Internal Comms in South East Asia

ANOTHER TAXI IN KL — I am on my way to the airport.  The circus is leaving town.  In another 24 hours of lounges and airplanes I will be home.

It’s been a hugely rewarding experience.  I have spent the last two days locked in a room with internal communications people from Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, and Indonesia.  They came from different parts of their organisation: HR, Marketing, Brand, Corporate Comms.  Some were PR people, some external affairs.  One represented a bank that had just been through a 5-way merger.  (No sense making things simple!)

There was a fellow from Brunei with amazing stories — but I’ll have to keep those to myself.

I threw everything I had at them.  Before the course I took Paul through the materials and he said “that’s pretty much everything we know.” But my south-east Asian friends were unbowed.  They are a force to be reckoned with.

I pointed them towards Melcrum and Simply and Ragan.  I urged them to join IABC and even CIPR and CiB.  I suggested some books and blogs and social media channels and I am sure they will get involved in all of them.

Today, on the morning of the second day we talked about multicultural communications and I was certain that I was unworthy.  These were people who have been through more in their lives than I could do if I live three more times.

At one point I put up a chart from 2001 that mentioned some of their countries, and they said “2001!  That’s old news.  It’s totally changed since then.” And they are right.

Personally, I haven’t changed that much since 2001.

There’s more to come from this session.  But these are first impressions.

I want to go back.  I want to work in these countries more.  Soon!

/df