Social Media Workshop with Rotary Club of Metn Gate, in Support of Sesobel

Sesobel is a Lebanese NGO founded in 1976 acting as a Social Service for the Welfare of Lebanese Children. Their work is highly known and very few are the chances for someone living in Lebanon to have not heard of them yet. Rotary Clubs a,k.a Lions Club are an international organization known for its clubs which usually attract people from different walks of life and expertise who are usually organized as chapters that work towards addressing and improving many social issues while upholding ethical behavior.

When a Lions Club is organizing workshops and courses in order to support an association like Sesobel, no matter how busy you are, you tend to say  "I'll be there". That's what happened when a friend of mine reached out and proposed I become part of this effort, organized by the Rotary Club of Metn Gate.

So on May 2nd, 4th, 9th and 11th, I will be facilitating 4 sessions of 3 hours each discussing various aspects of social media.

Our plan is to cover the following points:

• May 2nd:

• Introduction on Social Media

• Business Value of Social 

• Choosing Your Medium

• Building Your Team

• Dos & Dont's

• May 4th:

• Facebook Intro

• Business vs Personal Pages

• Advertising on Facebook

• Hands on exercise: Launching a Page

• May 9th:

• Twitter Intro

• Best Practices & Examples

• Tools & Useful Sites

• Hands-on Exercise: Launching a Twitter Account

• May 11th:

• Overview on Instagram

• Overview on Snapchat

• Overview on Pinterest

• Social Media Crisis Management

• Putting it all Together

But those of you who know me or have attended any of my workshops, know it's never a clean cut syllabus but more of an explorative journey where we dive into the subject and navigate it based on the audience's feedback and interaction.

If you are interested in my workshop or any of the other workshops offered by other distinguished professionals, I strongly urge you to subscribe on the following link a.s.a.p. You would be gaining valuable insights and also giving back to those in need of assistance via Sesobel.

For additional information and registration.

https://www.ihjoz.com/companies/490

From Crisis Communication to Roman Ruins: Euromed PPRD Workshop in Jordan

My long experience in facilitating courses and workshops has taught me that no two audiences are alike, much less when you are moving into an entirely new country and culture.
The EUROMED PPRD SOUTH II program landed this past week in Jordan. A country rich in history tradition, sunshine but most of all in warmth from its people. As a Lebanese, I can assert that there is a special bond that always connects us Levantines with each other. We have shared history, geography, climate, traditions, family ties not to mention woes and troubles.
Jordan has always been one of the most welcoming places I have visited and I was extremely enthusiastic to be back there again, this time with the PPRD team.
In case you have not caught wind of what our workshops are about, they are part of a bigger effort to prepare mediterranean countries to face crisis and disasters. Our team addresses Communication in times of Crisis more specifically and helps countries create the awareness needed to build their communication teams and apply the right communication strategy for those difficult times.

The audience in Amman was similar in structure to what we had noticed in Beirut, in the sense that attendance extended beyond the Civil Defense forces to include members of various ministries and official bodies. We did however have members of the (official) press present with us like in Algiers.

Excellent Workshop with my Colleagues Laurent Vibert & Veronique Ruggirello

The Jordanian hosts' enthusiasm for the learning process was no less than their counterparts in previous workshops. Although hesitant at first, and not sure what to expect  from this workshop, they quickly got into the motion, with some taking-on leading roles among the group in various exercises, such as the simulated TV interview or the Social Media Crisis simulation.

The Civil Defense members extended their hospitality further by offering us an amazing trip into the ancient but well preserved ruins of Jarash, located roughly 45 minutes north of the capital. This trip was extremely exciting for me personally, as I am a big fan of historical sites. My previous shorter visits to the country had not left me enough time to go admire such beautiful pieces of history.

In our free time, we also managed to uncover beautiful parts of a city that is friendly, safe, vibrant and with a great potential for more achievements.
We left hoping that our visit helped bring valuable insights to the brave men and women of the civil defense and other public protection services with whom we managed to build friendship and camaraderie ties.

As for me, I can only say one thing: See you soon Jordan!!

Algeria: Leading by Example in Civil Protection

Within the series of seminars and workshops, part of the EUROMED PPRD SOUTH II program. Funded by the European Union, and after a previous stop in Beirut, we headed for the Algerian capital where the Civil Protection Communication Team was eagerly waiting to be part of this global endeavor to empower similar public bodies in Crisis Communication.

On a personal level, this was my first trip to Algiers, a place not to be missed. The city rich in history, architecture and cultural diversity is impressive to say the least. The welcome we received by our hosts was beyond compare, even in my home country Lebanon where we usually take pride in how we receive travelers and guests.
I am here inclined to start thanking people by name but that would simply mean I would be either leaving someone out or just having a blog post consisting mostly of names of fine people who put their lives daily on the line to save others, so I will just throw out a big thank you to everyone involved in making our stay a memorable one.

In terms of work done, the attendees came from various units within the Algerian Civil Protection located in different parts of the country. We were also graced by the presence of local public and private media institutions representatives.
I have always been a fan of having more varied profiles in workshops and courses I have facilitated over the years. This was definitely the case, as different backgrounds joined in to deliver more insights into our discussions, to allow a more comprehensive approach to hands-on exercises and to keep the conversation alive from different perspectives.

Our workshop which focuses on a 360 approach to communication in times of crisis, took off with the usual theoretical approach to the subject on day 1 followed by a custom conceived crisis scenario mimicking a potential incident that could happen in the country.
The hands-on approach lasted for the remaining 3 days tackling respectively communication with the written press, TV and Radio interviews and culminated in the digital and social media communication part where we discussed the various strategies and tactics alongside the tools that can be used.

Each phase of the work saw the attendees investing themselves fully in role playing and tackling the hard interview questions or the snappy tweets and comments in an extremely professional way.
If something stood out most from this workshop, it was the team spirit with which everyone was working. Boundaries between the media and the civil protection members dissolved quickly and they were each bringing their own expertise to the mix.

This has been one of the most fruitful workshops we have facilitated during the whole program. There is no greater reward for a facilitator than to see that the information is flowing in a productive way and seeing that one's recommendations are being followed.

Algeria, it has been both a pleasure and privilege to have met the brave people that go beyond the call of duty in protecting the public. Here's to continued success!

Next on our agenda is Jordan, where we will be conducting a workshop in Amman on the 18th of April.

I leave you with some photos I snapped from our day out in Algiers with the Civil Protection teams

An amazing day out in Algiers with the awesome members of the Algerian Civil Protection members, discovering the city and their impressive headquarters.

Posted by Patrick Chemali on Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Empowering Crisis Communication through Workshops

For slightly more than a year, I have been actively involved in a series of seminars and workshops as part of the EUROMED PPRD SOUTH II program. Funded by the European Union, the program aims to increase Prevention, Preparedness and Response to natural and manmade Disasters.
One of the cornerstones of this effort resides in managing communication in times of crisis. For this purpose, we have been enabling public sector entities across the southern mediterranean with the know-how to implement an effective communication strategy, with the right mix of written, audio-visual and digital elements.
Workshops that initially received participants from multiple countries, allowed cross cultural barriers to be taken down and gave insights on how each country would communicate during a crisis, giving a much clearer image on what needed to be done on the national level.

Earlier this week, we embarked with the national workshops: a more focused "on steroids" version of the introductory workshops. The target is for national authorities to designate representatives of various entities that would be playing a key role in a smooth communication in times of crisis.

Beirut was the first to benefit from this, and I was thrilled to have kicked off this effort in my home city that, I believe, stands to benefit the most in these difficult times we are facing.
Further workshops are planned in the coming months in both Algeria and Jordan.

The Beirut workshop, held at the Grand Serial under the auspices of Lebanon's Prime Minister's Office, grouped members of rescue services, security forces, public ministries and official press agency.
Spanning over 4 days, we were able to introduce attendees to the general basis of communication, print media, radio, TV interviews, press conference and , most importantly, the proper use of digital tools and social media channels.

Initially met with resistance from some of the attendees, who deemed themselves to be already well versed in these disciplines, we were glad to later discover a cohesive group of individuals who invested themselves in each simulation. Q&As were elaborate and diverse and the audience emphasised at the end of the workshop the skills they acquired, wishing there had been more time to dwell on topics even longer.
There can be no greater satisfaction for a group of facilitators than to see that the message they have tried to deliver was well received. This group of attendees was exceptionally committed to learning and applying what they had learned in terms of crisis communication management.
While I hope they will never be faced with a crisis big enough to require them to all gather again to address it, I am twice thrilled, as a speaker and as a citizen, to see such a commitment from the public sector into issues of national importance.

Experts Team

I share the credit for this success with the fine people from the Prime Minister's Office: Veronique Azar, Nathalie Zaarour and other staff, and my excellent expert colleagues: Veronique Ruggirello (Kalimat Communication) , Laurent Vibert (Nitidis) and Cherine Yazbeck (Reporter at France 24)
Our team of experts is currently working on a Communication Workshop tailored for the private sector. If you are looking to empower your teams with the help of multinational experts, feel free to reach out to me on patrick.chemali@sharplemon.com or to any of my colleagues and we will gladly work with you to address your needs.

Stand Out...Of My Way

Nowadays, so many of us go on a perpetual quest to acquire additional skills, hoping to stand out from the crowd. I guess this is only normal as we live in a society that idolizes celebrities and socialites, and frequently shuns those who choose to perform away from the noise and hassle of the public eye.
This has sprung many into developing a business model that relied on delivering soft skills or people skills for those seeking that extra edge.

How do I fit in all this?

As an adept of the fine art of knowledge transfer, I always found myself drawn towards opportunities where I could act as a trainer, a facilitator, a speaker. Knowledge sharing is in its own merit is a learning experience.

This specific entity I collaborated with not long ago, portrayed itself as a dynamic professional team that lived what they preached and preached what they lived. They looked as transparent, open, systematic as they could be, constantly running round tables and introspection sessions where everybody seemed like they truly enjoyed helping each other out.

I plunged into this universe and took it upon me to create and re-write workshop material, enrich slide deck content and optimize the delivery methods. Results came quickly with praise and positive ratings from corporate and individual attendees of my workshops alike.
At some point, I was even asked to take a pass on a university teaching opportunity as my involvement in the workshops they planned to offer was both increasingly necessary and forecasted to grow...and I bought into all that.

Fool me once, shame on you...

A few months later, one disappointment was piling over another. My quota of workshops unlike my ratings was decreasing constantly. Travel plans fell through for unclear reasons. Even the initial financial agreement was not entirely respected. Eventually, my freedom to deliver workshops in the style that I always had used became suddenly subject to scrutiny and comments over factors that had no impact whatsoever on the outcome of the workshop and the satisfaction of the attendees. (see. Bullying101)

Things added up and it did not require me to be the lead character in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle epic novel to discover that  my entire involvement was used to fill their gap in knowledge and resources. Colleagues that had asked to attend my workshops as guests were actually there to pry, copy, learn the extra info that existed only in what I delivered verbally. That information could not be deducted from my slide decks because, simply, it was not there.

Openness, transparency and management by objectives were nothing more than a honeypot to attract qualified individuals into this setup (pun intended)
This was a closely knit group that systematically attracted outside skills to improve itself, only to later bully those very same talents away when they were no longer crucial to the operation.

After all why pay an external facilitator while they could split the revenues among them?
Why attend expensive training seminars when you get someone to spoon-feed you the material while bringing in revenue to the business?

Needless to say, my exit was swift and determined. I had no intention of wasting any energy anymore on such endeavors. I felt cheated but I was not bitter. My instincts had been warning me all along that something was wrong and I had failed to listen.

The Takeaway...

I may have lost time and effort collaborating with these individuals but I did not walk away empty handed.
Here's my advice on collaborating as a team member with any of the many training & facilitation centers out there:

1. Find out who their team members are then check out their credentials
2. Find out if it's a family operated business (not just family owned) or if they are all previously acquainted aside from currently being colleagues
3. Try to find people who collaborated with them before and ask them why they left
4. Secure the number of workshops and frequency in your contract
5. Secure the financial part in your contract
6. Make sure that efforts employed in improving their syllabus are remunerated or maintain a clause that prevents them from taking ownership of work you did on the material without you getting paid for it.
7. Do not accept other facilitators as guests (unless paid extra for that, and handsomely if I may ad)
8. When you get another opportunity take it, if they care enough about keeping you with them they'll offer to pay extra.