Event CEO Podcast -- Episode 55

Meg Kane, Senior Vice President at Brian Communications: Inspiring Engagement at Events Through Storytelling—ECEO

Meg Kane Part 2

Introduction: You're listening to Event CEO, a podcast for executives who are looking to maximize their event ROI through business strategy, technology, and innovation.

Rebecca Linder: Welcome to the Event CEO podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Linder, CEO and founder of Linder Global Events. Today, I'm delighted to welcome back Meg Kane. She's a seasoned strategic communicator, storyteller and public speaker. Meg has significant experience in executing major public events in both the U.S. and in Europe. Bringing a distinct perspective in real world insights to corporate and nonprofit organizations alike, she draws a nearly 15 years of management and mentorship within the public relations industry, a field dramatically impacted by a changing media landscape and a changing workforce. And in today's conversation with Meg, we were talking about messaging and authenticity and kind of the big highlights that you're going to get from this is really how to do storytelling well, which is one of the, kind of the most important conversations you want to have out of the gate from an event perspective.

Rebecca Linder: And when does that conversation about your story, when should that actually begin and who's involved in that conversation? And what do you need to do to get people to actually take action at your events. You'll also learn about some pitfalls to watch out for and the responsibility you owe

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to your actual participants and guests. And then we'll talk about anthems and what role does an anthem and creating an anthem for your event actually mean and how do you go about doing it? So, with that, I hope you enjoyed today's podcast and we'll look forward to hearing all your feedback.

Rebecca Linder: Meg, once again, appreciate your expertise around all these subjects that we're talking about from a messaging perspective and for media as it relates to events. A big topic of conversation that's coming up, and a lot of it is, and you're hearing a bunch of buzz words, you're hearing anthem, you're hearing authenticity, you're hearing messaging, you're hearing storytelling, talk to me about all those things role in events and at what point should we start talking about them and how do they influence what we're talking about?

Meg Kane: So, there are a lot of buzzwords about messaging in events and I think that right now we're hearing the word storytelling over and over again. And to the point that I think people are saying, "Oh, it's overused and it's just, oh it's ... We're going to ... It's going to be passe soon." The issue is is that we're talking a lot about storytelling, but there's not a lot of people that are doing it well.

Rebecca Linder: Okay.

Meg Kane: And so I think that for an event, it starts with the question of why are we doing this event and what are we trying to achieve? And from there, once you answer those questions, your message platform, your story should be built to answer the why are we doing that and what are we trying

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to achieve? And you have to be creative about that. I think we've all been to events where people get up and they talk at you, right?

Rebecca Linder: Of course.

Meg Kane: Of course. And they talk at you and they feel like they are delivering the message. They're giving you statistics, they're talking about high level concepts, what's being achieved. And it doesn't really feel accessible necessarily. There is a time and a place for that certainly. It depends on what the event is. But what I think is that sometimes we don't pay enough attention from an event standpoint to what is the overall feeling that we're trying to create. Because the message ultimately is not about the words, it's about the feeling that you leave the audience with. And that audience is the live audience. It's the audience that might experience the event through media cover, to ... Through the lens of media. And it's also those that might experience it on social media.

Rebecca Linder: So is your contention that by creating the right feeling within the context of the story that you're trying to tell, that's when people will take action? It's not because they know the statistics or the words.

Meg Kane: Right.

Rebecca Linder: Okay.

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Meg Kane: That's exactly right. I don't think that ... The statistics give people pause. It might be something that they don't know, but it's usually not enough to make them take action.

Rebecca Linder: Okay.

Meg Kane: And that it's about creating a feeling about the organization or the brand that helps people to engage. And so people buy Pampers or Luvs diapers because they feel there's a story, there's a narrative that's created through the advertising that gives them a sense that they're taking care of their child. They do it because it's a great thing, that's the best product, right? But it's also because when you see the sleeping child in the Luvs overnight and you're not getting up and they remain sleeping, you're like, oh, that's my baby, right? That's what you want.

Rebecca Linder: Or I want it to be my baby that stays asleep.Meg Kane: Or I want it to be my baby that stays asleep, right? So they do it out of that feeling that it's a feeling. It's not because Luvs or Pampers gets up and say, "94% of our children who use these diapers only wake up one time at 4:00 AM." Like, that's not the narrative they're creating. The narrative is around how a parent feels. It's tapping into that emotion and that feeling of what they want to provide for their child. So if you think about that from an advertising construct and then you apply that to events, you're trying to do the same thing.

Rebecca Linder: It's sort of like what Steve Jobs did for Apple. I mean, it's the aspiration piece of it.

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Meg Kane: It's the aspirational point, right? I mean, that's the ... People would ... If you think about what those look like, and it's so interesting now because you see Tim Cook in the role of Steve Jobs doing the same thing. It's the same model of an event. And it just, I think it showcases that when you create a really compelling event, you could actually change the person and still have the same effect, right?

Rebecca Linder: Yeah. Okay.

Meg Kane: And that messaging is a little bit different, certainly. I mean, it's changed and Tim Cook has different priorities than Steve Jobs for certain, but the fact that they've created that event and how they've created that narrative and everything from the look and feel to the words that go into the prompter, they're driving the same action. They're driving that same feeling among the people that are in the room who then see it on TV. Everybody knows when Apple makes the announcement, it looks like an Apple announcement, in September. Like everybody knows what it's going to look like.

Rebecca Linder: So how do we apply that to sort of this bigger universe of events and where does it start? I mean, again, storytelling is kind of the concept, right? We should be telling a story is what I'm hearing is the contention, regardless of how buzzword, buzzy it is right now. If you do it well, you should still be thinking about it. So, how do you start to define your story and at what point do you do that and where does it end? You said at the outset, I know, but sort of how do you distill it down to something then

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actionable for the event producer, for the comms team, for whoever else it's going to impact?

Meg Kane: Story is about finding a way to convey authenticity and realness to the audience.

Rebecca Linder: Okay.

Meg Kane: So often when I think of events and I think of when people get up on stage, they give more policy focused speeches, whether they are a nonprofit or whether they are a corporation. They feel like I have this captive audience and I know all of these things that are in my head that are rational thoughts, that are important statistics, that I feel that I need to convey to the people in this audience, and that's how I'm going to make my point, and that's how I'm going to get them to where they need to go, when in fact the thing that really unites us all, and if you think back again, I use the example of Luvs and Pampers and being children, and for children and the way parents are is that it's like reading a bedtime story too. Bedtime stories distill down these kind of like big thoughts into something that's wholly accessible for the child that they're reading to.

Meg Kane: That's exactly what you have to do at an event. You have to distill it down into a way that is completely accessible to the people that are sitting there. That if you get up and start talking about statistics as it relates to, for instance, I was at an event three weeks ago that was focused on women's issues and there was just a significant number. She got up 34 minutes, PowerPoint, let me give you the percentage of women who are not

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equal pay and it's just one thing after another and then this is what we did with the money last year and 64% went here and 42% went here, and that's great, but 64% of that money went to help female entrepreneurs who faced a crisis in their business as gap funding. So, a bakery had a fire in the kitchen and they were able to give that small female entrepreneur the money to fix the kitchen so that she was only down for four days as opposed to having to close her business, right?

Meg Kane: That's the story. They didn't tell that story. That story was stuck in the booklet as an example of what they used the money for. It was an example that was on page 14 of the booklet.

Rebecca Linder: Right.

Meg Kane: That if you, if I wasn't bored listening to the speaker tell me about the statistics, I actually wouldn't have seen the story, because I wouldn't have been flipping through the booklet.

Rebecca Linder: Right. So, you're ... What's the contention then?

Meg Kane: As I was waiting for dinner.

Rebecca Linder: Tell the story.

Meg Kane: So the contention is tell the story. Get up and talk about the female entrepreneur who started this bake shop that she started in her kitchen and built this dream and has a very small bakery and the inner city

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part of this neighborhood has become a vital part of it and she had this very small fire that without the funding that they provided to her, that dream is gone. I write a check for that. I write a check for the next baker, for the other female entrepreneur whose dream is sustained because there is this gap funding. I don't do it because you told me that 64% of the funding went to the ISTFG grant ...

Rebecca Linder: Because you can't connect to that emotionally.

Meg Kane: Because I can't connect to that. I can't connect to that emotionally. I remember though the baker, and I think about that myself and I think of the women that I know, like you who have their own business, and I think about other female entrepreneurs and what would happen if at the beginning of their career that they faced that type of challenge. That's why it's important to have that organization. So, when I think about it, that's the story. And if you're not building around that story with 750 people in the room, you're missing the opportunity. The opportunity is there to connect to people.

Meg Kane: You want them walking out feeling like it is imperative that they take the action that they're asking them to, but part of that is because you have to distill it down in a way that they feel it, that they can understand it, and that they can see themselves to some extent in either the person who's telling the story or the person who's being spoken about in the story.

Rebecca Linder: You make so many great points, because just even in you conveying that, I mean I had a reaction to it. I could connect to the baker

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instantly, visually otherwise, whereas the statistic I'm like, what organization did you say? So, where does authenticity fit in in this? Is authenticity in the baker? Is that it? Is that the ... By getting people who can actually tell the story and not have it be contrived? Where does authenticity live in events? How should that ... And in brands and how should ... Or in corporations or nonprofits? How does that come to life?

Meg Kane: So, I think there's a couple of different ways.

Rebecca Linder: And what are the pitfalls too? There's another question.

Meg Kane: Absolutely. So I think that from an authenticity standpoint, when you're creating an event, a mix of the people who, if you will, run it, run the show, and those who reflect the mission is a good way to think about an event and who you want to bring out on stage. Not everyone is going to do great behind a podium. And I think that is really, really important for people to understand, is that a lot of times, and I think that this goes toward where events are heading, you have to look for almost a ... It's a mix of different ways to tell a story in a venue and whether it's a conference, whether it's a gala, whether it's a three hour dinner or a three day event, you need to be thinking about the different kind of mixed channels that you can use to tell stories.

Meg Kane: And sometimes it is going to be the person behind a podium. Sometimes it's ... Do you have a great speaker who you can push the podium away and give them that Oprah moment? And when I was a little girl, I ... And this is such an odd memory, but Elizabeth Dole did that at the Republican

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National Convention in 1996. No podium. Walked the stage in a circle. I thought that was the most incredible thing I ever saw. I was 13. The idea that, I mean, I didn't know the teleprompters existed either, but [inaudible 00:12:33].

Rebecca Linder: Yes.

Meg Kane: I learned that further down in my events career. But at the moment, if you have a great speaker, that's a way that you can really connect people with the audience, right? But then you might also have people that are just not comfortable being alone. So then do you facilitate a conversation? Do you put them on stage with a couple of different people where they can help tell that story through somebody who can draw out the story? Do you do it through video? There's a lot of different channels to tell story, so it's really about figuring out which channels that you need to dial up? Which channels are where maybe that authenticity needs to come through? Sometimes video's a great version of that, but there ... Sometimes it's more powerful to put somebody right on the stage and have them tell a story. I'm thinking about Anna Vasquez from Generation Hope. I'm thinking about, it wasn't a story per se, but at the International Spy Museum opening, when general Jim Clapper gets up to talk about the importance of the intelligence community, he's coming at it from 40 years of being in the intelligence community. There's a credibility that comes with the story and putting the right people up in front of a microphone or in a video or in that facilitated conversation that gets that message across.

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Meg Kane: And I think you have to think about that from an authentic perspective. And when you are dealing with putting together, I mean that's part of the genius, if you will, and the craft of creating a run of show.

Rebecca Linder: Right.

Meg Kane: I mean, that's the secret sauce. When do you dial up? When you dial down? When's the moment that this is going to work here? It wouldn't work over here. That speaker is perfect for this moment, but if we put it near the end, it's going to ring hollow. It's not going to work, and understanding how to move and shift things to get maximum impact at every moment of an event. But the key piece too as you're thinking about authenticity, and to your point about what are the pitfalls, the biggest pitfall, and this I think is especially important as, I think this happens more for nonprofits sometimes than it would for necessarily a corporate brand, but ...

Rebecca Linder: Going to happen to everybody.

Meg Kane: It's going to happen to everybody. There are amazing stories. Stories that are inspiring and when you have that inspiring story that is usually coming from a place of pain.

Rebecca Linder: Right.

Meg Kane: Of someone who has suffered something and has come back from it, right? And everyone loves an inspirational story, right? I mean, that's like look at TED. Look at the TED website and it's just replete with people who

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are telling these incredibly inspiring stories, but that is coming from a deep place of pain. And so, typically or challenge or something that can be really hard for somebody to talk about. And it's really important, especially from a nonprofit standpoint, that you walk the fine line of telling the story, but not exploiting the person.

Rebecca Linder: Correct.

Meg Kane: That is the number one way to do it. And the key is that you have to be able and willing to make a change as far up as the day to make that person who's telling that story feel comfortable, because it only works if they get off the stage and feel good about having shared their story. If they get off the stage and feel like I shouldn't have done that, then there was a miss. And so it's ... That's why it's so important that as you're creating these runs of show and as you're working with people in terms of how to tell that story, that sometimes I find that people will be incredibly open in terms of the detail and the level of detail that they tell you this story, because I'm sitting across from them in a room or I'm on the phone with them, right? And they're telling and they're getting into these stories and it breaks your heart, and you know that there's an inspirational part of it.

Rebecca Linder: Right.

Meg Kane: You know that there's the bounce back, but they're still in the moment and you can feel it, and they may not have enough distance from it yet. Or they're young and they don't realize that they're being so open and bearing their soul in a way that as the person who is working through that

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messaging, you also have to be aware enough to take the important steps to protect the speaker too. And that's part that you have to make that commitment at the beginning.

Rebecca Linder: It's a real responsibility.

Meg Kane: It's a responsibility.

Rebecca Linder: Yeah.

Meg Kane: It's absolutely responsibility. It is very different from a Generation Hope standpoint to write and work with Nicole on her story.

Rebecca Linder: And just for the audience, Generation Hope is an organization that supports young teen parents who are getting their education.

Meg Kane: Absolutely.

Rebecca Linder: And when I say education, their college degrees. And it's an organization that helps foster support for that, not only financially, but also all the surround services to get them on their way and off their foot as a way to address poverty.

Meg Kane: Yes. And it's an incredible organization. Nicole Lewis is their CEO. She went through that with her own daughter Nerissa, who's this amazing, beautiful 20 year old and is in college now and working with Nicole

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on her remarks and what she wanted to say. She's in a place that she can talk about that in a very different way than one of the scholars who is in it. And is still working through and processing the challenges of being a teen parent and how that has affected her life while she is taking care of these two beautiful little boys and going to school full time, and is doing this incredible work. Those are two really different speeches, even though they are about the same experience.

Rebecca Linder: That's a great example actually, because it is true. You've gotta be thoughtful about depending on who's telling the story.

Meg Kane: And you have to know when to dial it down and dial it up. For Nicole, as a CEO who's got 20 years of distance between that moment in her life and now championing and creating the resources needed so that this isn't as hard as it might've been for her. To me, that gives incredible flexibility to the story and where you can dial up. But for someone who's in it, you also have to be reflective about what they say now and where that lives forever.

Rebecca Linder: Yeah. And then there is a university that I mean the platforms are forever now.

Meg Kane: Absolutely.

Rebecca Linder: So, that's actually a very good point. There's a real responsibility on the producer of the event, organize or how ... The organization, the whoever's intersecting with all of this in that, these things will live on.

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Meg Kane: Absolutely.

Rebecca Linder: And how do we do that in a [crosstalk 00:19:15] way.

Meg Kane: And I think that that's ... There's a similar play there too. I mean, think about it from the CEO, from a CEO perspective. Take that into a corporate brand. A CEO has a life experience that's outside of the corporate brand, but it could certainly come in. They have a life experience where maybe they have a spouse that has cancer or they have ... There's all these things that they could end up infusing into their remarks and their speeches, right? And maybe their child went through a trauma or has an addiction or has any of these things that can make them more relatable. There's a lot that you have to work through in terms of that, because a lot of times they want to help tell their story, because they want to connect with employees. They want to connect internally with what's happening, right? They want to connect that to ...

Rebecca Linder: And we do a lot of events for that exact reason. It's about employee engagement. A lot of these. I mean, all over the world that bring all their constituents internally together and they are looking to get people ...

Meg Kane: To connect.

Rebecca Linder: Correct and they're even measuring these in Gallup and all these other things.

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Meg Kane: Absolutely.

Rebecca Linder: That they're trying to see measurable difference and growth in their engagement scores.

Meg Kane: And what transparency looks like at the, right? So, you have the CEOs who may say, "I'm going to tell this story," and you have to be ready from a communication standpoint. If you have a CEO that decides I want to tell a story, sometimes you're hard pressed to say that might not be the best idea. So then you have to be prepared for how to tell that story, and how to do it in a way that if attracts attention from other people that want them to tell it more widely, are they ready to do that? Do they want to do that? How does that work? I mean, what are the impacts of that on brand? So, I mean there's a lot in terms of how stories are told, what stories are told, choosing the stories.

Rebecca Linder: From the event perspective. So all of this is such great information. Where does anthem come into play? It's a word we're hearing a little bit more. It's a word we're using a lot in our business as we talk to ... And it's kind of replacing almost the word theme, because theme traditionally ...

Meg Kane: Is like a tagline.

Rebecca Linder: Or no actually from an event perspective it was ... It more influenced the look and feel to some degree and influenced the script to

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some degree as well. But it's really not theme. Anthem is ... Defining anthem for us. How we're talking about it lately.

Meg Kane: So, for me, I don't want to say that this is how it's defined, because I think there's a lot of different ways that it can be done. For me, I have always used the anthem as a way to unify what you want the feeling of people who walk out of the room today. That if you want them to feel pride, if you want them to feel excitement, if you want them to feel joyful, how do you create a narrative of one paragraph, two paragraphs, that if I read it to you, you would feel it? That's what you build it out from, right?

Rebecca Linder: And when you say build it out, you're talking about what? Script.

Meg Kane: Script.

Rebecca Linder: Video. Decor.

Meg Kane: All of it.

Rebecca Linder: What are all the things that it impacts?

Meg Kane: So, it can impact ... It impacts absolutely everything. I mean, I think about it in terms of what we did for the Eisenhower Memorial, right? So ...

Rebecca Linder: Just in the proposal.

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Meg Kane: Just in the proposal phase, right? We focused on creating an anthem, narrative anthem that went as part of that proposal, where we wanted to create a story. I mean, it's not as if people don't know who Dwight Eisenhower is. So how do you create a story that captures imagination for a new generation? For those who don't know them within the historic context of this being the first presidential memorial in 55 years to open. And we found, I mean, when I talked to you about that and went into kind of how to develop that anthem, I went back and just in the due diligence of it, spent some time with the design of the actual memorial, and this idea of the boy, the general, the president, right?

Meg Kane: That was going to be this architectural piece to it. That was how they envisioned this memorial. And it was in a great inspiration for how to tell a story that people maybe don't know. And the idea of creating this feeling about someone who is a president.

Rebecca Linder: Right.

Meg Kane: That is been gone for more than 40 years, who is known in some respects as a general ...

Rebecca Linder: Right.

Meg Kane: Who became president, the last of the generals to become president. But this idea of starting with him as a boy and what did he learn in Abilene, Kansas that prepared him to become this general and then to

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become a peacetime president. And what were those lessons and how do you create an Anthem that talks about, that inspires? And ... But that every person can see themselves in their own way or shape as Dwight Eisenhower, as a poor kid and ... Who had siblings and whose parents worked on a farm. What are the things that you can connect to in that? And then in terms of the general, like no ... There's very few people that are going to say, "I had the experience of being a general," right? But what you can tap into is the letter he wrote to all of the troops that were going to land on Normandy on June 6th, and the words that he used about all people who love liberty.

Rebecca Linder: Yeah.

Meg Kane: That they were behind them. No way.

Rebecca Linder: So you draw the pieces that people can connect to ...

Meg Kane: You draw the pieces that connect ...

Rebecca Linder: Not necessarily again back to the stats and the iconic element.

Meg Kane: That's right. And then the piece that became most interesting is that he as this president was so forward-looking in terms of what the nation needed at the time, of him coming in to the presidency. All of the things that we take for granted as being part of the government infrastructure, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, the FAA, everything of every flight that takes off or lands in this country, there

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was not that type of acknowledgement. That's from Eisenhower. So, being able to connect people to their everyday life of his legacy, you feel. You feel that every day.

Rebecca Linder: So, as we wrap this conversation up, leave me, you're so good at the leave behind, so you started with, yes, there's lots of buzzwords out there, but if you do it well, you're still latched on to storytelling. So, take me from storytelling to where we just finished. How do we get there? Is it ... It's define your story, create an anthem that then impacts all the various ...

Meg Kane: Every piece of the event. Every ... I'd start with the anthem.

Rebecca Linder: Okay.

Meg Kane: I believe that anthem ...

Rebecca Linder: So first, trust that it's a story that you're telling, not delivering statistics.

Meg Kane: That's right.

Rebecca Linder: Okay.

Meg Kane: You can use statistics in ...

Rebecca Linder: To support it.

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Meg Kane: To support. They are proof points to a story. They are not the story. Statistics are not the story.

Rebecca Linder: Okay.

Meg Kane: The story is what you pull and create that connects to the human part of the event, that is to ... That is ... It is about connection. That's why people love stories. That's why children love stories. It can ... There's this opportunity to connect in a very intimate way, in a very personal way. That you can be in a room of a thousand people and tell a story and you're going to have a thousand people that feel, can feel its power and share in what that creates, but can also have an individual reaction to that. That compels them to do something different. And so I think when you create an anthem and you have a strong anthem and then you are able to pull that through the theme, the look and feel, the script, the video, write down your lower thirds on the giant screens in the room. When everyone feels like the story surrounds you and envelops you, that's when the action happens. That's when people take the action.

Rebecca Linder: And that is typically the measurable outcome based on where we started.

Meg Kane: And it starts with that why question. Why are we doing this, right? That was the first thing I said. You have to start with why and what do we want to achieve? And then everything else flows from that. Then you go into anthem, then you ... That's ... The story is meant to help get the why, why we are doing this, and what is ... And what are the goals? That's where

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the story is meant to pull through, because if you don't have the answers to that in the upfront, it won't feel the way it you want it.

Rebecca Linder: Authentic.

Meg Kane: It won't feel authentic.

Rebecca Linder: There it is guys. Okay, well so again, you're so insightful. You're so thoughtful. It's really appreciated, because it is something that's coming up more and more, certainly in our conversations with our clients and people in this current climate want authenticity. They want to hear the real stuff. They're not trying to be sort of manipulated or influenced or potentially lied to. They really want to know the real story. So, this is very helpful and I'm always thankful to have you here. So, thank you.

Meg Kane: Thanks for having me.

Rebecca Linder: Meg, thank you for your time and your just valuable conversation that we had today. If you have any more questions for Meg or me that you want answered in an upcoming session, email us at eventceo@linderglobal.com and follow us on social media. All the links are on our website at linderglobal.com. Please tell your friends and colleagues about us, subscribe and follow us on social media for updates and news on the latest episode releases. Thanks for listening, and until next time, make your days great.

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