I’m off to Melbourne – anyone wanna catch up? Thursday 24th April – I’m on the “Communicator of the Year” panel. At first I thought the invite said “Talker of the Year”. Heh :

RMIT Communicator of the Year 2008

This year’s RMIT Communicator of the Year Breakfast will be held on Thursday 24 April at the Windsor Hotel, Melbourne.

For more information about the award: To nominate someone for the award (deadline 4 April 2008): Registration form to attend the breakfast (deadline 18 April) :

Download form

At last year’s Breakfast Professor Tim Flannery was named inaugural RMIT Communicator of the Year (see video: Tim Flannery’s acceptance speech). At the same event Professor Flannery also participated in a panel discussion entitled Politics, Principle and PR.

The theme for this year’s Breakfast will be Facing up to the Brave New WWWorld, and panelists will discuss trends in social media, particularly as they relate to the public relations and professional communication industry.

The panelists include:

Hugh Evans – founder and executive director of the Oaktree Foundation, former Young Australian of the Year and driving force behind the Make Poverty History campaign

Gerry McCusker – author of Talespin: PR Disasters and outspoken commentator on public communication issues in the online environment

Laurel Papworth – online media strategist, lecturer in social media at the University of Sydney, and adviser to media and telecommunication companies

Jenny Weight – artist and researcher in media trends, lecturer in networking and programmed media at RMIT University

The award for RMIT Communicator of the Year 2008 will also be announced at the Breakfast. This award recognises a person whose communication skills have helped achieve an outstanding social or community-wide outcome during the previous year. They might be an organisation leader, an activist or a professional communicator – they do not have to be a public figure.

SEE ALSO

Public Relations programs home

Applied Communication news and events

Anyway, I don’t make it down to Victoria very often, so please, email, Twitter, Facebook, comment or whatever way you usually contact people, and let me know if you want a coffee etc.

Who would you pick as ‘social media’ Communicator of the Year by the way? *puzzled* our industry is a bit new (in the sense of online community relations, in a corporate way). Do we have a social network version of Professor Tim Flannery? I guess someone who inflicts books and whitepapers on us? 😛

EDIT: changed the date of this blog post so it comes up the top (it’s this Thursday). I’m too lazy to blog it twice. So sue me. 😛