Felicia Wiltshire, Director, Customer Service & Communications, City of Winnipeg, MB

Ivana Di Millo, Director, Strategic Communications, City of Mississauga, ON

Here from communications directors across Canada about their COVID Comms strategies as cities relaunch and try and balance COVID response with regular business operations. Hear tips, tricks, and lessons learned. This is a session you don’t want to miss!

In 2017 a major infrastructure project in a Moose Jaw business corridor “went sideways”. Affected business owners blamed lack of communication from the City as a contributing factor. Three years later, find out how a suite of communications tactics are helping the City of Moose Jaw avoid history repeating itself.

“We need a press release.”

“Why don’t you ever tell people about the good things we do?”

These are phrases communicators hear every single day. After spending endless time trying to explain that getting out “good news” wasn’t just about issuing another press release or putting out more facebook posts, we put together a plan for “Our City, Our Stories” (OCOS). OCOS was a place where we could shape and frame our own stories using a combination of video, photos, and written content, at a very minimal cost to the City. The launch of OCOS exceeded our expectations and has now become one of our go-to items in our communications tool box that even media use to help tell their stories.

https://www.winnipeg.ca/OurStories/default.stm

Storytelling is the best way to make a personal connection and have people tune in to what you’re saying. While this communications tool can elevate a communications strategy, it is often forgotten or overlooked. In this session, learn how to create impactful stories about local government services and programs (yes, it’s possible) to use in your social media, presentations, web pages, newsletters and more.

Have you ever found workplace communication challenging or wondered why colleagues communicate differently? Using real-life scenarios and examples, professionals will explore insights they can apply to communication challenges within the workplace. By being aware of personality traits, gender and differences in communication styles, professionals will be more productive, accountable, cohesive, connected and have the ability to communicate more effectively. Improving communication in the workplace positively impacts business operations and team performance.

Key Take-Away’s

When professionals don’t communicate effectively or understand each other’s styles and personality traits, challenges arise and overall productivity decreases. By understanding the significant differences and communication styles, professionals will learn how effective communication leads to a better workplace environment – ultimately improving employee engagement and efficiency.

Linda Bilben, Chief Strategist & Educator, Ink & Air Communication Corp

With Canada prioritizing Truth and Reconciliation efforts across Canada, Indigenous communities are playing a bigger part in today’s society whether it’s economic development, tourism, or bridging the gap. This session will provide insight into how to help Indigenous communication teams work through the top principals on creating a successful strategy.  Hear insights into the unique challenges of communications for Indigenous communities from this duo have worked with various First Nation Communities in BC with experience working with regional planning for Alberta and BC municipalities.

Parm Chohan
CQ.M Change Agents
ON

A one-style-fits-all approach to communications and engagement is neither effective nor meaningful to your diverse community members. Communicating with a multi-cultural community takes deliberate effort and skill, wrapped in both compassion and empathy.

Stepping out of the typical mono-culture approach, you will learn how to engage and communicate in ways that resonate with different cultures; avoid appearing to just pay lip service; and make truly inclusive connections.

Laura Black, Project Manager, Communications
York Region Rapid Transit Corporation (York Region)

(Projects have taken place throughout York Region, including Markham, Richmond Hill, Vaughan and Newmarket)

Everyone likes the idea of beautiful streets and upgraded infrastructure, but nobody likes demolitions, tree removals or ongoing construction! Hear a story of breaking new ground in communicating over 30 kilometres of full street construction projects, and learn the benefits we gained along the way that helped with challenges.

The need for masterful virtual facilitation skills is higher than ever before. This course will enhance both parts of that equation: facilitating skillfully and doing so using virtual platforms. Participants will leave with greater confidence and specific skills to help groups collaborate digitally in ways that are participatory and productive.

A strategic approach to media relations is crucial to building mutually beneficial and trusting relationships with news media. Such relationships help foster accurate, balanced and fair reporting; help allow an organization to convey information through media to stakeholders; increase positive coverage; and protect and enhance the organization’s reputation.

In this session, hear how this approach was successfully demonstrated through the City of Guelph’s award-winning Victoria Road Recreation Centre grand reopening media relations strategy, which focused on proactively seeking out media opportunities and earning media coverage to attract community members to the grand reopening event.

Walking through the creation of a media coverage plan, learn what strategies and tools exist to earn free media in your community and why the media is the best way to target your primary audience.

Brand is normally thought of for large corporations like Nike and Starbucks but municipalities all have a unique story and how that story is shared is the corporate brand. 

This session will walk participants through a brand development strategy to determine what sets their community apart and what it believes in, which dictates the communication style for its residents and visitors. 

Barbara Prud’homme, Community Engagement and Outreach Specialist, Strategic Department Communications

Lois Davies, Manager, Social Policy and Accessibility

Khairoon Abbas, Program Manager, Inclusion and Accessibility

The Regional Municipality of York

At York Region, we are committed to creating a workplace and community that is welcoming and inclusive of everyone. Learn about our award-winning Diversity and Inclusion project and supporting communications campaigns, and the valuable lessons we have learned – sometimes the hard way – along the way

Maegan MacDonald, Project Manager, Outreach & Education, Hamilton Water at City Of Hamilton

The City of Hamilton was looking to take action to address the growing issue of floatable waste in Hamilton Harbour. eSolutions was excited to work with city staff to develop a cheeky, lighthearted campaign to raise awareness and change people’s behaviours around the highly personal and private topic of unflushable waste.

During this session, we will share insights and background about The “Own Your Throne” campaign. Hear about our approach, details about the campaign and the results of this bold strategy, designed to share important messages with the public to help minimize the negative impact to the environment and city infrastructure.