IBP Executive Board Report 2011/2012
IBP has made great strides in 2011/2012 – cementing its status as a true knowledge hub for journalists and communications professionals working in the built environment sector.
Following former president Denise Chevin’s review of IBP we have introduced a number of new ideas. We have also injected new blood into the main IBP board and to the judging panels for our flagship Annual National Journalism Awards.
Our IBP Twitter feed is generating strong interest, and is a powerful information resource for anyone following architecture, construction, engineering, housing and commercial property news.
We were delighted that the Futures Group staged a workshop on designing for the iPad last autumn, showing that the built environment is at the cutting edge of this particular innovation in the publishing world. A webcam of the main presentations is available to view on the IBP website. Plans are well advanced to hold another Futures Group interview, with a leading web editor, Richard Fletcher, Editor, Telegraph.co.uk, which is scheduled for Tuesday September 18th – full details will be circulated nearer the date.
And in true IBP tradition we hosted our first speed-dating ‘Face to Face for 10’ event, where public relations executives met senior journalists, including Claer Barrett (Financial Times), Rebecca Evans (Construction News), Martin Hilditch (Inside Housing), Deirdre Hipwell (Times), Elaine Knutt (Construction Manager), Christine Murray (Architects’ Journal), Sarah Richardson (Building), and myself, for 10 minute bursts in a rapid-fire event which proved to be a learning curve for both editors and PR’s. Similar sessions are in development for 2012/13.
I am delighted to welcome Stuart Macdonald of Inside Housing, Rebecca Evans from Construction News, Christine Murray of Architects’ Journal, Donal McCabe of Land Securities and Jonny Popper of London Communications Agency on to the IBP board; it is this new breed of journalists and communications experts that will provide the ideas which will continue to take IBP forward.
IBP is also launching, in association with Gorkana, the media database and portal for PR’s and journalists, a ‘new’ PR and Communications Awards scheme for the built environment sector in September 2012. The call for entries and the judging, by leading editors and senior communications executives, will take place in the New Year with an Awards presentation event taking place in the late spring.
The Annual Welbeck Strategic Land Debate is due to take place on Monday September 24th, hosted again by Hogan Lovells and IBP, with the working title: “Why will future generations remain in the countryside – where will you live, where will you work?” The speaker panel is in development and full details will be circulated nearer the date.
And we also look forward this year to returning to the spiritual home of the IBP Journalism Awards – the Four Seasons hotel on Park Lane – for the end of year ceremony which will be bigger and better then ever before.
New Award categories are in development and new judges, including: Lee Baker, Director, aop, Pip Clothier, journalist and broadcaster, Mark Collins, Executive Director, CBRE, Jerry Gosney, Digital Publishing Consultant, PPA, Steve Hale, MD, Crofton, Liz Peace, Chief Executive, BPF, Stephen Thornton, UK Head External Affairs, RICS and John Waples, former Sunday Times business editor, Senior MD, FTI Consulting, join our panels this year; but the same commitment to quality and impartiality for which the IBP Awards have stood for, for nearly 40 years, will again be our watchword in 2012.
Finally my thanks to the rest of the IBP board, to outgoing chairman, Alan Smith (Kier Group) and incoming chairman Harriett Hindmarsh (AECOM) and, of course, to our tireless chief executive Gerald Bowey.
If you would like to suggest an IBP event, or become involved with our organization in any way, please contact me at giles.barrie@ubm.com To keep in touch with IBP events and updates please go to www.ibp.org.ujk
Giles Barrie
Editor in Chief, Property Week
President IBP