as i was saying, i am supporting zilele biz 2011. i am at the event right now and i will be keeping you updated for the entire day:

10:00 – marta usurelu opened the day with a short speech and then gave the floor to corina vasile, communication director for reiffeisen. she discussed, among others, the bank’s recent effort: an open call for projects that was received with a lot of enthusiasm.

sandra stoicescu asked about the bank’s criteria when it came to selecting the final winners of the funding and then took the floor on behalf of the mereu aproape foundation. she says that csr is about money, about building, saving and planting. her foundation raised 1.2 million euro last year and used it to build dwellings for the floods’ victims. their 2011 campaign is called let me learn! and it is meant to help the 500k illiterate people we have in romania.

11:05  – ruxandra bandila, consultant from pricewaterhouse coopers, speaks on the use and integration of natural resources in such way that the future generations can still have the opportunity to use them, too. a slide presents the poor situation in our country and the conclusion: romanian companies need to become more interested in environmental issues. also, our social media personas have a voice that can pressure companies into better behaviors. pwc helps out ngos with pro bono work: think audits and assistance.

11:22 – andreea cucu, pr and communication manager, glaxosmithkline romania: “my company aims to improve people’s quality of life”. romania has the lowest life expectancy and the highest child mortality in the european union and we need to improve those figurrs as a healthy society is the path to a successful future. another sad figure: 50k die annually of cancer in romania and less than 10% receive any palliative care. gsk has the intention to work on this as well.

q&a: romania allocates to health a portion of its gdp that is lower than the allocation for health of some african countries…

11:40 – despina andrei, pfp manager, unicef: pampers+unicef=successful partnership! buy a pampers package and get an african child vaccinated. the sales increased by 3%. it happened in belgium and then it was used in other countries as well, romania included. unicef  romania raises funds for local and international causes.

12:25 alexandru ardelean, in charge of csr at biz, opens the second session.

12:30 arrived straight from the airport, from new york, graffiti bbdo’s managing director, mircea tomescu, runs us through a short history of csr, from his pov. mckinsey global survey, oct 2011, says that csr can be used to generate business value. access to life, a graffiti bbdo and petrom project: an emergency health services system trying to by-pass the painful under-staffing problems of the romanian medical structure and aiming to remove the “death of mr. lazarescu”-type of events.

* in 2012, renault will launch 4 models of 100% electric cars in romania and aims to populate romanian roads with a million such cars in the following 10 years. my online friends are quick to comment on the rate of success of this project, as introducing electric cars means introducing an entire network of plug-based stations, all over the country, as well as macho romanians giving up their vroooom cars in favour of quiet electric models. will this happen?

* csr has business value but also certainly improves the life of the community.

13:00 – marga cali, durazin, is talking about the concept of csr and how it is perceived. duraziv launched an eco label product, an odorless.paint, in order to educate the market.

13:20 – eduard pughin, operations manager, maguay: what is the eco label and what does it do?

13:40 –  ioana szatmari, csr program coordinator, association for community relations – lbg csr-related issues

13:55 georgiana gheorghe, corporate communication manager, danone – social responsibility for the dairy goods giant. hagi danone cup – a football competition for 10-12 year olds, reaching west – win-win partnerships for the improvement of raw milk quality and smile for the future, a project for cancer children, aiming to improve the quality of life and to raise the survival rate.

14:00 – carmen uscatu, save lives association, is urging all the ngos to use a fiscal facility that allows companies to forward 20% of their tax on profit towards sponsorship contracts.

14:10 – lunch break

14:55 – csr&social media

bloggers are not investing money, but time, energy and influence in their csr projects:

adrian ciubotaru speaks about reading in public and how changing one factor tips the scales in unexpected ways. romanians will be suspicious of your project: if you don’t have a supporting brand: why don’t you involve a brand a reach wider audience? if you do have a brand supporting your cause, people are suspicious of the transparency of the purpose.

15:30 adi hadean – clean plates, a project that wants kindergarten kids to eat better.

* definitely, today’s quote: aid hadeanu says that the first guy ever to do csr was jesus. :)

* he’s hoping to pull a jamie oliver on us and have as many kindergarten kids eat healthier.

15:25 – cristian china-birta: if you can do something good, why not do it? valentin bota has a challenge for chinezu: 5k rroma kids and a concert. concert-goers must pay with a pair of winter boots full of candy. marta wants to know how many csr requests chinezu’ receives every month. he says it’s around 20, but there’s many mutton-dressed-as-lamb offers…

15:35 radu bazavan – zolty from bogata, a project helping a desperate case, a man with several serious health problems with a 500 ron pension. groparu helped raised some money and then helped insulating the crumbling house.

marta explains that the 6 bloggers present can do csr with no budget because they have a different kind of currency: influence.

15:50 sebastian bargau – he helped groparu with the zolty project.

manafu is last, but certainly not least, with a general open talk about the csr+social media combination.

the bloggers received the most applause and were obviously the most liked by the audience.

that’s it, folks! i’ll be back tomorrow with more live-blogging from the media and marketing day at zilele biz 2011! thank you very much for watching!

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