Following is some more information on the theme of our next lunchtime seminar:

 Suddenly management and decision-makers are obliged to keep those existing ‘daily business’ balls moving fluidly, while adding one- or several- chainsaws into their juggling act. The chainsaw(s) can be accidents, scandals, product defects, environmental disaster, health hazards or any other situation that poses a threat to operations and reputation. The real question: are you prepared to juggle a chainsaw or two? We find that while companies can manage to juggle the odd chainsaw, their structures and approaches tend to work in silos- the health and safety officer might deal with the accident, human resources with the scandal, the marketers with the product defect and so on. Can communicators become the bridge-builders within organizations, effectively de-siloing approaches to crisis communication and management? Our hypothesis is that social media can help to level the playing field, where communications can become a ‘centralizing’ platform internally. While it is true that communications has always played an important role in crisis management, since the advent of Web 2.0 the rules of the game have been turned upside-down with the citizen having the power to create content.

Who is now in command? Which are the new target audiences and how do we reach them? By putting communications structurally at the center of the crisis response and intelligently making use of social media, companies and organizations can be better equipped to mitigate the impact of a crisis. Come to this workshop and discuss the social media dimension with Raj and Tony who specialize in creating scenarios which simulate your Worstcase nightmares.

Register here for the lunchtime seminar >>

We are happy to announce our next Geneva Communicators lunchtime seminar!

Theme: Can you juggle chainsaws? Crisis Communication in the Social Media Age

Date/time:  12h20-14h00, Tuesday 10 November 2009

Venue: HD Centre, 114, Rue de Lausanne,  Geneva (map – pdf)

Speakers: Tony Murdoch and Raj Rana, co-founders of theworstcase.com

Cost:  10 CHF (light lunch included)

Register here for the lunchtime seminar >>

Thanks  to the HD Centre for the venue and the International University in Geneva for sponsorship.

Many thanks to the over 60 participants who attended the GCN lunch event today at the Swiss Press Club. A special thanks to Liam FitzPatrick for his very interesting presentation. We will be distributing a copy of the slides to those who attended. If you want to contact Liam directly for any further queries you can reach him www.simply-goodadvice.com.

View the photos of the event on the left hand column of this page or on our Flickr page.

For those who are interested, you can read more about Liam on Swisster following an interview conducted by Marcus Berry.

As mentioned, our  next event will be another networking apero in May and one more lunch event before the summer break in June.

Patricia, Melitta, Glenn, and Vincent

We are pleased to announce our next event of 2009 on Internal Communications :

Liam FitzPatrick, renowned expert in internal communications, will speak about “why most internal communicators are wasting their time…”

Liam FitzPatrick, based in the UK, is one of the premier internal communications consultants in the industry. He’s worked with clients ranging from Philips to Maersk and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva and just recently was appointed Managing Director of simplygoodadvice, the consulting arm of the Simply Group that owns www.simply-communicate.com.

Topic: Why are most internal communicators wasting their time?

Date: Friday, 24 April 2009
Time: 12h20 to 14h00
Location*: The Swiss Press Club, Route de Ferney 106, La Pastorale, 1202 Geneva (for directions, click on Map)
Fee: CHF 10.- per person for a light lunch – payable at the door.

Please register here for the Geneva Communicators Network lunch event for Friday 24 April at 12h20>>

We look forward to seeing you there!!

*Location sponsored by the International University in Geneva

Many thanks to all the participants who attended the GCN lunch event today at the Swiss Press Club. Approximately 50 communicators attended the lecture by Dr. Surabhi Aggarwal (Professor of Communications at the International University in Geneva) on Intercultural Communications. It was an interesting discussion followed networking around an exquisite indian buffet lunch.

View the photos of the event on the left hand column of this page or on our Flickr page.

Stay tuned for video excerpts of the event online soon. We will also be sending around a copy of the slides to the participants.

We look forward to seeing you at the next event.

Patricia, Melitta, Glenn, and Vincent

We have had a great response for our next Geneva Communicators Network Lunch on Friday 30 January – so much that we are now fully booked and have closed the registrations – we can’t fit more people into our conference room. Sorry for those who missed out – we will be organising another lunch seminar soon..

Glenn

We are pleased to announce our first event of 2009: Dr Surabhi Aggarwal will speak about how to communicate effectively across cultures – What do communicators need to consider when communicating to global and diverse audiences? How can cultural misunderstandings be avoided and communications be successful?

We look forward to seeing you there!!