6th Global PR Conclave at Mumbai

The countdown for the 6^th Global PR Conclave & Chanakya Awards event  being hosted by PRCI has begun.  It is just round the corner,  on Monday, February 13, 2012. 

Time: 10 AM onward

Venue: Rooftop, Trident, Nariman Point, Mumbai

The conclave theme is:

PR – Interface or Interference – Media and PR perspectives

We will also have panel discussions on:

• PR Interface or Interference
• New Age- New Rage: Challenges and Opportunities in social/digital media
• Political/Government PR: Opportunities and Limits

PR professionals can participate as delegates with an on-the-spot registration @ Rs 3,500

We plan to start the Conclave at 10 AM with a formal inauguration to be followed by the key note address.

Maharashtra DGP Mr. K Subramanyam has given his consent to the chief guest.

Veteran journalists H K Dua, Kumar Ketkar, D K Raikar, Ayaz Memon, Ashok Advani, Shishir Joshi will grace the occasion, apart from corporate honchos and communication professionals

One of the signature properties of PRCI is the annual Chanakya Awards that recognizes the outstanding contribution made by corporate, educational institutions, to the PR profession and the society at large.

PRCI also felicitates PR practitioners for their outstanding contribution by inducting them into the PR Hall of Fame. The entire award process is determined by an independent jury.

PRCI Global Conclaves have so far been held Bangalore, New Delhi and Chandigarh and this time round Mumbai chapter has offered to play the host.

PRCI is engaged in providing training, setting standards of professional excellence, and uphold principals of ethics. As a leading voice in the industry, PRCI also advocates for greater understanding and adoption of public relations services. Established in 2004, PRCI has its headquarters at Bangalore with over about 20 active chapters located in Mumbai, New Delhi, Baroda, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Kerala, Hyderabad, Chennai, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Pune, Manipal, Mysore, Chhattisgarh, Guwahati and Mizoram.

B N KUMAR

Chairman – PRCI Mumbai Chapter & Global Conclave

6th Global PR Conclave & Chanakya Awards

The countdown for the 6^th Global PR Conclave & Chanakya Awards event  being hosted by PRCI has begun.  It is just round the corner,  on Monday, February 13, 2012. 

Time: 10 AM onward

Venue: Rooftop, Trident, Nariman Point, Mumbai

The conclave theme is:

PR – Interface or Interference – Media and PR perspectives

We will also have panel discussions on:

• PR Interface or Interference
• New Age- New Rage: Challenges and Opportunities in social/digital media
• Political/Government PR: Opportunities and Limits

PR professionals can participate as delegates with an on-the-spot registration @ Rs 3,500

We plan to start the Conclave at 10 AM with a formal inauguration to be followed by the key note address.

Maharashtra DGP Mr. K Subramanyam has given his consent to the chief guest.

Veteran journalists H K Dua, Kumar Ketkar, D K Raikar, Ayaz Memon, Ashok Advani, Shishir Joshi will grace the occasion, apart from corporate honchos and communication professionals

One of the signature properties of PRCI is the annual Chanakya Awards that recognizes the outstanding contribution made by corporate, educational institutions, to the PR profession and the society at large.

PRCI also felicitates PR practitioners for their outstanding contribution by inducting them into the PR Hall of Fame. The entire award process is determined by an independent jury.

PRCI Global Conclaves have so far been held Bangalore, New Delhi and Chandigarh and this time round Mumbai chapter has offered to play the host.

PRCI is engaged in providing training, setting standards of professional excellence, and uphold principals of ethics. As a leading voice in the industry, PRCI also advocates for greater understanding and adoption of public relations services. Established in 2004, PRCI has its headquarters at Bangalore with over about 20 active chapters located in Mumbai, New Delhi, Baroda, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Kerala, Hyderabad, Chennai, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Pune, Manipal, Mysore, Chhattisgarh, Guwahati and Mizoram.

B N KUMAR

Chairman – PRCI Mumbai Chapter & Global Conclave

What ails Indian public relations?

Dr. C.V. Narasimha Reddi, Editor, PR Voice, shares his concerns about the PR industry.

●        The greatest pitfall of Indian public relations is that instead of being two-way communication, it operates by and large only as one way communication without any provision for effective feedback information mechanism and measurement.

●        As a management discipline, public relations is expected to reach every section of the public such as employees, shareholders, customers and assess their feelings. Unfortunately, public relations professionals rarely meet the stakeholders for one-to-one interaction to know their pulse towards organisational policies and programmes. We tend to reach them only through representational media like pamphlets, house journals, newspapers, TV, posters, confining to media relations rather than presentational media face-to-face.

●        Public relations in India is suffering from identity crisis. Other professions like journalism, marketing, advertising, finance, human resources etc. are called by one name., whereas public relations is given different names such as corporate communications, public affairs, corporate affairs etc

●        Lack of professional educational qualification is another major pitfall of this profession. About 60 percent persons working in this profession entered without any  basic qualification in public relations. And that public relations courses are offered only in a few educational institutions. A major challenge is lack of professional public relations education in the Indian Universities.

●        Though India lives in her villages, public relations survives in urban India without any machinery at the grassroots.

●        Lack of standard public relations textbooks, case studies, induction and inservice PR training, and public relations research are other characteristics that hinder the  growth of public relations profession and demands professionalism.

Mission : A Paradigm Shift for PR

What public relations profession needs today is a sense of mission. Public Relations Mission is the need of the hour to shape the future of this profession. Who will design the future plan? It is the primary responsibility of the national PR professional bodies and the educational institutes that are preparing the public relations students to design ‘Public Relations Mission’. What should be the areas of mission? Let us debate both on pitfalls and future mission

Flash Mob in PR

Flash mob has been effectively used by many organisations where in a busy market place or a mall, all of a sudden, a group of people would start dancing to the music or performing a coordinated action gig, and then suddenly disperse.  It is a derivate of 'smart mob' concept where groups of people communicating through mobile sms or twitter would gather and perform; and some may work out a big discount from retail store through collective bargaining.
Here's a group of Chandigarh youth break into a dance gig in the midst of a busy Sector 17 market plaza. It's a treat, and hats off to some of the young media guys who devised it.

What 2011 was like? Have we forgotten it?

Well into 2012 we might have forgotten how 2011 was like. Here's an excellent recapitulation by Google.

Chandigarh wakes up to Mail Today

I woke up to the thud of the bundle of newspapers that arrived in the morning.  As I reached the mailbox through cold foggy morning, it was a pleasant surprise to see the bold masthead of MAIL TODAY, peering prominently through a dozen newspapers that I get to see.  Lo and behold, it is the Chandigarh edition.  It was in the air for sometimes, and I am pleased to find the English tabloid from India Today to give some exciting newer and different perspective to the news happening in this city that is the hot seat for three governments, Panjab, Haryana and UT of Chandigarh. 
But surprisingly the press release on 'exchange4media' press release announcement says that  "the content strategy of the Chandigarh edition would be similar to that of the Delhi edition with complete focus on national news and no local news from Chandigarh". That comes as a shocker but I think that is a typo, because after all Chandigarh edition will have to have the local news. 
However, I am looking forward to seeing as to how local it gets.  Will it be reaching out to the local industry, businesses and professions, and voicing their concerns and celebrating their successes?  Most of the local editions have failed to do that, and the latest to do that had been THE ECONOMIC TIMES, that has dispensed with the local business stories in its region's page.  With the service industry and commercial activities on an upswing in the city involving a large number of upwardly mobile young professionals, we hope MAIL TODAY would cater to them.