The countdown begins...

There are only five days to go until the much anticipated PR Alumni Reunion on Saturday, 26 March 2011. As most of you will already know the event will be taking place at 11h00 at the Atrium, which is situated on the 2nd floor of the Administration Building on the Cape Town Campus.

The event promises to be a highly entertaining one with Siv Ngesi as the MC, who will have guests in stitches and Shen Winberg who will spoil guests with his musical talent. Aside from the great networking platform which this event provides, guests will also be able to gain some insight into the PR industry with talks by e-TV news journalist Lance Witten and Wesley Lynch, founder and CEO of Realmdigital.

There are loads of great prizes up for grabs, so don't forget to bring along your business cards and pop them into our fish bowl for the lucky draw and you could be the winner of an Apple iPad sponsored by Digicape. If you're not as lucky to win one of our stunning prizes, not to worry as there are loads more items in our lovely goodie bags which will have your friends and family drooling with envy.

If you haven't yet RSVP'd, you best get a move on and contact coolsaetl@cput.ac.za asap. Please keep in mind that this event is open to Public Relations Management Alumni only, i.e. individuals who have actually graduated with a degree or diploma in PR. We look forward to welcoming all you fellow alumnus back to your academic home.

Follow us on Twitter  @pr_chatbox and our Public Relations Alumni Reunion Page on Facebook for regular updates.

Some of our great sponsors for the event are:

     

A trip down memory lane at the PR alumni reunion 2011

Take a trip down memory lane! Come and join us at the CPUT Public Relations Management Alumni reunion on Saturday, 26 March 2011. It will take place in the Atrium at the Administration Building, CPUT Cape Town Campus from 11h00 till 13h00.

Siv Ngesi, well known actor/comedian, will be the MC for the day and will have you in hysterics with his antics! Shen Winberg will entertain us with live music, so be sure to put on those dancing shoes and Lance Witten from ETV News will speak about the synergy between Public Relations and the Media.

You can look forward to some good food and wine. Our menu is halaal and vegetarian options are available.

There will be many prizes up for grabs on the day, so be sure to put your business card in our fish bowl and stand a chance to win an Apple iPad, (sponsored by Digicape) and other goodies, such as sunglasses and vouchers.

Kindly email Cindy Coolsaet on coolsaetl@cput.ac.za by 18 March to RSVP. We are still looking for all of your embarrassing and memorable photos from your campus days so please email these to her as well.

This is a huge networking opportunity, so come on down and take advantage of this special day. All you fabulous Public Relations practitioners will also receive a goodie bag filled with all sorts of exciting gifts. Make sure you don't miss out on this spectacular event!

Also be sure to follow us on twitter @pr_chatbox for the latest up-to-date information on the event or visit our Facebook page.

Photographs of CPUT Open Day 2009

By Monique Boucher, B Tech PR graduate

The first year PRM students, under the guidance of Ayesha Toyer (Junior Lecturer: Communication Science 1), were divided into groups responsible for planning and creating exhibitions stands for the many of the departments within the Faculty of Informatics and Design.

This year the Best Stall Award was judged by three independent experts who looked at creativity, innovation and if the stand represented what the course was about. The PRM department has won the exhibition’s coveted title of “Best Stall” for the past two years and this year was no different with the department scooping first prize and second prize for the Interior Design and Public Relations Management stands respectfully.

Interior Design

Chiara Turilli and her team created a stylistically minimal and elegant stand for the Interior Design course. The group held a fundraising raffle and fashion show in order build their stand and even went the extra mile and had dresses made which complimented the exhibition stand. All their efforts helped them achieve first place.

Public Relations Management

First year PR group leader Georgia Steyler and her team, created a circus theme for the PRM department with an emphasis on the ringleader.

"We wanted something really 'out of the box' to attract prospective students. The circus theme came up as exactly that - bright, jovial and a little quirky," said Steytler. " The business world tends to be a bit like a circus with the PR practitioner having to be the calm in the middle of the storm maintaining communication, hence our slogan 'creating ringleaders in business design'."

“The ringleader directs the circus much like a PR professional directs the image of an organisation through communication,” said Ammeerah Chhotoomia, one of the PR first year students in the team.

Surface Design

Photography

Multimedia

Surface Design

Find more photographs from Open Dat on the PR Chatbox Facebook group

CPUT Open Day 2009

“I am excited that our PR students, new in the Faculty of Informatics and Design, have organised the Open Day exhibition for the faculty,” says Prof. Johann van der Merwe, Head of the Public Relations Management (PRM) department.

CPUT Open Day takes place from Thursday, May 14 until Saturday, May 16 at the Major Sports Hall on Bellville Campus. Open Day gives prospective students, particularly high school learners, the opportunity to find out more about career and study options available at CPUT.

Under the guidance of Ayesha Toyer, Junior Lecturer: Communication Science 1 and PR 1 Practice, 1st year PRM students have been hard at work to ensure an impressive faculty presence at the Open Day. The PRM students were divided into small groups which are responsible for planning, creating and implementing exhibitions stands for the various departments within the faculty from designing promotional posters, leaflets, business cards, banners and audio visual presentations. Many of the groups even produced professional radio advertisements to promote the faculty and Open Day which will be aired on various radio stations throughout the Western Cape.
“They do all this without a budget and therefore secure their own sponsorship,” says Toyer, the proud coordinator. “It is public relations at its best!”

The PRM department has won the exhibition’s coveted title of “Best Stall” for the past two years under the leadership of Toyer. This year the Best Stall Award will be judged by three independent experts in event marketing and Management and announced on Friday, May 15 at 13:00.

“The students’ enthusiasm has been overwhelming and infectious and I know that we expect big things this year!” says Prof. Johann van der Merwe.

For more information, visit http://www.cput.ac.za/news/featuredstory/index.php

The Square Conference 2009

Do you love events and want to build your events portfolio experience? The Square Conference team is looking for Public Relations Management students to assist at this year 11th Annual CPUT Conference.

The 2009 conference builds on the success of last year’s conference on Technology. The theme for this year, On Technology, will include practical workshops and interactive technology exhibitions exploring online and mobile technology.

If you are an enthusiastic, professional and hard working PRM student, we would love to hear from you. The conference offers you the opportunity to gain experience and skills in the following:

• Hosting VIP guests and speakers
• Assisting with audiovisual and technical set up
• Event décor
• Welcoming and registering guests
• Assisting with conference communication and publicity

Volunteers will have the opportunity to attend the conference free of charge and will be issued with a contribution certificate and short letter of reference.

If you with you have what it takes to help make this years conference the best yet, email Jade Snyman, Conference Coordinator, at snymanja@cput.ac.za and include your CV accompanied by a short motivational letter as soon as possible. Short listed candidates will be contacted for interviews.

For more information visit http://www.squareconference.wordpress.com/

Unravelling The Grid

By Saadiyah Marks, 2nd year PR student

On Saturday, October 18, students and guests at the CPUT annual media conference were introduced to a new mobile social network service called ‘The Grid’. Vincent Maher, portfolio manager for social media at Vodacom, introduced the innovative service and demonstrated how you could use The Grid to stay connected with friends.

The Grid (Groups Radar Identity Dropzone) is, is similar to ever-popular mobile social network, MXIT but has location based advantages such as viewing on an actual map exactly where you are and what your friends found interested at that particular place. This service allows your cell phone to be located by triangulating its position between cell phone towers. It has been dubbed “Google Earth meets Mxit” and means that you could be at a party and send a picture, video, text or sound clipping to a contact and they would see your exact location as well as if the party is worth attending or not.

Video clips, photographs and comments you drop on The Grid is called ‘blips’ would be made available to your contacts to view. The Grid is that the usage is free although network data costs as charged by your service provider therefore you could minimise costs by making sure the file size of your data is small. The creators of The Grid has really upped the standard of social networking allowing users to stay connected with their friends by showing each other where they are and what they doing.

The Grid was initially launched in South Africa last year by invitation only through the country’s leading mobile network, Vodacom. The reason for the creation of The Grid is to buy into a share of the Mxit market, which as we know, is a huge population. Vodacom has incorporated social networking, differentiating The Grid from Mxit. The service is continuously improving as you can see on The Grid Blog and growing as it reaches more and more of its target market. By using the built-in radar function the user is able to find the content they are looking for as well as forward it to their friends, comment on it or rate it. In the pipeline for Vodacom and The Grid is an international launch so before we know it we would know more about the hotspots in other countries than in our very own.

The good news for public relations and marketing professionals is that The Grid is allowing small businesses the opportunity to advertise through the social network. The Grid allows people to share their experiences and stories, a perfect medium for creating an brand awareness.

For more information about visit http://www.thegrid.co.za/, The Grid on Facebook, The Grid Blog, or watch The Grid video on YouTube
To register for The Grid simply SMS “grid” to 33313 (Please not The Grid currently available to SA mobile phone users only)

Public Relations Management Speech Competition

By Kirby Venlet, 2nd year PR student

The anticipation is over and the 3 winners of the Public Relations Management Speech Competition have been announced. The finals of the competition, for the 1st year PR students, of the Faculty of Informatics and Design, took place on Friday, 24 October, at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT).

Guest speakers, acclaimed South African comedian, Brendan Murray, and Tom Dawson-Squibb, motivational speaker for ITISA, a developmental and change management company, gave the students tips on how to be a great public speaker.

“Keeping the audience’s attention was a key factor,” said Tom Dawson-Squibb who explained the basics of confident public speaking. Dawson-Squibb used entertaining video clips from “YouTube” as examples of holding your audience’s attention. With an Honours Degree in Business Science in Organisational Psychology from UCT, he was able to provide students with much perspective in leadership necessary for presenting in the business and corporate context.

“Speaking publicly is just like speaking privately. You always start with small talk, like the weather, to loosen up your audience,” said Brendan Murray who spoke about what it takes to be an entertaining speaker. He knew just how to get the attention of the audience with a loud and energetic welcoming jump onto stage. “When you are speaking to an audience, you hold the power and you need to use this power in your favour.”
Murray had the audience in stitches, not surprising since he has been described as ‘South Africa’s Best Young Comic’ and has performed at the Cape Town International Comedy Festival, Rocking the Daisies and toured with the Comedy Revolution.

The focus then moved to the speech competition finals. Thirteen finalists battled for the first place spot but it was Anike Theron who was awarded with 3rd position for her intriguing speech entitled ‘Are your thoughts your own?’ Lirita Hugo was awarded 2nd position with her topic ‘Too much of anything is bad’ and 1st place, with the thought-provoking topic, ‘Money does not create self worth’ went to Bianca Carls.

Prizes included vouchers to the value of R1000 from Van Schaik, a gift card to the value of R300 from Canal Walk Shopping Centre and R300 in vouchers from TygerValley Shopping Centre. Annette Grobler from Student Affairs also sponsored prizes to the value of R1000 and MCD made gifts available to the value of R300.

The competition formed part of the student’s syllabus for one of their major subjects, namely Communications Science 1, presented by Ayesha Toyer. The finals were judged by Public Relations Management lecturers, members of industry, and guests. The judging panel included Prof. Johann van der Merwe, our head of department and an experienced stage actor, Dr. Nirvana Bechan, Elza Myburgh, Thabisa Nondzube, Darren Rix (speech competition winner of 2007), Stefan Joubert (from industry) and guest speaker Tom Dawson-Squibb. Luvuyo Jongile, 1st year PR student, acted as Master of Ceremonies and welcomed the guests, speakers and audience.

For those who missed the event, the top tip for giving a great speech came from Brendan Murray who said, “Be yourself and always have fun with your speech.”
A big thank you to organiser, Ayesha Toyer, who described the event as: “A wonderful opportunity for students to put what they learn into practice and show the world what they are made of. Our Top 13 made the department proud, they were professional, entertaining and most of all, they were persuasive. Thank you to the presenters, guest speakers, sponsors, MC, technical support, photographer, audience members and our wonderful judges.”

Technology Media Conference hosted at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology

By Danelle Milward, 2nd year PR student

CPUT’s 10th annual media conference explored technology and the new media. Held on Saturday October 18, the conference attracted tech-savvy speakers on the cutting edge of new media.

“Technology impacts on our lives in all areas; sometimes changing things, sometimes keeping things the same, but improving speed or accessibility. It is important that we use the conference to explore the effectiveness of technology commercially and socially,” said Rifqah Abrahams, junior lecturer: media studies and supervising lecturer for the media conference.

“Keep it simple and don’t complicate things,’’ said Melissa Attree, guest speaker who specialises in social media, branding and educating as many people as possible about online communication. She focused on the importance of listening, collaborating and engaging with customers online in order to best present your brand.

Charl Norman, 24-year old internet entrepreneur and operations manager for Blueworld Communities, a leading social networking technology company, spoke about social networking – the trends and developments around the world and in South Africa.

“A recent study found that 58% of people trust people like themselves, not CEOs and marketing managers,” said Tim Shier, marketing manager at Africa’s largest full service online marketing agency.

Shier introduced the audience to the field of online reputation management and the free online eMarketing resource, eMarketing – the essential guide to online marketing. This textbook, developed by Quirk, will be updated every 6 months and can be downloaded from the Quirk eMarketing website, a great resource for students and professionals alike. For those that love the smell of a new book and the feel of turning the pages, you can find the print edition at Exclusive Books.

Vincent Maher, Jayne Morgan and Peter Greenwall were the three other guest speakers that blew us away with their presentations from citizen journalism to new broadcasting such as podcasts and innovation and new inspiring ways of thinking. During the recess guests enjoyed the interactive exhibition where they were able to get their hands on XBOX, Playstation 3 and the Nintendo Wii.

"The dynamic speakers had everyone on the edge of their seats with their cutting edge information! The enthusiasm was infectious and bounced from the first to the last speaker. I left totally inspired," said Prof. Johann van der Merwe. Head of Department: Public Relations Management.

“I learnt so much from the speakers at this year’s conference,” said Monique Boucher, Conference MC, Public Relations B Tech student and self-confessed online junkie.“In a time where lifestyle revolves around technology and with business centered on online accessibility, talking technology makes perfect sense.”

Public Speaking 101

The long anticipated finals of the speech competition will take place this Friday, 24 October, from 13h00 - 15h30 in room 2.58 of the Commerce Building.

Guest speakers Brendan Murray and Tom Dawson-Squibb will share their expertise on how to become brilliant public speakers.

Brendan Murray has been described as “The Best Young Comic in South Africa.” He founded the Cape Town Comedy Guild after obtaining his degree in Theatre and Performance from UCT. Well known voice-over artist and actor, he has been featured in many television and radio commercials. Recently he toured the country with the Comedy Revolution and hosted Rocking the Daisies. He also won the Cape Comedy Showdown which led to him win a five minute slot at the Cape Town International Comedy Festival.

Tom Dawson-Squibb works for ITISA, an organisation specialising in leadership development and change management for a wide spectrum of corporates. He studied Business Science in Organisational Psychology at UCT and obtained his Honours Degree in 2007.

Fifteen first year PR students are vying for the top spot, the lovely prizes for the top 3 speakers and let us not forget,the honour. is This event is open to all PR students and is a must for those of you that want who want to learn from the pros.

The CPUT Technology Media Conference Speakers

Charl Norman is the Operations Manager for Blueworld Communities, South Africa’s leading Internet Technology Company focused on building online communities. At only 24 years old he has been instrumental in creating four niche social networks and owns a blogging network including some of South Africa’s top ranking blog titles. This year he has been nominated as a finalist for the ICT Young Entrepreneur of Africa award.

Melissa Attree started a PR company after a successful career in marketing. She conceptualised the first online campaign for Big Blue via blog advertisings, utilising social media and WebPR. Melissa developed the first Social Media Press Release on behalf of Brandsh for the Standbank Pro20 Cricket Series. She spoke about social media and branding.


Tim Shier calls himself the head pirate at Quirk, Africa’s largest full service online marketing agency. As the Marketing Manager, Tim is involved with a number of cutting edge projects including the launch of the free online eMarketing text book eMarketing – the essential guide to online marketing. He is also the Marketing and Business Development manager for BrandsEye, Quirk’s online reputation management solution. Tim spoke about online reputation management and eMarketing.

Vincent Maher, Portfolio Manager for Social Media at Vodacom, and pervious strategist at the Mail & Guardian online, explained the concept and impact of citizen journalism. Co-founder of South African aggregator and analysis, amatomu.com, Maher won a Highway African New Media Innovation Award, 2007.

Jayne Morgan has been a producer of BBC Radio 4 (in the UK), SAfm and Talk 702 IN South Africa. She was the Head of Radio Training at the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism.
She launched PODCART in 2007 in order to create premium downloadable audio for South African brands. She explained podcasting and new broadcasting trends.

Peter Greenwall, composer, songwriter and author, inspired the audience with presentation (and fantastic songs)on the topic of his book, Logical Stupidity - Innovation by navigating through nonsense. The book takes the showbiz formula of turning problems into songs and humour in a way that deals with psychology, theory and practice of innovation.

CPUT to host Media Conference

The Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Public Relations Management department is to host its tenth annual Media Conference on Saturday, October 18, 2008 on its Cape Town campus starting at 08:30 am.

The focus for the conference this year is “TECHNOLOGY”, as technology has made a dramatic impact on our lives from the moment we wake up to the sound of the digital alarm clock, lifting our heads from our hi-tech allergy-free air-soft pillows to the way we do business.

Cost for attending the media conference is only R20, 00 and includes a delicious brunch and goodie bag. Tickets can be purchased at the door or delegates can reserve their tickets by contacting Rifqah Abrahams on 021 460 8348 or at AbrahamsRi@cput.ac.za