Emcee Stephen Heckbert entertained the audience with his “Top Communications Moments of 2008″ presentation and he announced the winners of each category when he opened the sealed envelopes. “This was a creative ad compelling program with a great use of new technologies and an innovative way to involve your audience,” Heckbert quoted a judge as saying.

Canwest’s David Akin was the keynote speaker of the night. He regaled the audience with his behind-the-scenes take on CIBC faxing private banking information to a junk lot in West Virginia. It was a story he uncovered while working at CTV News. Listening to his storytelling was like imagining a kimono being unwrapped. Except this story involved the nation’s most trusted anchor.

Three other awards were presented. The Earth Award for Internal Communications went to the Queensway Carleton Hospital, the Air Award for External Communications was awarded to the Canadian Association of Speech Language Pathologists and Audiologists, and the Fire Award for Communicator of the Year was bestowed on Robyn Osgood of Blueprint PR.

CPRS pulled off this inaugural event by pulling together a solid group of volunteers, led by CPRS Ottawa-Gatineau President-Elect Laurie Murphy, LeeEllen Carroll (Thornley Fallis), Leisha MacDonald (76design), Katie Boland (Algonquin student), Adam Weitner (Service Master), and Calline Au (Queensway Carleton Hospital).

“We have very talented public relations practitioners in this area who uphold the values of the profession and of our society through their excellent work,” said CPRS Ottawa-Gatineau Chapter President Danielle Côté. “It’s important for us to recognize their work and their contribution to the field of public relations. Awards like these allow us to celebrate this excellence and share it with other who can learn from their work,” she added.

Topics will be all over the map, of course, but look for some tried-and-true pieces that are already part of the public conversation.

Tibet will appear here and there, with all manner of references to the mechanisms put in place by the Chinese government to stifle any possible suggestion of even a whisper of discord. These stories will dovetail with references to “protest pens” and increased border security measures to make sure no one smuggles a “Free Tibet” lapel pin into China. If (and this is a big if) an athlete stands to accept a medal and–gasp–whips out a protest lapel pin the world media will take loud notice.

Look for a few heartwarming notes about athletes away from home, forging new friendships in the Olympic Village, and adjusting to training conditions in Beijing. Blogs home to hometown newspapers are a nice touch, but a cozy blogpost home to the neighbourhood might be difficult to see and hear amid the media clutter of the Olympics.

The pollution in Beijing will be given a great deal of coverage. I visited Beijing in late 1999 and while there was, indeed, a 30 storey building across the broad avenue from my hotel I couldn’t see it 5 mornings out of 7. Back in those dark days daylight could not penetrate the morning smog (cheerfully called “fog” by private and state tour guides) and the city planners devised an ingenious solution for lighting the murky streets.

Streetlights about 4 feet tall interspersed with their regular counterparts serve to illuminate the day, like taller versions of garden or pool lighting found here at home, because light does not sink to street level. Pedestrians would be hopelessly lost without these lamp posts in miniature and I used them as dim beacons leading me back to my hotel. The air quality truly is terrible.

The old adage taught to children, “Stop, look and listen before you cross the street” is a handy guide for any visitor to Beijing where crossing even the quietest backstreet is an exercise in both courage and luck. Passenger cars are being reduced from the local trafficsape (a word I hope I just coined) using a “day on/day off” plan while old beaters that are deemed to be embarrassingly high on the pollution inducing scale are made to disappear. Reducing vehicular traffic is a clever move–look for media features about how citizens are coping without their cars–and will have the pleasant side effect of making crosswalks safer. (Urgent Footnote: When in Beijing always cross the street in a crowd. There is safety in pedestrian numbers.)

In terms of bills, I have a pretty good handle on how much I owe to who and by when.  So most of the paper bills I receive in the mail go directly into the recycle bin without being opened.  Therefore, I could do without receiving them in the mail, but I don’t always have that option.

I’ve been using Canada Post’s ePost service for several years now, basically since it was launched, although I don’t remember when that was.

ePost works pretty well.  I add my billers by company name and account number, then instead of receiving monthly paper bills in the mail, an electronic copy goes into my ePost inbox.  If I wish, ePost will send me an email notification when I have received a new bill.

No fuss, no muss, and BTW, no unnecessary waste.

Recently, ePost got together with Canada’s banks (Montreal, CIBC, Citizens, Laurentian, National, RBC, Scotiabank, TD Canada Trust) and numerous credit unions to make bills received through ePost available within online banking.  I bank with CIBC who calls this service ‘E-Bills’ – my E-Bills inbox is shown below.

The unfortunate thing is that many of companies I receive bills from (e.g. Home Depot, Hydro Ottawa, Enbridge, Sears, Best Buy, Future Shop) don’t give me the option to stop receiving paper bills and only receive electronic bills through ePost.  Rogers, MasterCard and the City of Ottawa are some of the billers that do let me receive my bills only through ePost and have for some time now.

It’s really time for companies to provide customers with the option to only receive their bills electronically whether through ePost or another system. 

This Aquos tv is manufactured in one of the world’s most sustainable plants. We’re sending a group of journalists over  to Japan this week to tour  the facility and take the opportunity to interview a number of SHARP Executives. The offer to travel on this trip came up, and like a fat kid on a smartie, I was all over it.

And greenhouse gases are all over it too. A round trip from Ottawa to Osaka produces over five tons of carbon emissions. Our team decided to purchase carbon offsets. It’s a simple step. By doing so, we’re investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. Though using and producing on one hand, we’re trying to reduce at the same time.

My hunches were right. It was someone peddling something else. I felt it my civic duty to answer the door though. But the id bearing university student wasn’t actually selling anything, except ideas. His first bright one- handing over a few free compact fluorescent bulbs (CFBs) from Project Porchlight.  By changing one regular light bulb per household for a compact fluorescent one, the average Ottawa resident will save $50 in energy costs on their hydro bill over the lifetime of the bulb. 200,000 bulbs replaced citywide will result in 100,000 fewer tonnes of greenhouse gases emitted. And replacing just one old fashioned lightbulb with one new cfb in every household across Canada is the equivalent of taking 66,000 cars of the road. Now, that’s change within reach!  And just like Saint Nick pulling presents from his sack, this canvasser surrendered even more goodies from his EnviroCentre backpack. It’s an effort to help citizens use less energy and decrease their water usage. In other words, reduce our carbon footprints. Even Queen Betty’s getting involved. 

The EnviroCentre off loaded two 2 low flow showers heads, a kitchen faucet aerator, two bathroom faucet  aerators and foam tubing for my hot water pipes. By lessening the load in his backpack, he helped me lessen my carbon emissions.