Overlapping areas of PR

Hello again,

Over the weekend I had the second installment of a 3 part forum I have been involved with. It is a motorcycle safety forum hosted by several goverment agencies. Fistly, it has been an absolute pleasure to be involved with this project, even if it did mean working from 5am to 5pm on my 20th birthday! Being a motorcyclist myself, I found that I was taking a huge interest in the event and all those involved - which brings me to my next point.

The forum consisted of people from a hugely diverse range of communities...from motorcycle clubs, to road engineers, to traffick police, to university professors - all of whom are stakeholders of my client. Now, due to the controversial nature of this forum (the first of its' kind in the state), it was a very important objective to keep all stakeholders/deligates informed and happy, by providing everyone with the opportunity to voice their opinions etc. For us, there was a huge emphasis on this and if we were not able to structure the event in such a way that the delegates remained content, then I'm positive it would have had a detrimental effect on our clients relationship with their stakeholders.

So, here I have found that the realm of stakeholder relations has somewhat crossed over into the sphere of event management. I acknowledge that events are a tactic to achieving positive stakeholder relations, but this is the first time that I have come across the two intertwined in a less direct, yet equally important way.

I would like to know if anyone else has come across a situation where they have found 2 or more specific areas of PR overlapping? I guess when we take a step back and look at it, all of these areas we work in and all the skills that we require are intertwined to achieve the same result...effective public relations.

RSVP please.

Tobias (Bentley Campus)