activevents

Welcome to the CIPR – start making use of your benefits!

We recently launched a new membership campaign in conjunction with CIPR’s 60^th anniversary celebrations and in the last couple of months we have had many new members on board – a warm welcome to all of our new additions.

The campaign centred on encouraging our existing CIPR members to be proud of their membership and share the extensive list of benefits they are enjoying with the industry:

-          Strong professional recognition

-          Excellent networking opportunities

-          Great career and business development support

-          Highly practical and informative training programmes

The list goes on…

http://www.cipr.co.uk/membership/index.htm

Join us?

The benefits of CIPR membership is evident. The current CIPR President, Elisabeth Lewis-Jones FCIPR, wrote a real-life blog entry on how the CIPR membership has helped her career advancement and business development. As they say, membership has its privileges. Find out for yourself at http://prvoice.typepad.com/pr_voice/2008/01/signing-on-the.html#more

Get started…

Clearly, one of the most practical and useful benefits is the privilege of having a discounted rate for all CIPR events and training programmes.

* Workshops

If you are new to the CIPR or, in particular, to the PR industry, the 2-day workshop on ‘Introduction to PR’ we organised this week and on 15/16 July will be a good start for you. This basic level workshop will introduce you to the role and scope of PR, giving you a good overview of the industry. www.cipr.co.uk/workshops

* Breakfast briefings

For those with less than 3 years of PR experience, you may like to grab the chance to book yourself onto the last few Freshly Squeezed briefings for the Spring/ Summer series. The good news is that the Autumn/Winter series is also up online and open for booking now. Find out more and book your places today at www.cipr.co.uk/fresh

* In-house training

Last but not least, we have a team of creative Training Development Officers at the CIPR who can customise any training programme to suit your needs. Email JankaS@cipr.co.uk to find out more.

See you!

Oh yes, don’t forget to make use of the opportunity to check out the CIPR’s exquisite building and its excellent facilities if you are here for any of these training events. I look forward to see you around!

For further information on training and development, please visit www.cipr.co.uk/training

Choo-Li Tan, Training Development Officer

CIPR 60th Anniversary Annual Conference and 5th World PR Conference & Festival

Hosted by the CIPR and in London for the first time on Monday 23 & Tuesday 24 June, at the InterContinental Hotel, Park Lane. This exciting and challenging two-day conference will bring together PR practitioners from across the globe to share best practice, exchange ideas and discuss common concerns.

Special discounts available – see what you can save:

- Discounts for CIPR and Global Alliance members
- Limited number of 50 discounted places for full-time students – £100 per day!
- Ticket savings of up to £450 for full-time Academics

The programme:

A mix of interactive workshops and main conference sessions delivered by 27 expert speakers, entitled ‘Best Practice in Public Relations’, this event will examine the issues tackled globally by PR practitioners today. 

Sessions covered include:

·         Communicating in London: The world's most diverse city – Luke Blair MCIPR, Director, London Communications Agency 

·         How do cities attract investment: The reputation issues that count – Michael Hayman FCIPR, Chief Executive, The Communication Group UK

·         Influencing attitudes to disability: Using PR to promote equality and social inclusion – Agnes Fletcher MCIPR, Specialist in Disability Communications

·         How Turin won and has benefited from the 2006 Olympics – Anna Martina, Communications Director, City of Turin 

·         Country reputation: The World Bank programme – Paul Mitchell, Manager, World Bank Development Communication Division, Washington DC 

For further information including speaker names, costs and the range of discounts on offer, please visit the CIPR website at www.cipr.co.uk/wprf08 

Fresh season…Fresh trainings…Fresh ideas!

This must be one of the busier weeks for CIPR’s popular Freshly Squeezed breakfast briefings series - we ran three sessions, namely ‘Celebrity brands’ (London), ‘Impressive press releases’ (Scotland) and ‘Loosen tight deadlines’ (London) all in one week!

With 24 sessions organised in London and 8 in Scotland this year, there is no doubt that the Freshly Squeezed programme is gaining popularity (and not just in London and Scotland). We are currently exploring the feasibility of organising this programme in other regions after we have received some indication of interests from our members. So before you know it, you may see a Freshly Squeezed session come to your region very soon.

The idea of having this series of breakfast briefing is to allow time-conscious PR practitioners to take an hour out in the morning to catch up on topical issues or for some, to take stock of what they are doing and should do. I chanced upon this interesting website,  http://if.psfk.com/if/if_by_discipline/public_relations/ that shares creative PR campaign examples and tips. This is particularly useful for those in the PR or communications industry, as they have to constantly come up with new angles, stories and campaigns that are newsworthy.

Summer is almost here and I am sure this is the best chance for you to get out of the office for some fresh air and training (and fresh ideas of course!). Who knows, you might benefit from the networking opportunity with delegates from various PR sectors and clinch a potential deal from there. Check out and book the up-coming sessions on reputation management, audience segmentation and green issues at www.cipr.co.uk/fresh

Why not also Inject a ‘boost’ of creative juice to your brain at the half-day highly practical ‘Creativity work-out’ Masterclass on 16 June. www.cipr.co.uk/masterclass 

If you still find it difficult to find time to get out of office, you can trust our resourceful Training Development team at the CIPR to tailor a training programme that will bring the fresh ideas you need, right to your doorstep. Email JankaS@cipr.co.uk to find out more.

For further information on training and development, please visit www.cipr.co.uk/training

Choo-Li Tan, Training Development Officer

Be a Master of ‘New Media’ technologies…

The third ‘sold-out’ session on ‘New Media for Old Hands – Have you been left behind?’ Masterclass, was held this Thursday and again, it was a resounding success and received extremely positive feedback from delegates who attended and benefited.

Amongst the group of ‘old hands’ who are keen to keep up with the younger generation and also learn about the latest technology is Masterclass delegate, Mark Clare, FCIPR FRSA, Managing Director of Clear CMS Ltd. Mark attended the first session of this new masterclass series and found it particularly enjoyable and useful to his work:

“Incidentally, this course was really very good, Neville is one of the best trainers I have had the pleasure to listen to and he really does seem to be totally on top of his subject – would really recommend to others“

With a current waiting list on hand, these popular sessions are certain to make a comeback in Autumn/Winter. So, keep a look out for the new date at www.cipr.co.uk/masterclass and you too, can become a master of the New Media technologies!

Increasingly, top management people have used their blogs as a media tool to reach out to their fellow-colleagues and business customers. Many CEOs of multinationals such as Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems (http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/), have earned a cult following and become media celebrities as a result of their blogs. The CIPR 'How to Blog’ Masterclass on 7 July would be a very good follow-up for those who had attended the previous New Media sessions and/or aspire to use blogging as a PR tool for their PR campaign.

A full day basic level ‘Introduction to Social Media’ workshop on 19 June is also available at the CIPR for ‘new hands’ who are relatively new to the industry and/or anyone who would like to gain a complete overview of the subject. www.cipr.co.uk/workshops

Above all, if you are looking for something that provides a snappy insight into the New Media topics but are hard-pressed for time, the Freshly Squeezed ‘New Media Communications’ breakfast briefing on 17 June in London and 28 October in Scotland, will be the ideal training for you. www.cipr.co.uk/fresh

For further information on training and development, please visit www.cipr.co.uk/training

Choo-Li Tan, Training Development Officer

Media debate sparks heated discussion

Last Monday we held our Fresh Thinking: Media conference here, which invited delegates to freshen up and find out more about the latest technologies and what’s what in the world of media.  Up-to-date info on blogging, podcasting, wikis, RSS and other media tools were explained throughout the day to keep ahead in the office!

Topics included How to set up your own blog from blogging expert Simon Collister of Green Communications, Practical podcasting with some great examples from Jude Habib on the effectiveness of sound communication.  Rob Brown spoke on Outside the traditional box, which the delegates found ‘extremely informative’ and enjoyed his examples and overview.

The highlight of the conference was the exciting panel discussion on Combining all media tools and techniques for that winning campaign.  Three very different points of view were put forward, which made for a great debate. 

Alex Brown, Communications Manager from Fast Track, kicked off by explaining his support for traditional media.  He spoke of how good old fashioned media like the press, still represents the truth better and has a loyalty and trust that new media does not and cannot have.

Next saw Katy Howell, Immediate Future’s Managing Director, put an impressive argument forward for ‘New Media’ or social media as she prefers to call it.  As she pointed out, whether you like it or not, this burgeoning area cannot be ignored as it is now everywhere. Positives for PR practitioners include the convenience and accessibility of online media, plus the many options available to monitor results / public trends.

Finally Howard Kosky, Managing Director at markettiers4DC put his point across for TV, Radio & Online, using his first hand experience.  He stresed that these mediums give us choice on which media we want to consume and when, for example how our choice of radio station reflects what type of person we are/our tastes.

Then the debate was opened up to the floor, with some interesting results.  Delegates put the panel team under the spotlight and quizzed them on issues such as, the necessity for blogging and its effectiveness.  Is the traditional press a generational thing that will die out?  Is Google genius or merely a popular brand which can actually be easily manipulated for searches?  All these questions and more invited much discussion and got everyone involved, and got the brains ticking!

If you would like to join us in the next heated debate and share your views, then come along to the second Fresh Thinking: Media conference on Monday 1 October. For more details visit: www.cipr.co.uk/mediaconference (there is a discount when you book on the Fresh Thinking: PR conference at the same time). 

Welcome to activevents

Looking for information on PR events and training? Want exclusive previews of CIPR events? Interested in getting PR tips from top practitioners and trainers? You've come to the right place!

activevents is a new site from the CIPR training and events team. We'll be announcing all our events here, with the latest additions to our programmes as they are confirmed. You'll also find tips on a range of PR hot topics, taster information from many of our conferences and workshops, and news and reviews after the events. Plus we'll be giving you the chance to take a peek into some of our sessions when we publish information live from the front row of selected events – more details on this to follow.   

What's more, you can keep up-to-date with what's going on by signing up to receive RSS alerts whenever we have some news for you – simply click on the link in the top left hand corner to subscribe to our feed. If you're new to RSS feeds, read a bit more about this below.

We hope you'll find lots to interest you on activevents. Email your feedback to activevents@cipr.co.uk.