Those who speak French and are interested in e-commerce may find value in attending the “salon eCom”, which will take place at the Ramada Hotel in Geneva on Tuesday 24 May 2011.

The salon eCom is an annual event for anyone interested in marketing and sales on the web. Over 1000 professionals attend this event to share ideas and best practices. Topics include e-commerce and m-commerce, content management, e-crm, secure payment systmes, logistics,  web marketing, e-merchandising, web 2.0, m-communication (mobile).

The conference is free of charge. For more information or to register visit the website http://www.salon-ecom.com/.

This workshop could be of interest to communicators in the Geneva region:

Do you feel that you’re not fully using your natural talents at work? Do you ever get frustrated as part of a “team” that doesn’t really function well as a team? Is team spirit sometimes jeopardized by difficult relationships with colleagues?

If yes…then join us for this fun, interactive workshop to learn how the Belbin Team Roles approach can help you to develop your self-management skills, understand the unique contribution you can make within a team and build productive working relationships.

The workshop will be run by Liz Tayfun and Sarah Clark, both Belbin Team Role accredited facilitators. 

Price per person CHF 290, which includes an individual Belbin report with observer assessments, workshop files and refreshments.

Number of participants limited to 20.

Further information and registration>>

MScom Excellence in Communications Lecture: “the new branding imperatives”

Tuesday, April 12, 2011 at BMW, Dielsdorf, Switzerland.

Network with senior communication executives and find out the path to branding success from two leading experts:

• Professor Kevin Lane Keller, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, US
• Dr. Uwe Ellinghaus, Director Brand Steering, Brand Management BMW and Marketing Services

Only a few spaces remain. Register HERE to secure your place!



Following is information on a partner event – GCN members have a discount entry price – 25 CHF instead of 30 CHF

The International University in Geneva and Organization of Women in International Trade- Lake Geneva present a roundtable:

New trends in communications, marketing and media

What does the future hold for the way we communicate? Does human communication still have a place for the “human”? Will Facebook and other social media replace the ubiquitous email? What will media look like in 20 years – will we still have newspapers to read? Has marketing reached its peak – are there really untapped markets in the world today? Join us with our panel of media, research and marketing professionals to discuss these questions and more.

Thursday 7 April 2011, 6:30 p.m.
Crown Plaza Hotel (former Ramada Park Hotel), Avenue Louis-Casaï 75-77,
Genève-Cointrin 1216
 
Panel members:

• Valérie Bauwens, User Researcher, Founder, Human Centricity sàrl
• Isaac Griberg, Social Media Officer, International Committee of the Red Cross
• Giorgia Molajoni, Managing Director of VML Geneva
• Ellen Wallace, Founder and Editor, GenevaLunch
• Moderator: Dr Ivana Modena, Professor Adjunct, Media and Communications, International University in Geneva

Register online>>:
Entry fee:
25 CHF for OWIT & GCN members and IUN Alumni
30 CHF for non-members

Agenda: 6.00 p.m. Registration and welcome
6.30 p.m. Presentations and Q&A
7.45 p.m. Cocktail and networking

An interesting conference coming up for those interested in  branding!

Thought Leaders in Brand Management: A Meeting of the  Minds

Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Lugano

March 11 – 12, 2011

“With this conference, we are venturing into bridging the divide between the professional and the academic worlds, something that has not been done before in the field of branding. This will be a meeting of the minds, bringing together forward-thinking brand executives committed to knowledge and learning and academics from the top research institutions across the globe.”

Keynote speakers include the European Director of the TED Conferences; Genral Manager of Disneynature and President of The Walt Disney Company, France; Chairman of Brand Finance; CEO of Freitag and global heads of branding from international organizations such as Credit Suisse, BSI, Holcim, ABB, World Wildlife Fund and more.

For additional conference and registration information, please go to www.brand-management.usi.ch

Happy new year to all communicators from the Geneva Communicators team. Look out for our 2011 welcome apero in January 2011 (exact date and venue to be announced).

Melitta, Patricia, Vincent and Glenn

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