While 2021 may see the end of the global pandemic, it’s clear that the shift to a full-time virtual working environment, which began to accelerate years before the coronavirus, will become permanent (or at least optional) for millions of employees. For many organizations, the benefits of remote work far outweigh the potential downsides of WFH culture.

One irreplaceable aspect of in-person teams is the organic atmosphere of collaboration, storytelling, and sharing that only physical presence can provide. So how can we recreate the spontaneity and creativity that existed when we were all working together in-person?

Alyssa Zeff, Vice President at Davis & Company, will share her ideas, including:

• The importance of casual conversations
• Challenges we face with virtual working relationships
• Strategies to create spontaneity in a digital environment
• Combatting Zoom fatigue
• The role of internal communication

Alyssa’s presentation will be interactive; participation and questions are strongly encouraged. We’re all adapting to this new normal together, so idea-sharing is welcome!

February 9, 2021

Noon - 1:00 p.m. Eastern

Members: $10
Guests: $20
Students: $5

About the Presenter

Alyssa Zeff

Alyssa brings more than 20 years of both agency and in-house communication experience to her role in the consulting group at Davis & Company. She offers strategic counsel, communication planning, project management and creative implementation skills to clients, including Pfizer, Alexion, United Therapeutics and BlackRock.

Prior to joining Davis & Company, Alyssa was the senior director, global corporate communications and public relations for BD, a leading global medical technology company, where she oversaw all internal communications, corporate communications and public relations worldwide. Her career began at PR agencies in New York City where she promoted leading sports, consumer, food and healthcare brands.

Alyssa holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications studies from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

While we appear to be turning the corner, with a COVID-19 vaccine in sight, we clearly aren’t back to normal. And we’re not yet in the Post-COVID19 era. More important, despite Zoom Happy Hours and your best leadership efforts, many of your team members are exhausted by these challenging months. And you may be too.

Still, your teams, peers, partners, internal clients and associates need your leadership now more than ever. So the question isn't are you leading, but how effectively?  But there's good news: You're up to the challenge of leading through these ongoing uncertain times, and IABC-Philadelphia is going to help!  This leadership webinar will give you a dose of important strategies, thought-provoking insights, and most importantly, practical steps you can implement to step up, and take the lead.

Learning Objectives

Understand how your leadership energy and emotional intelligence affect everyone you lead. Gain a dozen practical actions you can take to help you effectively lead your team members, your teams, internal clients, partners, your boss and yourself through these uncertain times, regardless of when things might return to normal. Learn how to be a more inspiring leader that those groups will actually choose to follow regardless of the environment, and especially during uncertain times, as well as a dose of inspiration around your leadership talents.

About Ken Jacobs

Ken Jacobs, PCC, CPC, is the principal of Jacobs Consulting & Executive Coaching. He empowers public relations and communications managers, leaders, and executives to achieve and surpass their organizational, career, and personal goals by becoming inspiring and effective leaders.   

He also helps PR, marketing and advertising agencies grow business, manage for profitability, improve client service, and enhance team performance, communications and leadership skills. 

Prior to launching his companies, Jacobs spent 25 years in management and leadership positions with a number of PR agencies, including Ogilvy & Mather PR and Marina Maher Communications (MMC).

There’s no question that storytelling is one of the most powerful communication tools at our disposal. The right story can help you break down walls with an audience, build trust and influence them to act in your favor.

That can mean winning over customers, aligning and motivating a workforce, swaying a skeptical public and more.

In this engaging, information-packed session, Rob Biesenbach shares his latest storytelling insights, diagnoses the biggest mistakes corporate storytellers make, and prescribes simple remedies that will allow your stories to flourish and not flail.

Among the takeaways:

• Deeper insight into three experiential factors that power every great story
• A proven method for nailing a story’s ending and bringing the audience full circle
• How to find and nurture the small-but-critical moments that bring a story to life
• Overcoming TEDsteria and other obstacles that sabotage our stories
• Ways to bring out the best stories in others

You’ll come away with practical strategies and tactics you can use right away to elevate your stories from good to great and become an even more powerful, persuasive communicator.

About Rob Biesenbach

Rob Biesenbach works with leaders who want to be more persuasive and authoritative in everything they do. That means helping them break free from Death by PowerPoint, tell their story, and communicate like humans should.

Rob is an award-winning corporate communication consultant, an in-demand keynote speaker and workshop leader, a bestselling author, and a Second City–trained actor. He combines insights from the worlds of business and performance to deliver programs that are as entertaining as they are enlightening. His clients include AARP, Allstate, Coca-Cola, Deloitte, and Feeding America, among many others.

Rob is the author of the Amazon bestseller Unleash the Power of Storytelling: Win Hearts, Change Minds, Get Results. He lives just outside Chicago in Evanston, Illinois and travels the world (in-person and online) to meet his clients’ needs.