The Thoughtful Thud Revisited

Preposterous tosh and why you should believe in what you believe in!

What's important? A Standard? Guidelines or to know that what you do meets internationally recognised Best Practice? Easy to get confused with terminology.

There is a lot of work going on within the media community on standards at the moment by internationally regarded researchers and that is always to be welcomed. 

To find a way forward I went back. I remembered how in the 90's I developed a company-wide best practice framework which conformed to and was approved by, an international standards body (the British Standards Institute). Best practice, a mandatory framework and conforming to an International Standard all in one. See how confusing it can get.  

The initiative was conceived it as a way of laying down best practice to be followed by all professionals in our fast developing PR Group so we knew we delivered great work across the business. It didn't stifle the creatives but what it did was give us a consistency in our work and in our client service.

I was working through a new concept for AMEC's European Summit last night and headed my draft, "Game Changer." It's not - that would be preposterios tosh on my part.

What I came to realise instead is that the way forward is likely to require a boldness in what you already believe in to help educate the global marketplace. To achieve that it is likely that you must seek the balance between best practice and a blend with company proprietary creativity.

But above all, to believe in what you believe in and make it happen!

Either way the Dublin European Summit will be interesting.

When simply being there is a major commitment....

When you organise an event in Asia Pacific you are immediately struck by the sheer vastness of the region. In other words, if people come to your event, it has come at a sizeable time and monetary cost, aka, by coming they have made a statement that they want to hear what you have to say.

Or to network. Or to soak up new techniques and best practice to take back to their own company. and push the speed of change. 

AMEC's 1st Asia Pacific Summit in Hong Kong at the end of last week had speakers and delegates from a dozen countries. In a city which operates at a pace which makes Manhattan seem slow, the restless energy of Hong Kong seemed to rub off on the delegates too.

The opportunity to provide guidance on best practice for the communications professional to grow "the practice of communications measurement" in China and India alone is significant. That we had speakers and representatives from these countries is encouraging for the future.

It was our first Summit in Asia. The mental planning has already begun for Number Two!  In the meantime, our thanks go to the long distance pioneers of this first Summit, both our speakers and delegates.