Microsoft all set to hit Google this Friday

The kick ass war is beginning in India this Friday. Bill Gates will be addressing the Indian press for the first time since the Office War begins. As far the information we have received, he will also be meeting some influential bureaucrats and some ministers (the objective should be enhancing Microsoft presence in the Indian Education system - refer to the Economic Survey)in Delhi.

Though the objective of his visit is stated as regular visit and he is also coming for various program initiated by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. But we all know why he is coming. Also he is supposed to address media in another press conference by Nasscom. Therefore, Microsoft will be the talk of the town for the entire next week and will attract lots of attention for the online version of Microsoft OS.

Let's see how Google reacts to it.

Informa India brings the Global Leaders’ Series to India for the first time from 8th – 10th October 2009, in Mumbai!

Leaders in India – Business Forum 2009, is India’s largest international corporate business event that brings together an amalgamation of ideas between visionary leaders and the upper echelons of management, cutting across sectoral and global boundaries

PR from Informa India: Difficult business environments challenge even the most capable leaders and it is highly essential to stimulate the minds and passions of the highly intelligent motivated and time-poor corporate executives during a time like this. Seeking a focused business platform that is able to cut across all key sectors and verticals within the burgeoning Indian economy has for long been a challenge for many major firms wishing to regain their confidence and inspiration-especially in today’s environment.

Informa, the owners of information super-brands including Lloyd’s List, Taylor & Francis and Datamonitor, have announced the first Indian edition of the world’s largest series of Leadership events. Leaders business fora command audiences of 1000s of top corporate executives every year, with speakers most recently including Kofi Annan, CK Prahalad, Philip Kotler, Stephen Covey, Richard Branson and Steve Forbes.

Leaders in India, is the latest edition of what is widely regarded as the world’s largest series of business leadership events, which so far have taken place annually in major international cities including London and Dubai. Informa, producers of the event, have received a particularly strong response from Indian and international organisations, with GE, JSW, Johnson & Johnson, Birla, Nokia and Abbot amongst many others already having confirmed their delegations to the event.

"India is one of the most dynamic markets of the world, where innovation, business, and technical acumen will continue to grow and thrive for many years to come,” says Trump Jr.. “I look forward to bringing many incredible projects to this market, which is now primed and ready for world class development." Donald Trump Jr., has announced ambitious plans for investment in India’s real estate sector, and will elaborate on successfully dealing with the obstacles faced by international companies when entering the Indian market.

Tom Peters, among the most influential management gurus of today, and renowned author of ‘In search of excellence’, will provide practical tools to tackle one of the most pressing issues on every CEO’s mind – ‘how to win the war for talent.’ In spite of a more favorable employer’s market at present, the ‘war for talent’ is expected to remain one of Indian business’ paramount challenges as the country continues to develop rapidly over the coming decades.
On why Informa has decided to bring ‘Leaders’ to India, Abhaey Singh, Managing Director, Informa India, says that “Indians are ideas people – we love inspiration, and Leaders in India will be two days packed with the proverbial tingles down your spine.”
“But more than just that, our country is gradually positioning itself at the fore of the 21st Century knowledge economy. From our legendary IITs & IIMs, to our booming media and information industry; and from complex analyses performed for global firms in our KPO centres, to continual advances in indigenous rocket science – India’s inherent knowledge resources are now being more comprehensively harnessed by and interconnected with Indian and global business. So we think it’s an excellent time to leverage the hugely respected Leaders brand into this very exciting country”, adds Singh
Featuring Indian leaders such as Adi Godrej, Kishore Biyani and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, along with special guest speakers Abhinav Bindra and Shashi Tharoor, the event will also host The “IIBAAs” (Indo-International Business Achievement Awards), which has been instituted to acknowledge exceptional entrepreneurial and innovative talent, effective and responsible leadership & management, and the setting of new standards within Indian and global businesses.
To learn more about Leaders in India, visit www.leaders-india.com.
About Informa:
With hundreds of highly respected companies including some of the world’s biggest information brands - Lloyd’s List, Routledge, Taylor & Francis, Datamonitor, IIR, IBC, Euroforum, Huthwaite Washington Policy & Analysis and many others - Informa is present in over 70 countries and publishes over 45,000 book titles and publications; delivers over 2,000 subscription-based services and produces over 12,000 events every year.

Informa’s exhibitions include global B2B and B2C mega-shows such as, Cityscape, The Monaco Yacht Show, The India International Wine Fair and Arab Health, and its high-level summits include the world’s largest series of business leadership events, featuring speakers such as Kofi Annan, Richard Branson, Steve Forbes and Philip Kotler.

Are Corporate Communication people a roadbloack for the media?

Chatting with a journalist sometimes back. He was bitching about a couple of corporate communication (CC) people. According to him, the PR guys know much more than these CCs but because of insecurity or something else CCs never allow the PR people to interact with the Country heads directly. He also stated that CCs are always a roadblock in reaching out to the right people and companies should be more careful in appointing CCs, else it will backfire.

Friends...what do you think? Is this journalist talking sense?

"We are not anti-social"

One reporter from a leading TV News Channel in India was going through Palin's interview in my blog. Immediately, he called me up and asked "If Web is the social media, then are we anti-social?". I could not replied to that question.

And, yeah....print and television is playing an important role in bringing the society together, raising the issues of the society....

Even though PR 2.0 is getting big in today's world of communication, but we cant wipe out the importance of the traditional media.

Friends .... please post your comments whether the traditional media should also be considered as Social Media

Corporates In India Have Taken Social Media Approaches

Indiaprblog.com is the only PR blog from India which has been recognised worldwide, as metioned by Mathew Watson's blog (http://www.m-p-w.co.uk/2008/07/worlds-top-pr-blogs.html). On his recent success, Palin Ningthoujam, the founder of Indiaprblog.com and Advocable.com, has commented on the importance of PR 2.0 in the corporate world and its future as well.

Q. How do you foresee the impact of PR 2.0 in the corporate world?

While some corporates in India have taken social media approaches proactively, others are just about starting to acknowledging it and keeping a keen watch. I guess more and more corporates will eventually ask their PR agencies/corporate communications to develop a social media approach in line with their existing communications objectives. They are slowly realising social media is for real. Consumers are a lot more vocal about the products and services they use and the social media has given them the right platform to express their views. So if yesterday, we were conducting communications campaigns using the mass media, today we also need to reach out to the consumers directly and be a part of the discussion.

Q. Is something called PR 3.0 knocking the door?

The term PR 2.0 has been derived from the web 2.0 terminology. If PR 1.0 was of the traditional media like TV, newspaper, etc., then PR 2.0 is of the social media. People have talked about the evolution of the web to the web 3.0 level, and so when such a time comes, PR then might be as well rechristened PR 3.0. That said, we need to understand PR is about communications and engagements and we are just going along to suit the requirements of the evolving media.

Q. Where do you see Mobile PR after 2 years?

We have already done a couple of SMS campaigns for some clients, and it worked well. The most important plus point of the mobile phone is its reach. You will find people in remote villages without computers, internet access, and TV, but they might still be carrying mobile phones. So a mobile phone campaign is the best medium to reach out to these folks. This is just one example. Many corporates have launched applications for mobile phones, webmasters are creating mobile versions of their websites and so on. Looking at all these, let's say we will be conducting mobile PR for say 80% of our clients in one way or the other.

Q. How important is Online Reputation Management in dealing with PR 2.0?

Very important. Today Google is the new encyclopedia. Your reputation is at the click of a button. Whether it be your products, services, people, or organisation, it is important to keep a clean and strong image online.

Q. Why there is only one Indian PR blog recognised worldwide?

Young PR professionals in India need to look beyond their immediate work requirements and look at participating in other fora and enriching their knowledge. In other words, our days need not start and end with just making reports, calling up clients and media, drafting releases, or organising interviews for example. We need to ask ourselves if we are doing anything to enrich ourselves in our chosen profession in ways that are not part of our immediate job mandates. If we don't do that, we are no different from sheep that go quietly grazing around for grass today, tomorrow, and forever.

Sooner or later, our clients are going to demand our knowledge on emerging technologies, and media, and we should be read for that.

Q. What is the secret behind your blog?

I think one of the key reasons India PR Blog is read by many people in the industry is because it tries to discuss practical issues and the readers can correlate with what is being written about. We don't try to talk big about what PR can do or should do, but rather go into detail about things that every account executive or manager go through everyday like talking to a journalist, going for a media round, tools he/she can use to better himself/herself, etc.

Q. Where would you like to see your blog in 2011?

At least have 90% of the PR professionals in India read it regularly, if not all.

PR Secrets for Startups

At a time when anyone can broadcast their opinions about your startup to the world, public relations requires a new level of engagement on the part of companies and entrepreneurs. But what are the new rules of PR?

Its a nice piece by Brian Solis

Solis is the Principal of FutureWorks, a PR and New Media agency in Silicon Valley and also blogs at PR 2.0. Along with Geoff Livingston, Solis recently co-authored Now is Gone, a book that helps businesses learn how to leverage new and social media.

Find the complete article:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/25/pr-secrets-for-startups/

Is Mobile PR going to be PR 3.0?

A new study by The Center for Knowledge Societies (CKS) commissioned by Nokia identifies seven major service sectors including transport, finance and healthcare that could be radically transformed through mobile technologies.

Mobile phone ownership in India is growing rapidly, six million new mobile subscriptions are added each month and one in five Indian's will own a phone by the end of 2007. By the end of 2008, three quarters of India's population will be covered by a mobile network. Many of these new "mobile citizens" live in poorer and more rural areas with scarce infrastructure and facilities, high illiteracy levels, low PC and internet penetration. The study looks at how their new mobility could be used to bridge the growing economic and social digital divide between rural and urban areas.

Source: Nokia

So, is Mobile PR going to be PR 3.0 after someone coined Web PR (or Social Media PR) as PR 2.0?

Mukesh Ambani emerges as the New Gandhi: Thanks to PR

It’s about Mukesh Ambani- a New York Times article equates him to Mahatama Gandhi, god knows how much PR has gone into it!! Of course he is a great visionary, but the fact that NYT is writing about it is huge! Check the story below:

New York Times equals Mukesh Ambani to Gandhi

New York: Even as Reliance Industries chief Mukesh Ambani is caught in a renewed feud with Anil Ambani over hs younger brother's company Reliance Communications' merger deal with MTN, the New York Times has compared Mukesh to Mahatma Gandhi for being "a revolutionary thinker with bold ideas for what India ought to become".


Full article: http://news.in.msn.com/international/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1475655

ORM - How big it can get for PR professionals?

A good reputation can take years of backbreaking work to establish, yet can be taken apart by one careless remark or action.Bad news has always travelled fast, but today it can zip around the world at light speed through the fibre-optic cables of the internet.

So when a potential customer is searching online for your business using nothing but Google, it's more important to block the negative news rather than get your company in the top search engine page results.

Therefore, does this Online reputation management can be an important tool for PR professionals as we are on the threshold of PR 2.0.

Nuclear Deal & Lobbying

On the Indo-US nuclear deal, one of the UPA partner said that deal is to protect the strategic ties with United States. They accused the government of following a massive disinformation campaign that nuclear deal is essential to India.

Behind the scene, have we ever imagined how much lobbying has been done to get this deal passed? If not...then think about the game.

Need to understand the Media

Do the new people coming into the PR Profession today knows which media is important for their clients? For a FMCG product, the regional vernaculars are important to reach to the target audience. But for an IT company, the largest vernacular in the country matters almost nil to the company…only the HR objective can be fulfilled.

As the PR advisor to the Corporate World, we all should realize the fact that we need to understand the whole media gamut before we suggest anything to our client.

PR 2.0 - Is this the right time?

If you are an infant in social networking, you may run away from participating in an online forum or from using any application. You might think it’s too confusing. For instance, I’ve heard from lot of people that they’ve tried Twitter, but they just don’t get it . They also don’t feel involved enough to want to continue with their participation in Twitter. With all of the social networking we do, jumping from community to community, socializing with different sets of “friends” , we spread ourselves across the globe. So, is this the right time for PR professional to push the HOT BUTTON?