News.
In Context newsletter May 2011
In Context Update
For those of you who took advantage of all the public holidays in April - welcome back! For those who didn’t - we trust that you could put some time aside to relax and enjoy the fresh autumn days.
We’d like to remind you about our new training courses available: Beyond the Box, Be Media Savvy as well as Lego Serious Play™. If you and your team are interested in any of these, please be in touch and email us @ .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Until next time!
The In Context Team
Featured course
Beyond the Box
Course description:
This workshop provides practical techniques and guidelines assisting
individuals to think beyond the box within and outside the organisation.
Outcomes:
By the end of the programme you will:
• understand the difference between innovation and creativity;
• have knowledge regarding storytelling and storyboards;
• have an outline of the knowledge and the tools required to
improve problem solving skills;
• have experienced how team work can lead to creative
problem solving.
Who should attend?
CEO’s/ MDs, senior leaders, organisational development
practitioners, communication practitioners.
Length of course:
Full day
Our bookshelf
The Happiness Advantage - Shawn Achor
This is a must-read for everyone trying to excel in a world of increasing workloads, stress, and negativity. The Happiness Advantage isn’t only about how to become happier at work. It’s about how to reap the benefits of a happier and more positive mindset to achieve extraordinary results.
Isolating seven practical, actionable principles that have been tried and tested everywhere from classrooms to boardrooms, stretching from Argentina to Zimbabwe, Shawn Achor shows us how we can capitalise on the Happiness Advantage to improve our performance and maximize our potential.
Among the principles he outlines:
• The Tetris Effect: how to retrain our brains to spot patterns of possibility, so we can see - and seize - opportunities wherever we look.
• The Zorro Circle: how to channel our efforts on small, manageable goals, to gain the leverage to gradually conquer bigger and bigger ones.
• Social Investment: how to reap the dividends of investing in one of the greatest predictors of success and happiness - our social support network.
Industry Update
The age of social media and its effect on PR relationships
Social media is no longer seen as a new technology. Rather it is distinguished as a new communication tool that allows for direct communication in a comfortable and convenient space, and a way in which to get one’s message across instantaneously. However, its impact on the creation of face-to-face relationships in the Public Relations (PR) industry has not been as well received as should be.
Blogger Sally Falkow comments that within the social media space, it is important to think ‘conversations’ rather than ‘pitches’ - and these conversations should take place with your supporters as well as your detractors, because while it is necessary to establish loyal, strong relationships with supporters, it is also essential to understand your detractors’ point of view and learn from it. Dr Sarah Britten, head of strategy at Y&R Johannesburg, commented recently at the Journal of Marketing breakfast on the topic of ‘Decoding the Dark Art of Public Relations’ that practitioners need to understand that they simply cannot use ‘PR speak’ when communicating with people in the social media space. This goes back to that face-to-face relationship that once existed and is now slowly being lost, due to lack of communication and understanding between two parties.
With this in mind, public relations practitioners should remember to pick up the phone, still make meetings with the media to go and see them or have tea or coffee, and always follow-up, in order to continue to have that relationship.
Author: Lindsey Kin
Source: http://www.publicityupdate.co.za/?IDStory=35501#
Further reading: http://www.publicityupdate.co.za/?IDStory=35501#