Considering building a career in public relations and communication management? This event will spotlight four young professionals from different sectors of PR, starting or shaping their inspiring career journeys in their own ways. They’ll share their experiences, insights, lessons learnt, and tips to help you explore and build your own PR pathway.

This workshop balances both the theory and practice involved in identifying and managing issues and crisis situations. The course will enable you to understand appropriate actions before, during and after a major incident as well as provide strategies around communications planning and practical guidance on working with the media and broader aspects of communication in times of crisis.

As the media and communications landscape continues to evolve, strategic media engagement is more important — and more complex — than ever.
Whether you're advising senior leaders, delivering media strategies, or supporting organisations to stay visible and credible through a mix of channels, join us for a lively panel discussion exploring how you can level-up your expertise in creating impact through strategic media engagement. We’ll hear stellar perspectives from decades of experience across journalism, communications and insights with Keith Lynch (editor in chief at Stuff Digital), Coen Lammers (communications consultant) and Ngaire Crawford (director insights and research at iSentia).

AI can become your PhD-level consultant for behaviour change—but only if you train with carefully crafted prompts. Whether you're seeking reliable and robust research, crafting campaigns for behaviour change, or designing experiments to evaluate what works, this course shows you how to prompt AI like a behavioural designer and tackle your most pressing behaviour change challenges alongside you.

Join Isabel Leeming as she shares the key insights from her Master’s thesis, The Adoption of Communication Technologies by the Aotearoa New Zealand Public Relations Industry: Social Media and Artificial Intelligence. She will touch on the risk of trial-and-error learning in AI implementation, the importance of proactive adoption models for the PR industry and more. Find out how the NZ landscape is adopting communication technology so far and where to go from here.

In this interactive online workshop, we cover the principles for preparing great media releases, communications materials, and general business content. Our resident editing expert, Julie Shannon, will teach you how to craft engaging stories and convey these in a clear and convincing tone. You’ll also explore different topics and contexts with plenty of ‘before’ and ‘after’ examples from a range of industries.

Step into the world of government relations through the lens of Alice in Wonderland. In this hands-on workshop, you will understand and demystify how to plan for and engage with government personnel and departments.

This workshop blends insight, strategy and practical roleplay to help you confidently plan for your goals whether it be building awareness, lobbying or relationship-building. Cas Carter has been on both sides of the coin and is here to build your confidence to step into government spaces with purpose. 

In the lead up to the 2026 PRINZ Awards, Chief Judges Nikki Wright APR FPRINZ and Tracey Bridges FPRINZ LPRINZ will be hosting a webinar to share their thoughts on everything from the entry form to what constitutes an award winning entry, They will be joined by immediate past Chief Judge Andrew Pirie FPRINZ and a selection of category Panel Chairs to share their thoughts on matters such as what category suits your entry, what scores highly and what can hinder entries from achieving Gold status.

All organisations have a wealth of data to draw upon to create engaging content, but knowing where to start is a challenge. This interactive workshop has been designed for communications professionals who want to incorporate charts, graphs, and infographics into their content, but do not have a background in statistics. The workshop includes individual and breakout activities to immediately apply what you’ve learned.

Whether you’re keen to launch a branded podcast or want to level up your pitching game to get your spokespeople a guest spot, this session is for you. Join our panel of podcast pros as they unpack what makes a great show, how to cut through with producers, and why this fast-growing channel should be part of your comms strategy.

AI is here, embedded in every facet of organisational life. But how well are we using it? More importantly, how well are we advising our organisations on the ethical deployment of artificial intelligence and the reputational and relationship risks that come with it?

Successful public relations consulting depends not only on strategy and expertise, but also on the quality of relationships consultants build with their clients. Drawing on recent ethnographic research within New Zealand’s consulting industry, Dr Deepti Bhargava and Dr Petra Theunissen (Auckland University of Technology) explore how public relations consultants use empathy, politeness, humour, and tactful communication to balance professional expertise with relational harmony when offering critical advice.