Belated Eurocomm Blogging

Due to my work travel commitments I'm only just back at blog station central. (And yes, I can blog from the road, but it's been busy.)

Eurocomm was a great experience. Good speakers and a small but informed and thinking audience. Great opportunities to meet interesting people and have interesting discussions.

Jennifer Lewis reviews it on the Eurocomm blog, as does Audrey Scarff. It also makes an appearance on the FIR podcast. There's a collation of a few other blog posts about it here.

Of those, Kevin Keohane's is the most lyrical.

Most riveting speaker for me was (predictably) Ramon Olle Jr. Not only is he an effective and energetic presenter, who highlighted some local features of branding in Spain, but he also referenced "The Bull" in the tradition of an exhibition item I saw at MACBA later in the week:

ASPEN; Multimedia Magazine in a Box

The McLuhan Issue (Vol 1, No.4, Section 9)

If an ad has become so environmental as to be unperceived, that's when it's really doing its work. - Marshall McLuhan

I'd place the award for "most philsophical approach" as a tie between Kevin Keohane's piece on the fictional construct that is "the audience" and the presentation on "Values and Communication" by Josep Maria Esquirol (which I hope to have time to blog about a bit later.)

Best discussion fodder? Definitely the plenary on Social Media, which was also one of the best group presentations I've seen at a conference in a while. Credit to Yang-May Ooi; Mark Wright and Giles Colbourne.

Of course, all of the above were of great intellectual interest for me, but not the reason I was there: Presentations on cross-cultural issues by Charles Gancel (Inter Cultural Management Associates) and another by Hanna Kalla and Sam Berrisford (Hill and Knowlton).

Sam and Hanna concentrated on an overview of the field, which targeted the general listener but still had plenty of tidbits for those of us for whom it is the main event.

Charles put things into a bit more perspective, linking to issues around the knowledge economy and the coming "war for talent," concentrating on the development of culturally aware leaders.

Overall, a great conference, a real tonic for practitioners in the field, intellectually stimulating and a great body of peers to interact with.

 

Technorati Tags: corporate communicators,EuroComm,IABC,internal communications,review

More pre-EuroComm blogging

Over on the EuroComm 2008 blog, Ulrike Bleistein gives us a little sense of what she will be presenting to us:

 

Why IT needs communications

by Ulrike Bleistein

When they think of IT most people think of computer geeks who sit around in dark rooms, isolated from the rest of the world passionately investigating the inner landscape of computers. Of course, this is not the case. Today, Informatics in a pharmaceutical company is about the clever application of technology to business. Relationships with customers and understanding their needs are key. Communications has moved up the ranks and is today considered a critical capability for this new generation of IT professionals. However, coming from a technology environment, communications does not always come easily to them. As a former scientist with a strong interest in technology, I can bridge the gap. That’s where my job starts.

On joining Roche Pharma Informatics, I did an analysis to find out where communications are most needed to support the business effectively, where the biggest issues are, and I then decided on a step-wise approach as resources were limited.

I won't post more, go and read it all!

It's a nice, succinct description of the benefits of a communications department for a "back-office" division who might not naturally get the communications attention that more "external customer facing" divisions naturally receive.

 

Technorati Tags: business case,engineers,EuroComm,IABC,internal communications