I love to hate you...

Sally Whittle posted recently on “Things journalists hate #1: The invisible PR”

I see her point. It must be incredibly frustrating when you need to get certain information by a certain time in order to do your job. Why don’t people provide even the most basic contact information? I’m continually asking clients to ensure they have some form of contact for Lighthouse on their sites and more often than not the email format clientname @ lighthousepr.com will usually get you a quick response from any one of the team.

Now, not wishing to start a row, but I’ve got a “Things PR’s hate” of my own. The past couple of weeks I have mostly been suffering from the effects of “The disappearing journalist”. We’ve all been there. You get hold of a journo and make your well thought out and tailored pitch. They love it (of course) and (with some too-ing and fro-ing over time and date) a meeting is set up. Magic

One fully briefed and psyched up client later and...no answer from journalist. Now everyone’s schedule changes and in this industry it is a last minute saloon at times. But does it hurt to drop a quick email or make a quick call to let us know? Otherwise we end up hitting redial for three hours until we find out what happened…and then have to set it up all over again…

There you are, rant over. Off to staff a briefing - I hope!

The future is Tweet for PR in the Blogosphere

My colleague returned from her morning jaunt to KMP’s Future of PR Technology Seminar Twittering about blogs and all things Web 2.0. Sounds like I missed a treat. I’m looking forward to getting the full low down from her.

There were keynotes from
- Bill Daring of KMP on PR 2.0 and the social media release
- Paul Fabretti of KMP on corporate blogging
- Stuart Bruce of Wolfstar on the growth of social media with the realms of PR

It sounds like they spoke the truth - the way we consume media is changing and as a part of that, the way we create, disseminate and digest news is as well. Like it or not, as a PR, I'm going to have to change too!

It sounds like the key message really was use it or lose it. PR agencies, especially in the tech sector, can no longer afford to be blasé about the role of social media in PR. It must be seen as an integral part of the programme. Those who aren’t willing to take the plunge are likely to suffer the consequences, especially in this belt-tightening economic climate.

Ye have been warned!

Paranoid Android

It looks like we could be in for an interesting time in the telco space. Nokia has just announced its intention to buy-out the other share-holders at Symbian in order to develop its software to compete with Android, see the full story on the Beeb.


Good news, I think, that we don't face pure Google domination. It'll be an interesting race to market - and to provide a product that works.

Where to begin?

I've been staring at the screen for ages trying to work out where to start. The first post on a shiny new blog is going to set the tone for the rest - that's a bit scary. I guess I'll just go for it!

Have you ever been in a business meeting that makes you either cringe or stifle laughter? My first ever client meeting did exactly this. It was a fairly average meeting on the face of it, I was trying to prove to my two MDs that I was a great hire and convince the client that I was mature and knowledgeable. All was going well until the Bristol accented client said, “I understand, softly, softly catchy monkey” (in the style of Gareth from The Office).

It’s been pretty much down hill from then on, although my poker face is vastly improved with the practise. I've found a fairly good rule of thumb is - the bigger the company (client or PR agency) the more crap phrases get bandied about, though they’ve never sounded quite as funny as that first time. But why is that? Is it an ego thing or do people generally think talking like David Brent makes you come across as more savvy?! Here are some of my hot favourites:

You don’t have to boil the ocean – um….what? I boiled some salt water in chemistry class once but it never occurred to me to pursue it any further
Blue sky thinking – apparently not an excuse to drift off into a lovely day dream (try it at your peril)
Picking the low hanging fruit – seems a lot of my clients spend time discussing time spent in orchards
EOP – come on, there had to be an acronym in here somewhere. Why say end of play? Do some people actually think of their time in the office as play?

In a business environment where we are constantly working to simplify the discussion of technology and make it accessible to people who aren’t geeks, I just don’t see the need to complicate our everyday conversation.