Past Events

Event Description

Hear from instructors and successful students what the Advanced Communications Project (ACP) is really about, and get a jump-start on your project. Jim, Shawn and Edith, all seasoned instructors of the ACP, explain the basic structure of the final course in the program, and give you tips and pointers on how to choose a topic that's appropriate. They will also convene a panel of successful graduates who represent a range of project types, and who share their stories and answer your questions.

Open to Strategic Communications students only.

Event Description

The television industry is in the midst of a digital revolution, evolving from a one-screen medium to a multi-platform experience on mobile, computer and internet connected television screens, creating a new creative entertainment landscape. In this interactive workshop, participants will learn how to use digital video to communicate with consumers, gain practical knowledge of the digital marketing landscape, and walk away with new ideas to drive future career decisions.

This event is free and open to the public.

Event Description

Hear from instructors and successful students what the Advanced Communications Project (ACP) is really about, and get a jump-start on your project. Jane and Jim, both longtime instructors of the ACP, explain the basic structure of the final course in the program, and give you tips and pointers on how to choose a topic that's appropriate. They will also convene a panel of successful graduates who represent a range of project types, and who share their stories and answer your questions.

Open to Strategic Communications students only. Strategic Communication students interested in attending this event should contact the program director to sign up.

Event Description

Event Description

Open ONLY to Strategic Communications students.

Fenton Communications is the largest public-interest communications firm in the country. Since 1982, Fenton has contributed to some of the most defining social change movements of the past quarter century, from the fall of apartheid to the rise of MoveOn.org as a grassroots political force. Fenton is small enough to be nimble and inventive but big enough to supply a full range of services, from strategic planning and media relations to advertising and online marketing.

Event Description

Students will learn how to use The Playmaker's Table--the world's first "periodic table" of influence strategies --to recognize and make "plays" in a competitive marketplace. Through case studies, you'll learn how to advance ideas, defend reputations, position brands and build coalitions.

This event is free and open to the public.

Download the PDF presentation from this workshop:
Cracking the Code of Communication Strategy: How to Use the Periodic Table of Influence by Alan Kelly

Speaker Biography

Alan Kelly is a business strategist, political commentator, and award-winning CEO. In 2006, Kelly founded The Playmaker's Standard, LLC, a management consulting and software services firm specializing in communication and competitive strategy, and developed a breakthrough "periodic table" of strategy--a system that names, describes and prescribes the work of playmakers everywhere,and which is catalogued in his landmark book, The Elements of Influence: The New Essential System for Managing Competition, Reputation, Brand, and Buzz.

Event Description

A workshop that teaches how to identify and focus creativity to find original solutions to any problem. Participants work together to practice new ways of solving problems.

Download the Power Point presentation from this workshop:
Applied Intuition -- Problem Definition and Solution by Leslie Hallam

Speaker Biography

Leslie Hallam has 25 years of experience as a market research professional, working in the UK, Europe, the Far East, and the U.S., for clients including P&G, Carlsberg, Pfizer, Verizon, Mercedes Benz, The Ad Council, ActionAid, Oxfam, and The Boy’s and Girl’s Club of America. With a background in psychology and social research, Hallam applies contemporary academic theories to help corporate and nonprofit clients incorporate cultural insight into their marketing strategies. Hallam uses ethnographic data and draws on myths and fairytales to tap the "quieter aspects" of the consumer mind in order to invigorate and inspire creativity. Hallam holds degrees in psychology and anthropology from the University of Bradford, UK.

Event Description

Learn the seven essential secrets to creating engaging and persuasive presentations. Using principles drawn from entertainment, strategy, psychology, and neuroscience, presenters learn to craft presentations that inspire audiences to take action.

Speaker Biography

Jane Praeger is the founder and president of Ovid, Inc., a firm that provides speech, presentation, and media training, strategic communications consulting, and customized workshops for corporations, nonprofits, and individuals. She's a faculty member of the M.S. in Strategic Communications and she teaches Delivering the Strategic Message, Advanced Writing Workshop, The Power of Opinion, and Advanced Communications Project.

Tasha Space is a brand strategy consultant, working with companies such as Faith Popcorn's Brain Reserve, Deutsch Inc., Pfizer, Mad Dogs and Englishmen, and Satori. She's a faculty member of the M.S. in Strategic Communications and she teaches Introduction to Market Research, Positioning and Communications Strategy, and Advanced Communications Project.

Event Description

A good presentation is engaging. A great presentation is engaging and informative. An outstanding presentation is engaging, informative, and inspiring. An outstanding presentation requires strategy. Strategy is the process of information gathering, analysis, creative insight, planning, and then acting and communicating purposefully in order to increase the probability of achieving a goal. When the principles of strategy and effective communication skills are applied to presentations, presentations go from good to outstanding. Anyone who applies the fundamentals of Crafting Strategic Presentations will see immediate results: becoming a more engaging, powerful and influential speaker.

Event Description

Ideas often come from a flash of insight. Things come together in your mind. Your brain connects the dots. Modern brain science now reveals how these flashes of insight happen. It's a special form of intuition—strategic intuition—because it gives you an idea for action, a strategy. Strategic intuition works in new situations. Now that we know how flashes of insight happen, we can learn to recognize and use strategic intuition to galvanize our thinking and solve problems.

Event Description

Meet executives and staff from NBC's corporate communications team and learn the challenges, complexities, and excitement of working at one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies.

Event Description

Hear from instructors and successful students what the Advanced Communications Project is really about, and get a jump-start on your project. Jim and Louise, both long-time instructors of the ACP, will explain the basic structure of the final course in the program, and will give you tips and pointers on how to choose a topic that's appropriate.  They will also convene a panel of successful graduates who represent a range of project types, and they will share their stories and answer your questions.

Event Description

Being "green" is fashionable today for many big companies but credibility only comes if your environmental message matches your business strategy. Learn how GE devised a strategy for its "ecomagination" campaign that is focused on business results and shareowner value. This seminar will describe how this strategy was executed across multiple platforms and how the results are being measured. Gary and Peter also will discuss how strategic outreach to environmental groups, customers, and thought leaders helped inform GE's goals for the program as well as its positions on public policy issues such as climate change.

Event Description

Simon will share an idea that will change the way you think and act. A simple idea based on the tenets of building a strong position can help you improve your position, help you advance your career, or just help you better position companies or brands.

Event Description

Although having a Web site may be de rigueur for companies today, most Web sites fall short of their potential in terms of organization branding and serving customer needs. Common problems range from poor design and site navigation, complex registration or ordering processes, extraneous multimedia elements that hamper the consumer experience, and poor search engine optimization. This seminar will provide a framework and checklist from which to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of websites. It will help participants in creating or revamping an organization’s website to ensure that it best serves customer and organization needs.

Event Description

It has become de rigueur for companies and organizations to media train their key spokespeople. But journalists are becoming more vocal in their displeasure with executives who are so over-prepared--and over-policed--that their interviews are dull, fake-sounding, and forgettable.

In this seminar, we'll discuss how to prepare for a media interview without sounding like a mouthpiece for your PR department. You'll learn how to deliver messages without becoming a "message jackhammer," how to direct the flow of an interview without micromanaging it. Participants will have an opportunity to engage in exercises that build energy, affect and succinctness. We will discuss techniques for dealing with performance block and for becoming more skillful public speakers.

Event Description

Meet executives from among marketing, public relations, business opportunities, community relations, events, and fan development departments and learn what it takes to market a premier sports team.

Event Description

A panel discussion among industry experts.

Mark Edward Goodrich, Manager, Business Development, BusinessWeek Online

Brian Ward, Senior Web Producer, Tech Confidential

Tom Groppe, Executive Editor, TheDeal.com

Dave Lorenzo, CareerIntensity.com and Strategic Communications graduate

Moderated by Shawn McIntosh, Strategic Communications faculty

Blogs have inspired both the entrepreneurial and the curious to establish themselves as ad hoc media enterprises, while at the same time challenging existing media entities to rethink their core businesses. Anyone can start a blog, but how does one establish a successful blog that rises above the crowded airwaves and finds a loyal audience? This panel explores the shifting role of mainstream media as gatekeepers and the promise-and pitfalls-of strategic communication professionals who are considering using blogs. We will discuss the tools and services necessary to make any blog "top of mind" and also explore new and emerging technologies that will likely alter the blogosphere, including podcasts and vlogs.

Event Description

Brand advertising is notoriously hard to measure. Marketers, agencies, and researchers have struggled for years to solve the problem of proving the value of their of brand communications. It's not easy, but there are ways to solve the problem. This session will review the issues and provide several options for brand marketers to consider.

Ruth P. Stevens consults on customer acquisition and retention, for both consumer and business-to-business clients. She has held senior marketing positions at Time Warner, Ziff-Davis, and IBM, as well as two Internet startup companies. Ruth teaches graduate students at Columbia Business School, and is past chair of the Business-to-Business Council of the DMA. Crain’s BtoB magazine named Ruth one of the 100 Most Influential People in Business Marketing in 2002. Ruth is the author of The DMA Lead Generation Handbook and Trade Show and Event Marketing: Plan, Promote and Profit. She has studied marketing management at Harvard Business School and holds an MBA from Columbia University.

Event Description

Steven Rubenstein, president of Rubenstein Communications, will provide practical guidance for generating meaningful publicity. He will discuss understanding the media and the news cycle, thinking strategically and placing great stories, and delivering work clients will pay for and employers will value.

Steven Rubenstein is President of Rubenstein Communications. During his career of more than 14 years in a 51-year-old family business, Steven has learned PR from the ground up. His clients include the Late Show with David Letterman, the Tribeca Film Festival, the Metropolitan Opera, News Corporation/the New York Post, American Express, and Kraft Foods. As a member of the firm’s Executive Committee, Steven plays a key role in setting business and client service standards and objectives. Steven, who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, is a vice president of the Board of Directors – and a member of the Executive Committee – of the Association for a Better New York (ABNY). He is a member of the Board of Directors of Safe Horizon and sits on the Advisory Board of the Strategic Communications program at Columbia University.

Event Description

This workshop is for anyone who might interview with the media at some point in their careers, whether it be with television, print or radio media.
Learn how reporters are trained to think, the techniques they employ in interviews, and the traps they use to ensnare unsuspecting interviewees. Participants will first learn the Do's and Don'ts of a successful media interview, then through role-playing exercises, how to non-evasively deliver pre-determined messages, regardless of the questions asked.

Dan Broden is vice president of the Communications Training Network at Ketchum Public Relations in New York, where he provides media training and presentation skills coaching for a wide variety of Ketchum’s clients. A former national television anchor and reporter as well as attorney, Dan counsels clients on how to master the art of persuasive communication, whether before a news camera or a live audience.

Dan has worked with such diverse clients as Kodak, IBM, The Home Depot, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Delta Airlines, Visa, Best Buy, Federated Department Stores, Gillette, Frito-Lay, Tropicana, Eli Lilly, Comcast, Kimberly-Clark, The New York Stock Exchange, and the WNBA. He has trained a variety of celebrity spokespeople, including Duchess Sarah Ferguson, Dick Clark, Walt Frazier, Henry Winkler, Debra Norville, Lauren Bacall, Keith Hernandez, and Diahann Carroll. Dan has also conducted presentation skills seminars at Rutgers University and for members of NYAAPOR, the NY Chapter of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.