February Meeting: How to Lead When No One Listens

The February meeting of RCC was held at the General Council on Finance & Administration for the

United Methodist Church on Music Row. We had a lunch and learn with Reah Aitkin, the Regional Development Director of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital on how to engage volunteers and get participation ...in other words, how to lead when no one listens.

Reah gave a friendly, open discussion on the topic of engaging volunteers. She included tips about the right kind of swag to incentivize, as well as tips on recruitment, and various levels of volunteers (from your one time volunteer to your brand ambassadors and committee members).  

It was a fabulous discussion and all attendees learned so much! A big thank you to Reah for sharing with us, and thank you as well to our wonderful hosts, GCFA! 

To view archives of past meetings, visit the RCC Nashville blog.

Our next RCC meeting is March 5, 2019 from 11:30 - 1:00 with guest presenter Tim Earnhart of Werkshop Branding.

January Meeting: What Makes an Idea Stick

The January meeting of RCC was held at the United Methodist Communications building on 12th Avenue South. We had a lunch and learn with Laura Buchanan, Senior Creative Content Specialist at United Methodist Communications. Her passion for writing, strategic messaging and connecting with audiences comes from a 12-year career in nonprofit fundraising and faith-based communications. 

Her topic on “What makes an idea memorable?” comes from the book, “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.”

Buchanan’s presentation covered six basic ways to make content relevant and interesting: 1) keep it simple and easy to understand, 2) drop in something unexpected to grab attention, 3) make it concrete so they remember, 4) ensure the information is credible, 5) create an emotional connection with the content, and 6) tell a story. 

It was a fabulous discussion and all attendees learned so much! A big thank you to Ms. Buchanan for sharing with us, and thank you as well to our wonderful hosts, UM Com! 

December Meeting: Strategic Marketing

The December meeting of RCC was held at the United Methodist Communications building on 12th Avenue South. We had a lunch and learn with Lori Whitbey, Senior Marketing Specialist for Schneider Electric, who shared 5 ways to make strategic marketing easier. 

The 5 Ways to Make Strategic Marketing Easier: 1) Think, 2) Where do you want to be? 3) Best route to get to the destination, 4) Implement, and 5) Think More. 

She shared a graphic with the concept of Learn-Feel-Do as a way to enlighten, educate and bring awareness to your target audience through conversion. In other words, first bring awareness about your product, service or brand, then educate them on why they would want your product, and finally convert this to actual sales. 

It was a fabulous discussion and all attendees learned so much! A big thank you to Ms. Whitbey for sharing her expertise with us, and thank you as well to our wonderful hosts, UM Com! 

November Meeting: The Importance of Video

The November meeting of RCC was held at the Muslim American Cultural Center in North Nashville. We had a lunch and learn with Judith Black of Upshot Media, who shared the importance of video in communicating your message.

She shared key tips to ensure your message gets across including her main message: have GREAT audio. She said that if the video quality is perfect and the audio is bad, it will look amateur, but if the audio is perfect and the video quality is bad, it will be seen as artistic. The most important point of video is to have excellent audio and your message will land with your audience.

Another key tip she shared was that you want to get your audience to relate emotionally with your message. Your video should have an emotional impact, taking your audience from "So?" to "Oh!" as she put it.

Judith said that those companies using video to market their services or products are growing 49% faster than companies that aren't using video. We live in an audio visual world, and need to produce videos to reach people, especially videos that are 2-3 minutes long at most, since people expect videos to be fast.

Judith is happy to connect with any communicators who want to engage further, and shared her contact info:

Judith Black
Producer/Partner
UPSHOT MEDIA
310-721-0017
www.GetTheUpshot.com
Judith@GetTheUpshot.com

October Meeting: Storytelling in Digital Media

The October meeting of RCC was held at the Tennessee Conference of the United Methodist Church in South Nashville. We had a lunch and learn with Sophia Agtarap, Director of Communications for Vanderbilt Divinity School. 

Sophia shared how to get your message across to the vastly different audiences we are trying to communicate to in today's fast-paced digital world. She also discussed her position with Vanderbilt Divinity School, including sharing a PowerPointon this which included a 4x4 model for knowledge content. This was an excellent visual to see how an idea can spread, be discussed and grow.  

Sophia is happy to connect with any communicators who want to engage further, and shared her contact info: 

sophia.agtarap@vanderbilt.edu
615.322.2442 [office]

September Meeting: Communicating Your Message

The September meeting of RCC was held at the Islamic Center of Nashville on 12th Ave South. We had a lunch and learn with Kalinda Fisher, President of Advocate Market Research. 

Kalinda shared what she does and how she works with panels to discover what people think about certain topics, and how she gives this to her clients so they can use this to achieve better communication with their intended audience. She also shared a recent passion she has been engaged in to bring diverse people to the same table to discuss deep issues. It's been dubbed "The Great Reset," and has the purpose of uniting people together in a time when it feels like news media is pitting us against those who have different views. 

August Meeting: Holly Meyer on Religion Reporting

The August meeting of RCC was held at United Methodist Communications on 12th Ave South. We had a lunch and learn with Holly Meyer, Religion Reporter for the Tennessean. Holly spoke about the changing landscape of religious reporting and the challenges of communicating faith issues through mainstream media.

She gave many personal examples of her experiences in religious reporting including how she came to be a religion reporter -- in fact, she is the only religion reporter in the entire USA Today Network. She said there are other reporters who do write religious stories, but she is the only one with that sole focus. You might think this makes sense as Nashville is termed the "Buckle of the Bible Belt." However, Holly reported that Nashville has practically tied with New York in the percentage of the population that reports "no religious affiliation" with New York's being 22% in 2016, and Nashville at 21%.  (source: The American Values Atlas)

It was incredibly interesting to hear directly from Holly about the challenges of religion reporting today, as well as the best ways to get religious stories into mainstream media. Her suggestion: tying them into other hot topics such as politics, health or climate change.