With the professional support of the Hungarian Public Relations Association, a large-scale international PR conference was organised by the Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Education and Regional Development and Ferling Kft. on 17-18 October at the University's Szekszárd campus. The two-day event included professional presentations, networking and a student presentation competition.
The conference was built around important questions such as What competences are needed for effective PR work? What do agencies expect from novice communicators? How can educational institutions prepare students for the real world? The professionals present shared good practices and talked about untapped potential.
The conference was attended not only by PR agency staff, respected professionals and academics from higher education institutions, but also by talented graduate students in marketing and communications.
József Ferling, Managing Director of FERLING Ltd., emphasized in his welcome speech that this event is not common in Hungary, and it is very rare that such a conference with such a professional audience can be held outside Budapest: "It is unprecedented that we could create a professional hub outside Budapest, where eight of the TOP 50 PR list are here, and five of the 14 hereditary members of the PR Association are here. That in itself is a huge asset. Leading agencies and representatives of leading Hungarian companies are meeting each other in the countryside, which is not only a great thing, but also shows that this country does not have to be exclusively capital-centric."
Commenting on the importance of the conference, the PR professional said, "There is a fundamental lack of events where people in the profession meet and talk to each other.
This conference gave practitioners the opportunity to meet young people preparing for a career in PR. Students were able to learn about the needs and opportunities, while the profession was able to learn about the needs, ambitions and knowledge of the incoming generations."
The first day of the international conference started with a panel discussion, where professionals discussed the competences needed for the PR profession and the integration of the new generations entering the profession. This was followed by a student presentation competition, where five teams presented their work, including a group of foreign students studying in Hungary.
In the case study, K&H was looking for the most sustainable municipalities in Hungary, and
the students had to develop a B2B PR concept to promote the Sustainable Municipalities Award.
Soon, they will see how K&H will carry out this project in reality. The feedback from the jury was that the young people came with a very good attitude and fresh ideas, while the students were also happy to have been involved in a real challenge and to have received professional feedback.
In his opening speech,Dr. Gábor Szécsi, Dean of the Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Education and Regional Development at the University of Pécs, and Chairman of Committee for Communication and Media Theory
of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, considered where PR as an independent profession and as an independent educational subject is today.
"PR has still not been given the recognition it deserves for its rank, its complicated nature and its incredibly extensive communicative skills. It is not present in the world of strategic communication and in many people's minds it is still not a separate field, " said the Dean, adding that in the current era of multi-channel digital media, PR should be much more involved in communication and strategy.
The second day of the conference included a presentation by Zoltán Győrffy, Director of the Public Relations Centre of UP, who gave a taste of the university's enrolment strategy and also spoke about the criteria used by today's secondary school students to choose among higher education institutions in Hungary. In the case of the University of Pécs, for example, the city where it is located is of paramount importance, as confirmed by the latest ranking of "The Campus Advisor", which has moved Pécs up from 46th last year to 14th, ahead of world-famous university cities such as London, Krakow, Barcelona and Paris, among others.
One of the most interesting presentations of the day was given by Gábor Bruck, psychologist and communications expert at the Sawyer Miller Group, entitled NewSmart: Being smart in a different way than before. Among other things, "New Smartness" means a leader looking for opportunities to collaborate and win not for themselves but for their team, working transparently, giving way to ideas better than their own, while looking for what they can learn from and not being afraid to say what they don't know. Today's leader not only has a high IQ, but also a high EQ. Gábor Bruck said that stone-age emotions, ego, pride make higher thinking very difficult, so we must learn to be humble and modest.
During the two-day event, the participants already expressed their wish for a continuation. In response, József Ferling said he hoped that they would be able to repeat the conference next year and that more students would register for the presentation competition.
