Tag: Experience

96. My first TEDx Experience

Posted on by Neha Goyal

I have watched numerous intriguing TEDx videos of ideas that were worth spreading. While watching those videos I always had an urge to attend at least one of the TEDx events. I was familiar with what happens at these events but on 23rd February 2020, when I attended my first TEDx Gateway event in Mumbai, it was beyond my imagination. Witnessing an actual conference was an unforgettable experience.

TEDx Gateway is one of India’s largest ideas conferences that feature eminent speakers from across the globe who share unique ideas. Speakers came from different walks of life and spoke about diverse trends, treatments, and technologies. Their stories left us with exciting new insights, and a range of experiences and perspectives.

The event was started by Australian Beatboxer and Musician, Tom Thum who was phenomenal and stunned everyone with his performance. His piece got more exciting when he created the fusion of beatboxing and orchestra. Enlightening us with the fact that how “eating meat is like throwing away eight plates of food for every one plate you consume” was the food innovator Bruce Friedrich who believes in creating sustainable alternatives to meat consumption. I was amazed with how Nirupa Rao saw nature and plants around her whereas Shneel Malik believes that we can work with nature by designing systems that can impact globally. The 15-year old Rishab Jain had such incredible knowledge about Pancreatic Cancer and Gangadhar Patil shared how he created a network to tell people stories of rural India.

Speaking of technology, the artificial intelligence reporter Karen Hao stated: “We live in a world where tech problems are social problems and social problems are tech problems.” Yuval Mor, Lily Peng, and Vrishab Krishna explained how we can use AI in other forms such as transforming the healthcare space and allowing doctors to detect diseases. A topic like biotechnology was spoken by Dr. Oded Shoseyov who said, “If you want a new idea, open an old book.” Every speaker spoke passionately about their topic. Whether it was Dr. Shruti Kapoor giving an empowering speech on women safety or Danish Siddiqui sharing how he exposes the raw truth through his photographs.

Engaging and making the audience relish was the Grammy award-winning band- Opium Moon who had a team coming from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Taking the notch higher of the event was the 8-year old Licypriya Kangujam whose speech on climate made the whole audience give her a standing ovation. Every speaker shared at least one story or used slides that added impact to their talk, making it more memorable. Bringing the touching performance with young performers was the founder of Slam Out Loud Jigyasa Labroo.

Jay Walder reminded us of the fact that ‘21st-century problems deserve 21st-century solutions’ whereas Eli Beer highlighted how not an ambulance but people and community can help in saving someone’s life. The former Prime Minister of Bhutan Tshering Tobgay spoke about how climate change is affecting various countries while Hajer Sharief promoted human rights, gender equality, and political participation and making people aware of their responsibility towards humaninty and the environment.

Not just the TED talks, but the whole atmosphere was an exhilarating, informative and inspiring experience that I got to attend. It was an event where in a nutshell we received a lot of information on various topics from the best of experts. It was rightly said by the host Shayamal Vallabhji ‘These are the stories, the topics, the ideas that India should be talking about.’

57. No Substitute for Media Training

Posted on by Neha Goyal

‘No Comment’ just won’t cut it

Media training is important for the spokesperson of any company. The spokesperson should always be trained before going out and speaking in front of the media, be it during a launch or a crisis. Out of all, crisis communication by a spokesperson should always be right which requires good media training. The key to successful media training for crisis is preparation and practice. A well-managed crisis response, communicated properly, can not only preserve the image and credibility of an organisation but can also enhance it.

During a crisis, all the people of the top management, operational managers and professional communicators should be trained for media. Each of them should be capable of communicating the message with media by being calm and confident to keep it in control.

People with experience should train the spokesperson for crisis communication as not all agencies/consultancies are experienced in media training. People with experience in different sector crises can be good. A person with one specialised sector has got high chances of working with the competitors which can lead to clashes.

The spokesperson should learn how to interact and communicate with media, how to maintain and build a trustworthy relationship, deliver a clear, concise and credible message, present information without appearing misinformed, maintain the control both internally and externally, handle unfair or unexpected questions.

The training of the spokesperson should include who the press is and who they are going to interact with, what are their publishing house deadlines (daily/weekly/monthly).

Developing a crisis message is really important and the mantra to it is:

Anticipate-Prepare-Rehearse.

During a crisis, one cannot expect the journalist to ask the right to questions that allow getting the correct message across. For that, one needs to create the opportunity for them to deliver it by knowing what they want to say. To convince the journalists, clear, credible, simple, with appropriate context and right content should be delivered. The easiest way to keep track is by preparing a brief holding statement that can also be used by others.

The general rules to follow during crisis communication are the message should be well prepared and rehearsed with correct and accurate data, not misleading, avoid jargon and sound friendly even in a difficult situation. If the spokesperson is not aware of a certain thing then they shouldn’t be afraid to say they don’t know and will get back to it. The trainer should also prepare the spokesperson with the scenarios that might happen during the conversation with the media.

Honesty and accuracy helps during crisis communication.

Reference: Crisis Communication book by Peter F Anthoniseen

29. WPP

Posted on by Neha Goyal

‘Champion a culture that is open, optimistic and committed to extraordinary work.’

WPP is a creative transformation company. It is one of the ‘Big Five’ multinational advertising and public relations company. It was originally known as Wire and Plastic Products who use to manufacture wire shopping baskets back in 1971. In 1985, Martin Sorrell took a controlling stake to build an international marketing and advertising group. He renamed the company simply as WPP and became the Chief Executive Officer of the firm.  

Today, WPP is one of the leaders in communications, experience, and home to many of the most admired agencies and consultancies in the world. Today the company is not only the leader in communications through the best of technology and data but has achieved the best outcomes in media buying for their clients, has given the most effective and efficient marketing solutions to some large companies across the globe.

Lots of advertising, public relations, media and market research companies come under the WPP across the globe. WPP is the parent/holding company of different agencies and counsltancies like Ogilvy, Hill & Knowlton, J.Walter Thompson, Young & Rubicam, Burson Marsteller, Akqa, GroupM, MediaCom, Wavemaker, Finsbury.  

The company offers best ‘communications, experience, commerce and technology to build better futures for our clients’. It is offered through the services provided like Advertising, Branding and identity, Media planning and buying, Public Relations, Market research, Data and Insight, Digital Marketing, Productions.

WPP team has done some great work which is recognised and appreciated by people across the globe and has also made them win a lot of awards over the years.  

WPP has got their offices in 112 countries where more than 130,000 people work.

Mark Read is the current Chief Executive Officer of WPP. Recently John Rogers has been appointed as Chief Financial Officer of WPP who will be joining in 2020.

InMobi Group and WPP have entered a multi-year strategic partnership to co-build unique benefits and help marketers enhance brand experiences for consumers.

In June 2019, WPP Group took a pledge to phase out single-use plastics in all the offices and campuses worldwide by 2020 as they have signed the ‘New Plastics Economy Global Commitment’.

Source: https://www.wpp.com/

26. Class 2020 at Avian We

Posted on by Neha Goyal

PR Consultancy visit is an opportunity given to SCoRe students to gain learning from the people in the field and also know in detail about that particular consultancy. Today we visited the 15year old PR Consultancy ‘Avian We’ which is India’s one of the largest independent communication consultancy.

Avian was founded by Nikhil Khanna in 2004 whose current CEO is Nitin Mantri. The firm’s belief is people-centric who value people and client for life is their philosophy. They work in media relations, digital marketing, public affairs, social impact. The consultancy deal in aviation, hospitality, technology, media & entertainment sectors. In 2018, WE Communications a US-based company merged with Avian and now they are known as Avian We.

To begin with, we had our first interaction with Girish Huria, EVP who is in this field for the past 20+ years. He started the session with his introduction and told us about a few of his experiences. He highlighted the difference between crisis and issues. In our session at Avian We, it was stated to us that not everything can be called as crisis. For instance, if the flight is delayed it will be an issue and not a crisis. But an incident like a flight crash will be called a crisis.

We had a chance to meet Mr. Onassis Vaz, the man with 25 years of experience in communication. He told us how we can have successful client delight. He guides us by telling us 6 qualities that we as future professionals should remember while communicating with the clients. Those are- passion, commitment, positive attitude, insights, ideas and being error-free. He also tells us that being proactive, advisory, relationship building, discipline and management is important while working with clients.

Our next session was with Ms. Neha who shared her experience in different sectors she has been working at. After that, Ms. Kanika Sharma spoke to us in detail about Social impact which is divided into 3 parts- Public health, environment, and education. She told us how social impact does not only include CSR but also social and behaviour change communication, public health, policy change, organizational visibility and management which are pillars of growth.

Our last session about the media & entertainment sector where the session head told us about her experience of working in this sector. She shares how celebrity PR and management are different from each other.

I got to learn a lot today at Avian WE where my biggest takeaways were:

  • We should spend our time reading.
  • How crises and issues are two different things yet people take issues as a crisis.
  • As an aspiring communication professional we shouldn’t be chasing money but learnings and exposure.

23. Smart or Street-Smart ?

Posted on by Neha Goyal

Street-smart is something different from being smart. Bookish smartness comes by reading and street-smartness with the experience. A smart person is someone who is educated and knowledgeable. Being street-smart is having a good understanding and being aware of the environment and having an idea of the angle of the situation. It is a situation when a person knows how to make judgements about the place, people around, what matters and trust their judgement.

Being street smart doesn’t mean you are ‘uneducated’ or ‘unintelligent.’

Street smartness comes through discipline and real-life experience. There are certain habits which we should have in ourselves to become street smart which will be helpful to us in a long way.

  • Being aware of the surrounding- A street smart person is aware of the things going around and make decisions wisely. They know when people are trying to mess with them and can read their intentions.
  • Knowing how to blend in- Street smart people blend with people easily as they are easy-going, polite, friendly, know what questions to ask yet not asking too many questions, but also being assertive in nature.  
  • Being confident- Streetwise people trust the vibes they get, which makes them confident as a person.
  • Not getting easily intimidated- As streetwise people are capable enough to understand the scenario, they are the ones who don’t get intimidated with a person’s personality rather they will leverage the opportunity by learning from them.
  • Not show signs of weakness- Street-smart people are aware of their weaknesses but it doesn’t hold them back. They are upfront about it and rather they see it as an opportunity to work upon themselves.
  • Knowing to minimise risk- Streetwise person is capable and has the necessary skills to handle situations.
  • Listening to your instinct- Following their instinct is one o the good quality which street-smart people have. They are smart enough to assess situations and make smart decisions. If a situation feels weird in any way, they change the planning and move forward.

Everyone cannot be stated as street smart and it takes time for an individual to become one. Over time and with the correct kind of knowledge, experience and the biggest of all, Common sense can get you to be street smart.

All you have to do is try, pay attention.

I am a public relations postgraduate student, at SCoRe where one of the core values taught to us is to be “Street-smart”. The core value taught to us says that we should be prepared and not only be smart but be street-smart for a tough world.