Br a n d i n g f r o m t h e in s i d e ou t

We’re all familiar With famous company brand names, some of them born right here in the northWest. but just as important (and often more difficult) than external branding is the identity a company develops and nurtures Within its oWn ranks. members laurie kelley, Will simonds, and kathi vanderZanden each talk about their company’s challenges and strategies around internal branding.

Jim Endicott, president of Distinction Communication, Inc., is a nationally-recognized management con-sultant, executive coach and author specializing in professional presentation messaging, advanced design and delivery skills coaching. Jim spoke at the 2006 IABC conference on Selling Your Story: The Art of the High Stakes Presentation. This year he will be leading an IABC pre-conference event on Winning the Hearts & Minds of Busy People in New Orleans this June. Jim has been a Jesse H. Neal award-winning columnist for PRESEN-

TATIONS magazine and has contributed presentation-related content to magazines such as Business Week, Consulting, Selling Power and the Portland Business Journal.

me m B e r sp ot l i g h t s

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The Light at The End of Your Project Tunnel – A Bronze Beacon! ...............................2Bronze Beacon Awards 2006 ............................................................................................................2Communicator’s Tip: Brand Delivery Starts at Home .........................................................2Member Bio .................................................................................................................................................3IABC Promotes International and Chapter Branding ..........................................................6Lee Weinstein Shares his “Brand” of Nike Wisdom .............................................................7Ponderings ....................................................................................................................................................8

ma r c h 2007 • i s s u e 17ins

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Mary Remuzzi, senior communications manager for Nike US Retail, joins the Nike Corporate Communica-tions team to manage Nikebiz, Nike's external corporate Web site. For two and a half years, Mary has been responsible for strategic internal communications for Nike’s 100+ US retail stores and Nike's World Headquar-ters division. Before Nike, Mary was with The Washington Post for nearly eight years as the assistant director of their radio/TV division, and covered the 2000 Olympics in Australia. Mary has an MBA from The University of

Oregon and, with a dual US/Australian citizenship, is a big fan of all things "Down Under."

Laurie Kelley Director of Marketing & Communication University of Portland

The University of Portland works hard to hire people who espouse the values of the university: teaching, faith and service. Our president, Reverend Bill Beauchamp, C.S.C., is a Holy Cross priest who lives these values each and every

day and sets the tone

for the university’s

messages. From what I

have witnessed during

my short tenure here

(five months), the people who work here and attend school

here live the values of the brand. That is so important. see page 4

OREGON COLUMBIA

po n d e r i n g s

P.O. Box 9220Portland, OR 97207-9220

Bridges is a Bimonthly puBlication

of the oregon columBia chapter of the

international association of Business

communicators. Chapter Board: Tracey

Barnett, President; Abigail Dougherty,

Executive VP; Andrew Longeteig, VP-

Membership; Barbara Bryant, VP-Finance;

Linda Wilson-Bauer, VP-Awards; Pat

Snyder, VP-Promotion & Community

Relations; Debbra Palmer, VP-Electronic

Communication; Sue Brundege, VP-Print

Communication; Glenn Perkins, Director-

at-Large. Design and Layout: Barbara

Saunders, Newsletter Associates, (503)

282-3694. Contact: For comments and

suggestions, please e-mail Sue Brundege at

newsletter@ociabc.org.

OCIABC and PRSA-PDX are co-hosting the 9th annual Communicator’s Conference

on May 9. This year’s conference theme is “Shifting Technological and Social

Landscapes: Creating Stories That Stick.”

Breakfast and luncheon keynote speakers along with a wide range of educational

sessions make this an excellent opportunity to learn and network. Registration opens

April 11. Seats are limited, sign up early! For details, visit www.ociabc.org.

OREGON COLUMBIA

communicator’s t i p : Brand delivery starts at home

for those of you Who missed it, debra semans Wrote a nice revieW in communication World on libby sartain’s and mark schumann’s neW book Brand from the inside: eight essentials to emotionally connect your employees to your Business. here are a feW brand “truisms” from the book:

• If you are in business, you have a brand, which is why we must be intentional in managing the brand.

• Brands must support the business strategy.

• Brands are adhesive—all customer/employee experi-ences stick to the brand.

• It takes more than HR, communications and marketing to build an employer brand; you have to include the rest of the company, too.

• Brands must be authentic if they are to connect with people (and employees can smell “spin” from a mile away).

The Light at The End of Your Project Tunnel – A Bronze Beacon!In the often thankless world of professional communication, there are still a few opportunities to showcase good work and earn recognition and awards. The Bronze Beacon Award is one such honor, bestowed upon communicators within the boundaries of the Oregon/Columbia IABC chapter territory.

OREGON COLUMBIA

The third Bronze Beacon Awards Banquet will take place on Thursday, June 14 (mark your calendars!) and now is the perfect time to begin preparing your entries simulta-neously in process with your projects. You may also sub-mit entries for work that’s already completed. Entries for projects executed between April 30, 2006 to April 1, 2007 are eligible.

Submissions are reviewed by members of other IABC chapters, who score each submission based on certain criteria. Bronze Beacons for Excellence and for Merit are granted to entries meeting or exceeding qualifications.

Leverage your efforts by also preparing your entry for the

Pacific Plains’ regional Silver Quill award for excellence in business communication.

The OCIABC Web site has more information about OCIABC’s awards program. Please visit www.ociabc.org for details, or contact the Chapter VP of Awards, Linda Wilson Bauer at liwilson@us.ibm.com.

Bronze Beacon Awards 2006Early Bird Entry Fees — For entries received by 5 p.m. on Friday, April 6, 2007:

$45 OCIABC Members and Students, $70 Nonmembers

Final Entries: Must be received by 5 p.m., Friday, April 20, 2007. Fee is $80.

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Lee Weinstein Shares his “Brand” of Nike WisdomThe March 2 OCIABC program was our first “Sold Out” monthly event. Lee Weinstein, Director of Internal Communications for Nike, explained the com-munication challenges facing Nike to nearly 40 members and guests at the Hall Street Bar & Grill in Beaverton. To keep employees engaged despite those challenges, Lee emphasized three essential strategies used by Nike:

• Be very open with employees; share the good and bad news; make senior management highly visible in a personal way.

• Capture and share “key moments” to share the excitement and build emotional commitment to the Nike brand.

• Use technology effectively to reach employees globally and in different work structures.

OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATORS

iaBc pr o m ot e s in t e r n at i o n a l a n d ch a p t e r Br a n d i n g

By Pat Snyder, V.P., Promotions & Community Relations and OCIABC Chapter Brand Champion

iabc is building its oWn brand in the coming months With the introduction of the “be heard™” tagline this spring.

OREGON COLUMBIA

The Be Heard™ concept grew from an international mem-bership survey conducted in summer 2006, which contained questions reaching beyond the traditional closed-end survey. Instead, the questions gauged membership reaction to both functional and emotional responses to what our careers mean to us as communication professionals.

More than 1,900 members worldwide responded to the survey. The results showed how the IABC membership operates beyond just being a community supportive of its members, the real meaning of IABC is the contribution the association and our work in the communication profession makes to the world in general.

Following the survey, IABC staff members tested sound bites with the Council of Regions, and then worked with an IABC worldwide membership team to develop a sound bite that perfectly represented this functional and emotional response to our profession.

The team concluded that Be Heard™ meets the criteria outlined in the survey results. IABC’s brand documentation states, “We fundamentally believe, as an association, that

every person, in every part of the world, deserves a chance to be heard. For us, the results clearly point to our sound bite — we inspire, develop and empower people to create the channels, experiences and platforms so people around the world can be heard.”

Right now you can find more information about Be Heard™ on the IABC website, and it will be a key focus at the Inter-national Conference in June. Along with the tagline, IABC is revising logo graphics and branding guidelines not only for their communications avenues, but for chapter communica-tions as well. All chapters have received the new graphics guidelines, and some chapters have already begun incorpo-rating the tagline and graphics into their Websites, stationery, newsletters and more.

OCIABC will revise our chapter branding as we learn more about IABC’s brand guidelines this spring. Watch for our new look, which will debut during summer 2007. As the OCIABC chapter “Branding Champion,” I will keep everyone informed about these changes. For more information on building the IABC brand, go to www.iabc.com.

Laurie Kelley’s positive outlook can be traced back to her Tampa, Florida childhood. She was the oldest of four children, with a single working mother who “did it all” without a housekeeper, a nanny, a microwave, or a complaint.

Laurie studied accounting at Notre Dame, and was fortunate to discover through an internship that account-ing really wasn’t for her, so she went on to earn an MBA with a focus in marketing. While in graduate school at Notre Dame she met her husband, who was from the West Coast. They decided that Oregon summers beat out Florida summers, and moved to the Portland area.

Laurie spent her early career in healthcare marketing, then accepted a wonderful job opportunity with OPB despite having no experience in the broadcasting field. “The po-sition was really interesting, very challenging and it opened me up to so many new experi-ences, meeting new people, and learn-ing about an entirely new industry,” says Laurie.

Laurie’s now the Director of Marketing for the University of Portland (UP), where she helps cre-ate more of a brand for UP and hopes to help the development staff raise money for continued expansion and upgrades. Laurie says, “The univer-sity has so many positive things go-

ing on, we need to let people know about them so they can get involved and help support our efforts.”

Laurie loves being part of a team and working on projects with people from other departments or outside the organization. “I tried consulting but I missed the daily interactions with my colleagues. My coworkers find me to be a lot more funny than my children do,” quips Laurie.

Outside of work Laurie enjoys doing things with her husband and four wonderful children—particularly exercising, attending her kids’ sporting events, and volunteering with their schools and sports teams.

She is also on the board of the Children’s Cancer Association.

As a new member of OCIABC, Laurie looks forward to

meeting new people and hearing their insights, as well as spread-ing the word about the excellent things happening at the University of Portland. To learn more about Laurie, contact her at (503) 943-8332 or kelleyl@up.edu.

memBer Bio:laurie kelley

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“I tried consulting but I missed the daily interactions with my colleagues. My coworkers find me to be a lot more funny than

my children do.”

“My greatest strength is... common sense. I’m really a standard brand — like Campbell’s tomato soup or

Baker’s chocolate.”

~ Katharine Hepburn

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Additionally, we’re fortunate because the majority of the communication and publication functions at the University of Portland are central-ized in my depart-ment. When brand-ing functions are not centralized, commu-nications are often inconsistent and people go wild with clip art, fonts, colors and sometimes even press releases. This really breaks down

the brand. We have an internal print shop here that is very sensitive to the issues of branding and works with folks here to make sure all items we print maintain the look and feel that reflect the University of Portland.

I am fortunate that people here freely share information with one another and, when there is something to be com-municated throughout the organization, our input is sought. We also have several writers here in marketing and another person who works for the President. They have a long tenure here and their “voice” reflects the University and its faculty, staff and students. Their tenure, campus-wide respect and talent really help to maintain consistency.

We’re working on developing more effective tools to in-crease communications to help keep people up-to-date as lives get increasingly busier.

Will Simonds Webmaster IBM Corp.

The IBM company uses many strategies and tools to solidify a consistent brand image within the employee population. By enabling a core team of workplace communicators, we can use these many methods to shape the perceptions and the culture of our locations across the globe.

Our main method of internal communication is the intranet, called w3. The home page is the preferred single point of entry for a vast and diverse range of business unit, location, work, and career information, based on personalized profiled preferences. A few years ago, managers were the number one source of information about the company. Now the intranet has surpassed managers, allowing for a consistent message about the brand and strategies.

As a workplace communication team, we strive to keep the messages to employees on target with the company strategy, brand, and values. This can be a challenge with an organiza-tion that has so many variations of its brand and offerings, and so many groups working on various projects. We do this through consistent messaging from our executives, synchro-nized rollout of different product- and milestone-based campaigns, the various communication channels (Web, e-mail, print and posters, executive messages, podcasts and video) effectively reaching diverse populations.

We also have a group that handles naming and branding, supporting those of us who write and distribute information about offerings. They help us keep the names and messages of various products and initiatives aligned.

branding, continued

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Recently, a team came together to address the needs of our growing remote employee population. Employees that work from home or at client sites have more difficulty connecting to the company and the brand. By using targeted e-mail communication and a collaborative wiki space, we are bringing together a community of employees and providing them with tools and avenues to connect to each other and the company.

Kathi VanderZanden Communications & Marketing Manager PNGC Power

PNGC Power is a cooperatively owned power services business providing economic benefit and strategic value to 15 cooperative member-owner utilities serving customers in seven western states. By coming together as PNGC Power, these co-op utilities have more options than any one of them could have alone – more buying leverage, technical capabilities, financial strength, risk management capability and control.

Our brand is built around authenticity and expertise. This authenticity is about how employees here see and present themselves; it’s the yardstick against which we measure ourselves and our work. Authentic expertise is both what attracted our member cooperatives to join as owners, and what has kept the relationships in place since 1996. We often hear how well-respected our organization is in the region. This is confirmed whenever we recruit to fill open positions, particularly for executives. Our candidates already seem to have in mind one of our top selling points: the company’s reputation.

The things we do to internally support and further the PNGC Power brand are very basic. We cultivate a work

environment in which company pride is based on sincere respect for one another and for one another’s expertise. This is expressed more formally at monthly all-staff meetings at which colleagues can present new work products, work groups, and other items of interest. We routinely ask staff to write articles for industry publication—and recognize them for doing so. We support and encourage our staff members to speak in industry forums and at local, regional, and national conferences, and provide them with formal presentation training.

Whether it’s a promotion or a decision from the board of directors, staff is the first to hear about it, directly from the CEO. Our internal e-newsletter, PowerTrends, appears six times a year—focusing on the work, the wins and the wisdom of PNGC Power employees. A couple times a year, a carefully selected, high-quality gift with our company logo is given to each employee. It’s simple, it’s low-key and it’s one of a handful of things that we’ve found really moves the needle on the dial.

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