Opening

Dr. Herbert Heitmann

Greeting

Prof. Dr. Miriam Meckel

The Results of the European Communication Report 2008

A joint project of the EACD and the University of St. Gallen, the survey presented by Prof. Dr. Miriam Meckel explores the professional backgrounds, challenges and working environments of in-house communication experts all over Europe.

Keynote I

Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli

The Return of Religions:
Communicating Faith in the 21st Century

With an increase in religious conflicts around the world, images of which resonate daily in the global media, communicating religious views strongly is more important than ever. Whilst the mainstream becomes more secular, it leaves many people searching in vain for a message of spiritual orientation. This is slowly being achieved as religious leaders step into the communications spotlight to get the message of faith across on an international platform.

Best Practice

Martin Kotthaus

Claus Haugaard Sørensen

Darren Lilleker

Katharina von Schnurbein

The Challenges of Political
Communication

Which key differences exist between the worlds of Political and Corporate Communications? While both must be undertaken with great care, they must also effectively secure the public trust by highlighting the positive aspects of the present while laying out plans to progress towards a brighter future. This panel will dissect and evaluate the two based on their similarities and differences, both in practise and the presentation of facts, figures and their desired projected images to see what both sides can learn from each other.

Strategy

Frank Koster

Jan Hainz

Dirk Haesevoets

Wilfried Remans

Innovative Financial Communications: New Ways for Drawing the Balance

How might investors, newswires, the public and employees react when they have just found out a company has suffered tremendous losses? Though the responses might differ from group to group, financial communication teams must find a way to cater to each group individually while addressing them all together. It is a job that requires diligence and diplomacy and it is easy to see how Financial Communications can make or break the reputation of a company.

Trends

Phillippe Borremans

Kristoffer J. Lassen

Pawel Lisicki

Hans De Keulenaer

New Media: Method to the Madness

Recent years have seen the new possibilities brought on by the evolution of the internet and its users fuse with practically all areas of life and business. The flow of information, whether it is generated by individuals or organisations, is constantly being fed, diverted, inflated, validated and/or discredited through the channels and conversations happening with in all forms of New and Social Media. These unpredictable
new realities affect every communications professional who must now learn to navigate these waters or risk being washed overboard. With this panel, New Media’s ability to level the playing field when it comes to power of influence will be addressed as well as how the communications world can play along.

Best Practice

Mike Davies

Philipp Schindera

Heike Geiling

Astrid Gade-Nielsen

Moderator: Rick Zednik

Crisis Communications: Managing the Worst Case

Ideally, companies should think several steps ahead in order to avoid all possible mistakes. However, in reality things can go wrong and the speed and efficiency of today’s media can be a formidable adversary when trying to communicate one’s side of the story during a crisis. To avoid the fallout of reputation-damaging catastrophes, how can crisis management and communication
best anticipate problems, and strategise and execute a plan to diffuse the crisis with a minimum of harm for their organisation? Experts who dealt with the Mohammed cartoon incident and doping scandals in cycling will relate how their organisations thrived despite the crises they went through.

Strategy

Martin Hiller

Katharina Auer

Ulrich Gartner

Economy vs. Ecology: Staying in the Black While Going Green

With environmental awareness on the rise, communicating a positive message through
eco-friendly actions is paramount for many organisations. Ideally, the costs of converting to more ecologically-responsible methods will be covered by the benefits of an improved image, and will be circulated back into the organisation as future profits. The Economy vs. Ecology panel brings together members of the World Wildlife Fund, the European Commission, and experts from the fields of corporate communication who will discuss how they manage to become more and more green while remaining profitable.

Trends

Melissa Lamson

Managing Diversity: Achieving Success Through Difference

Diversity is the hallmark of any organisation which seeks to foster successful development. A workplace cannot create anything fruitful without the input and collaboration of people with a variety of different opinions, experiences and desires. Successful Diversity Management is all about harnessing the potential of difference, rescuing it from chaotic discord with highly-developed organisational skills.

Best Practice

Marianne Amssoms

Nicola Davidson

Bettina Gneisz-Al Ani

M&A Communications: The Successful
Fusion of Two Entities

Any merger and/or acquisition has the potential to disrupt the fine-tuned clockwork
of a company’s operations and image. Mergers have the potential to temporarily
or even permanently cause adverse effects on levels of efficiency as well as the very faith in the organisation as a whole if not handled properly. To precede and perhaps also counter these potentially negative outcomes, communications during this transitional period must ensure that the change is seen as a necessary step towards future and continued success after the assimilation. Panel members familiar with handling these uncertainties will relate the best means to overcome all the most common hurdles before, during and after a merger or acquisition.

Strategy

Marianne Barner

Elfrieke F. van Galen

Felix Höpfner

Corporate Social Responsibility:
Dedications Beyond Business

Whether an organisation has CSR ingrained in its founding principles or it is just now jumping on the bandwagon, having socially responsible projects inprogress is now a necessity. Whether CSR is executed directly through a company’s products
and services or functions as a operation on the other side of the world, the consumer-and society as a whole-now expect that organisations take an active role in bettering life on the planet. Operating in the 21st century, companies must re-evaluate how their objectives conflict or complement public expectaions, new legislation, and sometimes even employee values.

Trends

Jonathan Harper

Chantal Tregear

Christof Ehrhart

Prof. Nancy Papalexandris

Career Management: About the Skills of a Good Communicator

With the ever-growing professionalisation of communications positions and the value they bring to the table for all organisations, this panel will take a step back to look at the elements which may best comprise a sucessful career in the field. What specifically are the most valuable assets and capabilities that contemporary European communicators should possess? Is it education? Talent? A knack for versatility? People skills? Or the combination of all these? Or is the path to accomplishing
communications career goals much less concrete?

Keynote II

Raju Narisetti

The Media Landscape in India: Why it Matters and How to Approach it.
An Insights into the Media Landscape in Asia

In carrying out successful international communications, it is vital to know about and understand the media landscape abroad. Each and every country has its specific press character, and contemporary communication professionals are expected to know the specifics. Raju Narisetti, who is the Managing Editor of the Indian business newspaper Mint, knows both European and Asian journalism. He will give us an insight into what communication professionals have to expect in India.

Gala

Karin Helmstaedt

European Communication Award 2008

THE EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNICATION DIRECTORS (EACD) gathers about 400 leading personalities from business, media, politics and society for a fun, glamorous and fascinating networking evening on April 24th, 2008. The EACD will honour the communication professional who has excelled in communicating the European idea in 2007 with the EUROPEAN COMMUNICATION AWARD.

Greeting

Marc-Oliver Voigt

Ethical Values in Communications

Personal moral concepts can sometimes have a major impact on a communication professional‘s career and his everyday work. Marc-Oliver Voigt will speak about the role that ethical parameters play in communicating throughout Europe today, and discuss whether it is really possible to communicate an ethical viewpoint in everything that professionals do.

Keynote III

Frank Schomburg

Managing complexity: How to be successful in intelligent networks

During the last two decades much effort has been invested to enhance the world wide connectivity and to get as many people as possible involved using the new information technologies. The resulting complexity and speed of change in every day life is a real challenge. Even short term predictions seem to be not possible any longer. Stability is more and more a rare exception. To develop and to test innovative strategies to cope with the situation is crucial to survive in the global competition. Ideas from system theory and brain science are helpful.

Best Practice

Ernst Primosch

Branding: Perspectives on Identity, Image and Reputation

Establishing distinguished brand recognition and loyalty within any market is hard enough – but maintaining that identity is just as challenging, and requires a sustained effort. How does a company do this while also remining flexible and innovative enough to hold the interest of its consumer base with new products and services? Being in-tune and ahead of trends must also fuse with the brand’s foundation. Communications are what truly anchor the brand and keep it firmly in place. This discussion focuses on how communications manages to transform the new into the familiar, and the old into the new while keeping the same solid brand image.

Strategy

Viviane Huybrecht

Charlie Nordblom

Internal Communications:
Achieving Shared Vision

Internal Communications is the lifeblood of an organisation’s ability to help better itself. As for any group of people, a company’s ability to be transparent, honest, direct and informative with its own employees leads to the necessary cohesion needed for optimum efficiency. Openly addressing and integrating employee ideas can often bring to light previously unseen strengths and weaknesses within an organisation. This panel will highlight internal communications sucesses as well as the best methods of nurturing their further development.

Trends

Markus Beeko

Reed Brody

Barbara Crowther

The Insights of NGOs and Non-
Profits: Communicating Towards
a Better World

The communication professionals working at Non-Governmental and Non-Profit Organisations fight for a better world, but they must also compete for the attention of the public. Their strategies must be equally dynamic - or even more so- as any regular business. These organisations must effectively reach as broad of an audience as humanly possible in order to get them to actively support and fund the causes which they have dedicated themselves to. The unique experiences and approaches of these experts can also be of great benefit to those working in the arena of corporate communications as well.

Best Practice

Prof. Dr. Manfred Schwaiger

James Rosenstein

Fiona Wilkinson

Caroline Hempstead

Reputation Management: The Value of a Good Standing

Reputation is a company’s most valuable asset. Like trust, once damaged, it can be very difficult to earn back. A tarnished reputation can cause irreparable consequences that affect the success of a company. Reputation plays a central role in such areas as investor confidence, business partnerships, and the overall attractiveness of the organisation. From dealing with unsatisfactory outcomes and consequences as well as the effects sub-par business practices, decisions and mistakes, these panel members will present the best ways of managing and maintaining all aspects of a healthy reputation.

Strategy

Jacqueline Strayer

Geert Sciot

Yves-Thomas Dorval

Change Management: Staying
On-Course Through Times of
Transformation

Innovation and transformation are generally positive things, but they can also instil a fear of change. Appropriately communicating change positively must take place on all levels of the company to instil both stakeholder and employee confidence. Innovation, which is at the heart of almost any organisation, may emerge in the form of management repositioning or in the development of new business models, and it can be as important to a company’s creative portfolio as the addition of new products.

Trends

Pedro Ballestero

Dr. Iekje Smit

Joanne McKinney

Moderator: David Willows

Public Awareness Campaigns:
The Art of Changing Ones Mind

You can‘t teach an old dog new tricks. Or can you? Public awareness campaigns aim to provide people with new facts, to change their behaviour and sometimes even to change their system of values. Sometimes it seems like fighting windmills, but sometimes you succed in making the world a little bit better. Communication professionals from the European Commission, the UN and the educational sector will come together and discuss their experiences in developing and realising Public Awareness campaigns.

EACD General Assembly

EACD General Assembly

AFTER THE EUROPEAN COMMUNICATION SUMMIT, members of the EACD meet for the General Assembly of the Association. Having been active by then for more than one and a half years, it will be time to look back on what has been achieved and present new few activities that are planned for the next months. Furthermore, the members will have the chance to vote on the EACD Board.