Ever changing landscape - call for more PR?

It is without a doubt that since entering the "work force" over four years ago, I am witnessing great change in our economic and financial landscape. From departments feeling great relief after the GFC, to becoming more independent and vocal to a sudden tightening of the belt. Is this a great opportunity for smart and savvy PR techniques? I think so. Businesses and organisations are becoming too top heavy, resulting in ineffective and ineffective work places.  To me, public relations has been about working smarter, not harder and becoming known for the RIGHT reasons.

For example, when we commence a new task, one must be able to justify our position. Will what we are about to commence make an impact on the end result? The outcome should be yes - but hopefully only a positive one.  When I was at Rialto Energy I witnessed this transmission from larger work crews to one that had become a team of three in the Perth office to reduce cost, maximise efficiency and ultimately delivery what the Company had promised its shareholders and stakeholders. As you can imagine, the PR Manager was spread quite thin between two international offices, the base office in Perth, as well as maintaining a relationship with the Board and stakeholders.  With an office in the Ivory Coast which was prone to terrorism and surrounded by corruption, it wasn't a job that was to be tackled by a naive and insensitive individual.  Most importantly, I think the most important technique for Rialto was to keep the audience updated with current media and regular meetings and information sessions about the Company.  This meant that shareholders would generally maintain their interest in the Company, the staff were well educated about the matters which in turn would be beneficial to them when they were making critical decisions in relation to Rialto's future, be it long term and short term.

Although the Perth office had been whittled down to just three employees, we were all aware of our daily tasks and duties, and what was asked of us.  If our audience was to lose interest of confidence, then we would be unable to keep the Company going as it reliant on capital raised from the stakeholders. With the Oil and Gas industry being so fickle, one could probably bounce back from such defeat, however, the market is not as trusting as it used to be.  Obtaining more shareholders which would help fund another project off to Ivory Coast meant there was a huge pressure to ensure this was achieved.  Were we successful? Stayed tuned...

Natalie Andre

Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance - Vi-gra doesn’t work for everything.

Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

This great military adage has proven itself time and time again in one of the more enjoyable aspects of my job, event planning. So far during my ‘internship’ I have planned and hosted three events ranging from small briefings to large 100-person cocktail functions and the key, I believe, is having a solid planning document that ensures you always know what needs to be done, what has been done, and when everything needs to be done by. 

Stephen Fry once said “An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them.” Well ideas like speeches, letters, books and even jokes, can be broken down into a methodical structures and once you’ve got the structure down everything else is just stuffing, events are no different.

Event planning was touched on briefly in the first year unit PR Techniques, but there are some cool tools out there to make the process easier. For example, the websites Trybooking and Eventbrite allow users to maintain a centralized booking system where people can either freely register for an event or pay for a ticket, the websites then generate an automated self-managing guest list. Additionally, Eventbrite gives users the option of using the Eventbrite 'App' so you can tick people off as they arrive. This is really useful for post event follow-ups because you know exactly who and who didn’t attend (don’t rely on RSVP lists).

One of the most important aspects of event planning, in my view, is something that is often overlooked and that is: Why are you actually holding the event? 

Lots of people seem to think that holding as event is a strategy in itself, but events should simply be a tactic in achieving your strategy and not a strategy of its own. Thoughts to ponder include: What you want people to take away from the event; what you want people to commit to at the event (money, time etc.); and how is an event the best use of your resources given your strategy? 

In so many cases, if you just want to tell someone something, you’re better off organising one-on-one meetings with people, it’s cheaper, a little more time consuming, but considerably more personal and interactive and more likely to generate a personal relationships, which is more powerful than any event.

Finally, I want to touch briefly on the importance of post event follow-up. In my previous blog post I highlighted how all good speeches have a skeletal structure that can be used repeatedly: Tell people what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you’ve told them, the same should be applied to events. Your invitation will tell people what you’re going to tell them, your event is where you tell them, and you should follow-up post event to thank people and importantly tell them what you’ve told them.

So that’s events - until next week.

Ron

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