"The Fish Isn't Sick ... The Water's Dirty"
Session Overview:
Communication problems don't spring out of nowhere and are rarely one-sided. Just as the fish isn't sick, we aren't sick-nor are others. Rarely do our problems occur in isolation. It's the waters we swim in - the environment that we communicate in - that get muddied through personality conflicts, office politics, internal conflict, gossip, negativity, "Yes-People," repetitive conversations, poor information flow, and ineffective meetings.
Consider the costs of poor, ineffective communication:
- The average employee loses 7 weeks of productivity every year because of troublesome and unresolved communication issues.
- Lack of open, honest communication is at the root of 80% of problems at work.
- Upwards of 75% of employees who leave their jobs do so because of communication issues with their boss - not money.
- The #1 factor that drives employees to be engaged in their job is their relationship with their boss.
In this session, you will learn proven strategies and tactics to honestly keep your "communication" waters clean that will boost performance, teamwork, and leadership.
Speaker Background:
Thousands of people credit Steven Gaffney with making a critical difference in their lives and careers in the areas of honest communication, presentations, motivation, and leadership. Steven's speeches and seminars, combined with his print and media appearances for his book, Honesty Works! Real-World Solutions to Common Problems at Work & Home, and a previous book, Just Be Honest: Authentic Communication Strategies that Get Results and Last a Lifetime, have enabled him to educate people on how to talk honestly and work effectively with anyone. |
"Networking: Making it Work for You
No Matter What Your Personal Style"
Session Overview:
Are you seeking ways to make connections throughout your company to ensure the viability of your projects? Do you want to build close business relationships beyond your mouse?
Join Diane Darling of Effective Networking, the author of The Networking Survival Guide and Networking for Career Success, as she presents networking tips and techniques that you can implement immediately. Learn how to do “network mapping” at your organization, identifying the key individuals to support your work so it gets recognized and funded.
Approaching people you don’t know well doesn’t have to be painful! You needn’t be an extrovert to succeed at networking – introverts may apply. Discover ways of meeting people at company and industry events that work for you. Hear about common networking mistakes; how to avoid them; and, if it’s too late to undo, how to recover. You’ll leave this program feeling energized and armed with new strategies to successfully sell your projects.
Speaker Background:
An author and entrepreneur, Diane founded Effective Networking, Inc. on the premise that everyone can learn to network; they just need to find their own style. (The Myers-Briggs identifies her as a friendly introvert.)
Diane is the author of the definitive book on networking, The Networking Survival Guide, published in 2003, and Networking for Career Success, published in 2005. The books have been translated into Taiwanese, Thai, Chinese and Indonesian.
Diane has traveled all over the world and lived in the Philippines and Thailand.
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"Designing for the Scent of Information"
Session Overview:
If you have thousands of pages of really cool stuff on your site, how do users find what they are looking for? It turns out that the content itself has to pull the user to it. The stronger the pull, the more likely the user will find it. In this presentation, Christine discusses how to organize your site to pull users to the right place. She'll talk about User Interface Engineering's recent research on how people find information on large web sites. Christine shows you plenty of examples of sites that work well and those that don't. She'll discuss how the quality of links affects whether users click on them; how longer pages actually help users get where they are going faster; the 3 types of graphics: navigation, content, and decorative and the importance of each; how users follow a scent and four ways your design could be blocking their smell.
Speaker Background:
Christine is responsible for managing User Interface Engineering's business strategy initiatives. As one of the most requested instructors at User Interface Engineering, Christine has worked with dozens of companies on their toughest web design problems. With her extensive knowledge of human factors and usability testing practices, Christine has been a top-rated presenter at the User Interface Conference, CHI 2001-2005, the Usability Professionals' Association Conference, and STC regional events. She has also taught Human Factors at the Tufts University Gordon Institute for Engineering Management.
Christine previously worked at Fidelity Investments, where she was an influential member of their highly-talented instructional design team. She received her Master's degree in Social/Experimental Psychology from Brown University and her Bachelor's degree from the University of Rochester. |
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