Martha Muzychka, ABC

Communications Strategist. Policy Analyst. Group Facilitator. Writer/Editor

[marthamuzychka]

Reputation management for non-profits

Last month I presented at the Canada East IABC Business Summit in Ottawa on reputation management for non-profits in the age of social media. I will be creating a new workshop on this topic for the World Conference of IABC in June 2013. In the meantime, I thought I would post a few links to blog posts highlighting some of the themes that people took away from the Ottawa session.

Donna Papacosta, Trafcom Communications, regularly posts highlights from professional development events along with lots of other great content on podcasting and content curation. I find her overviews very useful as it always gives me some new insight into a speaker or colleague's thinking. Later, if I come across their name at another conference I feel better able to make my choices when there are multiple concurrent sessions: http://trafcom.typepad.com/blog/2012/11/highlights-from-the-iabc-canada-business-communicators-summit.html

Sue Johnston, with whom I worked in preparing her great book for publication last winter, kindly included a link to my column on keynote speaker Darrell Bricker's opening address for the Business Summit. Sue provides a great overview of the summit and includes other great links: http://itsunderstood.com/2012/11/iabc-canada-business-communicators-summit/

Sue also included a link to Epilogger's compilation of the tweets associated with the Canada IABC Business Summit hashtag: Epilogger #cdnIABC2012

Mohammad Al Azzouni offered a comparison of two sessions, mine and Anick Losier of Canada Post (Communicating in times of crisis). I found it really interesting to see our content contrasted in this way. It certainly gave me some new ways to think about reputation management: http://www.gnowit.com/blog/brand-management-during-times-of-crisis/

Photo credit: MS Clip Gallery

[marthamuzychka]

Communicating without words

Recently I spent time in Northern Spain. Some of the communities we visited included signposts for the Camino de Santiago, a path of almost 800 kilometers walked, biked, or horse-ridden by pilgrims from all over the world.  This very personal journey of reflection, spirituality, and hardship averages between two weeks to two months depending on fitness, mode of travel, and time of year. These signs varied, but usually I saw a yellow arrow, a scallop shell, or a star as the guides keeping modern day pilgrims to their route.

In Canada, the Inuit used inukshuks as signposts for different purposes. It could be a navigation aid, a reference point, a marker for food caches or hunting/fishing camps, or a place of importance. Like the pilgrims on the Camino, or the Inuit of the North, our audiences may choose different routes to reach the final (communications) destination, or they may attach a different meaning to the messages we send.

What signposts should we use to direct people to the right sources of information? How do we make sure people understand our meaning and intention?

[marthamuzychka]

IABC 2012 World Conference: Make a creative difference

This is a slide from Lyn Heward's closing keynote speech at IABC's World Conference in Chicago. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll post some thoughts on what I heard and what I learned.

It may seem odd that I am starting at the end, but in many ways Heward's speech was really the beginning of understanding and processing the future of communications. Her presentation summed up what the other three keynote speakers -- Kevin Carroll, Robert Kennedy Jr, and Irene Lewis -- had brought forward, each offering an approach that together gave me a new vision for my communications practice.

Carroll told us to be present; Lewis told us to collaborate; Kennedy told us to belong. Heward told us to be brave. Her challenge: to make a creative difference by finding that inner spark and fanning that flame of innovation. 

I liked the Bradbury quotation she used, not only because it honoured a great writer so recently passed on, but because it reminded me that we have lost our innate ability to embrace the fantastic. We need to let go of the chains the word impossible binds around our hearts and minds. Heward's examples from the Cirque experience really helped illustrate her points.

The other take away from Heward's presentation was to be uncomfortable. She said “Complacency is the single biggest risk you’ll ever take.” Avoiding the rut success can create and in which we can be trapped is important. Pushing outside the comfort zone is threatening but also rewarding. It echoed nicely Carroll's reminder of boxer Muhhamed Ali's observation that winning or losing the fight happens before it starts. We must do the lonely work to prepare, to nurture, and to explore and we must also be willing to make mistakes so we can do better the next time.

[marthamuzychka]

Communications World, the magazine produced by the International Association of Business Communicators, has devoted its latest issue to independent practice. There are lots of great articles that everyone who is working independently now, or communicators who are thinking about doing it in the future, should read. From using social media for marketing to generating leads on LinkedIn, from your first year to just getting yourself organized; there's lots to think about.

[marthamuzychka]

When bad things happen to good organizations

I've been doing more work in the area of reputation management, and was delighted to receive an invitation from the International Association of Business Communicators to speak to members on this very issue. On April 11, 2012, I gave a webinar titled: When bad things happen to good organizations: Making reputation management matter for nonprofits.  If you are an IABC member, you can find the recording and handouts here: http://www.iabc.com/education/od/members.htm

[marthamuzychka]

Communications for non-profits

Over the Christmas holidays in December 2011, I had a conversation with a colleague about internal communications. Between the jigs and the reels, the result was an invitation to contribute an article in the mid winter of 2012 focusing on a large component of my work in communications and media relations. Thanks to the team at simply-communicate for their interest in my work and approach.

http://www.simply-communicate.com/news/communication/communications-non-profits-primer

[marthamuzychka]

I freelanced part-time for many years, beginning in 1987. In 2005, while facing job redundancy, I chose work as a full-time independent consultant. In June 2011, I gave a presentation at the World Conference of IABC, my professional association. Later, I accepted an invitation to write about how I arrived at this place and why I choose to stay here, and built on the conversations we had in San Diego at the session I facilitated on independent practice. Thanks to Kelley Crane of soloPR who graciously gave me space to share: http://soloprpro.com/flying-on-your-own-charting-your-course-as-an-independent-practitioner/

[marthamuzychka]

What I do

My goal is to work collaboratively with like-minded individuals to make change happen through clear communications, targeted policy research, and effective process design.

I work primarily in the health, education and culture sectors with specialties in

·   public health

·   mental health and addictions

·   vision health

·   gender-based analysis

·   employment equity

·   resource development and

·   family violence.

My clients are many and varied, including large and small organizations in Newfoundland and Labrador and across Canada from the government, non-profit, community, and private sectors.

[marthamuzychka]

Who am I

I am a communications consultant working with a variety of clients in the non profit and health sectors. When not providing advice on media relations, planning, and strategy, I also develop and deliver training in communications and other topics. I live in St. John’s, NL Canada, but have travelled across Canada for my work.

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/marthamuzychka 

Twitter: www.twitter.com/marthamuzychka

This is my electronic scrapbook for some of my professional endeavours. All rights reserved. No part of this blog nor its material may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the author (that would be me!).