Catalan Coffee
by Andrew Riley
The IABC’s seventh EuroComm conference in Barcelona 4-5th February looks a right cracker. As the Chair of the sixth EuroComm in Dublin I was so pleased to meet at EuroComm nearly a hundred senior communicators from approximately 20 countries. Ramon Olle, then CEO and chairman of the board at EPSON Europe was our first plenary speaker in Dublin giving us his CEO insight into what is leadership in a diverse corporate world and how can it be communicated. He not only ended up staying to listen to the other speakers remaining for the entire two days in Dublin, but he also has been instrumental in setting up the ties with La Salle university in Barcelona to host EuroComm 2008!
What stands out for me is that EuroComm is a conference put together by IABC European professional communicators for themselves and their peers. Those helping out at IABC do it for free - because we are confident and committed to our work and because we want to make the conference registration fee accessible to people at all levels.
What I took away from Dublin EuroComm was an immense wealth of IABC friendships and knowledge of the art and craft of professional communication - such as John Simmons of The Writer sublime explanation of his use of storytelling to define the Guinness brand essence to the Guinness board and marketing team. I have never before heard a conference hushed to such silence as when John narrated an imaginary story of travelling around Africa to find the Guinness essence and ended it by the cat Pangar Ban in library of Trinity College Dublin next to the Book of Kells. In contrast to this communication approach we were sharply brought down to earth by the strategies and practicalities of combining people and technology in communication by John Leggate CBE, Chief Information Officer for BP and winner of 2007 European Excel Award, and by Paul Mylrea, director of media relations for Transport for London who led the response to last July’s bomb attacks. (Some of the presentations at Dublin are available for download at http://europe.iabc.com/eurocomm/presentations.php )
One of the take aways from Dublin was the great interest in learning about corporate communication and social media, the break-out session of Marc Wright of Simply Communicate became standing room only and so it is by popular demand that Barcelona features an afternoon panel discussing “Creating Value through Online Communities” with Yang-May Ooi, Marc Wright and Giles Colborne. Other comments we have taken on board in putting the IABC 2008 EuroComm conference together is to maintain our commitment to showcase communication excellence throughout Europe and to have more break-out sessions to cover a broad range of issues.
Now it’s time for you to take action and take a good long read through the 2008 EuroComm programme - it’s a delicious as a Dublin beer and a Catalan coffee.
Andrew Riley is an assurance reporting and communications specialist at Harrison Riley and President, IABC UK (UK)
