November 2010 – Geneva Communicators Network

Popularity does not equal influence, survey finds

To discover how popularity and influence correlate, the Social Computing Lab at Hewlett-Packard’s research arm analysed 2 million messages on Twitter.

While measuring popularity proved straightforward: it’s simply a case of looking at the numbers of people signed up to follow a specific person’s or organisation’s messages, determining influence was more tricky.

To measure influence, the researchers hypothesised that users of Twitter are the more influential the more they manage to get their followers to pass on messages. Surprisingly, the results showed that the correlation between popularity and influence is weaker than one might expect.

If you want to know who has the most influence in the digital world, you can
read the full article on the Economist Blog >

Melitta

By GenevaCom| November 29th, 2010|Other resources|0 Comments

“We’re going mobile” – the future for Intranets

In a recent article, William Trout, director of internal communications at the U.S. bank BBVA Compass, raised some interesting questions about the future of the Corporate Intranet given the emergence of collaborative Web 2.0 technology and mobile ‘smartphone’ devices that enable the distribution of content remotely.

In the article, Trout suggests that to keep in touch with employees, organisations need to free the bulk of the Intranet from the desktop and work towards creating the exciting and engaging experience that corporate users deserve.

Lost in Translation, the challenge of multi-cultural communications

Ahead of tomorrow’s Round Table: Doing business in India, of which we are the media partner, I found an interesting entry on the Melcrum blog about communicating with a global workforce, with a focus on cultural differences between Asia and the West.

Read the full article here >

In another interesting article on the subject of multi-cultural communication, Domna Lazidou, visiting lecturer in culture and communication effectiveness at Cranfield School of Management, shares her recent research into the issue and highlights the importance of being able to identify cross-cultural issues in the workplace, especally for communicators.

Read Donna’s insights and advice for communicators >

Melitta

By GenevaCom| November 24th, 2010|Other resources|0 Comments

Best Corporate Websites in Italy Announced

The winners of the seventh Italian Hallvarsson & Hallvarsson Webranking Awards, were recently announced in a ceremony in Milan. With Eni, an oil and gas company, taking the top prize for the third year in a row with an impressive score of 87.75 out of 100. Hera, a small multi-utility company, came a close second.

Hera also received the Transparency Award for their efforts to provide stakeholders with accessible information in close to real time, such as in the publication of interactive annual reports within hours of board approval.

Other particular prizes were awarded to Edison, for innovation, and Piaggio, for demonstrating the best improvement after moving up the rankings from 61st to fifth place. Here are the top ten:

The Top 10
1.    Eni (87.75 points)
2.    Hera (86.75)
3.    Telecom Italia (86)
4.    Pirelli & C. (83.75)
5.    Piaggio (81)
6.    UniCredit (80.25)
7.    Snam Rete Gas (76.75)
8.    Assicurazioni Generali (72)
9.    Luxottica (69.75)
10.   Cir (68.75)

Melitta

By GenevaCom| November 21st, 2010|Other resources|0 Comments

AMEC Communication Effectiveness Awards

The AMEC Communication Effectiveness Awards took place last night in central London. AMEC’s annual awards celebrate the importance of media measurement and evaluation to successful communications.

Hill & Knowlton Communications and the Ex Libris Agency were the big winners of the night, picking up the Judges’ Platinum Award and the International Members’ Award respectively, as well as collecting Gold in their individual categories. Another significant winner was Echo Research, who won a total of six awards.

For a full list of winners, visit the AMEC website >

Melitta

By GenevaCom| November 19th, 2010|Other events|0 Comments

Chief communicators unprepared to deal with social media threats, survey says

The third annual ‘Rising CCO’ survey has revealed that corporate and brand reputations face greater risk from online threats today than ever before.

The survey, conducted by global executive search firm Spencer Stuart and global public relations firm Weber Shandwick, revealed that while 34% of global chief corporate communications officers (CCOs) report that their companies experienced a social-media based reputation threat during the past 12 months, just as many (33%) say they are not prepared for managing these types of online reputational threats.

Interestingly, or perhaps consequntly, of the CCOs surveyed 54% cited new/social media experience among the most important qualifications for tomorrow’s communicators, showing that CCOs worldwide are preparing to meet the social and online media challenge.

In addition, the firms behind the survey expect social media/blogging to be the fastest-growing function in communications departments in the next 12 months, having already risen dramatically from 28% in 2008 to 41% in 2010.

Wrap up for the 16 Nov event re: Free Rice

Thank you to the some 40 participants who attended today’s lunch seminar on Innovative Fundraising Camapigns.

A special thanks to Emilia Casella from the UN World Food Programme who introduced us to a particularly interesting (and successful) fundraising campaign: Free Rice.

Through her presentation Emilia demonstrated how, by thinking differently about our challenges and the way we use technology, it is possible to really engage people and reach out to new audiences.

Free Rice is a simple yet innovative campaign that enables people play an online vocabulary game and, each time they get a correct answer, donate 10 grains of rice to the World Food Programme (WFP). To date, more than 4.3 million people have been fed for a day thanks to the campaign, which is growing stronger by the day.

The www.freerice.com stats are impressive. The site attracts 1.2 million unique players each month, with 9% of players returning more than 200 times!

While it’s online and fun nature has enabled the WFP to reach out to younger audiences and sensitize them to the core issues around hunger and poverty, the average player is 18-35 years old, female and with an interest in education.

It’s key success factors appear to lie in its simplicity of use and its ability to empower individuals to make a difference. However, it has been the ability of the WFP team to think creatively about how they use the free rice application and concept and drive traffic to the WFP website that has really made the campaign a success and made it a sustainable source of funding for the WFP.

Members invited to join the GCN Free Rice group
One of the features of the Free Rice site is the ability to play as a group and Emilia has kindly set up a group for GCN members (and their friends), so why not sign up to the GCN Free Rice Group today and see how much rice we can donate before our next event – which will be an evening apero early in December, watch this space for more details coming soon.

A few photos are available through the GCN Flickr page.

Look out for our next event, an evening networking apero in December!

Glenn, Patricia, Melitta and Vincent

By GenevaCom| November 16th, 2010|Other events|0 Comments

Rountable – Doing business in India, 25 November

As media partner for the following event, all Geneva Communicators receive a discount entry fee of 25 CHF:

The International University in Geneva and the Organization of Women in Trade – Lake Geneva present:

Round table: “Doing business in India”

With over 1.17 billion people, the potential of India is only beginning to emerge. What are the challenges of doing business in India? What are the obstacles and opportunities that can be found in the world’s largest democracy? Our panel of leading experts will explore these issues and more during a lively and interactive conference. We will look at business in India from several angles: commercial, legal and regulatory, technical and technological trade.

Speakers: Jaya Banerji – moderator, Director, Advocacy and Communications, MMV, Roesheen Cosgrave, CAO of Merrill Lynch Private Banking, Divvya Rajagopalan-Vorburger, International Lawyer and more speakers to be confirmed!

DATE: Thursday, 25 November 2010, 18:30 — 21:00 (including networking cocktail)

VENUE: Ramada Park Hotel, Avenue Louis-Casaï 75-77, Genève-Cointrin 1216

COST: 25 CHF for OWIT members, GCN members, IUG alumni / Non-member: 30 CHF

Register here for the event:
http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22BF8RKMX6P

By GenevaCom| November 12th, 2010|Other events|0 Comments

Free Live Engagement Webinar

On 30 November, Simply Communicate are offering you the chance to participate in a free webinar and learn more about Employee Engagement from three experts:

Marc Wright, who created the British Airways Putting People First Again programme that helped lift sales by 40% and double the share price
Brad Jennings, the former Head of Brand Experience at Vodafone UK, and
Gerard Brown, the creative director of simply experience, the engagement agency behind the hugely successful LiVE Tetra Pak campaign that went around the world.

The one hour webinar starts at 14:00 CET and is the latest in a series of virtual ‘lunch hour’ conferences that aim to bring prominant experts in internal communications directly to your desktop.

Register to take part in the webinar >

Melitta

By GenevaCom| November 11th, 2010|Other events|0 Comments

Geneva Digital Life Event – 17 November 2010

An interesting event in Geneva on 17 November 2010 to present the data of a recent report. The largest ever global research project into people’s online activities and behaviour – “Digital Life” – was launched on binary day (10.10am, 10/10/10) by TNS, the world’s biggest custom research company. Covering 88% of the world’s online population through almost 50,000 interviews with consumers in 46 countries, the study reveals a number of very significant findings as well as providing indicators for the future of the world’s online behaviour.

“Digital Life” is the first truly global research into online activities, including all the key emerging markets of the BRICs and many of the next 11, going beyond basic behaviour to provide more detailed data into attitudes and emotional drivers of that behaviour.

Core data from the study is being made publicly available via an interactive website – http://discoverdigitallife.com/

For further information and program details check the Discover Digital Life website.

Patricia

By GenevaCom| November 9th, 2010|Other events|0 Comments

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