"I carried a watermelon"

Spotted today:

The producers of the stage show Dirty Dancing are running the competition to end all competitions. the first 10 people to carry a watermelon into the Aldwych Theatre on Monday 4th August at 10am - National Watermelon Day (of course) - will win free top price tickets for the show that night.

A fan of Dirty Dancing or not - what a great way to promote National Watermelon Day. If the boss will let me out I'll be there!

Bad Apple

An interesting move by Apple this week has seen them launch the MobileMe blog. This is effectively a way for Apple to update users of issues and fixes to the Mobile ME "cloud computing" offering that launched two weeks ago and has gone, by all accounts, from bad to worse.

Blogs are increasingly being recognised as a great form of communication between a company and its customers, but this has largely been with a view to spinning out positive stories. It'll be interesting to see if Apple's move is strong enough to counter the negativity in the general media.

Sunshine and Silliness

Out comes the sunshine and out comes the silliness. Lots of cracking stories from the weekend, not least the one about streakers at the Cartier International polo match, which was only slightly less covered than this weekends top news story - the theft and subsequent return of David Cameron's bike!

We'll be watching out for silly season PR stories over the coming month - if you spot any let me know!

The C Word

You may have noticed a new link on the left of this page - if not, please look now and notice it!

I've taken up the challenge and I'm going to run 10K in October this year, alongside one of my brothers and my mum. If you've ever met me or my family you'll understand that we're not sporty in anyway and this is a massive challenge for us.

It doesn't seem like much when there are people like Adrian out there battling for better education on bone marrow, meeting Gordon Brown for the second time and getting birthday wishes from Ed Balls! But in the words of Tesco (event sponsor)...every little helps!

So if you can spare £2 between now and October to help me on my way I'd be entirely chuffed to bits.

The Times gets more tech

My colleagues graced the doors of Edelman's new swanky offices yesterday evening for Fullrun's Talking Shop. Whether it was the pull of The Times or the reduced tickets, PRs turned out in force to hear Jonathan Richards, Lilly Peel and Mike Harvey talk about their day-to-day experiences, likes and dislikes and recent developments at The Times.

The good news for tech PR is that Mike Harvey’s appointment as the US tech correspondent is a clear signal that The Times is planning on running more technology stories going forward.

Takeaways from the event included the issue of embargoing, when to do it, how much notice to give and equally the faux pas made by PRs. To all those non-digitally minded, 0.01AM means 0.01AM, and will go up online at that time. If you don’t want the story to run until the morning’s paper - say that.

Highlight of the evening - Will Sturgeon forgetting that he worked for Lewis PR and proclaiming that he was from Silicon. Will, I assure you it was "with" you and not "at" you!

Directionally challenged?!

VNU has written up a brilliant story from DirectLine. This hit close to home with me as this weekend I was on a road trip down to Dorset for my friend Lisa's hen party. I have to say the SatNav we used was pretty questionable with its directions; it was unclear about turnings, took us through a pedestrianised area in the centre of a town (an old man shook his walking stick at us - it was quite scary) and in the middle of a country lane told us with glee that we had "reached your destination". Luckily I was able to phone the place we were staying - a random farm house spa - to get directions while Laura drove us to the door.

Having asked around the office we've had a fair few incidents involving SatNav's and one way streets, and one of my colleagues was told to turn around…while on the M1. Don't worry - she didn't.

We do tend to rely on technology more than ever before to get us from one place to another, I use Journey Planner every time I'm looking to get across London. However, there is no need to lose our heads and ignore the signs around us and forget the rules of the road just because some man with a faux American accents it yelling "turn left" at us in a street where turning left leads you into a river.

Read all about it - IT Week to cease publication

Word has reached the ears of Lighthouse PR that IT Week, and its recent revamp, are to be no more. The last issue will be 28th July!

What will happen to our lovely journalist friends there...according to my sources that is still TBD although it is possible that Computing will benefit from their talents.

When Incisive bought up VNU there was talk of it being a "buy up and shut down" operation and it looks like this may be the start. Who will be next for the chop?

The trend has been veering towards online publications with the launches of ComputerWorldUK by Mike Simons and IT PRO from Chris Green, but does this mean there is no market for hard copy publications any more?

Thoughts on a postcard, or the comment tab. I'll update if I hear more!

The weather outside is....meh

Days like today are pretty rubbish. The weather can't make up its mind what its doing and the result is that people everywhere tend to be a shade worse mood than normal. Personally I like a good bit or rain and the odd thunderstorm, even if it does have to happen in the middle of June, but this in between stuff is just, well, meh. (it's a word)

However, it is July, and instead of belting out The sun has got his hat on - as you do - we're still singing about Umbrella-ella-ella-ella's. Which is just plain wrong.

Fortunately I'm a glass half full kinda girl and I've found this site to help me prove to you all that the weather isn't so bad after all. Check out "Weather Hot Spot" ... and be grateful that all we have is a lot of grey sky and a sprinkling of rain. It'll cheer you up anytime!

To roam or not to roam? That is the question

The lovely chaps at Silicon have published the news that Viviane Reding, EU telecoms commissioner will outline plans today to cut roaming rates on mobiles. The full story, originally by Reuters, can be seen here, but essentially it looks like they plan to cut the price of text messages by 70 per cent and extend price caps on voice calls for another three years.

On the face of it, it looks like a great move from the consumer point of view. We are so used to getting a mix of free calls and texts in the UK, but it can be a bit of a shocker when the bill comes in from abroad, especially if you are away without that special someone - or you just need to keep checking in on the puppy who’s probably being spoilt rotten by the dog-sitter, but you miss her anyway.

However, operators are already having to find new ways of making money as voice and SMS are generally expected to be 'free' under the terms of a contract and they need to make money somehow. Although roaming makes up only 1 per cent of their revenues the long term impact is likely to come back to bite the consumer in the proverbial rear in terms of higher handset costs or contract agreements. Of course there are data rich applications coming into their own that give operators a new revenue stream, but uptake of these has been relatively slow, even the widespread addiction to Facebook hasn't driven much more mobile internet usage just yet.

We'll have to see what the operators do to compensate.

Snaps for Lighthouse

Yes, as you can tell I did get sucked into watching Legally Blonde 2 at the weekend. I can't justify it, but I love it.

It inspired me to have a "snap cup" moment for some of the lovely folk here at Lighthouse as we seem to have had a bumper couple of weeks with some fab results.

• Snaps for Claire who got a 100 per cent hit rate on her financial analyst outreach for a key client and still manages to maintain her rigorous sporting regime ahead of her Olympic standard triathlon this coming weekend



• Snaps for Bex who led up an awesome research campaign for her client resulting in an outstanding 40 pieces of coverage while supporting the work experience peeps and learning some interesting yoga manoeuvres



• Snaps for Ruth and me for converting an important project client into a retainer client and also to Ruth for surviving the "weekend from hell" and me for completing my 5K and signing up for a 10K (argh)

I feel all warm and fuzzy now

Whatta guy

If you haven't checked out the blog of Adrian Sudbury - Blady's Blog - you definitely should.

Adrian in one word? Incredible.

He is taking the serious issue of bone marrow transplant education and literally making it his life mission. I read his blog in total awe every day. Can you believe that in the 2 months since I met him he has literally put this issue on the political agenda, even meeting face to face with Gordon Brown!!

I find it incredible that anyone has that kind of strength and it's just so humbling. Anyone reading this - go now and sign up to his petition. NOW

GO ADE! WOO

Policitally Correct?

When I saw June Sarpong was heading up a new website it didn't inspire me to have a look. But then Darren Waters "tweeted" about it and I thought, ok I'll have a look. Politics and The City has apparently been created to enable women to be more "included" in the world of politics. Sounds interesting…

Personally I think it’s a patronising pile of *@#?

Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather get my political/news information from a source that engages me in a tone that doesn’t suggest my interests can be swayed by some pretty lipstick and vacuous ramblings.

True - politics can be a little inaccessible and news sources do hold political sway. But anyone who is interested can afford 10 minutes to compare sources such as Sky News and The Daily Telegraph to get a rounded view.
False - not all women want to know the latest fashion trend/celebrity gossip all the time

Now I'm not a raging feminist, I shan't be protesting and burning my bra over this, but I just can't understand the thought process that went into thinking this would be a good political sounding board for women.

We don't need no education

The Swiss Institute of Technology, Google and IBM have conducted a study and found 600 million users have not updated their browsers leaving them vulnerable to risk as they haven't got the most up to date security patches. Once again the Beeb has the whole story. Personally, I'm not surprised and I doubt it was a big shock to many others. More often than not when I do get an automated update alert its when I'm in the middle of something and I ignore it. Now, being a bit of a geek (but don't tell anyone), I do know the importance of doing these updates and they do get done. But if an average PC user isn't au fait with why they are getting these alerts then why should they do it?

Most larger organisations do centralise their IT and therefore get security and patches rolled out on a regular basis. However, that is still leaving a vast number of companies - as well as staff who use home PC's for work purposes - vulnerable. It is vital that companies really get up to speed on educating their staff on IT security and ensuring it is followed, otherwise they continue to put themselves at risk. It is unfair to put the onus on staff to ensure data protection if you won't invest time showing them how to do it. At Lighthouse we are often talking to clients about the breaking stories around data loss and vulnerability, and as a tech PR agency we are more aware of security best practices. However, you can't expect the employees of a talent recruitment company, for example, to have a full understanding of IT when it is nothing to do with their working skill set.

Some days it feels like we can't do anything with a computer without it causing some kind of security risk, but ensuring staff have a full understanding of IT goes a long way to making sure that risk is minimised.

Girding our loins as the crunch bites…

£1.25 billion wiped off Marks & Spencer’s value and unsurprisingly it’s plastered all over the news today. It’s heart warming to see that the retailer is still regarded as the high street barometer – but sad to learn that our love affair with M&S food is fast waning. I wonder if Sir Stuart was tucking into an Oakham Chicken when he got the call to pitch up for Newsnight last night?

But It’s Not Just M&S we’re falling out of love with. Over in the US, Starbucks is on its uppers as it goes ahead with plans to shut 500 stores after a 28% drop in profits in the last year…

Strange that our leisure spending shows no sign of slowing – how much is being spent on strawberries and champagne at Wimbledon right now, not to mention Pimms at Henley, or oysters at Royal Ascot not so long ago? One thing is for certain and don’t get excited just yet you discount retailers - if we have to gird our loins for further dismal evidence of the credit crunch, then we’re well prepared - M&S lingerie will be able to weather any financial storm.

60 pieces of sushi, some muscle flexing and yoga…

Is this the stuff that tennis winners are now made of? Well, only time will tell as Murray gears himself up for the quarter finals against Nadal.

What an opening week the 21 year old has had. Aside from his poor bee-stung dog, things are looking good (and I’m not just talking about those biceps). No one could deny he’s made the most fantastic comeback, but are we all getting a little too over-excited?Nadal is an awesome player, second only to Federer and let’s not forget Nadal’s place in the last two Wimbledon finals. True: Murray is playing the best of his career and doesn’t even like to lose at snap (who does?). But is being a sushi obsessed sore loser enough?

What is certain is that this will be an interesting match….what is likely is that it will rain…what is unlikely is whether those that have spent £2,000 on tickets will see victory from the Mighty Murray.

If nothing else, it’s always fun (and very British) to put your money on the underdog.

Running Art

Tate Britain has announced its latest exhibit – Work No 850 by Martin Creed who has athletes running at speed around the Duveen Galleries every 30 seconds. Now all you have to do is kick back, put your feet up and wait for the art to flow around you. Gone are the days of sore feet and aching backs from hours of walking and intense gazing at art. I quite like the fleetingness and physicality of Work No 850 – the idea that the art moves around you, instead of being typically static. But is this the start of a new level of celebrity culture? I read a book about this – the human form is the canvas, becoming a commodity shipped from gallery to gallery, an inanimate object with no rights, yet worth millions. It was chilling, yet worryingly realistic…

On a positive note, it’s the perfect evening job. Creed is essentially paying people to exercise – so those running freaks among us should keep tabs on the Tate website for when they start recruiting. At £10 an hour, that’s at least four Bellini’s for four hours work, and you won’t need to feel guilty about it because you’ll have been running around like a lunatic. Admittedly you have to be an athlete…which saves the bother of me applying I suppose…

Check out the running art - Work No 850 is at Tate Britain, London, until November 16