CPRS Manitoba joins Marketwire in hosting second annual award

WINNIPEG, January 19, 2009 - The Manitoba chapter of the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS) is inviting nominations for its second annual Manitoba Communicator of the Year Award.

The organization established the award to honour individuals or organizations that have demonstrated excellence in public communications in business, politics, entertainment, non-profits, or the community at large.

Gail Asper and Kim Jasper were presented with last year’s award for their work promoting The Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Their efforts included using a wide variety of tactics - from public presentations to advertising, media and government relations - to secure public, corporate and government support for the museum.

“Last year’s pool of nominees was very impressive and we expect this year’s competition to be just as spirited,” says Adam Dooley, past president of the Manitoba CPRS chapter.

“Nominees, or self-nominees, can be communications professionals, CEOs, community leaders or grassroots activists,” says Dooley. The nominees will be evaluated on the overall strategy, scope, and results of a campaign.

“Creativity is vital for communicators to get messages across credibly and honestly, but equally important is when the message results in significant contributions to the community,” said John Hamilton, president of CPRS Manitoba. “We’re very proud to be able to recognize the best in our profession.”

The Communicator of the Year will be selected by a panel of senior CPRS Manitoba members. The winner will be introduced at a gala luncheon on March 18, 2009 at the Fort Garry Hotel in Winnipeg. This year the gala will also offer a program of professional workshops during the morning. The event is made possible through the generosity of principal sponsor, Marketwire. Nomination, workshop, and luncheon ticket information are online at www.cprs.mb.ca. Deadline for nominations is February 13, 2009.

Government Relations Workshops

Kicking off the Communicator of the Year celebrations is a special morning of professional development with a workshop on government relations: “Influencing Government, Regulating Influence”; an educational opportunity for anyone who wants to engage governments constructively and proactively to influence policy or raise awareness about a program, product or service. CPRS Manitoba has assembled high powered experts who will explain Canada’s new Lobbying Act and how to effectively work with governments and strengthen advocacy efforts.

CPRS Manitoba

As the leading professional association for communicators in the province, CPRS Manitoba includes members from corporations, public relations agencies, government departments and non-profits. Members represent a wide variety of fields, ranging from agriculture and health care, to financial services and manufacturing.

For more information on the award, see the Web site www.cprs.mb.ca or contact Adam Dooley, past president of CPRS Manitoba, at (204) 291-4092, or e-mail: adooley@dooleycommunications.ca.

Cross-posted from snoo.ws…

The pace of technological change on the World Wide Web has been absolutely breathtaking over the past few years. Our new ability to share art, design and ideas through all kinds of media also has the potential to let consumers the world over break free of mass produced sameness.

We’re living in an age where average computer users can create just about anything from their own jeans to cars, mugs to movies. Writing in The Business Times, Dr. Sivam Krish said this week that for the first time since our grandparents’ generation we can again have personalized and unique products en masse. He should know. As the founder of Genometri, his company is offering customers the chance to design and produce their own t-shirts, picture frames and other keepsakes.

I agree with him. In the last few months, snoo.ws has written about a large number of companies that are latching on to the ease of new technologies and our basic human desire to express our own uniqueness (or at least feel as though we are).

Toyota is letting its customers influence the design of its Scion models; CafePress lets us design t-shirts, mugs and just about everything else; RYZ is generating buzz in fashion circles with its UGC shoes; and we have all seen countless options for customizing avatars, the epitome of online self-expression.

Left to themselves, these user-generated content companies may have been able to carve out small niches somewhere in the great Web cloud. But they’re not alone. Thanks to the proliferation of social networks, many of these companies are expanding quickly as word of them is passed from friend to friend.

This week’s announcement of a partnership between CafePress and Sellit is an example of how the technology is spreading. Using embeddable widgets, the companies are offering users the opportunity to set up virtual ‘franchise’ locations across social networks. A lot of what’s on offer may only be trinkets and t-shirts today, but I believe it won’t be long before the trend spreads far and wide into new industries, irrevocably changing each business model as it does.

For the last few generations, only the very rich could afford such personalization in what they purchased, wore drove or sat on. Soon, I expect we’ll all be able to get that [fill in your choice of product here] in just the right colour, size and shape delivered right to our doors… just the way we designed it ourselves.

It was just a few short months ago when the Conservatives and the Liberals were fighting over who was less likely to produce a deficit if elected. And now they’re fighting to see who can spend more, faster.

The economic crisis was in full bloom during the election, but the politicians were slow to admit it publicly. Since the election, the full reality of the massive slowdown in the U.S. economy has hit home making it expedient to promote stimulative fiscal policies.

I’ve been interested in how the Tories have moved on the file from a communications standpoint. Nowhere is communications a more vital part of the management function than in politics, because it is often the communications strategy itself that sets the policy tone. When Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government  was threatened with defeat at the hands of the hastily assembled coalition of Liberals, NDP and Bloc, he changed his government’s economic direction on a dime. Where previously he refused to consider deficits, now he’s leaking information of plans for a $64 billion deficit over the next two years.

The Tories have been active across the country trying to sell their new economic vision. They met with the premiers. They sent MPs back to their ridings to meet with local influencers and media about what to do. The PM himself convened a special panel of leading business people to advise him. The party has been airing commercials to support all of their consultative activities. And, finally, this week, the Tories have been leaking large bits of the good-news-for-everyone budget in advance of tomorrow’s presentation in the House of Commons.

Roadshows, speeches, community meetings, advertising, and a major media relations campaign all in six weeks… the communications staff at the PMO must be pining for some time off.

I thought I had it bad. Seventeen years ago, I graduated with my Master’s Degree in Journalism at the University of Western Ontario only a scant few months after Southam Newspapers laid off hundreds of reporters and editors across the country. It was 1992 and the recession was yet to lift. My class faced a bleak time as we sought our first jobs. I ended up starting my career in the small tobacco town of Tillsonburg, Ontario working for a twice-weekly paper and earning less than I had been working as a waiter the year before graduate school.

The start of my communications career wasn’t easy, but it was mild compared to what today’s journalism students face. Virtually every major news organization has announced major lay-offs in the past few months: CanWest Global (which today owns those Southam papers that once frustrated my career hopes), the Globe and Mail, the Winnipeg Free Press, CTV. Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch.

The news business has changed dramatically in my lifetime. Newsrooms have been shrinking and the quality of reporting and editing in most regional papers has declined markedly.  Reporters too typically work for a couple of years in their chosen profession before fleeing in frustration over low pay and low morale.

To make things worse for the news biz, the blogosphere is flooding the Internet with free, specialized content covering every topic under the sun. And that content is often written by leading authorities who offer “reporting” straight from the source.

I’m guessing that future J-school classes will be seeking work at online blogs and newsletters much more than at newspapers or radio and television stations.

With the new year already moving at a fast pace, I’m pleased to welcome aboard Dustin Plett, a student intern from Red River College’s Creative Communications program. Dustin will be working on a variety of projects for a number of Dooley Communications clients over the next three weeks.

Among other things, he’s helping craft stories for ICUC Moderation Services’ daily news blog on user-generated content, http://snoo.ws, and writing copy for a new website client who recently engaged us.

Dustin’s focus at Red River is on advertising, so he’ll also be putting his youthful creativity to work on the upcoming launch of the Keystone Processors premium brand of beef.

Welcome Dustin.