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Monday, June 05, 2006

IABC Conference Post #1

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It has been a whirlwind since arriving at the 2006 IABC international conference here in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Sunday (yesterday) kicked off with a panel discussion Neville Hobson moderated and in which Allan Jenkins and I were panelists. The panel, on what Neville dubbed “Communications 2.0,” was fully packed with about 120 people who stuck through the entire three-hour discussion. Joseph Thornley blogged the session. (Part two is here.

Then there was the opening session with Survivor Producer Mark Burnett (more on that later), then the Fellows reception to honor Leticia Narvaez, ABC, this year’s most deserving Fellow, followed by a dash to the Vancouver Aquarium for the opening conference reception. Thirteen of us left early to get to the For Immediate Release dinner, which was terrific (both the food and the company).

This morning I attended the morning general session honoring FedEx Canada President Rajesh Subramaniam as this year’s EXCEL winner. Subramaniam delivered one of the best EXCEL speeches I’ve heard in years, emphasizing the need for the company’s seniormost leader to inspire the front-line in order to build trust. He does it face-to-face, meeting every employee in his organization each year. To achieve that daunting goal, he often visits centers at 6 a.m. in order to meet drivers who are on the road shortly after that and for the rest of the day.

From there, I rushed to the exhibit hall where Neville and I recorded FIR #143 from the conference exhibit hall. We grabbed some great brief interviews with people passing by, ranging from a first-time attender from Venezuela to IABC President Julie Freeman.

Next, it was off to the Lunch and Learn featuring one of the best presentations I’ve seen at an IABC conference. CBC commentator, futurist, blogger, podcaster Tod Maffin did an awe-inspiring job explaining the impact of the social web to a packed ballroom of communicators, having them laughing while simultaneously terrifying them. Maffin has a remarkable ability to make complex concepts like webswarms understandable to people unfamiliar with the notion.

Now I’m sitting in a session on building online community with the prolific Tom Keefe of VW Credit. Tom’s filling in for a speaker from RSA.

Now that things are settling down, I’ll be back with posts about sessions and speakers.