ANOTHER TAXI IN KL — I am on my way to the airport. The circus is leaving town. In another 24 hours of lounges and airplanes I will be home.
It’s been a hugely rewarding experience. I have spent the last two days locked in a room with internal communications people from Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, and Indonesia. They came from different parts of their organisation: HR, Marketing, Brand, Corporate Comms. Some were PR people, some external affairs. One represented a bank that had just been through a 5-way merger. (No sense making things simple!)
There was a fellow from Brunei with amazing stories — but I’ll have to keep those to myself.
I threw everything I had at them. Before the course I took Paul through the materials and he said “that’s pretty much everything we know.” But my south-east Asian friends were unbowed. They are a force to be reckoned with.
I pointed them towards Melcrum and Simply and Ragan. I urged them to join IABC and even CIPR and CiB. I suggested some books and blogs and social media channels and I am sure they will get involved in all of them.
Today, on the morning of the second day we talked about multicultural communications and I was certain that I was unworthy. These were people who have been through more in their lives than I could do if I live three more times.
At one point I put up a chart from 2001 that mentioned some of their countries, and they said “2001! That’s old news. It’s totally changed since then.” And they are right.
Personally, I haven’t changed that much since 2001.
There’s more to come from this session. But these are first impressions.
I want to go back. I want to work in these countries more. Soon!
/df
Hi David, I hope all is well with you. I’m not sure you’ve given CIPR Inside a ringing endorsement when you say “even CIPR…”! Perhaps we can have a chat over a coffee about some of the great things our group is doing to help spread best practice, drive debate and help to professionalise internal comms?
Scott
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