Late last year agency Apriori World from Zagreb held the first international conference on innovation and communication in public relations of public administration and public companies – the FOCUS Conference.
After a very successful conference in Tuhelj in December 2017, two more were held in Sarajevo and Belgrade in the first half of 2018, and the forthcoming 4th edition of the FOCUS Conference, will once again be held in Terme Tuhelj in Croatia, over two days: 13 and 14 September 2018.
The fourth FOCUS conference will thus enable participants to hear lectures by a distinguished British public relations expert and consultant Charles Skinner, and a special advisor to the Government of the Republic of Croatia Krešimir Macan, as well as to actively participate in debates and panels.
Namely, one of the goals of this year’s conference is to provide active communication among the participants, so the debates will include an active discussion and analysis of the current situation, suggestions and conclusions that will serve as guidelines for the development of the communication strategy and the associated budget for each of the six themes.
Topics for debate clubs are: relations with the media, transparency and finance, digital communications, internal communications, international relations and education, and will be led by distinguished communications experts: Ermina Duraj, Head of the Public Relations and Protocol Department of the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Melita Pavlek , Secretary General of the Croatian Association of Counties, Iva Saraga, Head of Corporate Communications and Marketing at the Office of the Croatian Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Vlatka Šelimber, Advisor to the Croatian Prime Minister’s Office, Jo Kempen, Executive Director of Corporate Communications at Hrvatske Poste, Ivana Đurić head of Communications Department at the Ministry for European Integration of the Republic of Serbia, and Dr.Sc. Mirela Holy, head of the VERN University’s Business Communication Management Specialization Study.
Program of the second day of the conference will include lectures on practical examples of successful communication and sharing their experiences with participants will be: Urban Kramar, Senior Public Relations Adviser in Municipality Novo Mesto, Amela Odobašić, Public Relations Sector of the BiH Regulatory Agency for Communications, and Prof. Ph.D. Nataša Krstić from the National Academy of Public Administration of the Republic of Serbia.
As part of the digital hour, digital communication platform specialists will present some innovative public sector projects, including a discussion on the European Directive on Digital Accessibility. Tihana Ela Kružić from Press Clipping will be presenting novelties in measuring the efficiency of the work of communication experts through media analysis, while European examples of successful communication will be presented by Ian Farrow and Christos Pishias, directors of the Westco agency from London, and Danilo Moriero, president of the Italian Cities Association.
Participants will also be able to actively participate in the panel discussion on the topic of Branding Destinations, which will be moderated by Katarina Miličević, a scientist from the Institute of Tourism and a professor at the Zagreb School of Economics and Management, who will be joined by the officials of Croatian municipalities and cities that have positive experiences in this area.
The conference is held under the auspices of the Croatian Public Relations Association (HURA), and its fourth edition is expected to bring together more than 150 communications experts from the public sector of Croatia and the countries of the region.
Conference registrations are open, and more details on pricing and terms of participation and the program are available on the official website focus-conference.eu.
