Effective Unit Communications Twishansh Mehta Tim Ganger

2 After this session, you will be able to: –Understand the fundamentals of effective communications. –Apply these fundamentals to communicating within your unit volunteers. –Apply these fundamentals to communicating to your unit membership. –Understand what communications tools are available from ASME. Session Objectives

3 Session Outline Principles of Communications Communicating with your Unit Breakout Group Activity Communicating to your Members Breakout Group Activity ASME Communications Resources

4 Principles of Communications The Communications Process SenderMessageEncodingMediumDecodingReceiverSenderDecodingMediumEncodingMessageReceiver NOISE

5 Principles of Communications SMART Principles Specific – your message Measureable – your feedback Attainable – your medium Realistic – your medium Time Bound – message delivered at the right time

6 Principles of Communications The Basics WHOWHAT WHEN and HOW DID IT WORK?

Communicating with your Unit Who is communicating with whom? Types of Volunteers Students Employed Retired Academics Mobile Disabled 7

8 Communicating with your Unit What do you want to communicate? Unit Planning Task Assignments (Action Items) Task Follow-up Brainstorming Ideas Asking for Help Offering and Providing Help Decisions

9 Communicating with your Unit When do I communicate my message? Real time or delayed? How far in advance? What day of the week? What time of day? Students: when I’m not in class. Employed: when I’m not at work. Mobile: when I’m not travelling. Everyone: when I’m not asleep.

10 Communicating with your Unit Mediums and Tools

11 Communicating with your Unit Did it Work? Getting Feedback Did my message get to the receiver? –Acknowledgement by receiver of receipt. Was my message decoded correctly? –Action item completed and completed correctly. –Response reflects what was asked. –Comments were recorded down correctly. –Help was offered or declined. –Were questions asked?

12 Communicating with your Unit Group Activity On each table is a description of a unit activity. Create a plan to effectively communicate instructions to your volunteers to execute the activity seamlessly. –Consider who needs to be involved. –What their communication preferences are. –When and how to communicate. –Ensuring successful communication to ensure successful execution.

What is the makeup of your membership? –Student members –Professional members –Retirees –International members 13 Communicating with your Members

14 What barriers exist making communication difficult and how do you work around them? –Language barrier –Technology barriers –Time zones

Communicating with your Members What do you want/need to communicate? –Activities –Meeting dates/times –Member benefits 15

Communicating with your Members How do you communicate it? –Social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.) –ASME Webpages –Non-ASME Webpages – –Phone calls –Text messages 16

Communicating with your Members How do you know if your communication was effective? –Read receipts on s –Webpage visit tracking –Social media activity 17

Communicating with your Members Group Activity –Take the activity you designed in the earlier group activity and create a communications plan to market it to your members, and to receive their feedback afterwards. 18

ASME Communications Resources Online Unit Roster and List-Serve ASME Letterhead ASME PeerLink Newsletter Templates Web Site Best Practices and Server Space Member Recruitment and Retainment Kit 19

20 Summary of Key Points Communication is a process between a sender and receiver SMART communications strategies apply within your unit and with your members. There are numerous tools and mediums available from ASME and in the public domain to effectively get your message across to your desired target.

21 Communications For questions or comments: Twishansh Mehta Tim Ganger Presentation available at events.asme.org/LTC12/ home.cfm