Written by, John Scarrott, Design Business Association, Sourced directly from LinkedIn Pulse

If you decide to attend a conference or send some of your team to an event, you probably think about the practical value of the time spent away from the office. But what percentage of what you learn at a conference impacts on your business? If your answer is “I don’t know” or “Not enough” what can you do about it?

The likely reality is that you’re not alone. It’s fair to say that not enough of the useful information that delegates pick up at conferences and events makes an impact on their business. But this is by no means inevitable.

By setting some clear goals before you go, applying an understanding of why it's tough to make new change stick and implementing one or two simple strategies post-event, you'll increase your chances of bringing more of what you learn back to your business. You’ll engage and energise your team and truly realise the impact that your investment of time and money deserves.

Set clear goals. Often, the reason people don’t make what they learn at a conference count, is that they forget to set themselves a powerful and clear goal at the start. They don’t know when and whether the goal has been met. This also makes it difficult for them to explain clearly the reason why they’re attending the event to their team.

To form a clear goal for attending a conference or event, there are a number of straightforward questions to ask yourself:

• Why are you attending the conference?
• What is the purpose of going to the sessions you're attending?
• Why is this purpose important to your business?
• What is the benefit to you?
• What is the benefit to your department?
• What is the benefit to your business?
• How will you know that the goal has been met?

If you’re not 100% sure of your answers, just make your best guess. Then write your answers down. Having something in print is important at this stage because later, you’ll be able to compare what you did learn with what you thought you’d learn. It gets your thinking out of your head and onto the page and it’s sharable information. You’ll also be able to explain to your team why you are going and why it might be useful to them.

Setting a clear goal is the first part of getting your ideas into play. You set the wheels in motion before you set foot inside the event. When you’re clear on your goals, the next step is to get your team involved with why you’re going.

Share with your team. Choose an opportunity to present your goals above in two minutes to your team. Send them the link to the event in advance so they can see where you’re going and what’s being discussed. Ask them for their input- what do they think of the theme? Ask if there are any sessions that they’d like you to go along to on their behalf.

Suggest to them that you'd like to feed back on the content of the event when you return. This builds trust and increased buy-in from your team as to why you are going. It starts to plug the themes into the business early and it opens up a discussion around the event. It helps to balance out any lingering cynicism that the time away from the office might be a ‘jolly’ by asking the team: ‘This is what I’m going to and why. What can I bring back that could be useful to you?’

Getting things set up before you go the event raises your chances of success. But even with this preparation, things can still conspire against you. With this in mind, it’s worth looking at what you’re up against.

A brief tour of the ‘change challenge’. A solid workplace is built upon a system designed to support itself. Everyone within the business has responsibilities and roles and knows what they should be doing each day and that’s how the business functions. Paradoxically, that can also make the business relatively inflexible when it comes to change. Any problems, challenges or opportunities that arise are all ‘managed’ by the system. A key benefit of the system is its ability to support itself by maintaining stability. And this often involves maintaining a holding pattern for the current situation. This is not anyone's fault and generally not the sole responsibility of any one person within a business.

An example of the magnetic pull of the ‘system’ can be how easy it is to get sucked back into the day job, when back in the office after a conference. It's the system saying ‘ this is what usually happens’ that drags us back in. The interactions we have on a day-to-day basis demand our attention and can overpower strategic thinking around the longer term.

This is the overall systemic context against which any new information you bring into your business plays, so it’s worth grasping and accepting that this exists before you start. However, you don’t have to like or agree with it. You just have to recognise it and then play the game to win.

In order to win, there are two further stages to go through. The first is about capturing your insights at the event. The second is what you do back at the office to get them into play.

Capture your insights at the event. When you’re at the event make notes andtake pictures of the slides or what’s happening on stage. It can take a while for organisers to get slides to delegates so this gives you a head start. Remember to tweet what strikes you in the session there and then.

Treat this process of noting and sharing as preparation for the session you're going to present to the team when you return. Make a note of every conversation you have and with whom. If it’s a multi-day event, look over your notes at the end of each day. Check that you can read them and understand them. Then add more notes to these as your thoughts occur to you. This process helps you to become ‘friendly’ with what you’re writing by engaging you with your own thoughts. This will create new thoughts and insights.

When you get back to the office, start to prepare your feedback session. Go back over your notes again and add in more thoughts as you have them. The acts of reading, thinking and writing work well together, because your unconscious mind will do some work behind the scenes while you’re doing other things. But you have to trigger this part of your brain to produce the goods when you want it to. And that’s what reading and writing do, they act together as a unified prompt to your brain.

Getting your ideas into play. So you're back in the office, you’ve done some processing of your notes and you have some ideas. Your next step is to arrange a 10-minute session to present and discuss what happened at the event. You could use a simple and well established coaching structure like GROW to present this. The GROW model was developed by Sir John Whitmore.

GROW stands for Goal, Reality, Options and What we will do. This is how it could be applied to the task of setting up a discussion around the conference you attended:

• Goal refers to the reasons why you attended the event.
• Reality is what you actually discovered.
• Options are your initial thoughts on the gap between the two and what that could mean in terms of opportunities for you, your team and your business. At this point you can open up the floor to discussion. Ask people what they think.
• What would be the action that you take next.

And that’s the three-step method for handling the information that you bring back from an event. It’s the start of a conversation rather than a cul-de-sac. It’s a question rather than an answer. And it’s an opportunity for you, your team and your business to explore how the information and ideas that you bring back from a conference could be used to transform your business or just make a small but important change. Imagine if handing in your badge at the end of the conference was the beginning of something exciting for you business.

Written by Heather R. Huhman, Entrepreneur

The popular HBO television series Game of Thrones keeps the audience on its toes with the right mix of power dynamics and political schemes. Each of the characters take a different approach to leadership, all resulting in various levels of success.

Though today’s workforce isn’t set in the mythical land of Westeros during medieval times, there are still lessons to be taken away from the successes and failures of these characters.

Here are a few different leadership styles seen in the iconic show and some ways to create a better working environment with happier, more engaged employees:

1. The surreptitious, self-serving leader.

The manipulative Cersei Lannister isn’t someone who’d land a leadership position by popular vote. She knows how to get things done, but her approach is a little shady, secretly working with others behind the scenes. This approach isn’t far from one some leaders take today.

Only half of employees believe their managers are open and up-front with them, according to APA’s 2014 Work And Well-Being study, which surveyed 1,562 full-time employed U.S. adults between January 28 and February 4, 2014.

Unlike Cersei, leaders need to build a culture of trust through open communication without keeping secrets from employees. Employees can tell when managers aren’t being honest. In fact, 32 percent of employees in APA’s study reported their employer is not always honest and truthful with them, and 24 percent don’t trust their employer.

2. The naive leader with all the best intentions.

Daenerys Targaryen wants to make all the right decisions for her people, but her youth and naivety leave her susceptible to being mislead by others. Even so, she makes up for what she lacks in wisdom by putting her people first, as a good leader does.

In fact, employee perception of their leader’s involvement in their growth, development, health and safety was shown to increase engagement, in APA’s study. The leader’s efforts in these areas accounted for about 27 percent of variance in predicting work engagement.

As a leader, it’s important to be committed to the growth, development and well-being of employees. Even leaders who aren’t the most seasoned gain advantage by putting employees first.

3. The leader who’s not so great with people.

Stannis Baratheon is a determined leader, but he’s not exactly a people-person. He can come off a little rough and cold-hearted. His high expectations make him a little critical, but only because he values success, like most leaders.

Of course, leaders always want their employees to do their best, but the wrong response or the wrong feedback can disengage employees quickly. Positive feedback is the key to reinforcing behaviors and performances leaders want to see repeated, according to 94 percent of respondents in SHRM’s 2013 Employee Recognition Programs Survey. Much fewer (6 percent) believe negative feedback can improve employee performance.

Instead of constantly correcting employees, give positive feedback to support and encourage continued good practices. If a correction needs to be made, address it along with what employees are doing well so they can replace negative actions with more positive ones.

4. The young leader who inspires engagement.

Though inexperienced, Jon Snow knows how to inspire action. He leads by example, which inspires others to join him in his ventures, no matter how daunting they may be. His bold moves capture his followers’ attention. There’s no doubt they’re alert and engaged in what’s coming next.

With nearly a quarter of working Americans in APA’s study reporting low or very low levels of engagement, it seems leaders could learn from Jon’s style.

Like Jon Snow, a good leader doesn’t order people around, but jumps right into the front line of battle. Leaders should take initiative in performing the duties they expect employees to do. When employees see leaders rolling up their sleeves and unafraid to face the difficult tasks, they’ll act too and they’ll be more engaged.

Registrations to attend Wellington’s business events tradeshow ‘Show Me Wellington (SMW) 2015’ are officially open. SMW is a one day expo that will take place on Wednesday 9 September at the TSB Bank Arena and Conference Centre.

Positively Wellington Venues, Chief Executive, Glenys Coughlan says that SMW is a ‘one-stop-shop’ for conference and event organisers, where they can meet over 100 exhibitors who will be showcasing event products and services that can help create that ‘wow’ factor for their next event in the capital and wider Wellington region.

This year will also see the return of the popular ‘Talk About Cool’ seminar series. These seminars were a hit with buyers and exhibitors alike in 2014, and this year is set to be even better. The full programme will be announced in July and will feature event and industry professionals who are driven by setting new benchmarks for success.

“We source great speakers from a range of industries and fields that some may consider ‘unrelated’ to business events but that encourage event planners to think differently and create new event experiences” says Glenys.

SMW also offers a hosted famil programme in conjunction with Business Events Wellington and Tourism New Zealand. This is to encourage further growth in this sector by targeting Trans-Tasman conference and event organisers. They will experience many of Wellington’s best group activities like the Weta Cave and Zealandia, in addition to exclusive pre-scheduled appointments at SMW.

For more information and to register visit www.pwv.co.nz/show-me-wellington

Notes:

• The Meetings Incentives Conference and Events industry is worth $140 million annually in expenditure to the Wellington economy.
• The full ‘Talk About Cool’ programme will be released in July.
• Show Me Wellington (SMW) is proudly owned and managed by Positively Wellington Venues with the aim to secure more international and national business events to Wellington.
• Positively Wellington Venues is part of Wellington Regional Economic Development Agency (WREDA), which brings together the functions and activities of Grow

Wellington, Positively Wellington Tourism, Destination Wellington, Positively Wellington Venues and Major Events.

For more information please contact Positively Wellington Venues PR and Marketing Coordinator Arti Govind at arti.govind@pwv.co.nz or on 021 247 9756.

New Zealand’s latest live crowdfunding event for charity raised more than $46,000 in half an hour for four very worthy organisations.

The Funding Network (TFN), described as the “Dragon’s Den for charities”, held its second event at AUT University in Auckland last night, where more than 100 generous Kiwis and the Macquarie Group Foundation pledged more than $46,400.

The charities to benefit this time were:

• Assistance Dogs New Zealand - helps enrich the lives of adults and children living with multiple disabilities by providing Assistance Dogs to promote independence, mobility, confidence and the ability to participate in their communities.
  
• The Crescendo Trust of Aotearoa - supports young people who are not responding well to traditional education by giving them training and mentoring in music, media and communication. This fosters their creativity and builds life skills.
  
• Fair Food - Auckland’s first food rescue charity which is both a social and environmental organisation. It rescues fit-to-consume food from retailers and producers that would otherwise go to landfill and redirects it to those most in need through various community groups.
  
• Young Carers NZ - a network for Kiwi children and young people who look after ill, elderly or disabled love ones. About 8% of young people up to the age of 24 are young carers and the charity provides them with information, support and advice.
  

Each group had six minutes to pitch their organisation and another six minutes to answer questions, after which the pledging from the crowd began. Donations came thick and fast, ranging from $50 to $1,000. All four charities quickly exceeded their $10,000 target.

“These four terrific organisations are all doing amazing work in their respective areas and will be able to extend their programmes even further, thanks to the generosity of philanthropic Aucklanders,” says Hilary Sumpter, CEO of Auckland Communities Foundation which helps run The Funding Network, with support from Philanthropy New Zealand, The Gift Trust, the AUT University Business School and Macquarie Group.

The Funding Network was launched in London in 2002 by philanthropist and art dealer Dr Frederick Mulder and has since spread around the world, with more than 150 TFN events held, 750 charities supported and at least NZD $13 million raised.

The Macquarie Group Foundation and Macquarie Private Wealth NZ were again key supporters of the Auckland event last night, with the Macquarie Group Foundation matching one-third of the funds pledged on the night.

“It is a privilege to support TFN NZ and help New Zealanders share in such a rewarding evening of giving generously to four very deserving, local charities,” says Laurence Fitzpatrick, Head of Macquarie Private Wealth NZ.

The Funding Network plans to hold a third event in Wellington later this year and then take the concept to other regional cities around the country.

ENDS

Scoop NZ

The New Zealand Law Society section representing in-house lawyers has changed its name to In-house Lawyers’ Association of New Zealand (ILANZ).

Previously known as Corporate Lawyers Association of New Zealand (CLANZ), the section’s new name recognises a change in the way lawyers working inside private and public sector organisations are referred to.

“People do not tend to refer to in-house lawyers as corporate lawyers any more, and 62% of New Zealand’s in-house lawyers work in the government, academic or not-for-profit sectors,” ILANZ President Katie Elkin says.

Dr Elkin says the name change was approved by members at the section’s AGM on 22 May and has now been ratified by the New Zealand Law Society Board.

ENDS - Scoop NZ

A charity wants the Government to pay for it to take over an Auckland motel for families who are living in caravan parks or doubling up in overcrowded houses.

Glen Eden-based VisionWest Community Trust was funded by the Government in March to take over a 19-unit motel in Christchurch for two years to house homeless families for up to eight weeks while social workers help them find permanent housing.

Trust chief executive Lisa Woolley says the initiative is working so well it should be extended to Auckland.

"The crisis that we have in Auckland is the same as in Christchurch.

"We definitely need to build more housing, but we need something that is an immediate solution right now."

At the end of March, 1066 applicants for social housing in Auckland, and 334 in Christchurch, were in priority A - described as "at risk and including households with a severe and persistent housing need that must be addressed immediately".

Monte Cecilia Housing Trust executive David Zussman said 14 agencies provided emergency housing in Auckland, but mainly for 237 individuals in hostels such as the Salvation Army's 100-bed Epsom Lodge.

There were only 35 units for families, including 13 at Monte Cecilia.

Salvation Army social policy director Major Campbell Roberts said it had submitted a proposal to build 10 to 12 new emergency units on church and council land around Auckland as part of a government tender for 300 new social housing units.

But Aneta Rangirangi of Te Roopu o Te Whanau Rangimarie o Tamaki Makaurau, which houses four families in a three-bedroom house and a sleepout in Mangere, said families usually had to stay longer than the official four weeks.

Ms Woolley said the Christchurch initiative was rehousing families faster.

A Social Development Ministry spokesman said families in the Christchurch motel did not pay rent because the programme was fully funded.

Outside Christchurch, the ministry paid to put families in motels in "some emergency situations".

Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett ordered a review of the sector due by July 31.

"As a part of the review, we will consider a number of solutions, including the innovative approach being taken in Christchurch," she said.

Motel Association chief executive Michael Baines said it was probably cheaper to buy a motel than a house in parts of Auckland.

Housing the needy

1066 Auckland households on priority A housing waiting list.

35 emergency housing units available.

10-12 new units proposed by Salvation Army.

20 proposed in motel by VisionWest.

- NZ Herald

Saturday, 6 June 2015, 11:21 am

Press Release: New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists

The New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists have teamed up with grassroots campaigning movement ActionStation to call on the Government to drop new experiments using ‘social bonds’ to fund the delivery of mental health services.

“Over the past week a number of our members asked us to launch a campaign calling for an end to this experimentation with mental health funding,” says Marianne Elliott, National Director of ActionStation. “They were concerned about the perverse incentives this approach could create in the delivery of essential services to vulnerable New Zealanders.”

The petition asks the Health Minister Jonathan Coleman to stop the use of ‘social bonds’ in the mental health sector and calls on him to commit to more government funding to mental health treatment and support directly.

The New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists share these concerns and have publicly backed the petition.

“As we talked to our members, and I spoke with members of the general public it became clear that a lot of people are really shocked and worried about the idea of this Government using an unproven funding model with some of our most vulnerable Mental Health consumers” says Kyle MacDonald, New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists Chair of Public Issues.

“We hope that people who share our concerns take the time to sign the petition and spread the word.” Says MacDonald “This just felt too important for us as a profession, and we felt we had to stand up and say stop. Our hope is that other professions feel the same way and join us in endorsing this action”

Petition: http://www.actionstation.org.nz/mentalhealth

Contact: NZPA Kyle MacDonald 021 708 689

Contact: Action Station Marianne Elliott 021 110 6086

More details:

ActionStation is a member-led campaigning group whose mission is to help more New Zealanders get involved in campaigns and actions to promote participatory democracy, and transparent and accountable politics in New Zealand. Launched in July 2014, ActionStation currently has over 80,000 active members.

The New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists is a professional organisation which sets, examines and maintains specific standards for the safe and ethical practice of psychotherapy in Aotearoa New Zealand.

ENDS

- Scoop NZ

Don’t count on your data to tell its own story. Craft a narrative around its insights and engage in data storytelling! Plus: The risks of recording your history in obsolete formats.

Let’s say your organisation has a brilliant new study that provides a bounty of insight about your area of expertise. So you prep a press release, line up some internal experts who are ready to field some interviews, and think that the ensuing press campaign would be a roaring success.

“But as someone who has worked the beat as a reporter and sat in an editor’s chair, I can say that most nonprofits (and businesses, too) have a difficult time pitching stories about their data and research,” Panepento Strategies principal Peter Panepento writes. “And as someone who has done a lot of storytelling with data, I can see why.”

In a guest post on Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications Blog, Panepento makes the case for finding the narrative within the data you’ve collected and then pitching that to the media, instead of just overwhelming them with statistics.

“It all starts with asking the right questions. In the same way a reporter interviews a source or a detective interviews a witness, you need to interview your data—asking questions that will help draw the conclusions you need to go forward,” he writes.

For some specific examples of how organizations have succeeded by tying their data to a narrative, read Panepento’s full post here.

Sourced from Associations Now here.

Article by Oliver Garside sourced directly from LinkedIn here.

Many of us work for organisations which provide the opportunity and encouragement to pursue charitable endeavors via the donation of time, resources or expertise. Often it’s upon this foundation of support and encouragement that like-minded and talented groups of professionals can make amazing things happen!

I am fortunate to work for one such organisation. The desire to create economic opportunity for its members is deeply woven into LinkedIn's culture. Some people may question the authenticity of LinkedIn's vision statement but I can tell you it's very real and nothing symbolises this quite like the LinkedIn for Good Foundation (LIFG).

LIFG is LinkedIn's charitable foundation which provides opportunity for employees to pursue charitable endeavors. It's a global initiative which supports philanthropic ideas and passions and enables every employee to give time and expertise for causes which are often of deep personal significance.

In 2013 I was made aware of a LIFG program called "Recruiting for Good" which is an idea brought to life by my ex colleague Bob Spoer.

Bob realised 2 things:

1. Not for Profit organisations often do not have the networks, time or financial resources to identify and attract  the best talent
2. LinkedIn is uniquely positioned to put it's technology, member network and internal resources to great use to help connect talent with opportunity in Not for Profit sector

And thus "Recruiting for Good" was born and continues today as one of the ways that LinkedIn is helping to drive social change through volunteerism and philanthropy.

So how does it work?

Recruiting for Good provides a recruiting service on a pro-bono basis for agreed upon positions. LinkedIn employees volunteer their time and use LinkedIn technology to help Not for Profit organisations identify talent for senior or board level positions. Once identified, interested candidates are then introduced to the Not for Profit organisation for a more detailed discussion and evaluation.

LinkedIn has partnered with organisations such as The Ashoka Foundation and Engineers without Borders Australia on Recruiting for Good initiatives.

We are currently looking for new partnership opportunities in Australia. If you work for a Not For Profit organisation and have an executive or board level position you are recruiting over the next few months (or you know someone who is) please share this post or contact me via LinkedIn to find out more .

Posted by Christina R. Green, Member Clicks

No one has time these days. We watch TV or sporting events with a device in hand; we reach for our phones to cover up even a moment of quiet.

So what makes you think your potential members will take a moment extra to figure out the membership application process?

They won’t.

You need to make it as easy as possible for them. Eliminate all of the friction and challenges involved in joining. Here are some things to consider:

Membership Information Front and Center

You must feature the reasons someone should join your association. Don’t present them as a list of benefits, although that seems like a quick way to do it. People tend to zone out when reading lists. However, if you present them as solutions you’re prompting action. Prospects will recognize a problem they have, that you have the solution to, and will become members in the hopes that you can solve it for them.

Some associations have turned to infographic displays because they get noticed. There are several free software platforms, like Piktochart, that help you create infographics in a few clicks.   

Join Now Button

This type of button on the homepage is a must. It should be prominently displayed as a button (or a first-level menu tab). Don’t make people hunt around for a way to join your association. Make it obvious.

Online Application

It’s important to remove all obstacles to joining. If you’re using only a paper application, that’s an obstacle. Sell your memberships online. People often make decisions after 5 p.m., and sometimes, on weekends. This also means allowing people to pay for their dues online.

While you’re making changes, ensure your online membership application form is mobile friendly as well.

Allow for Online Renewals

Just as you should take online applications, you should allow for online renewals as well. Let your members pay online so that they can renew when it is convenient for them.

Removing the obstacles to joining your association is one way to show you understand your members’ needs.

While it sounds like common sense, unless you’ve tried joining a group when no one is available to take your call, you may not be aware of the limitations and frustrations in doing so. Take a look at your site today. Are you making it hard for potential members to join?