Tag Archives: svama

Great SVAMA Event w/ Carmine Gallo Yesterday

Yesterday afternoon we had an SVAMA-sponsored lunch presentation by Carmine Gallo.  He presented topics from his new book, Fire Them Up via (Amazon), which discusses great communication techniques.  However, more than simply summarizing his points, we were able to put the pieces into practice.

After explaining 7 components that fill in the acronym “INSPIRE” participants were asked to practice their elevator speeches, and the group and Carmine offered critiques.  It was funny, one after the other the pitches improved:  Bad pitch, critique, better pitch, critique, great pitch.  I was reminded of the book Made to Stick which gives a similar set of techniques that anyone can use to improve the resonance of their message.  I do appreciate these techniques that work no matter who uses them.

The INSPIRE acronym:

I – Ignite your own enthusiasm
N – Navigate the way with a consistent memorable vision
S – Sell the benefit by putting your listeners first
P – Paint a picture with powerful, memorable, actionable stories
I – Invite participation by asking for input and dealing with objections
R – Reinforce an optimistic outlook by becoming a beacon of hope
E – Encourage people to reach their potential by praising and investing in them

SVAMA November Program on Social Media Public Relations

 

Last week Thursday evening the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association (SVAMA) held an event in conjunction with the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs (SVASE) on the topic of utilizing social media technologies (blogs, podcasts, RSS, and the like) successfully in an integrated public relations campaign.The moderator was Mike Manuel from Voce Communications and the author of the Media Guerrilla blog.Mark Coker from the Dovetail PR agency was a panelist, as were Brian Warren of OuterJoin and Jeff Rubenstein of Sony Playstation (USA).My sincere thanks to these gentlemen for their participation!The topics discussed ranged quite greatly and reflected the diverse nature of all the attendees. They covered, how does a tech-unsavvy person get into this (just get out there and start typing) to how do I justify online PR activities to reluctant decision makers who also happen to handle budgets (by integrating Web 2 technologies into a fully integrated comm strategy that includes time-proven media vehicles).The event was a great success with over 100 attendees from both organizations and the public at large. Adobe Systems hosted the event in their LEED Certified building. They offered a great conference room and a great spread of food and refreshments.In full disclosure, MarketCulture Strategies has a deep interest in the SVAMA as two of our team (including myself) are members of the board. I find my participation in the group to really help me stay on top of current marketing issues, which I think is extremely important here in Silicon Valley. Moreover it provides great networking opportunities. Over time I can see the organization being mentioned a lot on this blog.