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5 things you must know if you want to work with a PR boutique firms
As a young aspiring PR professional, I thought getting into PR would be glamorous lots of parties, networking, and more. It wasn’t! There were a lot of things I learnt along the way. The best teacher for me has been experience; I’ve dealt with bosses from hell, clients who never budge on their actions, or their budgets! Media, that’s been tough to crack and extremely difficult and demanding. Text books, courses, and classrooms can teach you theory, but real PR practice comes when you’re in the field actually working, networking and it isn’t always glamorous!To someone who would love to work in PR- here are a few things you should…
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Telling the Environmental, Social, and Governance narrative, authentically.
Disclaimer: I do not claim to be an expert on ESG. But having been involved in the preparation of a report, the learning curve has been steep and has me deeply interested. Sharing some of my views and I hope they resonate with you. As a real-life story goes, the CFO of a listed entity flew down 4000+ miles to London (of course pre-covid) to meet an investor. Armed with a robust business plan, there was not an iota of doubt of the deal coming through. Cut to breakfast in London, there was confidence and crispness in the air, perfect weather, and tea for company, when the potential investor walked…
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Motherhood gifts us with the art of storytelling!
Being selfless for a lifetime, never missing a single meal, constantly teaching and learning and yet all we relish in return is a huge bear hug and those simple words – I love you mom! Yes, having written so much around motherhood previously, how could I miss an opportunity on “Mother’s Day”! Right now, I’m counting 4 blessings – My favourite teacher, my son Shlok; my truest pillar of strength, my Mom; the love that I could get from both my (late) grandmothers and the motherhood that my (late) ‘mother-in-law’ showered on me. All these women, and my son, have played brilliant roles in helping me stay strong, each day.…
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PR Lessons on How Not to Handle a Pandemic
This is not a political blogpost, but a one written out of purely professional interest! As a PR Professional I have currently seen a slew of negative press, social media memes and general frustration with the way India’s monster second wave is being handled. It’s been a lesson for any well honed PR Person on ‘How Not to Handle Public Perception’. So here are my two bits on how this reputation management disaster can be addressed. Communicate: People want to know that the people in charge are doing something! In a time of panic, people want to know that there is someone at the helm of affairs, taking change and…
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What does an internal audit at #PRPOI look like?
As we got all enthused and ecstatic on the first anniversary for the curated #SaturdayLive sessions, we just got thinking that this has been one helluva journey for all the founders, as well. No one knows it all, yes, we say that proudly even after being in the industry for a combined 6 six decades (all three of us put together). Probably that hunger to keep learning is what turned out to be our biggest challenge and motivator. So, this is when we looked inwards, in literal sense auditing, to check if we have enough brownie points on our scorecard for upskilling. And we were glad to come out in…
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Time to envisage a new journey – all the way to the boardroom!
A communicator’s purpose used to be straightforward enough. Be it at a PR agency or at a Corporate organisation, a communicator had to ensure impactful visibility for the client/brand through various conversations. However, in the last few years (maybe 5?) there has been a change in how a communicator is now viewed. Rather the role of a communications professional now comes embedded with innumerable unseen layers. Today more than ever Leadership teams acknowledge the successful impact of a communication campaign on the behaviours of the people around, with a focus on building and protecting reputation. Recently on the weekly PRPOI chats, when I read out an audience question for…
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Importance of Internal Communications in these challenging times
In a world separated by a mere six degrees of separation, one would think that communicating effectively would not be a challenge. However, despite having multiple channels of communication, we find that people seldom talk to each other or communicate effectively. This often opens gates for ambiguities and leaves room for ‘guessing games.’ For organizations, the COVID-19 pandemic has only further underscored the importance of communicating proactively and effectively. With most of the workforce working from home, the constraints on physical connectivity have only increased, putting a strain on effective internal communication and hence necessitating the need to focus on how companies communicate with their internal stakeholders. What we do…
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Essentials to build a career, with fundamentals as a PR professional
Last week I had an excellent chat with good folks at PRPOI. Over sixteen years of working and transitioning from a communications professional to a Sales and Marketing person. If you ask me if I could do it all over again, would I do it the same way, I’d tell you mostly yes. Mostly because I would just learn the lessons quicker (don’t we all wish the same), work harder but yes, I would do it the same way. Here are the ten lessons learnt that I penned down during the week. These are the things I learnt from some amazing people I got to work with, some people who…
