Birmingham Twestival, sponsored by Pickle Jar Communications

I wouldn't ordinarily post a press release here as it isn't the most appropriate format for a blog. However, as we are sponsoring the Birmingham Twestival, I thought I'd indulge myself a little and include the press release here:

BIRMINGHAM TO JOIN 100 CITIES ACROSS THE WORLD IN FUNDRAISING ‘TWESTIVAL‘

On February 12th 2009 Birmingham is joining with over 175 cities around the world to host the Midland’s biggest ‘Twestival’, a volunteer-run fundraising event for people who use the micro-blogging service Twitter. BrumTwestival will be held at Poppyred in the Arcadian Centre from 7.30pm, and will see Birmingham join over 175 confirmed cities world-wide in a night of fundraising. The global event, described as “a ‘tweet up’ with a social conscience” will be raising money to support charity:water a not-for-profit bringing clean water to people in developing nations.

With members including Barak Obama, Stephen Fry and Jonathon Ross, Twitter is quickly growing to become a world-wide online phenomenon. The network allows users to update other members who are ‘following’ them online with details of what they are doing in 140 characters or less. As Twitter’s user network has grown, the community has also been the first to publish breaking news online, with members ‘twittering’ updates on unfolding events before journalists have reported on them.

Birmingham’s Twestival will give twitterers across the West Midlands the opportunity to come together in the spirit of fun, change, charity and global communication. Over 100 guests have confirmed their attendance at the event, and more tickets are to be released shortly to meet demand. Birmingham has a very active social media community and this has grown through Twitter to include users from a variety of backgrounds including politicians, University staff, artists and bloggers.

Birmingham Twestival has been organised by volunteer Twitter members who work for a wide range of local businesses. John Newbold, creative director of 383 Project and one of the Twestival organisers commented: “Twitter has grown across the West Midlands to become a really exciting community. It has enabled me to connect with a network of other users from with a variety of backgrounds and occupations within the city and get to know people I may not have met otherwise. Twestival is not only a great opportunity to bring the online community together offline, but unites Birmingham with other participating cities across the world in a common aim. Twitter will allow us to join other cities throughout the day with live updates and coverage of the events.

“As social and business networks grow, online communities are becoming increasingly popular ways to stay in touch and up-to-date. It is rare for people who engage online to have the opportunity to meet face-to-face, and I’m delighted that Twestival will make this possible for so many local users.”

Birmingham Twestival is sponsored by Pickle Jar Communications, the Coventry-based communications consultancy specialising in new and broadcast media, and Bostin, original t-shirt producers and promoters of pride in Birmingham, the Black Country and beyond. Tracy Playle, Director of Pickle Jar Communications commented: “I’ve been using Twitter for personal and business use now for several months. The power to build communities through social media, such as Twitter, is significant and important for small and large businesses alike. We spend a lot of time advising others on how to use tools like Twitter to build communities of interest, and possible business opportunities, so it only seems fitting that we would want to support the biggest Twestival in the Midlands.”

Managing director of Bostin, Donato Esposito added: “Twestival is a fantastic development to Twitter, and I welcomed the opportunity to support such an important charity.”

As well as raising money through ticket sales and donations, a range of raffle prizes donated by local businesses and Twitter members will be auctioned at the event. All guests will also be automatically entered into a main prize draw to win a Nintendo Wii.

The event will begin at 7.30pm. A limited number of remaining tickets are available at www.birmingham.twestival.com

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

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.

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'?

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.

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.

Fast Forward to the End

Tomorrow we're holding the final of the Fast Forward series for Ideas for Life TV. Not only have I been production manager for this project, but I have also had to be event manager too pulling together all the various strands to make it work. I have to say, I'm feeling quite sad that it all wraps up tomorrow (with the exception of one further piece that we need to film with another company). On the plus side, I will be able to stop working silly hours for a short while, my house actually might get cleaned this weekend, and I will really get to see just how far our teams have come along. It's been an interesting experiment in science communication and I'll reflect more on that soon, but for now I need to get back into those last minute preparations for the final. The prizes for the kids have started to arrive at my door now and I think there's another delivery man knocking at the door right now ...

Where have all the ties gone?

I think my partner might be getting a little suspicious about where all of his ties keep disappearing to. You see, without him knowing, I have been secretly stealing them (not such a secret once he sees this) for a training session that I am delivering in a couple of weeks time. The session is entitled "Working with Broadcast Media" and is designed for a small group of academics not as media training, but to get them thinking about how they might work with various types of broadcast media to communicate (or dare I say it, publicise) their research. Whenever I deliver presentations or training on this particular subject I love doing a turn on what not to wear (or what to wear), but this time I've decided that it really needs props. As such I am currently hunting down the following items:

- a classic white lab coat (preferably one bearing a University logo): the staple attire of all scientists on TV (and they never bother to iron out the creases of that lab coat that the press officer has just handed them!)

- a bright bold jumper: I have just the one in mind but the academic that I saw wearing it on TV once probably wouldn't lend it to me for this purpose. I don't remember what his research was about but, boy, do I remember that jumper!

- ties with tiny detailed patterns (particularly where the weave of the fabric is made obvious to look nice): particularly hard on the eye on video watched online

- anything in tweed: looks great for an autumn-winter season ladies suit, but not friendly to the camera

- small pin-stripes: again, not so good for online video

- a big pair of earrings: hmmm, might have some of these in my own jewellery box!

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!

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.