Ignite and CelebrateRegional Leadership Conference Presentation August 2013

Why do we have new messaging resources?

• To help everyone make AIAA’s work more interesting and more meaningful to others

• To involve everyone in making a more consistent, compelling and inspiring case for the value of aerospace and AIAA

• To make it easier for you to attract/retain new members or create greater involvement

It’s all in the messaging guide!

Core content: Our purpose and promise

Purpose:

• To ignite and celebrate aerospace ingenuity and collaboration, and its importance to our way of life

Promise:

• To be your vital lifelong link to the aerospace community and a champion for its achievements

Core content: Key messaging themes/pillars

#1: Energizing and championing a

visionary professionWe celebrate and share our

community’s great accomplishments – from the small but brilliantly simple innovations that affect everyday lives to the major discoveries and missions that fuel our collective human

drive to explore and accomplish amazing things.

#2: Convening a constant, vital

communityIn a world where most of us

change jobs, organizations, and career paths more than ever before, AIAA is a constant –

providing continuity as an ongoing source for learning, lasting community, professional connections, and career

development.

#3: Being the catalyst for inspired idea

exchange and solutionsAIAA is the convener of the most diverse perspectives, curator of

the most essential research information, and catalyst for the

most stimulating idea exchanges that can inspire our members in

their everyday work – maybe that’s why AIAA members have

achieved almost every milestone in modern U.S. aerospace.

Our manifesto

IN SEARCH OF THE NEXT IMPOSSIBLE THING

EMBED VIDEO

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Aerospace professionals unravel the mysteries of flight and space.

NEED AARON TO CREATE VISUAL

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Aerospace professionals make the world safer, more connected, more accessible and more prosperous.

NEED AARON TO CREATE VISUAL

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Aerospace professionals inspire the world to dream.

NEED AARON TO CREATE VISUAL

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AIAA exists to ignite and celebrate aerospace ingenuity and collaboration.

NEED AARON TO CREATE VISUAL

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AIAA is a launching pad for emerging professionals.

NEED AARON TO CREATE VISUAL

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AIAA creates an atmosphere that inspires innovation.

NEED AARON TO CREATE VISUAL

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AIAA creates an atmosphere that inspires innovation.

NEED AARON TO CREATE VISUAL

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AIAA stimulates idea exchange and collaboration.

NEED AARON TO CREATE VISUAL

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AIAA celebrates our members’ discoveries.

NEED AARON TO CREATE VISUAL

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AIAA is a lifelong home for the industry’s most successful professionals.

NEED AARON TO CREATE VISUAL

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We never lose sight of our capacity to amaze and be amazed.

NEED AARON TO CREATE VISUAL

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Annual report (before)

Annual report (after)

Conference flyer (before)

Conference flyer (after)

Where are you now?

• How do you answer these questions: • Professionals: Why should I join AIAA or get more involved?• General public: Why should I care about the aerospace

profession?

• When do these questions come up?• What makes them tough to answer?

What can make communications more meaningful?

• Move your focus beyond informing and promoting to: Conveying real benefits Sharing your beliefs Conveying important outcomes Telling others why you exist

• Make sure your communications work two ways, NOT just one way

The four tasks of communications

INFORM

PROMOTE

INSPIRE & INVOLVE

MOVE TO ACTION OR ALLEGIANCE

One-way Communication:

• Facts• Features• Assets• Skills

Two-way Communication:•Values•Purpose•Promise•Outcomes

Core descriptor (inform) messages

• Largest aerospace society in world • Covers diverse breadth of workforce that is part of coolest,

most interesting, most essential profession on earth• Invites community into discussion with each other,

prospective partners or thought leaders/innovators• Brings people and information together in interesting ways • Publishes content not available anywhere else• Offers unique multi-disciplinary community not found

anywhere else

Core differentiator (promote) messages

• Members who’ve made nearly every modern discovery or significant advancement in aerospace

• Executive director who’s one of few women to ever fly in space• Members meet/talk to people who’ve made the discoveries,

written the books, published the research, completed the missions• Lifelong home for professionals who want to develop career path

and have more career mobility; find mentors; transfer skills from technical to managerial roles; learn how to work in team-based environments

Core connector (inspire) messages

• Makes sure people inside/outside profession are inspired, enthusiastic and energized

• Works to get profession recognized for making world safer, more connected, more accessible and more prosperous

• Gets attention for major missions that reinvent to inventive applications that enhance everyday life

• Focused on the future and building excitement for new frontiers (commercialization of space, next generation aviation, environmental sustainability)

Core motivator (move to allegiance) messages

• High energy voice for a vital profession; advancing a more relevant profile for entire aerospace community

• Helps members move careers forward • Gets members in on ground floor of new thinking, best

practices, stimulating idea exchanges (sparks that can lead to the next brilliantly simple innovation or amazing major discovery)

• Offers members opportunity to give back (through leadership, mentoring, telling the aerospace story, sharing ideas)

Targeted YP messaging

Jump starting career advancement. Meet people you might never encounter—your next employer, boss, mentor or important colleague

Building skills for the future. Get in on the latest technical knowledge to help you in your current job and learn the softer skills that position you for promotion

Exchanging ideas that matter. Dialog with like-minded peers, thought leaders with unique expertise, innovators making the breakthroughs

Giving back. Help shape the profession; be a mentor; promote STEM education; tell the aerospace story to others; share ideas/ contribute to next big idea

Membership recruitment mailer: before

Membership recruitment mailer: after

Membership recruitment mailer: after

FAQ exercise #1: Members/prospective members

• Use your messaging handout and choose the best three answers Member question: Why should I join AIAA or get more involved

in a section?

FAQ exercise #1: Members/prospective members

• Use your messaging handout and choose the best two answers General public/policymaker question: Why should I care about

the aerospace profession?

Handshake/elevator speech overview

• If you want to advance in your career and make a greater impact with your work, AIAA can help you do that.

• If you want to see aerospace better understood and appreciated, AIAA can help you do that.

We’re a lifelong link for aerospace professionals and a champion for their

achievements.

Talking points

• Get connected with people who can help advance your career and stimulate great new thinking about your work

• Quickly find vital research information and exchange ideas about it with other professionals

• Build leadership skills that prepare you for the next rung on your career ladder

• Be part of an organization that’s protecting jobs and helping create more opportunities for aerospace professionals

• Make sure there’s a pipeline of future aerospace workers

Elevator speech exercise

• Pair up and practice delivering the elevator statement to a prospective member

• Group discussion and feedback

Language library

Our work is:•Vital•Challenging•Ingenious•Stimulating,•Complex (and yet often brilliantly simple)

Our character is:•Dedicated•Purposeful/ passionate•Open/accessible/ approachable•Caring/concerned/ supportive•Community-minded/ relationship focused

Our mindset is:•Optimistic•Confident•Exploring/pioneering•Diverse•Enthusiastic/ appreciative

Language library (cont’d)

Our people are:•Inventive•Knowledgeable•Energetic/active/ involved•Multidisciplined/ multicultural/ multigenerational

Our approach is:•Innovative•Intentional•Collaborative•Lifelong•Industry-promoting

Our outcomes are:•Future-focused •Inspiring•Beneficial•Significant/ high-value/ high-impact •Essential•Relevant

Language library exercise

• Choose your favorite word from the language library• Write a sentence about AIAA or your section using it

Questions & Answers