An 'engaging' event

I don't normally like shilling for various Ragan events . . . even though I do believe that Ragan seminars and workshops are the best in the business. It just seems odd to promote an event that I'm a part of. But I need to make an exception.

I have to use this space to mention an upcoming event in New York, because I really think it's on a topic communicators need to be aware of: employee engagement.

I know . . . I know . . . I was suspicious of this latest 'trend' too. Like any of the other flavors of the month, I figured this was just another way to make 'employee communication' sound more important.

But then I went out to dinner with some really smart people last week in Denver and all of them were talking about engagement. One woman, who works for Coors, has brought an organizational development background to her work in communications there, and she believes that employee engagement is the future—because it brings communications together with other company disciplines, such as OD and HR. And at Coors, they are actually measuring how engagement is affecting the bottom line.

In fact, everywhere I turn these days, I hear people talking about engagement.

That's why I think this event in New York is so exciting. The full title is: Employee Engagement: How to keep employees motivated and performance high.

It will be at The Roosevelt Hotel, May 18-20.

And it seems like Ragan has every heavy hitter in the business coming to this thing to discuss engagement: Shel Holtz, Les Potter, Brad Whitworth, Roger D'Aprix, Angela Sinickas . . . the list goes on and on.

I'll be there the entire time. Hope to see you there. We'll see if we can nail down this engagement thing once and for all.