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16 June 2006
It's never too late for good project PR
Communication Training - Episode II
60 INTERREG IIIC project coordinators and communication officers of 46 East and 6 North operations took part in a communication and media training on 6-7 June in Vienna. The seminar was a follow-up of an earlier training, delivered in 2005, and focused specifically on supporting INTERREG IIIC projects in communicating their end of project results. The meeting was organised by JTS East and supported by JTS North.
Training was delivered by Pinnacle, a London-based Communication and PR consultancy. Pinnacle's PR professionals trained participants on how to upgrade their project PR. Participants also worked in groups to improve their messages and dissemination strategies for end of project results and brainstormed jointly to find interesting news angles for making their project results more attractive to the media. Participants also practiced how to give good presentations and professional media interviews.
Three rounds of good practice presentations served to stimulate cross-fertiliztation and discussion on various aspects of project PR:
“I found this very helpful to meet other project partners focusing on the same problems”, said Ann McCarthy of the RFO ‘Enercyregio’.
And Susanne Peutl of ‘Poseidon’ felt inspired by the variety and creativity of the individual project presentations: “I believe that there is a lot of creative potential in every project, especially where people allow themselves to feel empowered and inspired by the individual project's philosophy”.
Although “it is never too late for good project PR”, as Jennifer Hardie of Pinnacle PR put it, operations that were approved more recently had probably most to benefit:
“This seminar was perfect timing for us”, said Krzysztof Heller, responsible for communication for the RFO E-Farmer. “I have learned some very important things that will help me to improve our PR strategy that we are just about to agree with our partners.”
Participants also exchanged their views on “hot topics”, such as on how to motivate project partners to do more PR in their region and country. Particularly RFOs had good practice to share in this respect, since their success in the start-up phase depends on good PR to mobilise significant numbers of regional actors.
Good practice examples included the RFOs ‘Enercyregio’, which benefits from the enthusiasm and experience of their Irish Partner, and ‘Innoref’ that has developed PR plans for every one of their partners.
Based on these experiences it was suggested to make comprehensive communication plans obligatory for every project in the future and within the projects to have every regional partner sign up to them and support them, an obligation, which could be included in the partnership agreements between the partnership.
Another point discussed was the added value of different communication tools. Participants agreed that getting the media interested through good project PR is more successful to promote an operation than advertisements or give-aways.
The analysis of the participant's feed-back sheets shows a very high rate of satisfaction with the seminar. Content was rated highly with 79% saying that they ‘enjoyed it very much’ while the rest indicated that they ‘enjoyed nearly all of it. Workshop content and trainers received very high ratings: Content was rated 'good' or 'excellent' by 93% of participants, trainers were rated 'good' or 'excellent' by 98%!
To download presentation of the projects on good practice examples as well as group photos in higher resolution, please, select the respective file in the download section.
Project partners interested in the updated communication manuals distributed at the event should contact their Lead partner or the person that has participated for their project. A very few extra manuals are also available from JTS East and North, but are reserved for Lead Partners that could not participate in the event.
Presentation skills training
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Media training
Some more comments from the feed-back sheets:
The subjects of the workshops were very relevant and extremely helpful.
The presentation workshop was extremely helpful and gave lots of good advice.
Practical examples, the many hints and dissemination are certainly very useful.
Getting into contact with other projects, exchange experiences, getting information from PR-professionals.
Learning new skills, meeting with colleagues and workers from JTS, possibility to discuss difficult problems. Learning to make a good message for press and how to do an interview.
Well organised, very professional.
Enjoyed working in groups. Learned how to develop a whole communications strategy.
The tips received here will improve ways of doing PR in a considerable way.
Enjoyed practical and concrete feedback on the presentation.
It was very good to be forced to see your own presentations and getting feedback on them.
Enjoyed the energy, clearness and authority of the organisation and the trainers, as well as the discussion and working together with the partners.
It could be seen that the trainers are real professionals.
Learned how to describe the project and activities in ‘common’ language for any audience.
I did not consider promotion an important thing up till now
It would have been great if we had been given examples of compiled communication strategies.
Practical approach to PR issues.
Relaxed atmosphere, competent trainers, useful contents and interesting new contacts.
The enthusiasm and professional attitude of the speakers.
Learned how to deal with the short time of the journalists.
