The Spring Special Interest Group on Marketing and Communications meeting took place in Ljubljana hosted by Arnes, the Slovenian Research and Education Network on 5-6 March. The event gathered 27 representatives from the European NREN community including the almost complete contingent of the EaPConnect marcomms team.
The pact programme offered participants the opportunity to zoom in on the use of podcasts to help promote NRENs’ services, learn about service marketing, focus on the GÉANT Community Programme and listen to a variety of NRENs updates both in person and on-line.
The first workshop of the meeting was led by Damian Niemir (PSNC). His session didn’t just focus on podcasts, but also on storytelling. Developing a podcasts is about telling a story worth sharing. Inspired by famous quotes about writing and storytelling such as ‘Great stories happen to those who tell them’ , ‘Inside each of us is a natural-born storyteller waiting to be released’, participants worked in smaller groups to record their very own five-minute podcasts putting in practice what they had learnt during the theoretical session.
EaPConnect colleagues took centre stage with two engaging and informative presentations. Naira Kocharyan (ASNET-AM) talked about her recent visit to the Malawian NREN, MAREN, as part of the GÉANT Twinning Programme, where after 48 hours of uninterrupted travel from Armenia, Naira single-handedly delivered a marketing workshop. In her presentation Naira also shared interesting insights into the coverage of the high profile event on social media and the national press.
Tamara Gvenetadze (GRENA) talked about the involvement of GRENA in the promotion of the EU-funded project Micro-GEAR and the Georgian NREN’s longstanding and successful educational courses.
The second day of the meeting started with an interactive session on service marketing followed by a presentation by Dawn Ng (GÉANT) on plans to optimise engagement in the GÉANT Community Programme to better reflect the international R&E community. Participants discussed ways to improve the programme and intensify the sense of community.
All presentations can be downloaded from the event page.
The Summer Sig-Marcomms meeting will be held alongside TNC24 in Rennes, France on Monday 10 June.
