Not the hottest (Agi Shala) won, but the oldest (Tim Wielandt). According to the unanimous opinion of the Werbewoche editors, the short film sequence with the cat was decisive for Wieland. The most important thing in a nutshell.  
On the election: Agi Shala did not win for the same reason that Barack Obama will not win the US presidential election: Obama sounds like Osama and Agi Shala sounds like Inshallah. About the jury: To the delight of all women who take care of their hair themselves, it was quite clear that bleaching leaves a halo of split ends even on Miss Switzerland Crista (sounds like Cresta) Rigozzi, who was prepared by professionals. About the show part: Whoever didn't zap away during the triphop band was out getting beer. About the moderation: Did the male moderator actually say anything? Last but not least: Unfortunately, there was only a suspenders walk-through instead of a swim trunks walk-through like the misses.

 In 2005, a total of 100 German-language academic papers on organizational communication topics were produced at Swiss universities. This finding, the first of its kind in Switzerland, was compiled by a student project group at the HWZ Hochschule für Wirtschaft Zürich.  
According to a media communiqué from the Zurich School of Business FHWZ, 66 of the 100 theses fall into the category "Diploma Theses", with the remainder being book contributions, journal articles, conference papers and working papers. Most of the theses came from the University of St. Gallen (17 theses), followed by the University of Fribourg (14), the ZHW Zurich University of Applied Sciences Winterthur (10), the HWZ Zurich School of Business (9) and the University of Zurich (6). The most important topics were "Stakeholder communication" and "Brand".
 
The project group of the Bachelor's degree program in Communication at the HWZ Hochschule für Wirtschaft Zürich has now compiled and listed these works. The aim of the bibliographical work was to provide communication practitioners in business, associations and public administration with a better overview and thus access to the scientific findings in their field. The main titles and subtitles of the publications were selected using a fixed grid of 68 specialist terms. The results document the now important position of organizational communication in teaching and research at many Swiss universities.

 The world's largest WLAN network in Taiwan's capital Taipei is lacking customers. Since the end of 2005, operator Q-Ware has only been able to attract 20,000 subscribers to its network called WiFly, with a further 10,000 using prepaid offers, as reported by Netzwoche. The company is therefore falling far short of its expectations: it originally expected 250,000 regular users. At least 200,000 customers would be needed for the network to operate loss-free. Q-Ware has invested 30 million US dollars in the project so far. The network with over 4,200 hotspots covers 90 percent of Taipei's 2.6 million inhabitants. The infrastructure was supplied by a consortium comprising Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Cisco and Microsoft.
The main reasons for the lack of interest are the many alternative and free hotspots that are also available in Taipei and the limited bandwidth. The network offers download rates of around 500 kilobits, but is soon to be increased to one megabit per second. Q-Ware also wants to add services and content such as VoIP or video applications to its offering in order to attract customers. In similar WLAN projects in the USA, the operators rely on income from advertising or public co-financing.

 At the Publisuisse General Meeting on Thursday, April 12, Dino Balestra, Director of Radiotelevisione Svizzera die Lingua Italiana was elected to the Board of Directors. He succeeds Dr. Remigio Ratti, former RTSI director.  
All seven current members of the Board of Directors were confirmed for a further three-year term of office. Gilles Marchand of Télévision Suisse Romande remains Chairman, and Walter Nyffeler of the Association of Swiss Cantonal Banks continues as Vice Chairman.

 The SRG Audience Council is very satisfied with the news magazine "Schweiz aktuell", particularly with the reporting from the regions. However, the Council sees potential for development in the "Classe Politique" program. 
"Schweiz aktuell" strives to report on peripheral regions and their problems and is no longer so center-oriented, as the Public Council announced on Friday. The moderation team is rated as professional and credible. The linguistic competence and dialect diversity were particularly praised. However, the Council was critical of the interactive form of the box seat, in which viewers are integrated into the program via webcam. Special series such as "Pfahlbauer" were also discussed controversially. These should not be at the expense of current reporting.
 
The Council also gave a mixed assessment of the political program "Classe Politique". The structure, choice of topics and focus are appealing and presenter Urs Leuthard also performs well. However, the program hardly stands out from its predecessors "Bernerhof Live" and "Galerie des Alpes". In addition, some of the content is so complex that "less committed people" could occasionally be overwhelmed. While the Council liked the interviews with federal councillors, it criticized the information value of the parliamentary roundtable. It was perceived as a "mini-arena", making the program susceptible to party and election campaign rhetoric. 

 The production "Strom ohne Grenzen" by the Biel-based film production company Twin Productions received a Silver Award at the WorldMediaFestival in Hamburg.  
The elaborate image film was produced by Twin on behalf of the Graubünden-based energy company Rätia Energie and produced in high definition (HD) format. Urs Frey was in charge of project management and Christoph Frutiger was responsible for camera direction. The agency responsible was Trimarca from Chur.
 
The WorldMediaFestival is an international competition for audiovisual communication media and is one of the most important events in the industry. The entries are judged not only on their creative and technical implementation, but also on how well they reach their target groups.

 The business magazine Bilanz presents a list of the most popular employers in the country among graduates. In an exclusive survey, both women and men put UBS in first place. UBS is followed by CS, with Nestlé in third place for women and ABB for men. For its representative country study, the consultancy firm Universum surveyed 3900 graduates of Swiss universities and universities of applied sciences. Among women, the Federal Administration and the ICRC ranked among the ten most popular addresses. A different picture emerges when popularity is broken down by field of study: While UBS and CS occupy the top positions among business graduates, engineers choose Logitech and IBM as their favorites. The Universum Graduate Survey 2007 also identifies the preferences of graduates: challenging tasks are considered a key criterion by respondents when choosing an employer (38 percent), followed by work-life balance - although this has fallen sharply since last year, from 46 to 38 percent.
 
Rankings by gender Women 1. UBS 2. CS 3. Nestlé 4. L'Oréal 5. Federal Administration 5. Novartis 7. ICRC 8. PricewaterhouseCoopers
9. Procter & Gamble 10. Kuoni
Men 1. UBS 2. CS 3. ABB 4. IBM 4. Nestlé 6. Novartis 7. PricewaterhouseCoopers 8. Logitech
9. McKinsey & Company 10. Ernst & Young

 The advertising media marketer Goldbach Media is increasing its involvement in the rapidly growing Internet business. It is increasing its stake in the national companies of internet advertiser Adlink in Switzerland and Austria to 100 percent. In return, Adlink is acquiring a 19.4 percent stake in Goldbach Media. As was announced on Friday, the transaction was carried out by means of a share swap; financial details were not disclosed, according to SDA. Goldbach previously held 50 percent of the Swiss company Adlink and 70 percent of the Austrian company Adlink. Both companies will remain in the network of the Frankfurt-listed Adlink Group, which is part of the United Internet Group. The objectives of this rapprochement are the launch of additional services from the Adlink Group's portfolio, cooperation in the marketing of convergent media and a joint approach to developing the Eastern European markets. With the complete integration of the two Adlink companies, Goldbach is positioning itself as a full-service provider of complex cross-media solutions for the advertising industry.

Assai communicates the Swiss launch of the new Jeep Compass, a pioneering work in the segment of female-oriented lifestyle SUVs. Two well-known partners were engaged for the launch of the new soft-roader: Triumph International and the singer Emel.  
The latter is also the protagonist of the print campaign, where she recounts her numerous adventures with her Jeep Compass. The campaign was realized in diary form. The media placement is just as target group-oriented. The ads are accompanied by various below-the-line measures. Netvertising is responsible for the online presence and Mediaedge:cia for the media planning. Assai reinforces messages in new media and via traditional communication channels. Communication talents work on solutions for the present and concepts for the future for national and international clients. As a Wirz Group company, Assai stands for digital and dialog-oriented communication.

 The Museum of Communication in Bern has been able to add around 700 historical objects from the telecommunications group Ascom to its collection. The donation is intended to secure the evidence of Swiss industrial history in the long term.  
The spectrum of 700 objects ranges from the telegraph set from 1852 to the television set from 1939 and the millionth telephone set "Tritel Elm" from 1991, as the Museum of Communication announced on Friday. The collection represents the development of telecommunications in Switzerland since the mid-19th century. Numerous objects originate from the production of Ascom's predecessor companies, in particular Hasler AG in Bern. Part of the collection was previously on display at Ascom's headquarters. The Ascom collection will be integrated into the museum's object database and will be publicly accessible on its website.

Brazil A new eco-press service is bringing environmental issues to the Brazilian press, which is usually unwilling to spend money on such topics.The Brazilian press scene is not a jungle, but Brazil still surprises with a dense forest of newspapers and magazines. The media portal www.onlinenewspapers.com/brazil.htm contains around 130 titles. Many papers pay homage to sensationalist journalism, often in such a shocking way that even hardened European readers shudder. One of the reasons for such newspapers is the high crime rate in cities such as São Paulo or Rio, where the number of annual murder victims is in the hundreds. On the other hand, this country is crazy about beauty and youth, as illustrated by the Rio Carnival or the many pageants that the media celebrate to excess. An alternative media garden is tentatively developing.
Press service in the villa district On a hillside high above the bays of Rio with a view of the Rocinha slum stands a stately home surrounded by tropical greenery. A wall with a security guard surrounds the property, which - like many houses belonging to the better-off - is virtually in close proximity to the favelas on the slopes near the upmarket district of Ipanema. Marcos Sá Corrêa is the founder and director of Oeco, a press service that deals exclusively with ecological issues. The service is rented from a well-heeled patron at a friendly price.
"We kept asking ourselves why the Brazilian media practically ignored environmental issues," explains the man with the alert, sparkling eyes. "For centuries, since the arrival of the Portuguese, people were convinced that, given Brazil's size, it was absolutely impossible to even endanger nature. A myth of a resource-rich, infinite land was created, which people still believe in today, even though the forests are disappearing at an alarming rate."
Marcos Sá Corrêa worked as editor-in-chief at two major newspapers, wrote reports and commentaries and was a well-known figure in Brazilian political journalism. However, he became increasingly bored with the scandals, tired of the meaningless government communiqués and found the omnipresent corruption "disgusting." "I couldn't take it anymore, the endless, dishonest stories with the same actors over and over again!"
Start-up support from SchmidheinySá Corrêa decided to give up her career and turn to eco-journalism, a huge field that is still almost completely untapped in Brazil. And this is where the Avina Foundation, founded by Swiss industrialist Stephan Schmidheiny, comes into play, supporting active personalities in civil society, so-called leaders, and their projects. A friend of the journalist is an Avina Leader and encouraged him to launch the eco-press service. Avina examined Sá Corrêa's concept and granted him a start-up grant of 600,000 reals, equivalent to 170,000 dollars.
Oeco has quickly established itself in the Brazilian press landscape and is active via its website www.oeco.org.br, from where interested media can download reports and news items free of charge. Oeco employs three dozen full-time and freelance journalists in return for low but fair pay. The press service also offers exclusive, fee-based reports and features for individual media. Editor-in-chief Carolina Elia is a committed and energetic woman in her mid-20s who moved to Oeco from the television station Globo News. "Working in television appealed to me, but I was hardly able to shape environmental topics there, where my great interest lies," she says, surrounded by colleagues in the cramped editorial office.
Oeco in demand as an employerDuring our visit, journalist Manoel Francisco Brito was working on a report about the connection between fast food and the disappearance of the jungle. "Huge areas are being cleared in the Amazon to plant soybeans." Soy is then used to feed the millions of chickens that end up in fast food chains. "In this sense, these chickens are also a product of deforestation," says Brito.
Oeco founder Marcos Sá Corrêa complains that even Brazil's major media hardly make use of the press service's paid environmental reports, instead being content to download the free information from the website. However, the work of the Oeco researchers is beginning to bear fruit. Environmental issues are now appearing more frequently in the media. The agency in Rio is registering great interest from qualified journalists who want to leave their better-paid media jobs to do what they really want to do.
Oeco is a vivid example of the awakening of civil society in Latin American countries, which is increasingly keeping an eye on governments and unrestrained business. After three years, the foundation of the major Swiss industrialist stopped providing financial aid and other donors from the business world stepped into the breach. Sá Corrêa: "Without start-up aid, we wouldn't even have dreamed of founding Oeco."
Werner Catrina

Adrian Ebenberger founded Ebenberger & Partner, the first Swiss think tank for identity management.
He doesn't want to make fun of business leaders. But Adrian Ebenberger is of the opinion: "Every management team should take time out from time to time to think again: What am I doing anyway?" The experienced brand and communications specialist believes that "simply turning the wheel and doing so as quickly as possible will lead to a major problem in the long term". And he is convinced that those who question themselves from time to time about what they are doing and where they want to go will be the ones who "will be ahead in the future, bring innovations to the market and thus determine the market of the future." After eighteen years of communication with his own PR agency, Ebenberger also came to the point where he asked himself: "What am I actually doing? More and more is being produced, but actually you often miss the mark. That was one reason why he said to himself: "Stop. Let's make an assessment. How can I increase the sense and customer benefit for customers?"
Three years ago, he dissolved his PR agency with five people in Stäfa and "also reoriented locally" and started again in Männedorf. Ebenberger & Partner was founded in February with his wife and design specialist Michael Eckle. The new office sees itself as a "think tank for identity, change management, communication and design". Ebenberger and his team want to help companies "develop values and strengthen their positioning and uniqueness in the long term with targeted communication".
In a climate of change, interchangeable products and growing competition, identity, individuality and clearly recognizable values are becoming increasingly important. Companies need clear differentiators and an independent profile so that they are clearly recognizable from their competitors.
Ebenberger can prove with a study that around a third of customer loyalty comes from the image of providers and suppliers with customers. But "64 percent of employees are not even aware of their employer's values. And this despite the fact that employees are the key ambassadors of a company." In other words: "Only around one in three employees knows and lives the values of their company."
Ebenberger & Partner has now set itself the task of supporting companies on their way to this uniqueness. What sets these new consultants apart from an advertising agency or a conventional PR office?
The central approach is probably that Ebenberger first "scrutinizes and redefines the values of a company" together with the management. This is exactly what matters: Value creation through appreciation. The values form the foundation for the company's strategy, performance, culture and communication. Ebenberger has developed his own "identity management concept" based on practical experience.
Who are we? What do we do? What are our core competencies? How can we develop further? These questions are often not even asked. As a result, companies and services are becoming increasingly similar. They are oriented towards benchmarks, which means that they are becoming increasingly similar and no longer differentiate themselves, with the result that the customer only decides on price.
Things are different - and in Ebenberger's sense - with a brand like Swatch. Such uniqueness plays a role here. But how is this possible with banks that are already on Ebenberger's client list? "It depends on the management," says the change consultant. "If top management defines its values and exemplifies a strong culture," it will work. If you google the Zurich banking center, you will find 250 banks - and each one needs a raison d'être. In other words: How do you stand out? What do you do differently to stand out and win over customers?
Since Ebenberger & Partner was founded, advertising and design agencies have also shown interest in working with us. But here, too, the process should be a little different.
Ebenberger's consultancy is positioned in upper management for all tasks. "A process like this cannot be initiated by the advertising department." The conventional process used to work like this: you get an agency, create a new design and formulate a new mission statement. "Painting a building red and then declaring that you are the progressives of the city is not enough," says Ebenberger, breaking the theory down to a pragmatic point.
And "breaking down" from management to the grassroots is also his most important job. "It only works if people are taken on board. You have to form a community with the employees and give them clear goals. Because they are the most important players in the company."
What do we want? Which market are we operating in? What will the markets of the future look like? How can we move in this direction so that we are there as early as possible, so that we do not have to adapt, but can build up our own markets? What are the requirements for us to still be successful in five years' time?
The answers to these questions are best developed in a workshop. Together with the change consultant, the management looks for ideas: How do we motivate people? How do we create a sense of community? The solutions are then communicated to the employees in further workshops.
Ebenberger and his design expert Eckle have extensive expertise in brand management, communication, design and change management thanks to many years of working for national and international companies. Their newly founded consultancy has first-class references. Ebenberger was part of the core team for one of the largest change management projects for a federal department, where he coordinated, structured and managed several agencies and film teams. He has also supported a major furniture group in such a process, as well as companies in the mechanical engineering, banking and pharmaceutical sectors.
Before he found his current vocation, Ebenberger went through a "very confusing career". After training in machine design, he switched to software development. He later became a copywriter and journalist, initially in daily journalism at various newspapers, but also an IT editor and deputy PR manager at a financial services company. Most recently, he was editor-in-chief of Budget, a former SKV management magazine, before setting up his own PR agency eighteen years ago. In the course of this career, he also studied business administration and trained as a PR consultant.   
Andreas Panzeri