Month: June 2024

In a session titled AI Literacy: Our Audiences and Staff at the ABU-Rai Days, a project by the Capital Maharaja Group’s radio network MBC, showcased an example of the positive social impact made when media and society join forces to create change. The United Nations recognised, Gammada Project took journalists back to grass roots in an innovative approach “to solve problems for struggling villagers,” said MBC Networks Sri Lanka, CEO, Chevaan Daniel. “The project was born from our network listening to villagers and reporting on their struggles.”The driving desire was to then use this knowledge gained form visiting villages to influence the priorities of stories reported in news and to make a true difference to improving the villagers’ quality of life and in so doing, build the network’s credibility with rural communities. By partnering with universities and sending their combined teams of News 1st volunteers and undergraduates on listening tours to gather data on village struggles, they identified rural Sri Lanka’s desperate need for infrastructure projects. Daniel said, “In this way action was based on truth and through truth action… Now that the facts were apparent through data analysis we could work with the village to address the problem/s identified.” MBC collected donations for projects so that village citizens could then help work towards implementing the infrastructure project. This was through the Gammadda Saviya Society which worked with villagers to form a community lead committee to implement Gammadda identified projects.In the same session, the panel Moderator, Simona Martorelli, Rai’s Director, International Relations and European Affairs also highlighted other varied approaches used to educate audiences and staff across European and Asian regions.

“Our aim is to help up skill our colleagues to make better journalism through our new AI literacy course at the EBU Academy,” said Justin Kings, one of the speakers in a session titled AI Literacy: Our Audiences and Staff at the ABU-Rai Days.“Collaboration is at the heart of our courses,” said Kings. “We identify best practise use of AI and work in partnership to develop our in house modules.”  His preference is that in some courses, staff with different roles, developers and content leaders attend together for maximum benefit.”Though they are only four months in, staff from EBU broadcasters have attended courses in critical thinking around the ethics of using AI and how to maximise the value of archives by using AI. They are currently working on developing courses around the importance of data and using AI to harness this.Rai’s head of Digital and Transmedia Content Caterina Stagno talked about Rai’s Pills project against disinformation. The project aims to educate the audience to increase critical thinking and awareness of disinformation and impart knowledge of the mechanisms that are used to generate disinformation. The project also informs the public about countermeasures.The whole organisation approach has been effective for training the audience to recognise AI generated disinformation. The graphic below shows the PILLS virtual anchorwoman presenting one of the 30 short videos released over 18 months, which had 848 million views across all Rai’s outlets. […]

Selling Radio Direct with Pat BrysonWe’ve all heard the saying, “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” Wise words for anyone in sales….or for anyone wanting to make a difference in their lives. How we spend our “billable hours” determines our paychecks. It also determines much of what we accomplish in life.One of the attributes of great salespeople is a trait we call “urgency”. We test for it in our hiring process. They want it done yesterday….or now at the latest. They never put things off. They make their plan, prioritize their activities and execute the plan.As salespeople, we keep many plates spinning wildly at all times. We need to be able to multi-task, and we need to get things done. Today is better than tomorrow.Sometimes, however, getting things done is interrupted by another activity that we call “procrastination”. I’m sure none of my readers have EVER been guilty of indulging in this activity. But, on the off chance that some of you DO engage in it from time to time, let’s look at some of the major causes of procrastination and how we may avoid them.
I don’t have time now.
The task is difficult.
The task is unpleasant.
I don’t see why the task is so important.
It isn’t due for a while.
I don’t have clear or written goals.
I’m not organized.
I have too many interruptions.
I’m overwhelmed.
I have too many tasks to choose from.
Sound familiar? If so, the following activities may help you to replace procrastination with positive action:
Set deadlines.
Let others know your deadlines.
Start each day with the most important task on your list.
Do it once.
Break down the job into smaller parts.
Reduce interruptions.
Eliminate reasons why you can’t get started on the task.
Create a reward for finishing the task.
It is important to recognize when we procrastinate and why. Spend a week looking at your activities and how quickly you get them done. What do you do instead of doing what you should? Once you’ve identified the problem, you can take steps to get things done NOW rather than later. Life gets a lot easier when we do the important rather than the urgent!Happy Selling! […]