Media Education in India to be regulated

Government of India has been proposed to form Media Education Council to regulate media education in India. This has been proposed by a Sectoral Innovation Council to its report submitted to the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting recently.

Suggesting Government that it should regulate media education to ensure orderly growth of the discipline as part of higher education, the Council in its report proposed that like medical education and technical education, Media Education be regulated by a new organization known as Media Education Council, to be a part of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. The academic course for media education should be in line with UK/ US Universities and Vocational courses as part of requirement of the industry. The Media Education Council should be assigned the task of setting up curriculum for all levels so that standardized curriculum with national accreditation becomes a possibility.

The Sectoral Innovation Council of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting is the first amongst the various Sectoral Innovation Councils set up in various sectors of the Government to submit its Report to the concerned Ministry.  The primary objective of the Council was to design a policy ecosystem in which new ideas would be integrated into the mainstream and get converted into policy initiatives by the Government.

The recommendations made by the Council in different sectors of the Media and Entertainment would act as a road map in the future.  The Council in its Report has analyzed the growth potential of the Media & Entertainment Industry by recommending changes in critical areas such as broadcasting, print media, animation, gaming and VFX, Media education and films.

In its report, the Council suggested that the Film Institutes in the country may be upgraded to Centre of Excellence. In the long term, these Centres of Excellence could become part of a Central University of Films, Broadcasting and Animation by an appropriate legislation. The Government must have a National Policy for Animation, Gaming and VFX, the Council suggested.

The Council has also asked the Government should reformat the course curriculum, improve faculty of the institutes. These institutions could either be separate universities or become a part of one central university.

Apart from Media Education, the Council has made 64 recommendations in seven areas concerning the media and entertainment sector.  The Council has also suggested Government to develop an alternative to TAM so that an appropriate mechanism is developed with industry to study viewing and listening behaviour.

In its report, the Council has suggested that the government should interact with key stakeholders and expedite a consensus on developing an alternative to TAM so that an appropriate mechanism is developed with industry participation to study audience viewing and listening behaviour and bring out reports on weekly basis.

The Council has also proposed that New Media should be utilized for media campaigns by the Government. If accepted, this recommendation may give a boost to use of social media across the spectrum.

Some of the key recommendations are:

·         A comprehensive policy media policy, that integrates all existing media segments and addresses the emergent issues. The council has recommended to bring out a National Media Policy that addresses the new media landscape.

·         The Government may look into the existing licensing procedures and requirements to ensure further liberalization and reforms in the broadcasting sector.

·         Content innovation is required in the radio segment which would be possible only if the Government comes up with a separate licensing model for niche channels.

·         Ministry of I&B, as the policy head of public service broadcasting and community radio service could come out with a formal arrangement by which CRS could provide community based programme content to AIR and AIR could provide capacity building and training to CRS workers in content creation, management and operation of stations.

·          The process of digitalization in DD and AIR was likely to release airwaves which after due utilization in house could be used for creating a public service broadcasting fund in line with USO fund of telecom sector. This fund could be utilized exclusively for public service broadcasting.

·          In view of the potential in the films sector, the Council has recommended a National Film Policy that will address the role of the Government vis-à-vis the private sector.

·          Film Institutes in the country may be upgraded to Centre of Excellence. In the long term, these Centres of Excellence could become part of a Central University of Films, Broadcasting and Animation by an appropriate legislation.

·          The Government must have a National Policy for Animation, Gaming and VFX.

·         The Government should go for co-production treaties in the animation sector to ensure flow of international projects to India. Ministry could also consider giving responsibility to the Children’s Film Society and Doordarshan to produce animated content and create Indian IP.

·          Reliable Single Source Data on all mediums of advertising should be made available by the Government so that advertisers are able to take decisions on reliable data.

·          Government should interact with key stakeholders and expedite a consensus on developing an alternative to TAM so that an appropriate mechanism is developed with industry participation to study audience viewing and listening behaviour and bring out reports on weekly basis.

·         Government should regulate media education to ensure orderly growth of the discipline as part of higher education.

·         Like medical education and technical education, Media Education be regulated by a new organisation known as Media Education Council, to be a part of I&B. The academic course for media education should be in line with UK/ US Universities and Vocational courses as part of requirement of the industry. The Media Education Council should be assigned the task of setting up curriculum for all levels so that standardized curriculum with national accreditation becomes a possibility.

·         There is need to make IIMC, FTII and SRFTI into real centres of excellence.

·         The Government should reformat the course curriculum, improve faculty of the institutes. These institutions could either be separate universities or become a part of one central university.

·          National Awards for Innovation in different segments of M&E Sector be instituted by the ministry.

·         New Media should be utilized for media campaigns by the Government.

·          E-mode transactions should be a priority for the functions of DAVP, RNI, CBFC and licensing activities of the Government for ensuring transparency.

The Sectoral Innovation Council was set up on July 28,2011 as part of the Government of India’s initiative of declaring 2010- 2020 as the Decade of Innovation. Accordingly, the Government set up a National Innovation Council with Sam Pitroda as Chairman and 16 distinguished members. The members of the I&B Sectoral Innovation Council comprised of Chairperson, Smt. Asha Swarup, retired Secretary, Government of India and 10 other distinguished members from the field of media and entertainment.

Leave Sharing amongst co-workers: Augure India first introduced and applied in 2009

On May 4, 2012, Times of India, the largest circulated English news daily from India, published an anchor story on a scheme which allows employees to donate their excess leave to their colleagues who may need it in the times of crisis. Most probably, the story has been carried in all editions of the Times of India.

Ms. Namrata Singh of Times News Network (TNN) in her story "Leave-pooling catches on in companies", wrote, “The latest on the sharing front is something called leave-pooling that one can, quite literally, bank on. An innovation by a corporate, the scheme allows employees to donate their excess leave to their colleagues who may need it in times of crisis”.

Naming the corporate which recently introduced this policy, she continued, "Accenture India, which recently introduced this policy called ‘Hours That Help’, believes that apart from the basic benefit it offers needy employees, encourages the spirit of sharing as well”. 

Quoting Manoj Biswas, Geographic Unit HR Lead of Accenture India, Ms. Singh wrote, "it emerged as a result of many of our people wanting to assist their colleagues who needed extra leave on account of a medical emergency or personal problem. We also recognized that many people did not avail of their leave fully by the end of the year. This offered us an opportunity to address both situations”.

But in real, it is not Accenture India which is “the pioneer” in introducing leave sharing application as claimed in the Times of India story, rather a very little known company – Augure India Information Services Private Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Augure SA, France, had introduced and applied the policy of online leave sharing system way back in 2009.

Incorporated in 2008, Augure India Information Services Private Limited was into design and development of corporate communications solutions for reputation and media management for its overseas clients. With two offices in India – Vadodara in Gujarat and Pune in Maharashtra, Augure India which worked  with boards, management teams, communication professionals and marketing agencies worldwide to manage complex national and global CSR, public affairs, PR and product strategies, had delivered an end-to-end portfolio of software, intelligence, tools and consulting services.

Sharing leaves with co-workers online was conceived by Abhijit Mukhopadhyay, the then Director on Board and Country Head of Augure India. Mr. Mukhopadhyay, a seasoned internal and external communications professional, realised that more than bonding, it was employer branding which was a need of the hour to attract and retain best talent for a little known start up company like Augure India. The main challenge was to denote the reputation of Augure India as a good employer.

Ms. Anindita Basu, who was an MCA student and a project intern with Augure India Information Services Private Limited, submitted her project report on “Employee Management System at Augure India” as partial fulfilment of Master of Computer Applications (MCA) studies in June 2009 to Vasad based Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Institute of Technology under Gujarat University. In between January to June 2009 she got involved in the development and enhancement of the entire Employee Management System of Augure India where sharing of leaves with co-workers was a module.

Sick Leave Donation Application of Augure India

Though Augure India Information Services Private Limited was a very small company dedicated to Sentiment Monitoring, Reputation Management with Public Relations Consultancy, but acted in a transparent manner and had deployed written policies on Employee Management Systems. The Employees Engagement System which was comprised of Creation of own profile with name designation, department, contact address and number, official and personal mail ids, sharing of news, views, photos, music etc with read, edit, delete and searching facilities; posting comments on a particular article or photograph; planning out vacations in advance; one click newsletter sharing; online leave application and approval with leave history; searching of various policies of the company including leave rule policy etc were introduced to be transparent from the initial days of its operation.

The online leave sharing helped Augure India in three ways – increased the bonding amongst co-workers, employee branding and goodwill as well as employee engagement.

There are many organizations which have failed miserably in proper employee engagement programme. In a recent study, it has been observed that 57 per cent of unengaged employees do not trust seniors of their organization!

Since Augure India has deployed a transparent employee engagement system since its initial days of operation, there were hardly any incident that employees had not trusted their seniors and left the organization with a bad note.

But sharing leaves is still not very common in India. What Accenture India has introduced recently, Augure India has developed and implemented the system way back in 2009.

Socilion ranks 13th on Google Search using Sentiment Monitoring keywords

Socilion (http://www.socilion.com), a Social PR Agency providing services on Public Relations, Sentiment Monitoring, Reputation Management, Media Relations, Organizing Events and Corporate Social Responsibilities has ranked top on the Google Search.

The unquoted search of two keywords - sentiment monitoring - on Google search provides about 10,400,000 results. Out of which Info Data Soft Technologies (http://www.idsonline.com) and its sister concern Socilion could manage to find their places on the very second page of the Google search. IDS Technologies has ranked 12^th while Socilion has ranked 13^th on Google search using two unquoted keywords – sentiment monitoring.

IDS Technologies and Socilion on the second page of Google search using key words Sentiment Monitoring

On Google search using unquoted keywords like sentiment monitoring, both - IDS Technologies and Socilion – have left behind biggies like Australia based TKP Market Research (16th position), Sysomos (20th position), Alterian Social Media Monitoring, better known as SM2, (26th position), Repustate (27th position), Radian6, (30th position), Brandmonitor, (43rd position), B&M Live (45th position), Opinion Crawl (61st position), Sendible (128th position) and BrandSavant (133th position) amongst others.

On the search, the top positions have been acquired by entities like Sentiment Metrics, Accenture and Dialogix.

While Radian6, a social media monitoring and engagement and social CRM provider, is one of the height spenders on promotions and campaigns on digital platform, Alterian is having huge client base. But companies like Vocus which is also providing reputation management and sentiment monitoring services is not even featured on first 150 on Google search.

Everybody knows Google is using a very complex algorithm.  But within a span of less than one year, Socilion has got the 13th rank on Google search leaving behind so called biggies and high spending companies capable to promote their products and services. But Socilion silently but steadily going ahead on providing services on Sentiment Monitoring including managing reputation. Clients of Socilion has also accepted and frequently coming back to the website of Socilion [http://www.socilion.com].

Socilion is in the domain to provide Public Relations, Communications and Engagement services in the new and changed environment of Public Relations. Socilion, a full fledged Communications service delivery division of IDS Technologies, is providing basket of services on Reputation and Goodwill Management of brand engaging internal and external stakeholders, communications policies, entity branding, organizing events, formulating policies on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and contingency planning for crisis.

An event organized by Socilion gets featured in the IPFonline - largest b2b publication

 

News item which has been published by the Industrial Products Finder (IPF), one of the largest circulated B2B publication from India, in its online edition IPFOnline.com. The event has been organized by Socilion on behalf of iCreate for MSMEs in Gujarat (India).

The live link of the news item is available at: http://www.ipfonline.com/IPFCONTENT/news/industry-news/icreate-to-feature-25-high-growth-companies-from-gujarat.php

Socilion organizes "ReachOut" for iCreate in Gujarat

Usage of Innovation, Technology, Globalization as selection criteria
icreate to feature 25 high growth companies from Gujarat
 

As many as 25 successful entrepreneurial companies of the MSME sector in Gujarat who have used Innovation, Technology and/or Globalization to grow rapidly would get featured in a publication by icreate, a recently established organization funded by the Gujarat Government. Icrate has a plan to publish success stories of high growth companies for next generation entrepreneurs to follow. This would be published through a book followed by release of a CD with interview video clips. This has been stated by Dr Madhu Mehta, Chief Mentor and Founding Team Member of International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Technology (icreate) at Rajkot in Gujarat on April 19, 2012 while addressing a section of representatives from MSME sector.

Kicking off the “ReachOut”, interactive program of icreate in the Saurashtra Region to familiarize the members of the MSME community about icreate and its recently announced scheme to seek out and publish stories of 25 successful entrepreneurial companies in Gujarat, Dr Mehta said that the basic selection criteria would be usage of either Innovation, Technology and/or Globalization as a lever for achieved growth.The entire event has been organized by Gujarat based Public Relations and Event organizing firm - Socilion [http://www.socilion.com]. To contact Socilion, please click here.

icreate to feature 25 high growth companies from Gujarat

Inaugurated in September last year by the Chief Minister of Gujarat, International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Technology is in the process to create an ecosystem which enables and nurtures GenNext entrepreneurial initiatives which leverage Innovations, Technology and Globalisation. Headed by former Infosys chief N.R. Narayana Murthy, icreate is established under the aegis of Gujarat Foundation of Entrepreneurial Excellence (GFEE), which is a joint venture section 25 company of Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation Limited (GMDC) and Gujarat Entrepreneurship and Venture Promotion Foundation (GEVPF).

The Centre is an autonomous centre of excellence with its coming up with its own incubation centre, on a sprawling 34 acres campus on the outskirts of Ahmedabad and has ambitious plans to tie-up with similar institutions around the globe and network with their resources, mentors, incubates ideas and educators. The centre will work with students, aspiring entrepreneurs, existing entrepreneurs as well as MSMEs and high growth companies.

Parul Daftari, MSME Lead of icreate said that this series of ReachOut Programs is aimed at holding special events in the select cities in Gujarat. “The scope will include meetings with opinion leaders, one-on-one with representatives of press, meetings with students, teachers (and parents), as also special round table meets with opinion leaders, and MSME entrepreneurs from the local industries,” she added.

 

Socilion join hands with Senior PR Consultants to Launch New Global Network

InfiniteLatitude® offers strategic thinking, global reach, without the cost of traditional agency groups

 

Mumbai, Monday, March 5, 2012 – A new global network of senior independent public relations consultants, InfiniteLatitude® www.infinitelatitude.com, is offering clients access to top-notch strategic communications internationally, without the cost often associated with retaining traditional network agencies.  Socilion [http://www.socilion.com] is one of the founder members of InifiniteLatitude.

InfiniteLatitude

Launching this week, InfiniteLatitude^® connects 24 corporate communications professionals in China, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Poland, Portugal, India, Italy, New Zealand, Switzerland, United  Kingdom, the United States, and Ecuador, with the aim to expand further over time. Each InfiniteLatitude^® professional has a minimum of 15, some up to 30 years of experience, and several of them have previously held top management in-house positions. All operate from boutique shops and often collaborate virtually, with low overheads.

The network is focused primarily on subsidiaries of major multinationals and smaller to mid-sized firms. To those, the alliance provides an efficient yet high-quality gateway to international corporate communication. This ability to deliver cross-border business communications strategically, consistently and professionally provided the foundation for the branded name InfiniteLatitude^®.

The network was initiated by Ulrich Gartner, a veteran in international PR and founder of Gartner Communications www.gartnercommunications.com in Frankfurt, Germany.

“There is an unmet demand from clients who must communicate internationally in a strategic manner, yet are put off by the cost levels usually required to retain any of the large network agencies”, Gartner says. “By working with InfiniteLatitude^®, those companies get access to very senior professionals with outstanding skills and experience, without having to fund extensive infrastructure and administration as well.”

Socilion - a full service PR Agency

“InfiniteLatitude provides an opportunity for international organisations to access on-the-ground expertise in each of their target markets, through professionals who are used to working internationally with global companies yet understand the local conditions and requirements. As an InfiniteLatitude® member, Socilion can increase our international reach and contribute local market knowledge to the global network of partners”,adds Abhijit Mukhopadhyay, Principal Consultant of Socilion [http://www.socilion.com] who is also one of the founder members of InfiniteLatitude.

Mr Gartner says that the idea of InfiniteLatitude^®, launched via the social networking site LinkedIn in late 2011, immediately attracted the interest of senior consultants around the globe, with backgrounds ranging from running multinationals’ global PR departments to advising top politicians. The official launch now allows interested clients to reach out for high-quality services across continents and time zones at competitive rates.

Evolution of InfiniteLatitude

InfiniteLatitude^® founder Ulrich Gartner is a veteran in international PR who spent most of his career in top management positions in-house, before launching Gartner Communications in Frankfurt.The global virtual InfiniteLatitude agency evolved during the fall of 2011, when Gartner used social media outlet LinkedIn to sample the level of interest among PR pros around the world.

The effort turned up communications experience ranging from heads of corporate multinational PR departments, to small firms, to individuals advising senior politicians. It also provided the opportunity for Gartner to form a leadership alliance with Richard Miles, a 30-year corporate PR veteran in Boston, USA, who is now running his own agency, Acumen Strategic Communications, Inc. After that India based Abhijit Mukhopadhyay, a communication and media professional with domestic and international exposure, joined the group and took active participation in forming InfiniteLatitude.

A thorough qualification process brought together those 24 highly motivated individuals who form the core of InfiniteLatitude today, covering 14 markets on 5 continents. The network members cooperate closely in building processes and creating a joint offering by using tools like online cooperation platforms and skype conferences. First international client-leads are being discussed.

“I think we’ve come a long way in just a number of weeks, being able to offer clients a truly international grid of dedicated partners. The aim, of course, is to cover as many markets globally as possible as we move ahead”, says Gartner.

More information about InfiniteLatitude, its members, and how to contact alliance partners is available at their Website, http://www.InfiniteLatitude.com. 

INDIA Contact of InfiniteLatitude: Abhijit Mukhopadhyay | Socilion | Website: http://www.socilion.com