Maverick Indonesia

Invasion of PR students

We at the Orange House, as we fondly refer to our office, aren’t used to many visitors at one time so it was a bit of a departure from business as usual when 36 Public Relations students from the Diploma Program, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Gajah Mada University (UGM) visited us last Tuesday.

It was not the first student visit to Maverick but we were no less enthusiastic because we welcome any opportunity to help people understand PR and sharing our experiences with younger minds. Who knows, we may influence them to make a career decision that could affect the rest of their lives.

The visit started off with Maverick partner Lita Soenardi highlighting Maverick internship opportunities for students. She spoke of the challenges interns would face working in a professional services firm and also the opportunities they would have in learning new things. She also explained to them the rigorous selection process of selecting interns. The students, all coming up to their third year of study that requires them to seek internships in companies, were all ears for this section.

Anyway, next to speak was Associate Hanny who talked about the similarities and differences between PR consultancies and In-house PR. Hanny also explained the advantages and disadvantages of being a practitioner in the two areas. Hanny’s presentation was concluded with what she does best: Marketing PR.

Another associate, Indri, then shared with them her experiences in Corporate Communications as well as Corporate Social Responsibility/Leadership. The session was rounded off by Riri, who’s in charge of our media monitoring department and online media monitoring and PR measurement service called Gauge, provided her insights on the importance of media tracking activities in a PR consultancy.

During the Q & A session, the UGM students seemingly could not get enough answers and kept peppering the Maverick speakers with an endless list of questions. They were most interested in Crisis Management that we had accidentally left out in our talks and peppered all the speakers with a stream of questions, forcing Hanny, Indri and Riri to recount our experiences with crisis-situations for clients, with their names left out when appropriate.

Eventually, the discussion ended up with Mavericks sharing tips on how to get about and around the profession. The students were most curious about day-to-day activities and wanted to know how the theories they had read about in their text books stacked up against reality.

Very interesting questions, especially when most PR text books are written by Westerners about Western situations that have very little to do with reality in Indonesia.

Taxable and bankable

I’m a bit late with this posting but there was two weeks in a row when we had financial types coming to Maverick to speak at our sharing session on Fridays.

The first was on 8 June 2007 when Susanto from SIS&M Consulting shared with us his knowledge about Nomor Pokok Wajib Pajak (NPWP). NPWP is an administration number provided to individuals as an identification or identity number of tax payers to fulfill their taxation rights and obligations.

Can people be exempted? Yes, but only to those who earn below Rp13.2 million a year. That amount is the tax threshold.

Like most people I’d rather not pay tax but alas tax evasion does have its penalties. Susanto says that “there will be 20% tax penalty to your existing tax obligations if you fail to own an NPWP.” Ha! Everyone in the room was silenced.

Susanto added that in the future, every transaction will be based on tax planning. We cannot own or buy a property if our tax data shows that our income is not enough to do so. Leasing from banks will check on individuals’ who applies for a certain leasing product referring to the NPWP.

That, at least, is the theory but have you wondered why the taxman never goes after all those generals and politicians who drive around in posh cars and live in luxurious mansions that would cost them 5,000 lifetimes of their salaries?

Our second speaker was Bimo Notowidigdo, a treasurer in Citi Indonesia, who visited Maverick on 15 June 2007. Bimo is one of the lecturers in the Citi University Banking Course, so he was very familiar with his material.

A bank, said Bimo, is “a financial intermediary institution.” It’s as simple as that. From this stand point, a bank provides various services and products.

Now, what really happens to our money in the bank?

First, when we put our money into a savings account, the money actually stays in the bank only for a while. Banks immediately try to allocate that money into various kinds of investments, be it in the form of personal or corporate loans, credit cards, etc. This is why we get paid interest on our savings.

Bimo continued to share with us on financial management decisions. Most of the stuff here was “off the record” so I regret that we can’t tell you what was shared. Suffice to say that it makes for interesting listening.

The Community Builder

It’s been a while since the last time we had a visit for a sharing session. It was Bang Win (Abang Edwin) who accepted our invitation last Friday, 4th May 2007.

For those who are active in online communities, Bang Win may not be an unfamiliar profile at all. He is the pioneer of some of Indonesian web and mailing list based communities. Nine years have he spent setting up and moderating online communities.

But what has he to got gain from this activity? Before answering this question, let’s find out his tips to maintain such communities.

Well, as the actual community, online communities consist of people with the same interest. First of all, it isn’t hard to get people to join a group, joining a mailing list for example. But after a while, people tend to get bored. Now, this is a job for a moderator. Moderator must spend extra efforts to maintain a cheerful, lively and loyal crowd.

Experience has provided Bang Win with a conclusion that a moderator must be able to throw issues around to drive the crowds’ attention. From the very beginning, the moderator must have a plan written down – consist of timetable on topics, responses towards ‘deviant’ members, etc. 

What will you get from loyal community members is, in economic term, a captive market. “You can sell almost anything to the community members as long as it is within their interest.” For those marketers out there, interest driven communities are very segmented market. Trade can also take place among members, as has been happening in most communities.

Now, answering the above question, Bang Win has become a consultant for setting up communities. His service will include software training, planning, community managements, and all sorts of stuff related to setting up and maintenance of an online community.

Another question raised: how much is the fee?

Advertising, is it part of CSR practice?

There is an interesting article today on CSR, it was published in Republika “CSR, di balik kepentingan promosi” (“CSR, behind the promotional needs”)

I was expecting to read one example of corporate promotional activities that are packaged in CSR program, but what was explored in the article is mainly about PT Sido Muncul TV ad “Orang Pintar Sayang Keluarga” version.

The TV ad with new tagline is claimed as one of their CSR project to ensure the better quality of young generation through the the good quality of families who live in harmony. The new TV ad features Ari Lasso (one of the country’s top musician) and his family to convey the message of the importance of making a harmonious family. They simply chose Ari Lasso to be the icon because they want to change the celebrities image that is closely connected divorces. Is it that necessary for Sido Muncul to work on their image?

Well, for me this is some kind of ga’ nyambung, it has got nothing to do between their new social marketing campaign and CSR project I suppose.

CSR should go beyond incorporating your social message to your new adv version.