Rough and ready video can work

I do quite a lot of work with video, often overseeing video productions that cost upwards of four figure sums, resulting in beautifully crafted polished results. But we all know that there is a real thirst online for rough and ready video, generally speaking unedited or only roughly edited, and shot on someone's camcorder. YouTube has proven the point over and over again.

With this in mind, and for no other reason than the fact that I like to have a new techy toy to play with every so often, I bought a flipvideo handheld camcorder the other day. It cost about £90 or so, and is pocket sized so I can take it out and about with me. It'll record up to about an hour's worth of footage, and runs on bog standard batteries. The beauty of it though is that it's so quick to use. You whip it out of your bag, press the button on the side and in 2-3 seconds you're ready to record - fantastic for catching something that needs to be caught quick (though still not quick enough to catch footage of my snoozing rabbit laying stretched out on his side this other day, but then that's more testiment to my speed at grabbing the camera than the camera itself).

So, I'll be carrying this around with me from now on, grabbing the odd bit of footage here and there, and hopefully picking up some interesting interviews and think pieces. I'll start posting some examples soon - need to find some interesting people to speak with first - and keep reporting back on how I'm getting on.

Listening in

While catching up on Twitter this morning I felt the sudden urge to jump on a plane straight to New York City after reading Stephen Fry's tweet about how it is snowing on Fifth Avenue. I can't think of anywhere else I would rather be at the moment than standing wrapped up warm on fifth avenue with snow flakes falling around me. Heavenly. So, I tweeted something along those lines. Within four minutes Dee of the New York Tours twitter account was following me.

There are many instances now of people tweeting a brand name or term and immediately receiving a follow from those companies, or other folks that have something to do with that (I had a similar experience just before my holiday to Mexico a few months back when I tweeted about going scuba diving, and suddenly the Scuba Society were following me).

These are the smart companies. They know what terms to look out for, they listen to the chatter and then they spot opportunities to respond. Dee of New York Tours is now listening in on my tweets to see if I will indeed visit NYC and therefore if they will be able to sell me a tour, or perhaps make a recommendation that will then make her company 'useful' to me. Other companies (Comcast being a great example of this), listen in to see if their customers are experiencing difficulties and complaining about their products/brand on Twitter so that they can quickly step in, provide customer service, and ultimately receive a big thumbs up from the tweeter for their responsiveness thus boosting the brand's reputation and averting a crisis (Comcast are well experienced at the crisis potential of new media after the video posted on YouTube of their technician asleep on a customer's sofa).

So, I asked the Twittersphere this morning if there is an application yet available that automatically sets your Twitter account to start following people who tweet a particular term that you specify. It seems there is (I suspected as much). I've been pointed in the direction of Twollow (many thanks @equaliser), a very simple service that allows you (on their free account) to specify up to five terms that, when tweeted by someone, will spark an immediate follow from your account. I'm going to give this a go and will report back on just how useful I think it is.

Adopt a word - genius or pure lunacy?

I've just picked up the news of a website called Adopt a Word through rumblings on Twitter. The idea is that you pay £20 to adopt a word for one year. In return for your £20 you receive an adoption pack to confirm that you have purchased that word. Sound crazy? Okay, now chuck in the fact that the £20 you pay goes towards the charity I CAN, helping children with communication difficulties in the UK develop skills to help overcome what can be at times some very challenging problems. Still sound crazy?

Of course it still sounds crazy. I mean, why would anybody in their right mind want to adopt a word? It's meaningless.

It's for that very reason that this site is pure genius. It's so ludicrous, that it gets everyone talking - plenty of buzz on my Twitter feed about it as everyone discusses whether it's crazy or not, which of course has an exponential effect as more and more people pick up on it through other networks on Twitter. And then there's people like me blogging about it too, and probably others tagging and bookmarking the site with digg, del.i.cious, stumble upon etc etc.

Reminds me a bit of the million pound gallery site developed a few years ago. At least this one's for charity though.

Now, what word to buy for my other half for Christmas ...

Social Media for Business - one day training programmes

We're launching two one-day training programmes to help businesses understand how they can use social media tools to enhance their marketing and PR activities online for free or very little cost. Both will be held at Warwick HRI's conference centre in Wellesbourne, Warwickshire. The first is on 5 December, and the next on 16 January.

Click here for more information.

When you start thinking in 'tweets' is it time to worry?

When I was 14 years old I took part in a fairly typical school exchange trip, staying with Carola Herman and her lovely family in a small town just outside Frankfurt, Germany. I was three years into learning to speak German at the time, but a couple of hours a week at school and no previous exposure to native German-speakers meant that my language skills weren't up to much. I stumbled my way through the week able to understand much of what they said to me, but struggling to communicate back. So focussed on trying to speak the lingo, a few days into the trip I found myself unable to think in English. If I couldn't think what I wanted to think in German, I couldn't think at all. A very frustrating and bizarre experience.

There's something about immersing yourself in a culture with such vigor that means you inevitably end up thinking in terms of that culture too. And so, as I was driving along this morning and thinking about the day ahead, I realised that I was thinking in 'tweets' - that is to say, every one of my thoughts had to be 140 characters or less, or I would be thinking about how I would communicate this or that on Twitter. At regular Friday afternoon pub sessions with friends we've also giggled to ourselves about how you stop thinking about people with their real names and start thinking about them and referring to them as their Twitter alias instead. Even my fiance is at times no longer Nathan, but instead @NZMorris. I think there should be a medical name for this condition - twitteritis?

An apology to my blog (look what I've been up to!)

I'm afraid I've been ignoring you, my beloved blog. It isn't that I've fallen out of love with you, it's just I've been a little distracted lately. I'm afraid, dear blog, that I have been playing away a little. At the beginning of this week I created a new social network on Ning for communications and marketing professionals working in the Higher Education sector. HE Comms has been so much more popular in its first week that I ever dreamt it would be, so I've been spending time building on it and further developing it in a bid to spread and retain that initial interest. And, yes, I have also been blogging on HE Comms. It's not the end of our relationship, my dearest lovely blog, but I just need to share my time equally and work out what I post here and what I post directly to HE Comms. You're part of HE Comms too, and feature on the 'other blogs' feed, so don't feel too left out. Who knows, perhaps even some of our new friends on HE Comms might come and spend some time with you my little blog. Keep heart, I haven't lost interest.

Letter to PR Week

Week before last PR Week published an article suggesting that PROs could learn a lot about social media from the US presidential election campaign. Sure, I agree that the candidates are using social media extensively in their campaigns, but I'm not convinced that they're using it particularly well in some cases - Twitter being one such example. So, I wrote a letter to PR Week to say as much, extracts from which were published in Friday's edition. I thought it would be good to post the unedited (albeit restricted to 200 words anyway!) version of my letter here:

Watch but don’t learn from Obama and McCain

Observing the use of digital media in the US election campaign is indeed fascinating. However, I would warn against PROs ‘learning’ from Obama and McCain’s online efforts (News, 10 October). Both campaigns use online media as a one-way communication tool. Their use of Twitter is one example. Obama’s ‘tweets’ tell us nothing more than what rally he is at and where to watch the video. Of the nine tweets made by McCain so far in October, seven of them merely provide links to the latest ads.

Both camps are failing to maximise the true value of social media: community and conversation. They can use social media as a listening tool, and certainly are using it to enable Joe Public to endorse their campaign, but they should also be using it for real conversation that they participate in. Through platforms like Twitter you want to know that it is the man himself busily tweeting on his blackberry between speeches and meetings, not someone hired in to churn out impersonal announcements. PROs could learn far more from the latest celebrity ‘tweeter’ @stephenfry.

International PR - focus on India

Some of my readers may recall that back in February I chaired a CIPR Education & Skills sector group panel discussion on international PR. Following that event I blogged about the ethics of engaging with PR 'norms' in particular countries (specifically in China) and how easily this sits with a UK perspective of PR conduct. This blog post was also converted into a shorter article for ConnectEd, the newsletter of the CIPR Education & Skills Sector group.

Today the headline 'Why do PR people pamper the media?' posted by @IndiaPRBlog on Twitter grabbed my attention. This blog post, written by Vikas Kumar provides an interesting insight into the practice of gifting journalists to get them to cover your story or event. I thought my readers might be interested to read this too, particularly in light of earlier posts.

THE headline guided by student blogger

It's a rather miserable looking Saturday today so I'm sticking indoors for now, instead choosing to catch up on reading this week's Times Higher Education (THE). There's a great example here of new media influencing traditional media, and showing that what gets said on a blog - even just a passing comment - can influence one's reputation on a wider scale.

The article, introducing the new Chief Executive of the BBSRC, Professor Douglas Kell, is delightfully headlined 'New BBSRC chief "Olympic gold medallist" of research'. Great headline for the BBSRC and Professor Kell, hey? However, the really interesting thing from my point of view is that the headline was influenced by a simple statement on a student blog:

If research were an olympic sport, the new chief executive of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) would win gold for "weightlifting with citations", at least according to one online blogger.

The article goes on to mention how Professor Kell engaged with the discussions on the blog that ensued, thus showing him to be 'keen to engage with students, colleagues and the wider public'.

I think this says a lot about journalism when the source that influences their headline is a student blog, but it also speaks volumes about Professor Kell himself. Go Professor Kell! Let's hope more academic leaders can be celebrated for engaging with publics in this manner.

How are journalists using new media?

My approach to using new and social media as a PR tool is to forget about everything that traditional PR approaches might have taught us (well, perhaps not everything, but many things) and view it as something altogether very very different from media relations. Never sending a press release designed for a journalist to a blogger is a good example of this.

I thrive on the fact that new and social media generates opportunities to communicate direct to key stakeholders without having to hope that a journalist will pick up your story and run with it. However, I often get asked how PR folks can use new media to enhance their traditional media relations aproaches, particularly how new media can help them engage more effectively with journalists. This morning an interesting insight popped up on my Twitter feed.

I follow (follow - not stalk!) a few journalists on Twitter. A particularly prolific 'tweeter' is Joanna Geary from the Birmingham Post. This morning she tweeted about the order in which she checks on everything when she gets into work every day. I thought it provided a particularly interesting insight into a technically-savvy journalist's communication preferences. Here's the order in which she says she checks things, check-out the high prority she gives to online communities:

1. Personal email


2. RSS Reader


3. Twitter


4. Facebook


5. LinkedIn


6. Work Email

I suspect that many journalists aren't as 'into' new media as Joanna is, but this is an interesting insight nevertheless. Many thanks for sharing this with us Joanna!

Blog rebuttal unit? You're asking for trouble!

I used the rare opportunity earlier this week while travelling on the train into London not to switch the laptop on (I did that on the way back to start writing this post) but instead to read last week’s issue of PR Week. It goes without saying that the word ‘blogosphere’ plastered on the front page aroused my interest. Interest, that is, and concern.

Now, it could well be the case that it’s all in the way it’s reported, and if that’s the case then perhaps PR Week need to develop their understanding of how social media is changing the way in which we must got about PR, but I couldn’t help the sharp intake of breath and inkling of disgust at the news that ‘the Labour Party is exploring plans for an online rapid rebuttal unit, designed to kill off damaging stories circulating in the blogosphere’. Rebuttal unit! Kill off! What kind of PR is this? Certainly not the kind that is conducive to successful engagement with bloggers.

I’m sensing the bloggers reactions now. The thing about the ‘blogosphere’ is that you can’t just kill stories off. This is the world of social media and communities and if a PR person steps in and makes any attempt at trying to ‘kill off’ a community contribution, then out roar will follow.

PR Week’s comparison of this new unit to ‘Labour’s famous Excalibur unit, which was successfully used to kill negative stories by Tory-supporting newspapers in the run-up to the 1997 general election’ verges on the absurd. The way in which we approach the press and approach bloggers and other online communities is not one and the same thing. The PR industry needs to know this otherwise negative stories in the blogosphere could be made even worse by PR intervention. I expect that Derek Draper, the former lobbyist allegedly appointed to lead on this initiative, already knows this, but here are a few thoughts on how they should approach negative online stories as a starter for ten:

• Be proactive, not reactive. If a political party wants a positive online image then engaging with online communities at an early stage is key. Become part of those communities and have online dialogue with them on an ongoing basis, don’t just ‘pop up’ when something negative is said.

• If ‘reacting’ to something said online, do so through a key figure in the party and not just through a spokesperson. Make sure that you are seen to engage in the conversation and not simply try to ‘rebut’ what is being said.

• Be human and personable in your responses and approach, not simply tolling the party line.

• Never EVER send a blogger a blanket press release. The nature of blogging is for people to write about what they want to write, not what you want them to write.

• Do your research with bloggers. Actually read their work and try to understand them before making any approach. Don't presume you understand them from reading one or two posts.

• Be wary of trying to ‘bribe’ bloggers with gifts and free lunches. Serious bloggers are sceptical people and probably more likely to expose your tricks to sway them towards your message, than actually write what you want them to write.

• Produce social media guidelines for party members. If any of them are prolific bloggers themselves, or engaging with online social communities, then you need to make sure they’re not saying anything or behaving in any way online that is likely to send out a negative message about the party. This doesn’t mean telling them what to say, but instead guides their behaviour online to make sure they’re not overly reactive to negative stories, potentially making the situation worse.

A fantastic touch for an opening event ...

I was at the University of Warwick this morning with a former colleague and friend of mine having a catch-up and gossip over a coffee. She was telling me a little about some of the PR efforts that she has been making recently in the Warwick Manufacturing Group. Most notable was the opening of the International Digital Lab at the end of July. She mentionned a 'special touch' to the event that I thought was so brilliant that I just had to share it on the blog as an example of best practice.

The Digital Lab is all about technology and the future. So, it hardly seems fitting to have images of the Prime Minister cutting yet another ribbon, right? So, instead of following in tradition, Zoë set the wheels in motion for a ribbon-cutting with a digital twist. With just a week to go before the launch, and the news that Gordon Brown would be formally opening the building being kept under wraps, Zoe managed to persuade some of her colleagues to design a virtual ribbon cutting ceremony. So instead of there being an actual ribbon, there is a screen and the PM 'virtually' cuts the ribbon. I love it. It's so appropriate for the building's purpose. You can see images of this on the International Digital Laboratory website. Nice touch, hey?

Only make a PR effort when you're prepared to receive the response

As an avid reader of the Mashable blog and a communications professional working largely with the Higher Education sector, I was quite interested to see the recent Startup Review of Unigo 'a free online platform for college students to share their opinions, photos, videos and documents'.

It's important that I keep aware of sites like this given that I work so closely with universities, and it's always good to see if any of these have the potential to migrate to the UK. So, I clicked on the link to take a peek at the site and was greeted with a pop-up asking me for a username and password. Now, not only has this site had excellent coverage through Mashable, but according to some of the commments, it appears they have also appeared in the New York Times Magazine. So, why oh why would anyone get such great publicity and mess it up by having a site that doesn't work just when thousands of people will attempt to visit it? I couldn't resist but to express my opinions through the mashable blog post and my own blog.

There's a key message here, and a real fundamental of good communications and PR practice, that if you are going to get some great publicity (and good on them for getting such great mentions) you really need to have everything else in place to back that up, such as a website that actually works otherwise all of that publicity will just go straight down the drain. Such a pity.

Ofsted should be congratulated for their committment to communications, not criticised for it

Ofsted have come under criticism today for spending around £400,000 per year on salaries for PR staff. I was somewhat enraged by the BBC's report firstly for the continued negative perceptions of the PR industry, but more so for a) criticising an organisation for showing a committment to communicating well with its stakeholders and b) failing to take into account the fact that many other government departments spend considerably more money than this by outsourcing PR services to expensive city agencies. I think Ofsted should be applauded for developing a strong in-house communications team.

The criticisms hit home with what regular readers of this blog will know to be one of my pet-hates - the continued perception that 'PR' is just about press and media. The BBC online article quotes Mark Wallace:

Mark Wallace, campaign director of the alliance, said: "Who could possibly think, 'we've got nearly half a million to spend on education - let's spend it on Ofsted press officers'?

"It's obscene. Shocking. If the government's got half a million to spend on education it should go on schools or teachers' pay not PR men. OK maybe they need one or two press officers - but 12?

Firstly, as a woman working in PR it's easy to take issue with the term 'PR men', though that is by the by. What I really take issue with is the assumption that a team of 12 PR people actually means 12 press officers.

So, I delved a little deeper and checked out the job vacancies on Ofsted's website. The communications roles advertised (none paying particularly exciting salaries I might add, particularly at the most senior level - the salary is quite modest for this level role based in London) include press officers, a strategic director, a PA, events managers, intranet developers, internal communications staff and publications professionals. Hardly '12 press officers'.

For an organisation employing 2,700 people spread throughout the UK, with all the associated difficulties of having a geographically spread workforce, and for an organisation responsible for inspecting education and training services being used by one third of the England population (according to Ofsted's website), a communications team of this size is probably about right, if not a little small given the sheer numbers of stakeholders with whom they are clearly committed to communicating.

I can't help feeling that once again this is just an unfounded criticism of the PR profession and a gross underestimation of the good and essential works that communications and PR professionals actually do. We in the industry need to do more to improve public understanding of what PR actually is and does, and the media need to start understanding that their own encounters with PR through press officers sending them press releases is not the entire industry. The guy or gal that swipes your card at the cash desk when you pay for your petrol is not, after all, the only person representing the oil industry, so why do people think that press officers are the only people in the PR industry?

Blog vacation is over ... though social media vacation didn't even begin

Hello my dear readers. Apologies for the little gap in posting to this blog over the past couple of weeks. Having signed off on a number of successful projects towards the end of August, I took two weeks out to spend a little time in Mexico. Boy could we learn a lot from the Mexican's in this country about customer service. And knowing the power of new media and how people can and will use it to say bad things about hotels, etc, I couldn't wait to get back to right some of the wrongs that I had read on Trip Advisor about our hotel.

One of the most striking things for me from the holiday though (with the exception of releasing newly hatched turtles into the sea, swimming with sea lions, scuba diving during a storm at night, bathing in the warm Pacific ... sorry, I digress) was the way in which new and, particularly, social media changes the way that we behave on holiday. We announced our safe arrival with text messages back home, I 'tweeted' (just to make the folks in grey, rainy England envious of course) on the blackberry from the beach or out at sea, and instead of writing a good old fashioned postcard we created a PowerPoint presentation with some of the photos (thank goodness for digital cameras and small laptops) with the aim of sharing it with everyone via SlideShare. SlideShare failed me on this occassion, so instead I uploaded a pile of photos onto facebook using the hotel's wifi connection and emailed everyone the link. So, for those thinking that I'm sad for taking my blackberry and laptop on vacation with me, please don't - it was great to be able to share with my friends and family the wonderful time I was having. Isn't social media great?

Marketing and PR professionals - please get the basics right!

I thought I'd just share with my readers a little letter that I have just sent to another PR/Marketing company in response to an unsolicited marketing mailing that they sent me. I usually receive these kind of mailings warmly and with respect to the sender, but this person got the basics so wrong, that here is my response:

Dear Tony

You recently sent Pickle Jar Communications a letter introducing some of the broadcast services that you provide. You began your letter with the words ‘I know unsolicited mail can be a pain ...’. I am sorry to say that in this instance your letter was considerably more of a pain than unsolicited marketing mail usually is.

In fact, I normally receive marketing materials from other companies and show my respect for the time they have taken to write to me by reading the information and making a decision as to whether it is something I am interested in or not. I rarely discard such mailings without looking at them, instead treating them in the same way that I would hope my own marketing materials would be treated.

Your mailing, however, served only to waste my time. You made the very simple mistake of not putting enough postage on your letter which meant that instead I received a note from Royal Mail informing me that there was a letter awaiting me in the local sorting office for which I needed to pay an additional £1.15 because the sender did not pay adequate postage.

Not knowing what the letter was, and equally thinking it could be something important, I took the time out of my day to drive to the sorting office, pay the additional postage and collect the item. I’m sure you can imagine how annoyed I was to see that my efforts were purely for a piece of direct marketing mail.

I would really hope that a fellow PR and marketing professional would know better than to annoy a potential customer by making such a simple mistake. As such, I now enclose my invoice to claim back from you the cost of postage, half an hour of my time in lost earnings, and the mileage to collect this letter from the sorting office.

Yours sincerely

Tracy Playle MCIPR
Director, Pickle Jar Communications Ltd

Very useful visual guide for how Broadcast PR people need to rethink PR

I know I am always banging on about how PR people need to rethink this and rethink that, but today David Cushman has posted a really useful presentation on slideshare that really helps PR people to visualise the differences and challenges them to find ways to engage with what he calls 'P2PR' (I like this expression, might adopt it myself!). Seeing as the embed tag is available on his presentation, here it is:

From broadcast PR to P2PR

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: new networks)

New Handy Guide: Corporate Blogging

We've just created a new Handy Guide, though this time it's in the form of a slidecast. This is designed as an introduction for companies thinking about trying to engage with blogs or create their own corporate blog as a means of raising their profile or communicating with their stakeholders.

Handy Guide: Corporate Blogging

View SlideShare presentation (tags: blogging communications pr)

A little video of our 1st Birthday party

I've decided to play around with Animoto again this time to make a little compilation video of photos from our 1st Birthday party:

What has been keeping us so quiet?

I promised in a blog post the other day that I would update you all on what we've been up to lately and what has been keeping us too busy to blog (not that there's ever really any excuse not to blog of course!).

Firstly, we were called up about six weeks ago by the University of Warwick asking us to write and oversee the design process for two of their new induction publications for the students arriving in September. Your First Weeks is a guide that takes the students through what they need to do before and after they arrive at Warwick, and what's available to them once they arrive in terms of events and induction sessions, societies and clubs, etc. The challenge with this document was to, for the first time, provide concise information to students in an engaging way with consistent tone and style throughout. The second document is the Student Handbook, a less exciting document by its very nature but a necessity. The challenge with this one was to produce something that the students would actually read and something that they would keep with them throughout the year. We prepared the copy for both documents, liaising with key contacts at the University to pull it all together, and then worked with Paul Dibbens of Mustard Design to oversee the design process and get the documents ready for print. Anyone following us on Twitter will have seen all the different phases we were at with this. Both documents are now at the printers and are being sent out to students next week.

That's not all. We were also called in to Alexon International (a large ladies-wear retailer) to help them announce the appointment of their new CEO to 5,000 staff. We proposed conducting an interview with their new CEO Jane McNally to ensure that staff could see she was motivated, keen to drive the business forward with a clear vision, but also personable and human! Again working with Mustard Design, we produced a 2-page document that is now being sent out to all staff. In truth, my preference for a communication like this, given how personable Jane actually is, would have been to record a podcast so that staff could also hear her tone of voice and hear her enthusiasm directly. However, access to technology can't be guaranteed with this company and we didn't want to alienate staff who didn't have PC access.

Finally (not all our work but our next big project) we were asked by the Open University to work with them to produce a video for staff. The video is to help staff who are not based at the headquarters in Milton Keynes to understand what happens on that campus, and also for new starters who will be working at the Walton Hall (HQ) campus to understand what is available there to them. Working with @Warblefly Productions, we filmed this project this week and are now in the post-production phase.

Celebrating a year of creative communications

Yesterday evening we celebrated Pickle Jar Communications' 1st Birthday at The Earlsdon Cottage. We always receive excellent customer service from The Cottage but this time they excelled themselves and went that extra mile by fulfilling our quirky request to serve our guests jars of pickles, and labelling those jars up with the PJC logo without us even asking them to. Very sweet of them. A big thank you must also go to Creative Balloons of Earl Street, Coventry, who provided and delivered our corporate-coloured helium balloons with less than 24 hours notice.



Lots of bubbly was flowing as we celebrated a year of success with friends, colleagues and family. A big thank you to everyone that attended and all the messages of congratulations and best wishes that we received from those who weren't able to join us this time. Here's to another successful year ahead!

Photographs from the evening can be viewed on our facebook page.

Party Pickle Video

Just been playing with animoto to see if I can create a short video for the Pickle Jar Communications first birthday party tomorrow. The challenge is to see how the high res dvd version works (if at all) on a large plasma screen. I expect it will struggle, but good for online versions.

Bringing the genius of Wilkes University to a UK audience

I attended a Higher Education External Relations Association (HEERA) meeting week before last as a representative of the CIPR's Education and Skills group. They were chatting about different events that they might put on. Having recently become aware of Wilkes University's highly targetted advertising campaign that ran in Spring 2007, I mentioned this to them as an interesting case study for a conference session. It seems that none of the marketeers at the table had heard about this campaign, so I thought it worth putting a blog post up here with the link through to this New York Times article about the campaign. Personally, I think this is very daring and a genius approach: a clever marketing campaign that is so clever that the PR value it generated as a consequence is probably worth more to them than the actual marketing!

Funny cartoon - death of the tag cloud

Goodness me, it has been over two weeks since my last post! My have I been a busy bunny of late. More on that soon, but I thought I'd just doing a very quick post this morning while I am suffering insomnia induced by a tickly cough that seems to be building in my throat. Just been browsing back through ReadWriteWeb's blog posts and saw this fab cartoon on the death of tag clouds. Very funny.

Svlendid!

I have to say that Derek Williams' audacious PR stunt to continue his career as a Sven-Goran Eriksson lookalike is fantastic. How funny? Relatively harmless, but risky enough to earn him front-page coverage on the papers this morning. When done well, PR stunts can really pay off and I have no doubt that Mr Williams' lookalike career will now continue to flourish even though the former England football manager is no longer working in the UK. And for what cost? A flight to Mexico, a couple of nights in a hotel and probably a small fee for the two glamorous ladies dangling off each arm to complete the look. You can't buy front-page advertising for that kind of investment!

Bizarre Viral

This has to be one of the more bizarre viral videos I have seen in a little while, but allegedly the 'Will it blend?' series has become quite a hit! This video alone has had almost 850,000 views on YouTube at the time of creating this blog post and it's only been out there for a few days. All brand awareness for the iPhone I guess, not that they really need it at the moment! A nice bit a fun for a Friday blog post:

What an addictive corporate gift!

I've been clearing out my office a little today and have been sorting through a box of my other half's belongings that came from his old office before he moved job. In amongst this box was one of the best corporate giveaways I have ever seen. It's a little block broken down into a number of blocks that you can fold out and reshape - a little like a clever stress toy. On the different faces of the blocks are images representing the company, their logo and web address. I am going to steal this from my other half as I think it's very addictive and he won't miss it! Here's a little (rather ropey quality, I admit) video of the block in action:

Useful overview to social media

I know I bang on probably far too much about Twitter on this blog, but it is such a great source of useful info and links to resources. Here is another one that was flagged up recently by one of the very interesting people that I follow, Drew B from Hotwire (hope I got that right!). It is a slide show produced by one of their clients giving an overview and some useful stats about social media. I like the simplicity of this:

| View | Upload your own

Animoto

Thanks to Paul Bradshaw (twitter.com/paulbradshaw) who I follow on Twitter, I learned this morning about a new slideshow service called Animoto. This is amazing. It's a wonderful substitute for anyone that wants a video on their website but can't afford the thousands of pounds that a video will cost.

Basically all you do is upload a selection of still images to the site, select a music track (they have a library of licence-free tracks for you to choose from) and the site does the work for you. I had a little play around using my rabbit photos (why not?) and here is what it created. This took about 20 mins to upload the photos and about 10 mins for the video to be created. I hadn't edited the photos or anything, so this is a real rough-and-ready attempt. Imagine what you can do with a little more effort.



I was then very easily able to put it on facebook (just the click of a button takes you straight through) and get the html code for embedding it in this blog post.

I will certainly be buying the commercial licence for using this site to create a little promo real for Pickle Jar Communications, and perhaps even offering this as a service to our clients. It is just wonderful!

A PR Beast of a Feast

As I sat with my other half yesterday evening watching Channel 4 news I couldn't help but comment on how inappropriate it seemed that the news item reporting on G8 leaders discussing food shortages should be accompanied by cutaway shots of said G8 leaders sitting down to dinner. It was therefore no surprise when The Guardian dropped on my doorstep this morning to see as front page news the incongruous G8 feasting and the leading subject of conversation of the day being hailed as hypocrisy on the part of the G8 summit.

As ever when I see items on the news or making the front pages, I always think about the PR people working for the various organisations behind the stories or battling with them. Sometimes I inwardly congratulate and even envy them at times for pulling off such great publicity. Sometimes I pity them. Sometimes I get angry at them. This time, however, I just can't see how they could possibly win! If I were asked to organise an event to which 8 of the guests were going to be the leaders of some of the most powerful countries in the world, you can bet your bottom dollar that I would be recruiting top chefs to provide a sumptuous feast for them! However, if knowing that on that same day they would be discussing a global food crisis you would see a certain irony on putting on such a feast. So how do you win? There's a cultural difference at stake here too - the difference between what we might consider to be a feast in the UK and what the Japanese consider to be a feast. Is eight courses really that uncommon in Japan? I served five courses to guests in my little two-bedroom Coventry terrace house on Saturday evening.

I therefore pity the PR person who might have had any say in this. On the one hand the annual gathering of eight of the most powerful people in the world is something to celebrate and ought to be celebrated in style, on the other hand if they're discussing food shortages then only the most modest of dinners (or better still perhaps no food at all) was really going to keep people happy. I think perhaps with a budget of over £200m, perhaps there are some other extravagances of the G8 summit that ought to be looked at instead of the food, but no PR person is going to draw attention to any of those now, are they?

A great example of the power of new media

I'm working late tonight. Because I'm working late, I'm missing out on a trip to the Coventry Pizza Express with my fiance and a group of our friends. Sounds like a fairly run-of-the-mill Tuesday night, doesn't it? However, there is a story behind this trip to Pizza Express - one which - combined with tonight's activities (and bearing in mind that they are still probably sat in the restaurant as I write this blog post) really demonstrates the power and speed of new media communications.

The background, in a nutshell, is that between us we've all experienced some examples of pretty poor customer service from this restaurant lately, despite the food being great and it being one of only a few places in Coventry city centre that we like going to and that suits all of our tastes. So, my friend Ben wrote this blog post a few days ago as a bit of a whinge about their customer service.

The blog post did the rounds thanks to the power of google and twitter and ultimately resulted in Ben receiving a call from the manager of the restaurant yesterday assuring him of their committment to customer service. So, true to form, the gang have headed over there tonight while I sit here working away.

As I'm working, one of said-gang and an avid Twitterati has posted a message linking through to a video recorded on his phone as they arrived at the restaurant this evening. In less than an hour the video had already been viewed 22 times. In case you can't quite follow, the gist of this is that the operations manager said that we could request to sit upstairs anytime we wanted, but when they've tested this out tonight, they've yet again been denied using the space upstairs (a space which they rarely seem to use even when the restaurant is full, hence the earlier complaints about customer service).

And I've also just received another Tweet from my fiance this time telling me that they've been refused another drink (just to be clear - they won't be drunk or anything at this time - they're just a bunch a nice young professionals with money to spend wanting to have a quiet drink).

What a great example of the power of mobile, video, and social networking, hey? They haven't even left the restaurant and already probably upwards of 30 or 40 people (by time I have also tweeted about this blog post) will be aware of this.

Twitter update: 10 mins after posting this blog
Jake (our talented videographer) says that customer service from the girl that served them tonight has been good - I just thought I ought to add this update to keep it fair to the staff that do deliver good service!

"Green" "Sex" "Cancer" "Secret" "Fat"

Great article in the NYT yesterday flagged up thanks to a new contact I've added on Twitter.

Need Press? Repeat: ‘Green,’ ‘Sex,’ ‘Cancer,’ ‘Secret,’ ‘Fat’

I don't often blog about more traditional PR approaches, but this is such a great article (though it does confirm what most of us PR peeps know already).

Back in my days as Head of Research-TV we ran several stories to the press on cancer. I remember many of our contacts and clients saying that they wouldn't do these stories anymore because they were tired and overdone, but the message of course is that it isn't they who set the news agenda and if the press are still carrying stories about cancer and you have a good and credible one to tell, then you'd be foolish not to, right?

Universities need to internationalise their approach to social networking

The news that Facebook has finally launched a Chinese-language version of the site will undoubtedly excite many British universities. China is an important market for recruiting students and developing research partnerships. It is clear that British universities have over the past few years started to get to grips with the opportunities for communications (and dare I say, marketing) through social networking sites. The familiarity in the UK with Facebook and other popular sites such as Bebo and MySpace has encouraged universities and HE colleges to establish a presence in these virtual networks, or at least to monitor them for looming crises. Surely adopting a presence on Facebook's Chinese-language site is just another extension of this approach? Or is it?

I've been wondering over the past few months just how much consideration universities actually give to the international scene in social networking as opposed to thinking purely in terms of social networks that dominate in the UK or western world. For example in Asia Friendster is one of the most popular social networking sites, overshadowing both Facebook and MySpace quite considerably. QQ, Xianonei and 51.com are also dominant in the Asian market but barely heard of in the West. The language barriers make some of these sites inaccessible to the marketeers and communicators working in British universities, but if they are serious about continuing to engage with potential students in Asia, particularly China, then perhaps efforts should also be made to educate ourselves more in social networking spaces dominating other markets. Time is an issue, with many communications departments in British universities already stretched and undoubtedly struggling to keep up with the pace of technological change and online communications. I'd be delighted to lead some research into the potential for marcomms with non-English language social networks if there were a few universities out there that might be interested to get involved and back this.

This recent blog post on Venture Beat gives an insight into Friendster's dominance in the Asia-Pacific region. This post from Read Write Web written in January 2008 might also provide useful background information to anyone looking to explore the social networking phenomenon in China and Asia.

Useful toys for the blog

I'm always looking for new and useful tools for the blog and by following Paul Bradshaw on Twitter (www.twitter.com/paulbradshaw) I have had introductions to some great resources this morning. Firstly, he linked through to the blog post 60 ridiculously useful tools for your blog or website.

If that wasn't enough, I then also spotted Paul's use of polldaddy.com on his Online Journalism Blog. Polldaddy looks like a rather neat little tool for embedding polls and short surveys (for free using the basic account) in blogs and websites. Certainly one that I'll be thinking of using in future.

Thanks Paul!

Evolution of mobile phones

Just spotted this video on YouTube showing the evolution of mobile phones since the 80s. Just goes to show how incredible technology is and just how much we've moved on. How many of these handsets have you owned?

Pitching to bloggers

There has been a great deal of discussion recently about how to pitch to bloggers. Many bloggers are adding PR companies to spam filters in order to stop being pestered by pointless press releases.
I'm currently preparing a new media training session for a client and searching for useful resources to give them. I came across this really great discussion on Matt Haughey's blog about how to pitch to bloggers. Well worth a read.

Crisis Comms Conference - presentations, resources and feedback form now available

As promised at the CIPR Education & Skills Group Crisis Communications conference (6 June 2008), on behalf of the Group Pickle Jar Communications* has created a web space with all of the presentations from the conference, links to additional materials, and the feedback form for the event. All of this content can be accessed here.

We have also set up the blog post below for delegates (and non-delegates) to share comments and ideas from the conference if they so wish.

*The Director of Pickle Jar Communications, Tracy Playle, is the CIPR Education & Skills Sector Group's Vice Chair and Events Officer hence why we are hosting these resources on our website.

Delegates of the Crisis Comms Conference: Keep Talking

There were plenty of ideas being shared at the CIPR's Education & Skills Sector Group Crisis Comms Conference this week (TVU, 6 June). As the Events Officer and Vice Chair of the Group, I thought it might be nice to create a space for those conversations to continue if delegates so wish. I therefore invite you all to post comments in response to this blog post as a way of sharing your thoughts on the conference, sharing ideas and asking questions of other delegates. Please go ahead and hijack my blog for this purpose - you are all very welcome!

Crisis Comms conference a success

I'm back at the desk this morning having been out and about down in London for the past two days. Yesterday, we (we being those of us on the CIPR Education & Skills Sector Group) hosted our crisis communications and new media conference. From previous blog posts, you will know that I was pretty stoked about this conference anyway. However, it exceeded my expectations. Peter Reader, a colleague and friend from the University of Portsmouth, set the conference up excellently with his introduction to crisis communications. Mike Dame from Virginia Tech followed with a presentation of how they handled communications (particularly online) during the shootings on their campus in April 2007 in which 33 people died. I don't think I have ever seen a more focused, engaged audience. We broke for coffee after this session and everyone was very choked and blown-away by the presentation. Alison Arnott followed after coffee. Alison was one of the first media officers on the ground working for BAA when the terrorist attack on Glasgow Airport occurred last year. I learned at dinner the night before that this was Alison's first presentation to such an audience. You wouldn't have known it! She was engaging, and her presentation was so personable and well presented that, yet again, we had a room full of focused delegates. Our committee Chair, Emma Leech, followed on by sharing experiences from MMU of a mix-up over exam venues last year, then Tom Abbott took the reigns for a while talking about the tools of the trade. We then ran four scenario sessions for the delegates to explore. Held in the graveyard slot when everybody must have been getting tired and ready to go home, I was amazed at just how animated our delegates still were. I'm really looking forward to seeing the feedback now and will be posting the slides online shortly as promised.

Does anyone know what the 'P' in PR actually stands for?

I've heard myself over and over again recently explaining to people that aren't particularly familiar with the PR industry that the 'P' in PR stands for 'Public' and not 'Press'. We are not all simply copy-monkeys churning out press releases and trying to win column inches for our clients or employers. Public Relations is exactly as it says on the tin: managing relationships with publics. The media, or more specifically, journalists, might be just one of those publics - one of many I might add!

So, I'm a little disappointed today that Damien McCrystal's article in the Guardian - Don't bite the hand that feeds you - places such emphasis on the media relations role that the PR professional plays. To his credit, he is trying very hard in this article to establish the credibility and the importance of the PR industry in the UK. I applaud him for that and welcome his thoughts and opinion. However, with an industry that has such a poor reputation amongst those that work outside of it, I think we PR professionals should be doing so much more to show the sheer breadth of the work that we do. Yes, relationships with journalists are crucial, but they are not everything. Sadly, to some PR companies and PR Officers they are everything, and their clients and organisations are the worse for it.

I've made a new friend recently. He's an opinionated chap who has moved in with a close friend of mine and thus has joined our social circle. I like him a lot. However, he has made it very clear to me that if we met under any other circumstances than the social circle of which we are part, he would have taken an instant dislike to me. Why? Because I am a 'PR person'. His staunch dislike of PR people is, in my opinion, purely founded on his misunderstanding of the good works that we 'PR people' (or communications professionals, as I prefer to call myself), actually do. We only met a few weeks ago but we've already had several good (and good natured, I might add) debates about the sins of the PR professional. Articles in the popular press that simply reinforce that perception of PR people as column-inch hunters, no matter how well they might try to paint the profession, just don't help us to improve wider perception of our abilities, skills, know-how and contributions to society and industry. We need to do more.

New Handy Guide Published: Get Tweeting

We have just published a new 'handy guide' to the Pickle Jar Communications website. Get Tweeting looks at the marketing communications opportunities for organisations interested in using Twitter.

Twitter drives traffic to the PJC website

I keep saying this and I will say it again - I love Twitter. I am a big fan. This week as I was updating the Pickle Jar Communications website, I was twittering about my progress. This was simply done as an update to what we have been upto at PJC - not with the pure intention of driving traffic to the site because I think you have to be very cautious about this kind of approach to micro-blogging. However, I was delighted to take a look at the web stats and see that by simply tweeting about this, I saw the highest ever peak so far in unique visitors to the site. Interesting how something as simple as 140 characters that took 30 seconds at most to publish can make a difference to site traffic.

'Best Answer' on LinkedIn

I'm delighted. I'm chuffed to bits. I'm estatic ... I'm now an 'expert' on PR on LinkedIn!

If you've been following my blog this week, you might have spotted my post earlier this week pondering just how many questions one should actually answer on LinkedIn. This is because I've began answering questions on LinkedIn in the subject areas that I know best. It's part of my own committment to a) establishing myself and my company as an 'expert' in communications and PR and b) sharing best practice and ideas with other communications and PR professionals, and those engaging with PR, comms and marketing.

So, after answering just a few questions on LinkedIn, I'm somewhat delighted to have had my answer selected as the 'best answer' in a recent question. Then when looking at the question page to see what others had said, I spotted against that this answer gets ranked as 'best answer' in the Change Management category too. Bonus!

I guess what I'm trying to do in this blog post, therefore, is share with you my own journey of how using a service like LinkedIn can help to raise one's profile. In itself, it is a PR/marketing tactic with an altruistic edge.

The outcome of my answer to the PR question is that the person answering the question, Justin Foster of The Tricycle, has also now included my answer in his blog post about the question with a link through to the PJC website (the shiny new PJC website I might add!). It's a great blog post in its own right, so go ahead and take a look.

New Pickle Jar Communications Website Launched

We're delighted to announce that we launched our new website this week. As with any successful website, we aim for it to be an ever evolving project, but we're happy with the results so far. New features include a Twitter feed (anyone reading this blog for a while will know what a big fan I am!), a feed directly from this blog and a 'handy guides' section where we will be providing guides and resources for communications projects. Our guide to preparing for a broadcast media interview is aready there, as is our video project planning sheet. Do visit the website, take a look around and let us know what you thing. www.picklejarcommunications.com

Just how many questions should you answer on LinkedIn?

I use LinkedIn fairly regularly as a means of maintaining and extending my professional network. I've also more recently stepped up my activity on there by answering questions that other members of the community post. I've already had one person tell me that they would like to include my answer in their blog along with a link to my blog and my website, so it clearly does have some merit from a marketing point of view, although I'm as much as interested in just sharing best practice where I can.

However, I thought I was pushing it a bit when I answered three questions on there yesterday afternoon. I thought I ought to calm it otherwise I would be viewed as a serial question-answerer!! Then I checked out the rankings for the number of answers other members of the community had given and one guy had answered 144 questions this week alone (it was only Monday!). So, this begs the question as to whether one can overdo it on this. Surely answering that volume of questions (even though many of his answers were short) means you can be spending more time perusing questions on LinkedIn that actually doing any work or following up new, real leads. Is it possible to become addicted?

Spaceman Steve Loves Pickle Jar Communications

There's no harm in a little bit of silliness on a Monday morning, now, is there?

A good friend of mine has developed his own little 'friend' - Spaceman Steve (don't ask). Spaceman Steve keeps popping up all over the place and this morning, look where he popped up.

It's a novel approach to marketing the business but my friend clearly wanted to show his support for PJC!

Winners of the Fast Forward Challenge

I recently received the photographs from the Fast Forward challenge final that I managed on behalf of Ideas for Life TV. Just because I'm proud of the teams that took part and proud of pulling this series together, I thought I'd share the picture of the winning team from Woodway Park School along with the judges.

New Challenges, New Opportunities: the role of new media in crisis communications

In my role as Events Officer for the CIPR Education and Skills Sector Group, I have been organising a conference on the role that new media plays in crisis communications. I am very excited about this conference because we have such a great line up:

- Peter Reader, University of Portsmouth (and all-round crisis comms guru for the HE sector!)
- Michael Dame, Virginia Tech (yes, we're flying him all the way from the States to talk about their horrendous experience in April 2007)
- Tom Abbott, University of Warwick (new media guru and my personal sounding board!)
- Emma Leech, Manchester Metropolitan University (Chair of CIPR Education and Skills Sector Group and boss of a very very new media savvy team!)
- Alison Arnott, Glasgow Caledonian University (the first BAA media officer on the ground at Glasgow Airport when the flaming jeep crashed into the building)

This is going to be a really exciting event, with a good long session for groups of delegates to plan how to deal with crisis situations that we'll be throwing at them - with an added element of surprise!

Further details are available online here.

If anyone would like a booking form, they can email me to request one: tracy@picklejarcommunications.com

A Right Royal Mess

I had a wry smile to myself today as I read Tariq Tahir's article in the THES, 'The Queen for a Day'.

Reading others' experiences of hosting a royal visit took me back a few years to a former role at the University of Warwick. It's not quite to the scale of Joan Concannon's experience at the University of Dundee, but I'll share my experience anyway ...

Event management was a fairly significant part of my job back then when the Communications Office started receiving calls from the West Midlands High Sheriff's office telling us that the Duke of York would be visiting the University in a few weeks time. Initial reaction seemed to be that this was a hoax. Several calls later everyone began to accept that this was for real and that His Highness would be dropping by for a visit to the University's Science Park. I was quickly drafted onto the organising committee for what was perhaps the most surreal event that I had been involved in organising. Firstly there was the security and deciding where on earth his helicopter should land. Then there was the route, working out which doors to take and timing the visit down to every last second. Then there was the brash academic who needed to be involved in the programme but steadfastly refused to alter his schedule to suit the visit (firm words from the powers-that-be put paid to that). Then, of course, crucially there was the catering (he was stopping in for lunch): a specific brand of bottled water with the caps unopened, and nothing smelly in the sandwiches - strictly no onions or garlic.

Peter, the University's press manager, rightly assumed that the visit wouldn't really attract any press attention but went ahead and invited members of the press anyway as instructed. A few photographers and, if memory serves, Sky News turned up. However, the Duke arrived in the foulest of foul moods, stomped straight past the press and straight into the building. No good coverage that day then!

I spent the initial stages of the visit (while the Duke was being escorted around and presented to by anyone that we had 'guessed' would be of interest to him) dashing around making sure everything was set for lunch and trying to keep the men with the curly wires behind their ears happy! Lunch was hosted in a building with some well-meaning, but over-excited women eager to catch a glimpse of the Prince. The lunch itself felt a little like a wake: very sombre and controlled, with everyone politely munching on quartered sandwiches and sipping tea. By careful manoeuvring I managed to be one of the few people in the room to avoid having to exchange pleasantries with the Prince by pretending to be just too busy making sure everything was running smoothly. That, and hiding behind columns. The thought of having to remember the rules of address, and worse still having to actually do that curtsy for real that I had practised so many times (and that I had had to instruct so many others on) filled me with horror. The suddenly, he was gone. All over. Event disbanded. Not even a celebratory glass of wine and pat on the back as we were acustomed to do at Warwick after a successful event. As I say, it was a surreal day but I understand no where near as surreal as the Presidential visit that Warwick hosted back in 2000. My former colleagues have anecdotes galore from that event - but that's their story to tell (although my personal favorite is the colleague who responded to someone lightly tapping on their shoulder only to turn around face-to-face with Sir Trevor McDonald politely saying that he had lost his ticket and would it still be okay for him to go into the main hall - bless!).

PS Okay, so my title of this blog post is a little unfair - it wasn't really a 'mess' - but I wanted something snappy and it seemed like fun!

Creating good podcasts

I love reading updates from Mashable - the social networking blog - and their posts often provide content for my own blog posts for all the right reasons. Sadly, though, today they're forming a blog post for all the wrong reasons. I decided while grabbing a quick bite to eat this lunchtime to delve into their post 'For the Love of Podcasting' and listen to a few of their podcasts. I was really disappointed. I can see they're aiming for a certain style and tone to these podcasts, but the attention to the quality of production is poor. The introduction is rushed, the sound quality is very bad, they don't tell you (from what I can see) how long each podcast is, and the presenter doesn't sound particularly well prepared. This is such a pity because the content should actually be quite good, and is certainly appealing, but the quality really put me off of listening beyond the first 30 seconds or so of each one that I launched.

So, while podcasts are a form of communications that you can produce yourselves, there are a few basic tricks really worth following in order to make them just that little bit more friendly on your listeners' ears:

• be prepared for your podcast. Have a plan (this doesn't have to be a script - in fact, it's sometimes better if it isn't scripted) of what you are going to say and what you might ask the person you are interviewing
• check correct pronounciations of names, and check job titles of the interviewee before you begin recording
• always log the length of the podcast for your listeners to know just how much time they need to put aside to listening to this
• slow down your speech just a little so that what you are saying is clear
• wherever possible, conduct interviews face-to-face. Using a telephone line isn't ideal but it can be okay if face-to-face or ISDN interviews just aren't possible
• invest in decent recording equipment
• edit your podcast. It's well worth spending just a little time cutting out some of those ums and ahs or even full questions and answers that just haven't quite worked to make the podcast flow better
• CIPR members should also check out Karen Ainley's guide to podcasting for PR in the member area of the CIPR website (under PR guides).
  

Blocking PR 'spam'

It's funny that as a PR professional I rarely see any pitch that I deliver to a journalist or blogger for that matter as 'spam'. This is because I always do my homework and would only send a release to a journalist or blogger who are writing about the same subject area that the release is in. However, this blog post today shows just how annoying some PR agencies are potentially being in their approach to bloggers. So much so that people are beginning to develop spam filters to specifically block emails from particular PR agencies. Ouch! You really wouldn't want to be on that blacklist.

Interestingly, I also received an alleged 'press release' into my own inbox today. Slightly bizarre given that I'm a PR professional. I'm used to sending them, not receiving them. I don't quite know how I received this one or why I was on their mailing list. Maybe they found me through my blog and thought I might give them a mention. Basically, it's for a new website about eco-living, from what I can see. However, the press release is just so bad for the following reasons that I just don't think they deserve a mention:

1. It was sent as a pdf attachment (strong rule of good PR - don't send unsolicited attachments!)
2. The covering email was not personalised - pure laziness (or sign of bulk emails)
3. The alleged 'press release' provided me with hardly any information
4. It felt and looked far more like an advert than a press release.
   

Multimedia PR flying high

Scott Berinato's post, Delta-Northwest Create the Press Release of the Future, on the Harvard Conversation Starter blog highlights an exemplary use of a micro-site for PR purposes. In my mind this is a great example of a multimedia release. Clear thought has been given to the stakeholders and communicating direct with key groups (staff, customers, communities), but this is also coupled with an excellent news centre with extensive quotes, web videos available for use, broadcast-quality video clips available to access, audio clips for download, and a great selection of images too. This is a great example of best practice for such issues, and one that really isn't difficult to replicate by other organisations with a bit of foresight and a modest budget - it really need not cost a lot of money, and I expect many organisations would see significant return for investing in a site like this for certain issues.

A real tweet for PROs

Just following on from my recent Twitter addiction, here's a great post today from Mashable on how to monitor 'tweets' and use them to manage your brand.

Let's consider the application of this, for example, for a university. Say a prospective student tweets that they're trying to find information on a particular course, or trying to find something out about your university. Perhaps that piece of information isn't readily available online, or it is available but well hidden. That university could then respond by either quickly putting the relevant piece of information up on their site, and provide a link back to the person who tweeted in the first place, or by supplying the link to that person. Surely this is just basic social media monitoring that all universities and similar organisations should be doing, but perhaps don't yet have the time and resources to manage.

A del.icio.us solution!

Really useful blog post here on how the Missouri University of Science and Technology are using del.icio.us to help them evaluate online coverage of their brand.

Twittering away

I've been prompted to think a lot about Twitter today.

Firstly, there's a great post on how Twitter can be used by journalists on ReadWriteWeb today. Really insightful article that I think shows the next step that journalism might take. Firstly journalism had to take the step from print to online, then from merely linear one-way online communication to blogs, and now from interactive 2-way communications to multiple-platform communications. Could this be the end of the 'article' as we know it? Instead journalism and articles as such might span across multiple platforms instead of being a single piece of copy on a single page.

Then I followed a link through from one of the comments to a nice little article on Marketing Vox on how to use Twitter to Build Brand Integrity. This got me thinking about the education sector in particular and how Vice Chancellors of universities, many of whom have been reluctant to engage with blogs, could instead use Twitter as a means of communicating with their students, giving themselves a 'presence' on campus even when they're not physically there, and giving them and their institutions a more friendly face.

Finally I came back to thinking about potential uses for Twitter for Crisis Communications again. At the CIPR Education & Skills Sector Group we're currently putting the final touches to a conference on crisis comms and new media. I'm working with one of the speakers to help develop a 'how to' session, and I think we need to do a step-by-step walk through of Twitter for our audience. This one is a no-brainer as far as I am concerned.

Now I just need to decide the best use of Twitter for PJC! I've been a little slow with keeping it updated so far but am sure I'll pick up momentum soon.

Just a nice, innocent viral marketing video

I rather like this viral marketing video doing the rounds from HP, so just thought I would share it even further. Really is the key to viral marketing videos - keep it simple, clever, entertaining, fun and something that makes you smile and want to share with others. This does the trick ... and my post is evidence of that.

Stitcher

This just might be genius.

US-based company Stitcher are launching a customisable radio facility for use on mobile phones. Initially being rolled out on the iPhone, the player will allow you to syndicate audio content that you want to listen to - a bit like an RSS reader for audio, I guess. Quite rightly so they're pitching this at commuters, offering them a way of getting digests from their favorite audio content sources back to back while on the move. Check out the 'about' section on their site, and also read the Mashable blog article about this.

Daytime delights

Apologies for the little absence from the blog over the past few days. I've been poorly for a few days and, unable to stare at the computer screen without feeling nauseous (nothing to do with the content, purely to do with feeling ill, I might add). So, I've had my feet up and been off-and-on enjoying the delights of daytime TV. I thought I'd just share my top 3 daytime TV observations/moments from the past few days:

1. The home makeover show where a man had painted his 3-year old daughter's bedroom the same colour (all over) as the Pickle Jar Communications logo. The 'stylist' referred to it (in Canadian accent) as 'advocado barf' (barf as in 'puke' not 'bath'). Perhaps not so good for a 3-year old girl's room, but, hmmm, where can I buy some for PJC HQ?!
2. The fact that on 'Bargain Hunt', the programme where two teams have to buy items that then get sold on at auction, seems to celebrate people making a loss! I forced myself (forced, I tell you) to watch 3 or 4 episodes of this bizarre gem of British TV and not once did any of the teams make a profit or break-even. Boy did they celebrate their loss-making wins! What a great way to teach out-of-work people great business practice - make a loss and get a big pat on the back and told how well you have done. I think they need to bring Alan Sugar in to guest host an episode or two.
   
3. Trevor Williams, Chief Economist for Lloyds TSB on the lunchtime BBC news on Monday wearing the narrowest vertical stripes in just about every direction he could. I really need to get my hands on this clip for my 'What to Wear' sections of my 'Working with Broadcast Media' training sessions. Not good for the nauseous viewer though.
   

Facebook Chat

Facebook have announced the launch of Facebook Chat, the instant messaging service for facebook users to communicate with their friends logged on to their profiles. I have to express a few reservations, however, about this new service.

First and foremost, I'm already a fairly avid user of Windows Live Messenger. I have a handful of contacts set up and that's about manageable. These tend to be fairly close friends or colleagues. For me facebook serves a completely other purpose - keeping in touch with people that I'm not necessarily likely to have (or want) daily or even weekly conversations with. As such, I'm not entirely seeing the point of Facebook Chat. I can understand why they have done it, and admit that I may well change my mind in a few months time once I have a go, but for now I remain a little unsure.

Be Patient

Do 'patients' exist any more in the UK health and social care sector? I've been out of the office for most of this week working on a video project for the health, social and child care sector and not one of the people working in health care were allowed to refer to the people that they work with (or on behalf of) as 'patients'. Instead, they are referred to as 'service users', 'clients' and 'customers'. Yes, I appreciate that the NHS wants to foster a culture of 'customer service', and rightly so too, but what's so wrong with the word 'patient'?

What a clog!

Julia Finch reports in today's Guardian of yesterday's drop in share prices at Tesco being largely the consequence of a little too much information provided in Simon Uwins' 'Fresh & Easy' blog. According to Finch, traders blamed yesterday's drop in share price by 11.25p on Uwins' blog post of 26 March, Pausing for Breath at Fresh & Easy. Tricky one from a communications point of view. Uwins is suggesting in his post that the reason they are slowing down the new openings of new stores (or 'taking a break') is to allow them time to listen to customer feedback and respond or make the relevant changes. Good PR practice on the one hand. In fact, excellent PR practice following the correct 2-way communications, feedback, revision, rollout cycle. Perhaps not such good PR practice from a business point of view though if his post genuinely did assist in the fall of the share price. What a lovely case study for a PR student somewhere to take a look at! Hint: there might be something slightly amiss at stage 3 of Cutlip, Center and Brooms' PR planning cycle in this case study.

Digital Media for Business

As part of the work we've been doing for Ideas for Life TV, we were recently involved in a conference on digital media for business hosted at Alton Towers (18 March). Working with Ember Regis, we interviewed the key speakers from the event. Two of them were specifically speaking about how digital media can be used to communicate science and can be used by business. Both videos are available below. The first features Magic Lantern Chief Executive, Anthony Lilley, while the second is an interview with Adam Rutherford, online editor for Nature.

Social networking in Asia

Spotted the link to this on ReadWriteWeb and thought it worth including here. Pity that the presentation doesn't have audio, but the slides do largely speak for themselves.

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Video production for PARD programme at WMG

Pickle Jar Communications was contracted earlier this year by WMG at the University of Warwick to oversee the production of a video promoting the successes of the various projects within the Premium Automotive Research and Development (PARD) programme. We worked with @Warblefly Productions, Eight Eyed Sea Bass and Mustard Design to co-ordinate the final package - a 20 minute video and DVD packaging with 2000 copies supplied. Our colleagues at Eight Eyed Sea Bass have kindly popped the video online, and we are able to embed it here:

WMG Innovative Solutions
Uploaded by EESB

Pickle Jar Communications worked with the team at PARD to develop the video brief, then worked closely with the production team to develop the concept. We were responsible for organising all filming, scheduling a very tight 3-day shoot, then overseeing the edit process for delivery of the final DVDs in time for a conference that the PARD team had organised where the DVDs were to be distributed. The entire project was turned around in just 6 weeks from proposal to final delivery.

Another brick in the wall

It's all about the kids today. What are they doing online? How can we make the web and video games safer? The launch of the report of the Byron Review is of course welcomed by most people - parents in particular, I suspect. The report itself acknowledges that "headlines have contributed to the climate of anxiety that surrounds new technology and created a fiercely polarised debate in which panic and fear often drown out evidence" (Byron Review, Foreword) but I fear that the press reports surrounding the publication of the review will simply serve to heighten those anxieties even further. The fact that the report calls for a strategy for e-safety for children, which is of course what the press will report on, in itself seems to me to say that the world wide web is an unsafe place. The emphasis is on the negative. Why isn't there, for example, a strategy being launched on the educational value of the web for children? Why should parents be educated to protect their children in an online environment, but not at the same time also be educated on how to support their children productively use the web to influence their education and development. Don't get me wrong, I don't for one second see the web through rose-tinted spectacles, and the dangers to children do need to be addressed. However, they need to be addressed in a balanced context that also embraces the positives and I sincerely hope that the new strategy will achieve this.

But it isn't just what our kids are reading or doing online today that has hit the headlines. What they are reading offline is also of interest as The Guardian reports on the Read Up, Fed Up: Exploring Teenage Reading Habits in the UK Today study also published today which looks at the reading preferences for 11-14 year olds. As someone with two degrees in literature but not exactly what you would call a bookworm as a child (I think I finally managed to read The Bell Jar and The Catcher in the Rye at around aged 15 or 16 - my introductions to really great literature!), the reading patterns of young people fascinates me. I'm disgusted to learn, for example, that Heat magazine is the most loved read for this age group. However, at number four is blogs, showing an excellent example in my opinion of why the web is an excellent educational space for young people - encouraging them to write, debate and digest other people's opinions. I'm slightly suprised that facebook ranks so low in this age groups' opinions (it is number nine on their most loathed reads), but maybe that's just a clear sign of how us 'oldies' just don't understand the content that makes young people tick - although I know plenty of well-educated 'oldies' too that would probably rate Heat magazine as one of their favorite reads. But I do have to applaud the youngsters that participated in this poll for putting BBC Online in their top 10 most loved reads. Isn't it great to see young people engaging with news, current affairs, world affairs and fantastic educational resources? Perhaps this needs to be taken on board when the government come to writing their e-safety strategy.

University Open Days in Second Life

The BBC reported this week that Liverpool John Moore's University (LJMU) is hosting an open day for prospective students in Second Life.

I have been involved in a number of conversations over the past couple of years with colleagues throughout the HE sector about hosting open days in Second Life. If truth be told, it's a no-brainer and if the popularity of Second Life continues (and at this moment in time I'm not entirely sure where it is going) then all universities will begin to take this approach.

However, what worries me about the reports from LJMU is that the campus that they (or in this case some of their students) have created is not a true representation of the actual campus. Some of the buildings are virtual replicas, but others are reported to be fictional spaces that students would like to see built on their campus, such as halls of residence with their own swimming pools. Designed to be 'talking points' amongst the student amassadors and prospective students, I fear that with language barriers in place amongst even some of the best English-speaking prospective students from overseas, these fictional buildings could be mistaken by some as representations of real buildings and create a false reality.

If Second Life is to become a widely used tool for marketing universities to overseas students I think a few simple rules of best practice need to be observed by the creators of those virtual spaces:

• keep it true to life. If you are including buildings that are either planned to be developed or complete fictions then these need to be very clearly labelled as so, and in a language that is concise and not open to misinterpretation by those who do not speak English as their mother-tongue;
• if you have 'student ambassadors' there to speak with potential students, then you need to be true to their genuine personality and not have marketing or communications folk 'posing' as students, which would be very easy to do in this false environment;
• when advertising a virtual open day you again need to be clear and upfront (in a language or languages that cannot be open to misinterpretation) about what will be available for visitors to see, and whether it is a genuine representation or not;
• don't ever see Second Life as a suitable replacement for actual visits to a campus. I have visited a vast number of university campuses over the years and nothing quite sells a university so well as the atmosphere that its people can create (a sunny day always helps too of course!). Second Life really does open up opportunities that standard print prospectuses or online 360 degree tours just can't offer, and this is an important step for overseas student recruitment, but nothing quite beats one-to-one communication in person on a real campus and I really hope that universities don't ever begin to see this as a replacement for that level of contact.