evan mcbroom THE OTHER SIDE of the boat

Creating Buy in For Next Big Thing

This week, I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of about 40 pastors and other church leaders at the Cornerstone Conference (Twitter #ckn09) in Charlotte. (that's not me in the picture, it's Matt Evansof Rockbridge Community Church in Dalton GA)  I spoke on the topic of casting vision.  I promised folks that I would post my slides here.  Here they are. (I pulled a few of the photos out, but it's still a 8MB file)

Download Communicating Next Big Thing - CKN Charlotte - blog version

And here is the link to an article published in Church Solutions Magazine that tells some of the same story.

If you attended, I'd love your feedback on the session.  What resonated.  What repelled?

Say less. Say more.

Yesterday I Twittered the following:

Communication advice from Ecclesiastes 6:11 "The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?"

This morning I took that advice to heart and cut 30% of the slides out of the presentation I'm giving today at the Cornerstone Conference in Charlotte, NC.  It's my belief that if I give them less detail, the pastors who will hear this message will walk away remembering the main thing...and that's the main thing.  What I cut was a lot of the detail that would be great to come back to if I were able to give a second talk to the same group tomorrow. But for today, I'm giving the main message more room to breathe.  More time for people to ponder. Percolate.  And more time for discussion.

What are you working on right now that could use a little snip-snip in the detail department?  It's tough to cut, because we're often vested in our material...but in many cases its all so new to our audience that giving them less may allow them to remember more.  Crazy huh?

Extending the church brand into childrens ministry

Kudos to Kingsway Christian Church.  With an already solidly established brand presence on Indy's western suburbs, they have extended the brand identity to their first major ministry.  At Fishhook, we call this a sub-brand - a separate, weighty brand that is connected to the parent through the visual identity, communication and brand experience.

This branding includes the development of a new mark, specific for Kingsway Kids with a strong tie to the overall corporate mark and a twist as the corporate tag line (real - passionate - truth) plays out to describe the Kingsway Kids experience (real - fun - truth).

Much more than just the logo, the sub-branding is part of a larger overall effort to

• increase the visibility of Kingsway's Childrens Ministry (renamed Kingsway Kids)
• improve the connection, communication and collaboration with parents and volunteers
• celebrate how God is at work through Kingsway Kids and more

Kingsway mobilized multiple staff and lay teams to tackle various aspects of the project and Fishhook was honored to collaborate on this major, multi-month effort of research, creative development and implementation.  You can check out some of the streamlined communication tools at the Kingsway Kids area of the Web site.  Check out the videos and High Five newsletter.  

Here are just a few lessons we learned and/or principles we applied in doing this work:

1. It's better for a church to be a "branded house" than a "house of brands."  We see this best in the corporate world.  Disney is a branded house - a strong tie across their sub-brands (Disney World, Disney Land, Disney Stores, Disney Cruise Line, etc.) Procter & Gamble is a house of brands (Tide, Bounty, IAMS, Crest). Design the identity of your ministry brands and your overall church brands to support each other.
2. Parents and volunteers want one place to go to get informationabout classes, lessons, events and the assignments...especially if they have multiple aged children in the ministry.
3. Stories move people. If your ministry has a story to tell, give it a place to tell it.  The newsletter and Web site will become the place to share stories and resources will be directed to help tell the stories. 

Congrats Kingsway and Kingsway Kids! (and thanks for letting us be part of the fun...I mean work)  

Vision Slides - here for you

I had an awesome time in Chicagoland today presenting to church leaders.  My topic "Casting and Communicating Vision - Creating Buy-in for the Next Big Thing."  Here are my slides for your enjoyment and reference:

Download Beyond_bricks_casting_vision_030408

Don't confuse information with...

Dear Church Leaders, Do you have a major change ahead for your congregation?  A change in service times?  A facility change? Moving from a Bible study approach to small groups?  Adding a service style? Changing your name? Starting to allow coffee in your worship center?  Changing your office hours? Cutting staff?  Adding staff? 

Assess your communication efforts regarding the change and ask yourself:

Are we informing our people about change or inspiring our people toward change?

Don't confuse information with inspiration.  Is the difference clear to you?

Inspiration overload?

"Too much information coming to my brain. Too much information driving me insane."  

Yeah.  You read it right. Inspiration overload.  The normal phrase is "information overload" and we hear the term often in the culture, media and our conversation. I would say as church communicators gather this week at MinistryCOM, a listening ear might hear this refrain as one person shares their world with another, something like this, "At our church, we just totally suffer from information overload. We just put so much stuff in front of our people - posters, banners, weekly bulletin, monthly newsletter, email blasts, stuff in our lobby, and in their mailboxes, and postcards and...blah, blah...

But I challenge you to find one uttering the phrase "inspiration overload" to describe how their church - and their church leaders - communicate with their congregation - that's because (I believe) church leaders and church communicators often concentrate 99% of their communication effort on communicating the information, but fail to provide the right amount of inspiration. Because information does not move people to act...unless it is combined with inspiration. 

Gotta bolt...an upcoming post will outline my thoughts on how to bring inspiration and information together.  But while I go get some other stuff taken care of...perhaps you have thoughts?

Working with your local newspaper

Fishhook friend Steve Dennie with the United Brethren Church HQ in Northern Indiana joined us recently for a roundtable meeting.  The topic was PR/Media Relations.  Steve wrote a post for his peeps to eat up...sifting out some of the tips for working with a local newspaper.  Here are my fave five from Steve's post.  You can read his full post here.

1. Understand that editors and reporters get scores of phone calls, emails, and voice messages while working on strict deadlines. It's easy for things to slip through the cracks.
2. Leave short voice messages, and identify yourself and your church clearly.
3. They prefer stories about people, rather than about institutions.
4. Don't bombard them with information about every little church event. We get excited about what's happening in our church and want to throw it all out to the public. But before long, they'll just begin ignoring your submissions. Be strategic in suggesting stories. Once a quarter is good.
5. A good story angle: how something your church does ties into trends, topics, and issues of interest to the entire community

You can read his full post here.  Thanks Steve

Focused communication

Just got this email from my son's 5th grade teacher.  It's the perfect length and contains all the needed information for it's purpose. 

As we approach a new month I have listed some events that will be happening. Please be looking out for notes and more information about these events in your child’s take home folder. Thanks. J

 SEPTEMBER

1st -- Reading Test

2nd -- Ms. Williams' Math test

7th -- No School: Labor Day!!!

10th -- Field Trip to Children's Museum

15th -- Field Trip to CHS Planetarium

18th -- End of 1st Six Weeks

22nd --24th  In-View ISTEP testing (5th grade only)

25th -- Picture Day & Report Cards come home

Ms. Williams' could have bogged this communication down with ton's of details (which we'll need to know later), but for the stated purpose - planning and heads up - it's right on target.  Is your communication as tight and purpose focused.  Is mine?

Your best communication style?

When speaking in public, what's your best communication style? Are you a "scripted" speaker or an "outline" speaker.  Both are great.  I'm confident of when I'm at my best.

Be true to you from Evan McBroom on Vimeo.

Rubbermaid should have broadened their branding team...

to include 10 year old boys. They would have found the naming flaw with this diaper changing table I found in a park restroom. Comments?