Photo courtesy: New Zealand Trade Enterprise

By Frances Manwaring, CEO of Virtual Expos New Zealand, on The Business Times, Singapore

VIRTUAL reality is one of the enduring images of science fiction: Think of epic action-hero battles, complete with martial arts moves and superhuman agility, or holograms that transport the human protagonists to another time and place.

At a time when technology is changing nearly every aspect of how we live our lives and redefining the ways in which we interact with one another, the time is ripe for virtual reality to make the leap from the imagined to the actual.

While the more extreme elements of those fantasies may remain out of reach, the underlying virtual reality has quietly materialised but not merely as a way to enhance entertainment …

Read more about this virtual exhibition titled New Zealand Teaching and Learning Expo, which will run concurrently to enable wider participation and to extend the scope of the New Zealand pavilion.

Participate in the NZ Teaching and Learning Expo by clicking here!

Time really has flown by in a flurry of new ideas, new clients, and new colleagues. They came from all quarters: ex-clients, word-of-mouth referrals from clients, colleagues, friends, journalists and partners, through the IPRS, every avenue imaginable.

I’m delighted to share that all within one year, we have built a company with a team of dedicated consultants, signed 20 client agreements and reached our target billing of a million dollars. We have gained the trust of leading global companies headquartered in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the United States. Together with our partners across the region, we have managed projects for them not just in Singapore but also overseas including in India, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Australia, and Switzerland.

I do believe we owe our growth to so many people so I am taking this opportunity to express our sincerest gratitude to:

• Our Clients for finding us and choosing to work with us even though we are a young team.
• Our Colleagues for all your efforts, commitment and contributions that have carried us forward.
• Our Media contacts for having faith in a new organization and for helping us build our credibility within the industry.
• Our Partners both in PR and in other industries for supporting us in our projects, by sharing your clients and expertise with us, and for believing we had the capabilities to execute to your standards.
• Our Suppliers for making sure we had our news clippings in the morning, ensuring our server was backed up, carrying water bottles up the flight of stairs, and for countless other things.
• Lastly, our Families and Friends for believing we could be successful at a time when businesses were closing down, budgets were being slashed, and people were being laid off all around us.

The year ahead looks very promising. We’ve continued to make improvements to our processes and systems, selecting technologies that will improve our efficiency and effectiveness. I am confident that with your continued support, Rice will keep growing from strength to strength.

Coming of Age: FTA promotes trade in value-added sectors for future growth; reinforces already strong official, business and people to people links

The Malaysia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement will further strengthen the long-standing friendly relationship between New Zealand and Malaysia. Together with the Agreement establishing the ASEAN Australia New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA) signed earlier this year, the Malaysia-New Zealand bilateral FTA provides a framework for closer economic cooperation and partnership between both countries’ business communities. It is a further tangible expression of New Zealand’s commitment to relations with Malaysia and to other countries in this rapidly integrating region.

The significance of the Agreement can be understood in the context of the robust and growing trade between the two countries. Malaysia is New Zealand’s second-largest trading partner in ASEAN, and its eighth-largest export destination. Two-way merchandise trade between Malaysia and New Zealand reached an estimated NZ$3 billion/MYR 7.6 billion in 2008. (Source: World Trade Atlas, Statistics New Zealand; NZD1= MYR2.55 on Oct 22).

The Agreement provides both countries improved market access, greater transparency and security for goods and services providers in a range of value-added sectors. The various measures are further bolstered through the reciprocal ‘MFN’ (Most Favoured Nation) provision where both countries have ’future proofed’ key investment and services interests – which means, for example, that New Zealand interests in key areas are protected, in relation to competitors, when Malaysia concludes FTAs with other partners, and vice versa.

Not only does the Agreement seek to improve exchange of traditional goods, but it looks at facilitating trade in new products, knowledge intensive services, and investments, as well as cooperation in areas of mutual interest such as the environment and human resource development.

Liberalizing Trade in Goods

Over the last four years, New Zealand’s goods exports to Malaysia grew by over 80%. The export profiles of the two economies are complementary. New Zealand’s exports to Malaysia are generally dominated by primary sector goods, with dairy products featuring significantly in the export profile. On the import side, electronic goods, other machinery, oils and fuel make up the bulk of the trade. Import duties into Malaysia range from zero to as high as 30%.

The Agreement will eliminate tariffs on cross border goods trade by 2016 and improve the time frames for elimination of tariffs agreed on earlier under the AANZFTA.

Under the bilateral Agreement, Malaysia will eliminate 99.5% of its tariffs on New Zealand exports, while New Zealand will eliminate tariffs on 100% of Malaysia’s exports within seven years of entry into force – five years earlier than provided for under the AANZFTA. While, tariffs on many Malaysian exports will be eliminated on entry-into-force, there is a longer transition period for some sensitive goods such as margarine, clothing, steel products and wooden furniture.

Once implemented, Malaysian consumers will have access to a wider range of New Zealand products and providers, as well as enjoy lower costs for popular New Zealand food and agricultural products such as Kiwifruit, dairy, meat, fish and forestry products.

Faster, cheaper access to New Zealand markets will enable New Zealand consumers and businesses to obtain a wider range of Malaysian products at better prices.

Beyond Goods…Focusing on Services

While the services trade between Malaysia and New Zealand has increased significantly, there is plenty of room for growth. The Malaysian government’s commitment to the further development of the services sector, as one of the pillars in moving the economy up the value chain, will propel services trade to a new level.

The Agreement paves the way for expanding trade in knowledge intensive services and new products by providing improved market access for services providers.

New Zealand is eager to collaborate and share its strong capabilities in key areas identified by Malaysia’s strategic plans, including Information and Communications Technology (ICT), tourism, education and training, biotechnology, multimedia and professional services.

New Zealand ICT services providers will work together with Malaysian companies to enhance the ICT sector focusing on telecommunications, utilities, healthcare, payments and security.

Education and training play a huge role in the development of the services sector. This is a major focus for Malaysia with a substantial budget allocation. New Zealand is already one of the preferred destinations, in the area of higher education, for a growing number of Malaysian students — the number of Malaysian international students in New Zealand has increased by over 70% since 2003. In addition to several thousand undergraduates, there are currently 240 Malaysian PhD candidates studying in New Zealand.

The Agreement is expected to facilitate greater educational linkages with the intent of developing university programmes and software, e-learning solutions, professional development programmes for teachers and knowledge sharing. A good example of such collaboration is the development of e-learning solutions for Malaysia’s Smart Schools programme.

Both countries will also establish a mechanism for assessing qualifications equivalency. This will, for example, make it easier for New Zealand professionals — education consultants, engineers, architects and accountants – to share knowledge and deliver services in Malaysia.

Boosting Cross-border Investments

Investment ties between New Zealand and Malaysia have grown rapidly in the last few years – New Zealand investments in Malaysia have seen an annual average growth over the past five years of 77%.

Cross-border investments will continue to grow, as the Agreement provides greater predictability and transparency for New Zealand investments and investors in Malaysia. Greater ease of movement of business persons between Malaysia and New Zealand will help ensure that business people are in a position to make the most of the Agreement’s trade and investment opportunities.

Green Solutions and Developing Human Capital

The environment and labour agreements, which have been concluded in conjunction with the FTA negotiations, are a first for Malaysia in the context of a bi-lateral treaty.

Sustainable development is important to both countries economic agenda and future growth. The Malaysian Government envisages Green Technology as one of the emerging drivers to accelerate the national economy while conserving the environment and resources, and minimizing human impact. The environment agreement provides a framework for more effective discussion and cooperation in areas such as environmental technology and natural resource management.

The provisions in the labour agreement are aimed at developing best practices in employment relations, fostering workplace productivity, improving occupational safety and health, and the development of human capital.

New Zealand and Malaysia are deepening their collaboration in order to leverage opportunities presented by a rapidly evolving and integrating Asia Pacific region. In strategic terms, the Agreement demonstrates that both New Zealand and Malaysia consider an open market policy a better way to promote sustainable development and ride out the challenging economic times.

Hon. David Kersey, New Zealand’s High Commissioner to Malaysia

This article was first published in The Star on October 28, 2009.

My trip to the UK in September was important for many reasons. It was my first time out of Heathrow since 1998, my first time visiting the office of a client I have worked with for six years, and the first time I have traveled so far to attend an international  PR conference. So it was with great excitement that I packed my bags and headed over for the planned three days.

Day two was blocked out for the PR Week conference on Strong & Clear Global Communications. The speaker list looked promising and I was keen to see how we were doing in Asia compared to the big boys.

The turnout was reasonable; there were about 80 delegates in the room. I was delighted to meet Arun Sudhaman from Media Asia in Hong Kong who has moved to the UK to write for PR Week, especially since his was the only familiar face in the room. I was seated at the table with the friendly folk from PR Newswire, LG Electronics, Sulake, and the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability.

There were some interesting case studies and numbers shared by some of the speakers, and I did enjoy Schultz’s references to Made to Stick. Not surprisingly, social media and its potential was a key topic for discussion.

Some highlights:

• In response to the question ‘How do you see 2010 panning out with regards to the recession’, 57% said ‘slight improvement’, 2% were more optimistic, while 19% predicted ‘no change’.
• There were divergent views on whether digital PR should fall under marketing or communications since marketing budgets were larger, or we might see ‘turf wars on the ground’. I personally feel marketing programmes online should be run via the marketing departments, customer engagement by the customer service management teams while corporate messaging or general awareness and brand building should come under the PR umbrella.
• As media channels go beyond borders and 3.5% of news is now breaking in the blogosphere, are communications professionals ready so evolve into international communicators? This opens up an entire Pandora’s Box of cultural nuances, local preferences and effectiveness of these international channels to address a targeted audience. This, again, leads us to the question of what can we track and respond to and what has to be treated as water under the bridge.
• Video is still more prevalent in the US (11.2 billion streams in July 2009) as compared to the UK (29.6 million). However, there is no getting away from the visual impact of video as an engagement tool. The T-Mobile Dance on YouTube, as shared by Robin O’Kelly as had over 14 million views.
• Stephanie Forrest, Senior Director, Global Business-to-Business Communications at Motorola Inc. identified changing skill sets as a challenge for communications teams integrating social media campaigns, advising us to (1) find people with a passion, (2) recognize their efforts, (3) get a dedicated team in place, (4) experiment to see what works.
• James Sorene, Head of News at the Department of Health used the international Swine Flu pandemic to explain how to effectively manage a crisis shared his motto: tell it all, tell it fast, and tell the truth.
• Mark Stouse, Global Communications leader at BMC Software shared his experience of assigning quotas or points to the communications teams linked to sales growth so their deliverables were more in-line with the company’s business objectives. LG Electronics’ European marketing Director Dominic Chambers suggested marketing and communications departments report into a single Chief Marketing Officer title instead of the traditional approach where the Director of Communications is a separate silo. (Interestingly this reflects a previous post on Neil Rackham’s view on the need for a Chief Revenue Officer to align the business better.)
• Coming out of the fuss (read about it here) in the United States on Walt Disney’s upcoming release The Princess and the Frog, Matthew Grossman, Vice President for EMEA Corporate Communications highlighted there were increasing instances of journalists looking online for story ideas, and stressed the need for fairness of reporting, fact checks and representing various facets of the story.

Overall, it didn’t seem as though the Asian communications industry is lagging its Western counterparts in any way. In fact some of the campaigns being driven in this region are more innovative and effective despite the fragmented demographics.

London is still the amazing juxtaposition of a multitude of people of different colors in grey business suits hurrying past landmarks steeped in history. The sun was out on all three days, and it was great to meet with old friends, clients and business partners. I look forward to heading back in the near future, perhaps with some time to spare.

Public relations companies use social media platforms as a way to communicate with audiences more effectively. What used to be dissemination to the public is now a dialogue – through our blogs, Facebook and Twitter – bringing the relations aspect of Public Relations to an entirely new level.

Facebook, a social networking tool, has let us reach a receptive and far-reaching audience. I personally use Twitter to keep updated on news as it happens, while Facebook is a great tool for me to keep up with clients.

Given the usefulness of Social Media platforms to generate publicity for organizations, it’s high time job hunters also tap the power of the medium as a legitimate platform for getting noticed by prospective employers. Job seekers simply should stop regarding their Facebook and Twitter accounts as personal platforms.

It is reported that as many as 50 per cent of employers screen social media profiles of prospective employees, and with good reason. An employer can’t tell much of a prospective employee outside from what is stated on their resume, and a quick online check can reveal a lot more about them.

Think of your social networking profile as brand management – for example, if a search for a company results in a lot of negative reviews, it is unlikely that you’ll be using their services.

This is especially relevant in public relations. If a prospective employee can project a positive image online, it is likelier that they can expand their social media skills to project an organization’s image positively.

Online image

For an employer, danger signs can present themselves in a variety of ways. Does the prospective employee have any questionable pictures, habits or interests? Do their names come up in a Google search? And if they do, is it a mention of a professional achievement, or does it have a negative slant? What do they write about on their blogs?

When choosing between two candidates, I firstly check their LinkedIn profiles to see if they have received any good recommendations and if they participate actively with their peers through groups and discussions. I see what is written on Twitter and their blogs, and how it is written.

Do a search for yourself and your e-mail address and see what it reveals about you. Is there any questionable content and can you remove it?

Is your social media profile complete and presentable? If there is any questionable content, remove it immediately and replace it with something positive that you have done.

If you don’t contribute to a blog about your field of expertise, consider getting one. A professional blog demonstrates that you are knowledgeable about your field, and allows you to express your opinion on recent matters. This assures your employer that you are not only connected in your field, but also allows your employer to know if your opinions align with those of the organization.

When you produce your own content, it is also an indication of the quality of work that can be expected from you. A blog can also be an avenue to get noticed by future employers.

Build up your profile

For a start, understand how each platform can aid each other in boosting your social media profile. Start amassing a network of helpful contacts, and in return, offer them something useful – your personal insights.

The point of this exercise is to establish your personal Social Media profile, so it’s no use if you create amazing content and provide excellent insight, but nobody is there to read it.

Look for groups in LinkedIn where people from your field of expertise already have a community, and connect with the people there. Do a search on a blog search engine or look through a blog directory to find people with the same job focus as you, and initiate contact with them. There is a social aspect to Social Media, afterall.

So if you’re not there yet, join Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Start a blog, and start writing. Always keep updating and expanding your Social Media profile, and your efforts will eventually pay off.

This article was printed in the Straits Times Recruit section on 19 September 2009.