead – our goal is to help all of our members and the CCO function add maximum value to organizations.” Making content user-friendly will enable us to create a value delivery system that facilitates this

An AWPS goal is to continue to distinguish and differentiate AWPS as the most relevant and value-producing organization for high-achieving CCOs. This task directly addresses this

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Why is this important?

An opportunity exists for facilitating improved interactions with the CEO and other members of the C-suite

while also positioning AWPS more prominently in the C- suite

By packaging content so it can be shared with corporate communications teams of members, we can also support the AWPS strategic direction by helping to ensure continued relevance to the next generation

of communications leaders

Hypotheses on how to pursue opportunity

Recent Steps Taken – Valuable or Unnecessary?: – Resources from conferences include downloadable podcasts of

speaker presentations, electronic summaries, photo gallery, participant info for extended networking

– Downloadable and printable online member directory to aid in networking

– Executive Visibility Strategist publication and Special Reports

– Synopsis and PowerPoint presentations from Page Society/Tuck Symposium

– Audio replays of Page One Teleconferences

– Links to resources from Monthly newsletter, Page Member Notes

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Hypotheses on how to pursue opportunity

Potential future path to include:

1. Gather “Member insights” on how to make content more useful, usable and relevant from conferences

2. Enlist academic and research members to synthesize the content from the meetings

3. Create post-conference white paper or workbook to help members communicate key questions/ application for C-suite

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Hypotheses on how to pursue opportunity

Potential future path to include:

4. Develop CEO-oriented content based on CEO speaker presentations

5. Produce reports on C-suite executive visibility where CCOs could effectively engage CFO, CMO, HR, Law, IT and other C-suite members

6. Solicit member feedback on relevance and value of new communications

7. Evaluate the costs and benefits of new initiatives

Objectives

1. Increase the Page Society’s ability to transfer knowledge and thought leadership from meetings to members in a way that is useful

2. Go a step further in enhancing our value proposition

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Objectives

3. Tap into potential opportunities for engaging less active members

4. Look into process for measuring effectiveness of recent and future efforts to make content more user-friendly

Key Questions

Given the wide variety of our membership, how can we make communication materials useful to the greatest number of members?

What format will be most useful?

How will we know if the communication materials are being used and if they are effective?

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Key Questions

Who is best equipped to produce a synthesis of information from our meetings and create useful communication materials from that?

How have other organizations captured and communicated the intellectual property from their meetings?

What has worked well so far? What has not worked? Why?

High level plan

At the August meeting the committee expects to be able to provide the board with a high level plan including:

• Key activities, milestones

• Timeline

• Responsible parties

• Budget considerations

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For Board DiscussionDo you agree with the general approach we are

proposing including the key questions we plan to probe?

Do you have guidance for us on the issue of confidentiality of speaker content at the Annual Conference?

Would new initiatives to provide more content and value to all members from the conferences “disincentivize” members from paying for registration to physically attend the events? Thoughts/ comments?

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