Lights, Camera, Webcast!

It might sound surprising that a former stage actress would be nervous presenting to an auditorium of 100 people for an internal GE marketing forum. But when those 100 people just happen to include GE’s CMO, Beth Comstock, and other high-ranking commercial GE executives, and when the event is streaming live to hubs across the globe (not to mention colleagues watching from their desks), believe me: ‘nervous’ is an understatement.

A few mornings ago, I had the opportunity to serve as Moderator for the GE Global Marketing Webcast. Every six months, GE’s marketing and sales employees tune into this forum to get an update on all things marketing at GE.

Today’s webcast featured an overview of our marketing priorities for 2011 from Beth, a macroeconomic trends update from our Global Market Intelligence Leader, a discussion of a new metric we will be using to measure customer value, which was led by the CMO of our Transportation business, and the launch of the Marketing Career Path initiative, presented by our HR – Marketing, Organization and Staffing Leader.

My job as moderator was to kick off the morning with a few short remarks, and then facilitate a Question and Answer session at the event’s end. It sounded so easy when I first heard my tasks described. I soon discovered, however, that I was mistaken. The perfectionist in me wanted to find the perfect opening joke, the best way to segue seamlessly between presenters, a professional, but enthusiastic, tone.

Luckily, before Type-A Kathleen took over, I remembered the point of the forum: To come together as marketers and think about what’s next. And then, I remembered the point of me being the moderator: To represent ECLP. The day of the event, whenever my nerves started to get the best of me, I remembered those two facts, and it helped. While I by no means achieved perfection, I believe I did my job and, hopefully, reflected well on the ECLP Program.

There were many fun elements to the day as well, which were helpful to conquering nerves. For starters, because I was coming up from New York City, I was graciously offered a room at the GE Guest House. Though it was pretty quiet at the Guest House the evening I stayed there, it was still fun to walk around the halls, grab a sandwich from the pantry and sit down on the couch in the lounge, wondering which GE executives might have done the same thing at some point.  

It was also a treat to get my makeup done, “TV Style.” Our lone male presenter was such a good sport as foundation was applied. He said: “You always kind of wonder what the big deal is. Now I have an excuse to see what it’s all about.” Steve Liguori, our Director of Global Marketing, who has often had to get “camera ready” throughout his career, told me: “If you’re anything like me, you’ll run to the bathroom and wash it off as soon as this thing is over!” However, I kind of enjoyed my amped-up, glamour shots look, so I kept it on all the way from Fairfield back to NYC. I wanted to keep the excitement of the day alive as long as possible.

Posted by Kathleen