Fast Forward launches on Ideas for Life TV

The Fast Forward series that we are working on launched this week on Ideas for Life TV.

I've embedded episode 1 directly from Ideas for Life TV below. It might take a little while to play (don't forget to hit the play button!) but bear with it to meet the kids and find out about their challenge!



The rest of the series is progressing nicely and we now have some exciting judges lined up for the grand final to the challenge on 22nd February. Episodes will be released roughly speaking every week from now until March.

Building Contacts with International Media

I'm going to be chairing the CIPR Education & Skills Sector Group's event on Building Contacts with International Media on the 26th February. It should be an interesting event and we already have lots of people signing up to attend. So now I have the challenge of deciding what questions to ask them, what way to steer the discussion ... and how to claw things back if the discussion goes off on a tangent. Some initial and very obvious thoughts for questions to the panel include:

1. How to get the stories to overseas media (distribution methods, is email okay, what services are there to use to help with this)
2. Where to begin with building contacts - are UK-based correspondents a good 'route-in' as such?
3. Can language be a barrier?
4. Do different countries have different conventions in terms of writing and issuing press releases?
5. What kind of stories should we be trying to place with international media?
6. How can we monitor pick-up of stories in overseas media?
7. Perhaps encourage the panel and members of the audience to share experiences or anecdotes about working with overseas media.
   

Best Public Speaker?

Well, according to my peers - that is, according to people who have bothered to do the compare friends thing on facebook - I am now the best public speaker (and the hardest worker)! Love it. Very funny. Isn't it nice to find out nice things that other people think about you. However, previously I was, again according to my peers, the best singer! Oh if only they have ever heard me singing (which I can assure you they will have not).

Off the Autosport show tomorrow to do some filming for Fast Forward - ah it's a tough job!

Fast Forward

The Fast Forward series that we have been working on for Ideas for Life TV is now coming along nicely, with just 5 days until the site and series launch - it's all really rather exciting! We now have episodes complete introducing the teams, and showcasing the University of Warwick's eco-one project. Filming was complete on Monday at Coventry-based Modec, and this weekend we're off to the Autosport Show at the NEC to finish our item on the Westfield hybrid sportscar and hopefully start working on a piece on the Concept Climax car. Then it's back for an update with our school teams on Monday. It's all happening!

Online on TV, and TV Online ...

I read somewhere (wish I could remember where so I could be an efficient blogger and provide the link!) that someone predicts that 2008 will be the year for online video to stop being overrun by naff home-movies and kids doing starwars impressions in their bedrooms or falling off their skateboards, and move towards the more polished production standards that we expect of TV. How funny, then, that one of the first programmes I watch on television in 2008 is Lenny Henry.tv - the BBC show that basically shows back to back online video clips - mostly shot on somone's home camera and edited (if edited at all!) in a bedroom somewhere. I wonder what way it will really go. I'm an advocate for good quality online video productions (but then I'm biased!). Maybe instead of online video standards aligning themselves more with television production standards, it just might (just!) go the other way if this programme is anything to go by.

Facebook for Pickle Jar Communications

Another exciting (ha!) development for 2008 - Pickle Jar Communications' facebook page. We already have an incredible 6 fans! So now the challenge for 2008 is to decide how exactly to use our facebook page, and how to make it work for us to market the business, and to share information and ideas with our clients, colleagues and friends. There are plenty of business models for which this is an excellent way to promote themselves an to communicate with key stakeholders, but for a small consultancy like ours it's a challenge to find ways to also make this work for us.

Random Musings

Crikey that was a quick month! Here at Pickle Jar it's been a busy December and start to January. Lots of time spent planning video shoots, coming up with ideas for clients, working to win new business, and generally running around putting lots of work in! All good!

So what does 2008 hold for Pickle Jar Communications?

Well, the year has already started busy and with an optimistic outlook. We have a few proposals out there, more underway, and existing projects keeping us busy! The 11-part Fast Forward series that we've been managing the production of for Ideas for Life TV (the new Birmingham Science City broadband channel) will launch mid-January, and the series is already nicely underway, with a couple of episodes already in the can and 3 more due to be completed this week (busy week!). Here's hoping that 2008, our first full year of business, will continue as the year has started.