Cut Through the Clutter: Use the Best Strategies and Tools to Reach Your Audience and Measure Impact

Join Chris Foster, Dr. Gary Puckrein, Rex Repass and Patrick Pho for their workshop, Just Five More Seconds of Mindshare? Use the Best Strategies and Tools to Reach Your Audience!, on Sunday, October 16, 2011 4:45 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. at the PRSA 2011 International Conference, Oct. 15–18 in Orlando, Fla.!

Picture this: It’s another Monday morning. As you step out of bed, you are beginning to mentally prepare for the thirteen meetings that stagger ahead on your manic schedule. While gradually awakening, you emerge to commence your daily routine… pick up the paper, make the coffee, pop the English muffin into the toaster and turn on your computer – ready to respond to a series of instant messages and e-mails aggregated in your inbox from the time you kissed the kids goodnight at 11PM until the time the alarm clock went off at 5:45AM. You want to be in the office by 7, so you quickly rush through your calendar reminders to ensure you are on time and aware of all of your obligations. You enjoy that one last sip of coffee before jumping into your suit and you wave goodbye to you family (who are just now waking up). After shutting the car door, you immediately turn on your Bluetooth (allowing you to multitask even more!) and quickly dial-in for your weekly Monday morning staff call. Turning on your mental auto pilot, you suddenly realize you’re 20 minutes into the call and you’ve been asked to provide your projections for the week. What did you gather from the first half of the call?

We’ve all been in similar situations before – and it’s likely our audiences have been through the same. Overtaxed for time, how do we retain our audiences’ undivided attention?

In a world with increasing distractions, it can be difficult to get the concentration of your audience and it is a challenge to understand what resonates with them and why. As professional communicators, we are constantly looking for ways to break through the clutter, capture our audience’s full attention and figure out how we can improve audience engagement and response.

In your personal and professional experience, have you ever been overwhelmed with information during a presentation? Have you ever wondered how we can prevent such issues in the future? Maybe measurements and evaluations can help us to cut through all the clutter?

If any of this sounds interesting to you join me, Chris Foster, Principal, Booz Allen Hamilton, along with three distinguished panelist – Dr. Gary Puckrein, President and CEO, National Minority Quality Forum, Rex Repass, President and CEO, R.L. Repass & Partners, and Patrick Pho, Online Analyst, New Media Strategies – for the Just Five More Seconds of Mindshare? workshop on Sunday, October 16, 2011 4:45 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. at the JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes.

Chris Foster is a principal of strategy and organization at Booz Allen Hamilton. Previously, Chris was as an adjunct professor and guest lecturer at Columbia University, Western Kentucky University and Howard University teaching on topics ranging from strategic communications to health policy. Chris is active in the regional chapter of the American Heart Association and serves on the Board of Directors for the Child Family Network Center.

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