Unspun

I was at the Indonesian Business Links’ Corporate Social Responsibilily Conference last week. Throughout I was struggling with the atmosphere of the conference, held at the plush Ritz-Carlton, which was very slick and smelled of corporate showcasing about the do gooding on one hand, and what I felt to be the harsh realities of their do-gooding recipients, who are poor, hungry and quite miserable, on the other.

Then again, there is no rule that says that the rich shall make themselves look poor and miserable just to help out the poor. Jakartass has asked for the IBL’s link about the conference because he has some criticism about it. I’d be keen to see what he has to say.

I think, for all its flaws, the conference was a good start in getting the corporate world together to build awareness of and sharing of CSR goals. I would have liked to see more local NGOs participating in the conference but there were quite few of them, either as exhibitors or as delegates.

Apparently many smaller local NGO members wanted to attend the conference but found the registration fee of about Rp2 million too expensive. Normally, in forums such as this, the organizers will get sponsors to subsidize participants from local NGOs.

My main grouse about the conference, and most conferences in Indonesia for that matter, is the blatant hard sell of many of the speakers.

I’ve always wondered why it is that otherwise intelligent and perceptive business leaders, when given the pulpit, go on and on about the virtues of their companies and turn their speeches into a sales pitch. They seem to think that a conference speaking engagement is an opportunity to sell their company or products, to the detriment of the real intent of inviting them – to share their insights and experience in a particular field.

They seem to forget that the best way to sell your company is by impressing the crowd with the insights, experience and expertise you have in a particular area, and with your personality.

If you can do that, then the audience will automatically have positive associations to your company or product. I was taught in a presentations skills class once that the objective of presenting anything to a crowd is to ultimately to sell yourself, as an ambassador of your company. if the ambassador impresses then the company would be worth cosnideration. If the ambassador  has zero charisma and  do not know his elbow from the nether paerts of his anatomy, then the crowd will  be forgiven in thinking that  the company he works for is not up to scratch.

All this reminds me of a line originated by Steven Pinker, the author of How the Mind Works: Common sense is anything but common