Speaking
Opportunities
Our experts are ready captivate and engage your audience through our extensive list of topics and formats. Let us be a part of your next conference, workshop or team meeting.
Agriculture. Rural Health. Communities. Energy. Education.
Speakers
& Topics
Melanie Wilt, APR
Founder & Chief Experience Officer
Melanie Wilt built Shift•ology from the ground up with her strategic mind, rural roots and a passion for making a difference. Melanie has spent her career helping brands connect with their audiences through purposeful, impactful communication. She’s the brain behind bold ideas like Virtual Farm Trips® and the heart behind a culture that values people just as much as performance. Whether she’s leading a PR campaign, helping clients make meaningful connections or serving her community as a three-term county commissioner, she’s always working toward the greater good. She started her career in nonprofit and state government, where she served as communication director and chief of markets for the Ohio Department of Agriculture.
In her carefully curated spare time, you can find Melanie watching her son play football at Marietta College while simultaneously streaming her beloved Buckeyes. To her, “Script Ohio” is a sacred ritual and The Game is basically a national holiday. She lives on a farm near South Charleston with her husband, Gabe, and their three children, CJ, Joshua and Addie.
Do you ever feel like the more you talk about the technical aspects of your science-based job, the less people listen? Nobody wants a lecture, but they love to learn when the content is meaningful and useful to them. Using the science of communication, Melanie will help you build rapport with your audience, simplify complex messages, and create a valuable, intellectual idea exchange. Whether you’re doing a television or newspaper interview, interacting with others online, or presenting in the boardroom, the science-based communication skills will translate to your leadership being more confident, proactive and authentic.
- Be Confident – We will break down the basics of being a spokesperson, including knowing your role, audience, information and environment.
- Be Proactive – Get ready to own your messages based on real-life scenarios and a powerful formula that works every time. Your leaders will learn the process of message mapping to empower you to prepare for any interview, social media post or presentation you may encounter.
- Be Yourself – This session will allow your leaders to better understand their personal brand, and how your own unique characteristics and traits can be brought to each interview in a genuine way.
One-on-One Coaching also available.
We have four generations working together in today’s workforce, which presents a number of challenges and opportunities. Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z all bring unique perspectives, talents and skills. Change your thinking from annoyance to acceptance, and see how your workplace can benefit from having a colorful and diverse multi-generational workforce.
Reach out to us for more details! We’re happy to share.
You may have read books or seen TED Talks that inspire you to define your why, your purpose or your personal mission, but they left you wondering how to articulate it. You likely define your why in terms of something external that motivates you — your kids, your industry, your process or your aspirations. But, what if there’s something more more personal, more internal, more natural that resonates within you and drives every aspect of your life? That’s your Why!
Your WHY.os is the full 3D image of who you are at your core. With your WHY alone, you gain clarity on your driving force. With the WHY.os you will be able to see how you internally operate and how you externally message yourself.
The Why Operating System, or Why.os, is an intuitive assessment and training program to enhance your understanding of what you authentically bring to your workplace, family and community. By understanding your WHY.os you will better understand how you can unleash your inner motivation to foster a sense of purpose in your work and daily life.
WHY.os Keynote: Bring your conference audience a hands-on, motivational self-discovery workshop where each audience member will learn their unique WHY Operating System, including WHY they do, think and behave as they do, HOW they approach life, and WHAT they bring to their work, family and team. They will gain an understanding of the 9 different WHYs, brain biology behind the WHY, and how to articulate who they are and how they operate to the world! This is a session that brings value that they won’t stop talking about and applying in their daily lives. Workshop includes a WHY.os assessment code for each audience member, which they will access and use during the session.
Team WHY.os Workshop: The first step to internal alignment is understanding one another WHY to WHY. Each team member will discover their WHY, HOW and WHAT. You will see your team and one another in an entirely new way. You will respect one another’s gifts, see how each of you operates and become a well-oiled machine. Half-day workshop cost is $3,500 and includes 10 WHY.os assessments. Additional assessments available for larger groups.
Melanie is a certified WhyOS coach and the founder & CEO of Shift•ology Communication. Her WHY is to contribute to the greater good. HOW she does that is by solving complex problems and challenges. And, WHAT she brings is trusting relationships to to help others perform at a higher level.
Marin Smith
Vice President of Client Services + Creative
Marin Smith oversees the agency’s internal operations and creative services. She streamlines internal processes and structures that keep everyone’s creativity flowing to solve problems for clients. When she’s not focused on operations, she manages the team’s creative process, which results in big ideas, smart design and powerful branding. Marin has been with Shift•ology since 2011. She’s a visual communicator at heart, who has fully embraced the science of neuromarketing and uses her curiosity for lifelong learning to teach branding and typography at Clark State College.
Known around the office for her love of pets, Marin brings her full, creative self to work every day and still has time to recommend your next TV binge (Below Deck, obviously). Off the clock, Marin is all about her people – her husband, Jerid, daughter, Annie, and, the real stars of the house — her dogs, Walter and Willard.
Do we need to say more? If so, reach out to us for more details!
Reach out to us for more details!
Dan Toland
Director, Virtual Experiences + Ag Projects
Dan Toland leads Shift•ology’s award-winning Virtual Farm Trips® program, which has grown from a single event to a national platform, connecting more than 1.6 million students, consumers and stakeholders with live, customized experiences on real farms. With a background in agricultural advocacy and digital engagement dating back to 2007, Dan is known for his deep dives, thoughtful insights and signature dry humor.
Dan works from his home office in Findlay, Ohio, where he lives with his wife, Stephanie, and their children, Lily and Oliver. A die-hard Cleveland sports fan, Dan also enjoys quoting The Office and Parks and Recreation – two shows that reflect his love of smart comedy and oddball charm.
Virtual Farm Trips® connect students directly with real farmers through live, interactive experiences that remove the barriers of cost, distance and biosecurity.
From remote communities in Alaska to classrooms in New York City, students gain an unfiltered look at modern agriculture through unscripted, real-time conversations with the people who grow and raise their food.
Nearly two million students across the country have participated, experiencing agriculture from livestock barns, combine cabs, specialty farms and processing facilities.
Why It Matters
The challenge is not just access. It’s understanding. Virtual Farm Trips create meaningful connections between students and agriculture, helping build transparency, trust and agricultural literacy at a time when fewer people have direct ties to the farm.
How the Program Works
Shift•ology provides the structure, platform and guidance to make Virtual Farm Trips successful for both educators and hosts.
Participants will:
- Experience a sample Virtual Farm Trip
- Learn how to launch or participate in a program
- Understand the tools and structure needed to get started
What You’ll Learn
For those looking to host or lead Virtual Farm Trips, we focus on what makes these experiences effective:
- How to navigate common hurdles, including technology and logistics
- Best practices for planning, preparing and hosting live virtual experiences
- How to deliver authentic, transparent interactions that resonate with students
For Educators
Educators can access live and archived Virtual Farm Trips at no cost, with resources and ideas to extend learning beyond the screen. You’ll walk away with practical ways to integrate agriculture into your classroom and create more engaging, relevant learning experiences.
Emily Bennett
Senior Account Manager
If calm, collected and quietly crushing it had a face, it’d be Emily Bennett. Since 2011, Emily has grown from intern to senior account manager, becoming our go-to for seamless communication, spotless grammar and client confidence. She’s equal parts creative thinker and strategic planner; organizing the details, smoothing out the bumps and making it all look effortless.
Outside of work, Emily contributes to the Dayton, Cincinnati and Louisville Mom Collectives as a content editor, blending her communications savvy with her real-life mom experiences. At home, she stays busy with her husband, Adam, kids, Miles, Sloane and Deacon, and two dogs, Bentley and Pepper. When she’s not on the sidelines of a soccer field or ball diamond cheering on her kids, she’s probably creating the perfect Cricut-crafted gift.
We know that a company or organization’s brand is pivotal to its success. The same can be said about a personal brand, too. No matter what season of your professional life you’re in, a strong personal brand is imperative to all facets of your career, including relationships with coworkers, growth opportunities and the ability to get things done. As Jeff Bezos once said, “Your brand is what people say about you after you leave the room,” and in this session, we’ll get to the root of what YOU want people to be saying about you by discussing the following topics:
- The makings of a “personal brand sundae”
- The how and the why of building and/or refining your personal brand
- Personal vs. professional social media
- Personal branding “must-haves”
- Crafting your personal brand persona
We’ve all heard that content is king, but engagement is queen and the lady rules the house! In all seriousness, we know content is important to any marketing or communication program but how you share the content is key to reaching your audience where they are. Sharing the same old content to all of your platforms gets boring and stale, and isn’t effective. In this session, we’ll learn how to work smarter, not harder when it comes to crafting content and creating meaningful connection points with your audience.
Topics to be covered include:
- Reusing vs. repurposing content
- Where is your audience?
- 3-step approach to repurposing content
- 10 ways to repurpose content
If your main goal while at work is to avoid any of those infamous The Office situations, then this session is for you. Communication can make or break a workplace and have a direct impact on employee productivity, job satisfaction and ROI for the company as a whole. In this session, we’ll explore common issues that arise in workplace communication, as well as the tools, insights and resources needed to overcome those challenges.
Topics to be covered include:
- Generational communication preferences
- Types of workplace communication
- Why your personal brand matters in a workplace setting
- Communication tips and tricks
- “What would you do?” exercise
Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. TikTok. YouTube. Twitch. Snapchat. The list goes on and on of the social media platforms marketing-communication professionals need to be adept at managing in today’s day and age. While the platforms and algorithms may change on a constant basis, there are tried and true ways to become social media savvy. It’s not so much about the platform but rather the foundations around which you build your digital presence. In this session, we’ll cover the following topics:
- PESO Model (paid, earned, shared, owned media) by Gini Dietrich
- Social media marketing
- Elements of a social media plan (goals, strategies, objectives and tactics)
- Tips for writing your plan
- Tools to bring your social media plan to life
Workshops
and pricing
We offer free and paid speaking opportunities, as well as customized workshops. Speaker fees are based on experience, length and content and range from $500-$5,000.
Partnership programs for a mutual audience
Free
1-hour presentations for small groups
$500 + travel
1 hour presentations for large groups or keynote
$1,500 + travel
Workshops
$2,500-$7,500 + travel
Custom programs
To be determined