Political Communication & a bit on networking.

I like this conference because they give us frequent breaks for coffee, tea, and light snacks (read delicious Irish mini-desserts).  Also, it's very interesting how people dress for this conference - it's rare to see someone in a full suit and quite common to see people wearing jeans.

For the second session of the day, I attended political communication and these are some of the campaigns I was lucky enough to be exposed to:
Britain's GREAT campaign:

Greece's "Keep Walking Greece" campaign:

Finally, Annabelle Sreberny closed the session again with further emphasis on "Soft Power to Soft War."  This time, however, she delved into the field as a whole, calling for critical awareness of the language and practice used in cyber warfare.  Most notably, she stated"it's high time to address the 'n' in NGO" as she called for an analysis of the validity of the funding stream so many are often seduced by. I think this message relates well to public health, as so many public health organizations are NGOs. Who really funds these organizations and why has the NGO become so popularized at the current time?

Then, we broke for lunch. Networking can be hard, especially since I seem to be so young compared to most of the brilliant and experienced minds at this conference. Today I was fortunate enough to eat lunch with author & economist Steve Shifferes. It was really exciting to hear about the new book he is going to be writing and to garner some of his perspectives on the American healthcare system. Then, I met a fellow UIowa Alum, Doug, who graduated a year ago and now currently works in Japan. I appreciated the time we spent discussing the differences between America and Japan with regard to education, healthcare, and media. I'm so grateful to be attending this conference, where I have the ability to meet such wonderful and diverse people. My presentation is tomorrow, and after seeing the relaxed atmosphere of the conference today, I am feeling more at ease. I've finally almost adjusted to the time change, and I think I'm ready to go. I don't have my presentation fully memorized, but I've been working on this project for almost 2 years, so I know the material well, which is reassuring. More to come tomorrow!