dear vikram kharvi and all
When I announced about the Sansad Ratna Awards function for the top performing Indian MPs, instituted by Prime Point Foundation at IIT Madras, Vikram Kharvi, one of the young and active PR professionals from Mumbai has circulated the following message. (see below)
He has suggested me to explore the possibilities of recognising young Public Relations / Corpcom professionals with suitable awards, on the lines of Sansad Ratna Awards.
I also spoke to Vikram Kharvi over phone after receiving the message. In this connection, I want to share some of my past experiences with our members.
Experience with prpoint group
This prpoint group was started in Feb 1999 and we have crossed 13 years of useful existence. This group is probably the earliest group in India to bring together all the PR and Communication professionals. The discussion groups started around that time did not sustain. Presently we have around 1300 hard core professionals in this group, discussing on many issues. I frequently weed out the membership of irrelevant people, to keep this group highly professional.
If we start any discussion on relevant and useful communication topics, only very few seniors engage in conversations. I do not find activie participation of many PR/Corpcom professionals in the discussions.
Experience of ezine PReSense
In 2004, I started an exclusive ezine for PR industry PR-e-Sense. We published 60 editions exclusively on PR and Communication related topics, with one theme every month. Very sadly, there was not much involvement in the PR industry by contribution of articles. Only very few people like Vikram took the interest. We had brought out highly quality interviews from international experts. All the past ezines are available at www.corpezine.com.
Since it was a 'thankless' task to publish an ezine for PR industry, I discontinued the ezine for nearly 10 months. Then at the request of many readers, the ezine with the same logo was named as PreSense (instead of PReSense) and I started publishing with new contents to suit all the people. This new format of ezine is very well received by many people, outside the PR industry and our team is continuing with this new format. On 20th April 2013, Tamil Nadu Governor Dr K Rosaiah launched the special edition of ezine PreSense at IIT Madras during Sansad Ratna Award function. The special edition will be circulated this week.
Featuring PR Icons
Few years back, I identified few young potential PR professionals and started featuring them in the group and in my site. That was how, I identified passionate people like Vikram, Tushar, Palin, Jhon, Chandramouli, Bobby and few others for featuring them.
I have to stop this idea because of lack of response.
Lack of response for PR mentorship
Three or four years back, I circulated a new scheme of mentoring for PR/Corpcom professionals. Many seniors, including CEOs, came forward to mentor the youngsters. Very sadly we had poor response from the young PR professionals to utilise this scheme. We wanted to tag one young person with one senior CEO of the industry for mentoring. We dropped that idea. This idea came to be based on my experience with one of the US Universities, wherein I was the mentor for one PG student on PR.
Crying for opportunity and not using the opportunity when given
Last year, we had a strong discussion in prpoint and Indian PR forum group. Many PR /Communication professionals felt that seniors were not giving opportunity to learn. Lot of mails were exchanged demanding opportunities.
Immediately, I contacted Mr Madan Behal, Mg. Director of Adfactors PR and he offered his conference hall free of cost for any discussion on PR and Communication. Immediately, I announced this in the group and requested few volunteers who can take up the responsibility to organise meetings every month at Mumbai. No one volunteered and the discussions came to a grinding halt. Though Vikram was willing to coordinate, no other volunteers came forward to form a team to organise.
IABC Accreditation
CJ Singh (Chandigarh) and myself are crying from roof top for nearly 10 years the need for Indian communication professionals getting international accreditation to become more employable in future. Even I announced a couple of years back, a scheme for IABC accreditation with the help of Mr Bish Mukherjee (one of our prpoint group members). Even I was willing to get accredited to motivate others. Sadly, no one responded.
Frustration is the ultimate winner
Not withstanding the failures, I came out with new ideas to do some thing frequently. But I have to admit, I am not able to get any success. With this background, I got frustrated with the lack of response from our own communication professionals. There may be many young professionals who may be interested to learn. But they do not come out openly.
That is why, I preferred to shift my focus to national agenda two years back. I feel it is more comfortable to deal with Members of Parliament and make use of them to improve our general system. Even Sansad Ratna Award has become popular among the MPs and I am happy to share with you that this award has created a healthy competition among the top MPs to capture the top position.
Instead of blaming the wrong things in the system, I want to place the first brick for construction. Others start following.
PR Awards and recognition
Already, PR bodies are giving awards to PR and Communication professionals. YCOF, PRSI, PRCI, ABCI, GFPR Awards, Dr CVN Awards are already in existence That is why, I did not want to institute PR awards, on the lines of Sansad Ratna.
If Vikram feels that an exclusive recognition is needed, I am open for any suggestions. Now, prpoint group and Indian PR forum group are two strong PR discussion groups in India. prpoint group has many seniors as members and IPRF group has many youngsters as members. We can synergise the strengths.
If young members can share their views and coordinate with Vikram Kharvi, I am open for any suggestion. If a team of young professionals can work out some transparent plan, I will be too willing to support the idea. Still I have not lost hopes. :)
Srinivasan
Moderator
9176650273
On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 10:41 AM, Vikram Kharvi pr.vikram@gmail.com> wrote:
Sir,Appreciate this great initiative of yours of spotting lotuses in murky water. But sir, you being the stalwart in the business of communication, you should also recognize PR professionals at the middle and lower level. Agency Heads and Corp Comm Heads of large companies get all the attention from almost all PR institutions. Every institution rewards same people, but the rewards should be for encouragement to aim for higher achievements. It should encourage younger people to do better jobs in their careers. Encouragement should be given to people who work for the industry, this will motivate others to work our own profession and help uplift its image.The rewards and recognition need not be given in a very flashy way in a glittering ceremony, but can be announced online and a small momento sent across the winner.I urge you to take this initiative to motivate youngsters.Best Regards,Vikram
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