Thursday, August 23, 2012

Why Accreditation is a must for communication and marketing professionals?

In the globalised competitive  era, the individuals and the companies have now started bench marking their knowledge, proficiency and quality to globally accepted standards.  Companies world over subject themselves to ISO or BS Standards, which are globally recognised. Unless the companies get ISO certification, they may not be able to participate in the tenders internally and globally.

In the same way, IT professionals have now started benching their individual talents through Microsoft Certification and ISACA certification.  These certifications enable the IT professionals to compete globally and succeed professionally.

In the same way, communication and marketing professionals also need to get themselves certified to the global standards, if they want to succeed in their career in future.  I have been impressing upon the need for such global accreditation for the past eight  years.  None of the professional bodies in India are able to come up with any globally accepted certification or accreditation process. We need to prepare our younger generation communication and marketing professionals to compete at global levels.  

Just like we have accepted globally recognised certification process in other areas, the communication and marketing industry also can adopt the globally recognised and accepted certification process to develop their career in future.

US, UK, Australia, South Africa, Singapore and few other countries have already started accrediting their communicaiton and marketing professionals.  The employers give priority only to such accredited professionals in the internal promotions.  Professionals can get accredited in their chosen field, only after few years of experience.

APR Accreditation by Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and FCIPR Accreditation by Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), London are highly popular in US and Europe.

International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) is one of the respected International bodies operating in more than 100 countries.  They offer ABC Accreditation (Accredited Business Communicator). All the professionals who are connected with Business Communicaiton field like Public Relations, Corporate Communication, Marketing Communication, Journalism, etc are eligible for Accreditation process. Only working professionals can apply for Accreditation.

Accreditation process involves 3 stages.  (1) Application, (2) Submission of two Portfolios (work samples), based on the applicant's own experience and (3) written and oral examination.  Senior Accredited professionals will mentor and guide the candidates.

Recently, I recorded an interview with Mr Bish Mukherjee, President of IABC's India South Chapter.  Mr Bish was earlier the Accreditation Director for Asian countries and now the Asian coordinator for the prestigious Quill Awards of IABC.  He has mentored many professionals.

I have also recorded an interview with  Dr Rajiv Kumar. He is one of the top management officials in the Tata Group handling Corporate Communication.  He is presently the Director in the Accreditation Committee of IABC.  He supervises the Accreditation process of Asia Pacific, Europe, South America and Africa.

Please watch this interesting and informative podcast (12 minutes). If anybody wants to get more information and guidance, they can send mail to Mr Bish Mukherjee at bmiabc@hotmail.com.



This podcast can also be watched in YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHYSgH0jZEk

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Seminar on Education Loan by Puthiya Thalaimurai Foundation

(L to R) Pon Dhanasekaran, Prime Point Srinivasan
R Ramkumar, N Bhuvaneswari
Puthiya Thalaimurai Foundation (PTF) organised a Seminar on "Education Loan" at Sri Sankara Vidyalaya Metriculation Higher Secondary School, Urapakkam, Chennai on Saturday the 11th August 2012.  The programme was attended by the senior students and their parents.

Mr R Ramkumar, Advocate and Special Officer of PTF explained the salient features of Right to Education Act.

Mr Pon Dhanasekaran, Joint Editor of Puthiya Thalaimurai - Kalvi Magazine explained the various opportunities and scholarships available for higher education in India.  He suggested to students to look for other higher education courses, instead of flocking towards only engineering courses.  

Mr K. Srinivasan of Prime Point and Convenor of Education Loan Task Force (ELTF) explained the various aspects of Education Loan scheme available with Public Sector Banks.  He also explained about the latest IBA guidelines on providing education loan to vocational courses.  He clarified the doubts of the parents.

The programme was organised by Mrs N Bhuvaneswari, Principal of the School. Earlier, Mr Abdul Kareen, Deputy General Manager of PTF made a presentation on the various activites of PT Foundation.

Please see the pictures.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Seminar on Cyber Security at Panimalar College

Cyber Security workshop at Panimalar College, Chennai
Cyber security workshop

Panimalar Engineering College, Chennai organised a two days workshop on "Cyber Security" jointly with Cyber Society of India on 10th and 11th August 2012.  The workshop was inaugurated by K.  Srinivasan (Prime Point), President of Cyber Society of India on 10th August 2012. Engineering students, faculty members of their college and other colleges participated.

Inaugural function

Dr K. Mani, Principal of the College during his welcome speech expressed concern over the increasing cyber frauds.  Dr Sankara Gomathi, Dean emphasised the importance of creating awareness about the cyber security and cyber laws.


Inaugural speech by K. Srinivasan

While inaugurating the Workshop K. Srinivasan, President of the Cyber Society of India explained as to how the internet and online activities were on increase.  He said while the growing technology offered lot of advantages to manking, the same technology also posed greater challenges to the society.  He insisted that students and faculty members should spread awareness about the cyber challenges, so that the technology was used with greater care for the maximum advantage.  

He also appealed to youth to use the social media with responsibility.  "There is no absolute freedom for writing in social media.   Nobody can claim more freedom than allowed by the law", he cautioned the youngsters, so that they do not get caught by the cyber law implications. 


Student chapters in colleges

Srinivasan also announced that Cyber Society of India would encourage student chapters in every college, to enable  the students interact with external experts  and gain more knowledge.  For such student chapters, Cyber Society of India would provide all technical assistance.  He appealed to the representatives from other colleges to write to info@cysi.in, if they were willing to start a student chapter in their colleges.  He said that this should be volunteers based without any membership fee.

Principal of Panimalar College also assured that they would soon start a student chapter in their college, so that the students could organise quiz, seminars, present papers on cyber related issues.

Dr. S Kannan, Head of the Department of ECE propsed vote of thanks.


About the workshop

Two days programme include discussions on cyber law, cyber security, testing technologies, Credit cards/ATMs related issues, implications of cyber crimes, data security in cloud computing, cyber crime investigation, virus meance, etc.  

Experts from Cyber Society of India Mr V Rajendran, Mr J Prasanna, Mr Shanker Kumar, Mr S N Ravichandran. Dr B Muthukumaran, Mr N Ramamurthy, Mr Kapaleeswaran and Mr R Ramamurthy share their views on different topics.

Dr Sankara Gomathi, Dean is personally coordinating the organisation of this workshop.  Please see some of the pictures taken during the inauguration.

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