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Session 28: Promoting your Services Internally and Externally: Communication Techniques
This panel will review techniques for increasing your unit’s visibility through value-added contributions. First, it is necessary to identify what is important to your company or institution.Next, develop a program of monitoring those issues, as well as identifying emerging issues. Finally, initiate a communication strategy to provide information internally and externally on the key topics. This session will focus primarily on the communication strategy.
Presentations
Ken Simonson: Quick Facts About the Construction Industry
Ken Simonson: What Does the Construction Industry Need an Economist For?
Ken Simonson: Data Digest
Ken Simonson: PPI Tables (XLS)
Links of Interest
Associated General Contractors Podcasts
Speakers
Kurt E. Karl
Head of Economic Research and Consulting, North America
Swiss RE
Kurt E. Karl is head of Swiss Re’s Economic Research and Consulting, North America. As such, Dr. Karl has responsibility for the North American part of Swiss Re’s “sigma” insurance industry research. In addition, he supports Swiss Re’s strategic planning and provides internal consulting on products and economic risks. Finally, he supplies insights and forecasts on the U.S. and global economies to Swiss Re and Conning Asset Management for use in a variety of corporate decisions, including asset management. He is an expert on the U.S. and global economies with extensive experience and knowledge of foreign markets and has lived and worked in Europe, Africa and Asia. Dr. Karl is a contributor to many forecasting surveys, including those of the Wall Street Journal, Blue Chips, Bloomberg and Reuters. He is widely quoted and appears regularly on Bloomberg TV. Prior to joining Swiss Re, Dr. Karl was chief international economist at WEFA, Inc., an economic forecasting firm located near Philadelphia. He has a B.A. from the University of Oregon, a M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Princeton University.
Robert Fry
Senior Associate Economist
DuPont
Robert Fry is Senior Associate Economist, DuPont Economist's Office, where he analyzes and forecasts the global economy and its impact on DuPont. He assists DuPont businesses with interpreting economic data and using it to forecast DuPont performance. He speaks frequently to customers, trade associations, and business teams. He is the author of Current Business Developments, a monthly newsletter.
DuPont Economist’s Office (Robert Fry and DuPont Corporate Economist Bob Shrouds) tied for first place in The Wall Street Journal’s semiannual forecasting survey (2nd half 2002), made the top 10 in USA Today’s forecasting survey (March 2004 and March 2005) and Bloomberg’s forecasting survey (October 2004), and won the prestigious Lawrence R. Klein Award for Blue Chip Forecast Accuracy (November 2005).
He has a B.S. (Economics) from Ohio University, 1979; Harvard University, A.M. (Economics), 1981, Ph.D. (Economics), 1985.
He is a past chapter president of the Wilmington, DE chapter of the National Association for Business Economics.
Stuart G. Hoffman
NABE President and
Chief Economist
PNC Financial
Stuart G. Hoffman is senior vice president and chief economist for The PNC Financial Services Group and serves as the principal spokesperson on all economic issues for PNC. Recently, Hoffman was named by BusinessWeek as the most accurate economic and interest rate forecaster of 2004. In addition, he has been recognized as the second most accurate forecaster by the National Association for Business Economics and in The Wall Street Journal’s economic survey covering the 1988 to 2002 period.
Hoffman joined PNC in 1980 after a six-year tenure with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. He became vice president and senior economist for PNC in 1987 and was elected senior vice president and chief economist in 1991.
Hoffman is frequently quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Barron’s, BusinessWeek and USA Today. He is a regular guest on CNBC, CNN, Bloomberg TV, The Wall Street Journal Radio Report and CNN News Radio. He is regularly interviewed by the Associated Press and Reuter’s news wire services. He is often quoted in regional media such as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
In addition, Hoffman has regularly participated in the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Jackson Hole Symposium, where he discusses key economic issues with Chairman Alan Greenspan and other global monetary policymakers.
Hoffman is the President and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE). He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Partnership for Economic Education and the Economic Club of Pittsburgh--the local chapter of NABE.He is the past chairman of the American Bankers Association Economic Advisory Committee that met semi-annually with Chairman Greenspan and other Federal Reserve Board Governors.
Hoffman is a 1971 graduate of Pennsylvania State University. He received a master's degree in 1973 and a doctorate degree in economics in 1975, both from the University of Cincinnati, where he was a Charles Phelps Taft Memorial Fellow. In 2004, the University of Cincinnati honored him as a Distinguished Alumni.
Kenneth D. Simonson
Chief Economist,
Associated General Contractors of America
Ken Simonson joined AGC of America on September 10, 2001. Ever since Day Two he has been provided insight into what was happening to the economy and what it implied for construction and related industries.
Ken’s weekly one-page email newsletter for AGC, The Data DIGest, provides 6000 readers with the latest economic news relevant to construction. He also sends out a variety of state-specific and tax news. He is interviewed and quoted almost daily by local and national media, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Business Week, and CNBC. In addition, he has written eight booklets explaining tax provisions in plain English, and he contributes frequently to a variety of business and professional publications and conferences, including columns for Fleet Owner, a trucking magazine, and The Electrical Distributor.
Ken has 30 years of experience analyzing, advocating and communicating about economic and tax issues. Before joining AGC, he was senior economic advisor in the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy and 13 years. Earlier, he was vice president and chief economist for the American Trucking Associations. He also worked with the President’s Commission on Industrial Competitiveness, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, and an economic consulting firm.
Ken is a board member of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) and author of “Digging into Construction Data,” published in NABE’s journal, Business Economics. Since 1982, he has co-chaired the Tax Economists Forum, a professional meeting group he co-founded for leading researchers and policy makers among tax economists. He is vice president of Community Tax Aid, an organization that prepares returns for free for low-income taxpayers. He was one of the principal subjects of The Lobbyists, a bestseller by Jeffrey Birnbaum, now a writer for the Washington Post.
Ken has a BA in economics from the University of Chicago, an MA in economics from Northwestern University, and he has taken advanced graduate economics courses at the Universite de Paris, Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University.
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