Members of the British Association of Communicators in Business have voted to change the name and status of the association to the Institute of Internal Communication (IoIC).
The Special Resolution was passed at an Extraordinary General Meeting of the association on 23 September in London.
The name reflects the body’s total focus on internal communication and also - with the new Institute title - its commitment to being the guardian of standards and best practice for the sector, with a major emphasis on professional development issues.
The Institute will see a continuation of existing activities along with further developments, in line with member feedback and overall strategy, that will enable it to support the rapidly evolving professional needs of today’s internal communicators.
The clarity of purpose inherent in being designated a professional institute will support the IoIC in achieving ambitious objectives – aimed at enhancing practitioners’ knowledge and skill levels and increasing society’s awareness of the function’s importance – which will transform internal communication in the UK. The three main strands of activity will be:
· Professional development – development of a comprehensive, flexible and robust framework of accredited qualifications that meet the practical needs of communicators at all career stages and of their employers.
· Thought leadership – spreading knowledge gained from providing a non-commercial environment in which senior communicators from a wide variety of organisations can develop ideas and approaches, distilling the information generated from a diverse events programme and undertaking formal research projects.
· Advocacy - the Institute will speak for the importance of good internal communication through the media and other professional platforms, and use its comprehensive awards and events activities to showcase various tactical and strategic aspects of best practice, promoting these so their significance is recognised by audiences who are not professional communicators.
CiB chairman Dominic Walters comments: “The profile of internal communication has been growing steadily in recent years. There are thousands of people now working in this field and, with all the strategic and technology issues, it is clearly about much more than producing in-house publications. It is not just a subset of PR and involves quite different considerations, not least the ability to form an in-depth understanding of how people work or function together.
“For all these reasons, we believe that a professional institute is now essential for the sector to reach its full potential. CiB is uniquely placed to fulfil this role, as a result of the groundwork it has put in over 60 years as an independent association that has always had the needs of internal communicators at the top of its agenda.
“Of course, the major benefit of the change – in positioning us clearly as the authoritative, independent voice on internal communication – is that it will help us to provide a high-quality, relevant service for our members and the sector as a whole in these changing and dynamic times.”
The official changeover to Institute status, along with the launch of its new corporate identity, will take place at the annual conference in May 2010.
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