How busy is this year?! There's so much to celebrate... Advertising media doyen and editor of Advantage, John Farquhar, who certainly transformed reporting on this industry and inspired this journalist years ago, turns 80 years young on 10 April 2008 . Go to the Bizcommunity.com tribute page to 'Sir Farquhar' and add your message. John also celebrates a total of 60 years in the advertising industry - and to put that awesome achievement into perspective, this is the same year that the SABC celebrates 30 years of commercial television advertising and the annual Loerie Awards celebrates 30 years of recognising advertising excellence in the industry. Great events coming up soon include the IQPC New Media Marketing conference this week, from which IdeaBank's Eve Dmochowska will be blogging for us, the Brand Leadership conference on 23 April at which brand personality Thebe Ikalafeng will launch his personal branding book, the Nomadic Marketing course at UCT Graduate School of Business 16 - 18 April, directed by Dave Duarte, and not least, the International Media Forum of South Africa run by ex-BBC journalist Fergal Parkinson, who is doing his level best to educate Government, business and the communications sector on the importance of South Africa's international reputation. Key foreign journalists will be leading the narrative in May on this crucial subject - no less so due to the recent bad press South Africa is receiving overseas due to crime, power outages and politicking around 2010... and so on. Now, more than ever, these crucial stakeholders need to learn how to communicate professionally with the media, foreign or local. Bizcommunity.com is the online media partner to all of the above key industry events.
Happy holidays! Louise Marsland, editor: editor@bizcommunity.com. All marketing news to: marketingnews@bizcommunity.com. Responses to this column welcome on our blog: http://blog.bizcommunity.com.