What do Harley's, the Apollo 13, and YF&R have in common??

What do Harley's, the Apollo 13, and YF&R have in common??

Well, you are about to find out--Welcome to the first part of my report on the YF&R National Conference in Orlando, Florida!  That's where Harley Davidson, Apollo 13 and the Young Farmer's and Rancher's of the American Farm Bureau come together.

First of all, we have to get to Orlando....this is how it went:

We left on the 3rd, after taking one kid to the doctor, getting the rest finished with school, packed and loaded, we headed for Utah to drop them off at their Aunt and Uncle's.  It was cold in Nevada it was colder in Utah.  On the way to the SLC airport the next morning at 5 am our time, the temperature began to drop even more--at -11 it was too cold for my camera to wake up and take the picture, so this was the coldest that I got a picture.  YAY!!!  WE ARE GOING TO FLORIDA!

After flying from SLC to Atlanta and then on to Orlando.  After a 40 minute shuttle we were finally there, at 9:00 pm, exhausted and ready to fall into bed, just one more long trek across the resort, around the lake, and FINALLY, we were there.  This picture shows the resort, where the convention center is, our rooms were far across the lake and back behind a few other buildings on the side the picture was taken from, so at least we got a lot of walking in!  And though it looks cloudy, it was about 78 with high humidity, so it was really nice weather.

But, on to the conference!!!

The National YF&R Conference started out bright and early on Saturday, February 5th, 2011 at the Coronado Springs Resort inside of Disney World, Florida.  And, that is where the Harley's come in.  Our keynote address entitled, "Make Some Noise: Open the Throttle and Dominate" came from Ken Schmidt, the former director of communications of Harley-Davidson.  He spear-headed the movement that took Harley-Davidson from the brink of bankruptcy and death to the top of the motorcycle industry. 

I have to say that I loved this address.  It was not something that you would think would relate so closely to agriculture, oh but it did, to the changing world and the way we need to present our industry to the world, and also how to get build membership and retain it. 

Ken pointed out key points to getting people's attention, having energy and enthusiasm about what we are doing and who are are.  He told us that no one is engaged to listen, they have to be engaged through something else (energy, enthusiasm, etc.) in order to want to listen.  Another key point that he made was that we need to get them talking about themselves, learn about them and really listen and then they will know that you actually care about them and they will be more willing to like you and listen to you in return.

Harley was days away from declaring bankruptcy in the mid '80's.  They had slipped to a place that no one thought they could recover from, and Ken gained invaluable insight from the tools they used to rebuild and come back on top.  They received input from their customers and potential customers and acted on it--they listened, they learned, they were excited about their product and gave everyone the chance to test-drive it and become excited about, asking for feedback and then putting the feedback to work for the customer.  Harley-Davidson is now run debt-free and selling bikes at twice what their competitors do because of the reputation and name they have built for themselves by knowing how to reach those out there that they might not have otherwise.

Another workshop I attended was this, "Speak Up, Speak Out" by AFBF Staff members, Jill Casten and Kyle Perry.  Jill came to Reno in December and did our State Board Training.  This workshop was more about learning to speak out about the concerns we face in agriculture and doing in the way that the general audience can better understand. In a lot of ways it focused on public speaking, learning ahead of time who our audience will be and preparing ahead to make it fit their level of knowledge about our topic and how to present to keep them interested.  They focused on a tool called 'mind-mapping' that maps out 3-5 main topics of the topic you are discussing and having subpoints, statistics and examples for each of the main points to better control the flow of the information and keep it from becoming more than your audience's attention can handle.  Most of all, they told us to 'tell them what we are going to tell them--tell them--and then tell them what we told them."  And then challenge them to do something with what you taught them.

On to the Spacier side of things......APOLLO 13

Okay, so here's where the Apollo 13 comes into it all--Our Closing Keynote Address on Saturday afternoon was Captain Jim Lovell, the astronaut who calmly and carefully commanded the Apollo 13 mission, even when all hope was lost of their survival, and was able to bring it back to earth with the help of 'teamwork and decisive leadership' from all involved.  I must say that it kind of blew my mind away to think about being out there in space, thousands of miles from the earth (I know it sounds ridiculous, but I am claustrophobic and the thought of being surrounded by all that darkness and space--well, I don't think I would do very well with that).  He said that it is pretty hard to fathom when you look back at the earth and you can cover it with your thumb.  He told the story of the Apollo 13, how it should have been a very routine trip, his third to the moon, one that the general public hardly had any interest in at this point.  But, unfortunately, some minor complications caused some major problems.  Captain Lovell is recognized as a national hero and has received many honors, including the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  We were so close to the Kennedy Space Center, though we didn't get there, that this really hit even closer to home.  What an amazing story.  In fact his address was called: "A Successful Failure: What Apollo 13 Teaches Us About Leadership, Action, and Excellence."

(Are you starting to see why I love these conferences so much?  And this was only day 1!!)

So, to sum it up here are a few more pics from our first day (Grant and I came one day early and spent part of it at Disney's Magic Kingdom, then met up with the Nevada delegation and had dinner at the Yachtsman's Steakhouse at the Disney's Yacht house Resort (?) ) Below is the first morning--warm, pleasant, but you could see the moisture floating in the air.

The NEvada Delegation.  The Farm Bureau's National Leadership Conference Precedes the YF&R's conference by two days and we overlapped with them for one.  This happens every other year as teh NLC conference is only held every two years.

So back to front and left to right:

Hank Combs (NV Pres), Doug Busselman (NV Exec VP) Jamie Perkins (NV YF&R Chair) Grant Perkins, Paul Mathews (NV VP) Pete Olsen III.

Bevan Lister (LC, NV Pres) Hannah Hardy, Alyssa O'Toole, Stacie Shcwandt (NV DM Winner) ShaRee Mathews, Lee Mathews.

(Not pictured: JoAnn Lister, Theresa Mathews, Michelle Olsen, Stephanie Licht (NV YF&R Coord) )