Specialised PR skills

This course is designed to help PR professionals with some experience in handling journalists, to take their media relations to the next level through creativity, insight and advanced techniques.

This course enables PR professionals to rise to the challenge of creating and managing increasingly complex and sensitive PR strategies and campaigns, working alongside senior management.

This course focuses on the key PR skill of working as a communications adviser to brief and prepare a senior spokesperson before an important interview, and the practicalities of organising and facilitating media interviews. Topics include writing briefs for spokespeople with strong media insight, predicting issues and questions, preparing Q&A documents, coaching and rehearsing, liaising with media, and supporting spokespeople during interviews. Training consists of incisive briefings from experienced PR professionals, case studies, role plays and workshops to build practical skills, including on-camera interview practice and the opportunity to question and discuss with PR experts.

This course is for all those PR practitioners that want to become more creative in their communications work.

The first half of the course looks at how to build the creativity that is essential to results in PR, through a combination of structured idea generation activities and inspirational workshops and activities. Topics include effective brainstorming, matching creativity to messages, brands and results; selecting creative tactics; and sustaining creativity.

The second half of the course looks at creative online communications and how using tools like blogs, RSS and social networking can add a whole new dimension to PR work.

Training consists of incisive briefings from experienced PR professionals, case studies, role plays and workshops to build practical skills.

Half-day charity event

All funds donated to the Hanne Howard Fund
in Nairobi, Kenya

Kindly sponsored by the Al Manzil Hotel

Venue: Al Manzil Hotel, Old Town, Dubai

Location: Meeting room #2

Time: 9am-12pm

This half-day workshop is a condensed version of Pinnacle's creativity course. It is for all those PR practitioners that want to become more creative in their communications work.

The first half of the course looks at how to build the creativity that is essential to results in PR, through a combination of structured idea generation activities and inspirational workshops and activities. Topics include effective brainstorming; matching creativity to messages, brands and results; selecting creative tactics; and sustaining creativity.

The second half of the course looks at creative online communications and how using tools like blogs, RSS and social networking can add a whole new dimension to PR work.

The workshop is packed with case studies, workshops and role plays to build practical skills.

The workshop is run by Elsbeth Smedley, one of Pinnacle's most experienced and popular trainers. Elsbeth has extensive experience in consumer, business to business, government and not-for-profit communications.

There is no charge for this session, but we do ask if all participants would please make a minimum donation of 200 AED that will be given to the Hanne Howard Fund (www.hannehowardfund.org) in Nairobi, Kenya. The Hanne Howard Fund supports more than 130 orphaned children in Kenya who have lost their parents to Aids or the post-election ethnic violence in 2008. The HHF is run by Hanne Howard and Ted Horton, a Canadian couple who have dedicated their lives to helping these children in need. The HHF is a small charity that makes a big difference to the lives of disadvantaged children in Kenya.

A special networking lunch for 150 AED per person will be held in the main restaurant at the Al Manzil from 12.30pm onwards. Tickets can be bought on arrival.

We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, 24 March.

This course teaches communications professionals how to anticipate, plan, train and prepare well in advance of any negative event in order to contain and reverse negative publicity. Topics include understanding the origin and dynamics of crises, risk assessment, crisis planning, preparing spokespeople, and communication channels. This course is a shorter version of Pinnacle's "Crisis and issues communication" course, but it does not include media training. Participants should not take both courses.

Training consists of incisive briefings from experienced crisis PR professionals, case studies, role plays and workshops to build practical skills.

This course follows on from the crisis management course and coaches communications and PR professionals to defend their organisation’s reputation through strong and credible interview performances even in the most hostile and challenging media encounters at the height of a crisis. Topics include the principles of crisis communications response, the role of the spokesperson in a crisis, handling hostile questions, proactive messaging and practicalities of handling TV and radio technology. Training consists of a rolling crisis scenario including a range of media interview formats, along with briefings on core principles of crisis communications response and case studies of good and bad practice. There are incisive briefings from experienced PR professionals, case studies, role plays and workshops to build practical skills.

This course complements the core Corporate Social Responsibility course by going into greater detail on two of the most important pillars of CSR: Community Involvement and Employee Volunteering. Topics include leveraging community involvement to maximise both social and organisational benefits, employee volunteering as a strategic Human Resources tool, and tools for motivating, activating and involving employees. Training consists of incisive briefings from experienced PR professionals, case studies, role plays and workshops to build practical skills.

This course delivers insight into the latest ideas and practices in the fields of social responsibility and sustainability, and in particular the role of good communications, dialogue and cooperation in this important and sensitive field.

This highly popular two-week course is designed to provide a complete overview of the latest tools, tactics, techniques and technologies across all disciplines of PR. Topics include communications strategy and planning, media relations, creative PR tactics, on-camera interview skills, press office management, event organisation, crisis management, and campaign evaluation. Training consists of incisive briefings from experienced PR professionals, case studies, role plays and workshops to build practical skills.

This course comprises the core principles of internal communications theory and the latest best practice in applying internal communications tools. It specifically considers effective internal communications during crises and change management programmes. Training consists of incisive briefings from experienced PR professionals, case studies, role plays and hands-on workshops to build practical skills.

This one-day course is designed for PR professionals needing to coordinate communications across a number of countries for an international organisation or an international campaign. Topics include: the PR and media landscape around the world; hiring & working with multiple PR agencies; coordinating in-house and external PR functions; international stakeholder mapping; international message management; international media relations; case studies of successful campaigns; evaluating PR performance around the world; and budgeting and financial management.

This course encompasses everything that modern PR professionals need to know to operate effectively in the digital age. Topics include understanding the new communications landscape of “Web 2.0”, what opportunities and dangers it brings for PR, understanding all the key new technologies from blogs and RSS to communities and forums; identifying who to monitor; understanding how to engage with bloggers and other social media; online PR resources and campaigns. Training consists of incisive briefings from experienced PR professionals, case studies, role plays and workshops to build practical skills.

Planning and managing successful press conferences requires a specific set of skills, as well as a highly organised approach. This training covers all areas that a press conference organiser needs to consider, from invitations, liaison, materials, room layout, facilities and budget through to key message development, spokesperson selection and briefing -- and managing the event itself.

Strong media insight and effective pitching skills are essential to persuade and inspire journalists to write or broadcast about your PR story idea. This course will help you master a key PR role – creating effective pitches that engage journalists and drive positive coverage for your company or client. Topics include thinking like a journalist, understanding news cycles and deadlines, choosing the right media for your story, taking the right tone and style, planning pitches, linking stories to live news, and much more besides. Training consists of incisive briefings from PR experts, and practical workshops including live pitch practice and feedback from a journalist.

This course teaches communications professionals how to plan a PR campaign and create effective PR strategies with defined and achievable objectives, and then how to translate these strategies into specific and practical PR plans.

Understanding of correct protocol and etiquette is as important to modern international business as it is to the world of diplomacy and affairs of state. This course instils knowledge of customs and expectations for standards of behaviour across a full range of formal and informal encounters in many cultures and situations. Topics include conventions of official interaction, collective personal and written; social behaviour, cultural, national and regional variations; business and diplomatic etiquette, international protocol, events, visits and summits. Training consists of incisive briefings from an expert protocol trainer, combined with examples, role-plays, case studies and structured discussions.

Identifying, understanding, listening and talking to all the key stakeholders who influence and affect your organisation is an important step, and an essential precursor to engaging with them. Delegates will learn how to develop strategies that will enable you to establish and build constructive relationships with diverse audiences, through a series of practical workshops and trainer insights.

This five day strategic government affairs course is designed for communications practitioners, business people or government officials who need to conduct lobbying or public affairs as part of their jobs. This course will start with a general global overview of strategic government affairs and then focus on the different tools, tactics and techniques that can be deployed to create a successful government affairs / public affairs campaign.

Topics covered include:

• History of lobbying
• Ethics of lobbying
• Global regulation of lobbying
• Lobbying in the United Kingdom
• Lobbying in European Union
• Lobbying in United States
• Lobbying in the Middle East and Gulf regions
• Rationale for lobbying: threats and opportunities
• Types of public affairs (lobbying) campaigns: profile raising, legislation
  changing, policy shaping, and others
• Different lobbying techniques: contact programmes, stakeholder engagement, using the media, and others
• Lobbying technicalities such as monitoring, corporate memory, ministerial meetings and others
• Designing a lobbying campaign
• How to improve your organisation’s public affairs structure
• Launching a public affairs campaign
• Stakeholder mapping
• Stakeholder engagement
• Case studies and workshops on strategy, planning, models of best practice and examples from around the world

The seminar will be held in the Boardroom at the excellent Al Manzil Hotel in Dubai and is led by Lionel Zetter, author of “Lobbying: The Art of Political Persuasion”. Lionel will provide global insight to public affairs, the latest case studies and input from guest speakers throughout the week. The course is full of current examples from around the world and is based on the Harvard Business School case learning model. Participants are encouraged to share knowledge, participate actively in discussions and learn from each other’s experience.

All participants who attend and participate in the training will be awarded a completion certificate. The seminar is strictly limited to eight people to ensure maximum learning. The cost of the five-day course is AED16,000 inclusive of all tuition, materials and lunch in the Al Manzil Hotel restaurant each day.

For more information or to book a place on the course please use the link below or call us on +971 4313 2338.