The Communication Marathon WCF Geneva Week defined the key topics for the communication industry

The Communication Marathon WCF Geneva Week defined the key topics for the communication industry
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

Last month (from the 13th till the 17th of March, 2017) we all met at the world’s global capital Geneva during the annual WCFA event “Communication on top”. Although taking place already for the eighths time, the Meeting has never lasted that long before (five full days) and included that many different activities, such as excursions, discussions, presentations, a book premiere, an award Ceremony, a Gala dinner and so on. The whole “Communication Marathon” with participants from more than 30 countries: Ready, Set, Go!

Me and other guests of WCF Geneva Week were lucky to learn from the experience of 80 speakers from all over the world, who shared the key insights of the communication industry at our “Communication on Top” stage.

Every topic, which is important for the world of communications, was discussed during the Meeting:

• Country branding: „Creating stories that provoke the recipients’ empathy is a key factor.”

• Information consume: “We consume 87% more information than 30 years ago – "This is the new fast food!"

• Mainstream media: “Mainstream media has a crucial role in contextualizing impactful stories from a crisis.”

• Fake news: “Fake news is a danger to democracy and can become hate speech. FB fails to combat.”

• Clinton VS Trump PR campaigns: “Misplaced focus of Clinton’s campaign – stress on policy, rather than intensifying the emotional value and tweeting more intensively or aggressively. The @realDonaldTrump won the Election in 2016 because he outsmarted his rivals on social media.”

• Social Media: “Unbelievably strong impact of the Social Media – today, more than ever, a cause can make a difference! Each and everyone of us has influence and can be a media – this should be used to attract attention of governments or to involve the Silicon Valley in due action regarding the world's problems!

• Company's reputation: „You or your company's reputation is EVERYTHING! 24/7 social media monitoring is absolutely required. Clients expect their consultants to be decision-makers and react on the spot.”

• Role of communication: “Communication has been redefined and given new meaning, referring increasingly to the technological revolution of the late twentieth century. By renegotiating the meaning of communication, we have also successfully renamed our own identity as a society – a global culture – managed by these technological innovations.”

Additionally, the traditional annual “Communication for Future” Award ceremony was held during the WCF Geneva Week at the Geneva hotel Beau-Rivage. 19 awards found their proud winners from all over the globe: the USA, UK, Brazil, Nigeria, Khazakhstan, India, Italy, Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Germany. The participants and their cases were sometimes that strong that it was impossible to choose the best. Therefore, the jury even decided to give the awards in some categories to more than one winner: http://www.c4fdavosaward.com/C4F-Winners.

During the Gala we have also presented our new co-authored book about the event "WCF: Existential Business Case". The book describes the experience of a group of global experts, who took part in the launching and development of the global annual WCFA event “Communication on Top”. The whole history of the Event can be read on these pages: from the moment, the idea was born, through all the difficulties and challenges till nowadays. And we now are a strong communication community with 8 editions of the Meeting with our own C4F Communication Award and our professional WCFAssociation. The book is still available to order online: http://wcf-book-2017.evenium.net.

From the center of Geneva we went to the city of Glion, where we held a meeting at the Glion Institute of Higher Education devoted to global education for global citizens. After the educational part the WCF Geneva Week was officially over, but post-events in Moscow and Yerevan are still coming up. So, on to the plane, fasten your seatbelts, next stop is the united communication world.

And here is my communication marathon in figures:

The run route: Geneva – Glion – Moscow – Yerevan – Moscow – Berlin

Duration: 10 days

Number of countries: three

Number of flights: not less than five

Number of the events attended: impossible to count

This is how the life of almost every communication specialist looks like. If you once started to “run”, your marathon almost never stops.

For more information reed us on:

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot