Back to Business

I'm back from Vegas and it was fantastic. Although it seemed like a short trip, just four nights, it was the perfect amount of time for us to be there. We did a bit of gambling (ok a lot, but we had to try Craps and BlackJack!), a trip to the Grand Canyon, saw Mystere by Cirque Du Soliel, visited a few hotels, went on the New York New York roller coaster (not with these guys!) and "Insanity" over the Stratosphere Tower.

Highlight - making big winnings on roulette although I didn't put it all on black as the odds were just 2-1, I made more by putting $2 on black 13 - I walked away with a tidy $70 from that bet.

Lowlight - celebrating too much on the last night and suffering turbulance through a hangover on the flight home!

Anyway, I'm back now. And I've come home to some great news - Rainier PR (sister agency) won the Tech PR agency of the year award from the Flackenhacks, Steve Earl tells us more.

What recession?

Doom and gloom all over the shop means there is plenty of talk about how to survive the recession, no matter who you are. Sally Whittle has posted some tips for how journalists and Steve Earl offers his tips for PR's here.

It can all be a bit much sometimes, my tip is - find the news behind the recession. I've had a great week so far at lighthouse talking to journalists about the real stories of the moment, completely avoiding all talk of the financial crisis. It has actually proved a really good time to introduce some of my cleints to some of the traditionally harder to reach media as they are just so keen to talk about something other than the economic climate.

And on my positive note I will leave you all for a short time while my husband and I venture off to Las Vegas to make the most of the strong GBP, staying at the Bellagio and betting it all on BLACK!

Recession, what recession?

See you in a week!

Restaurant Review - Cocoon, 65 Regent Street

I've just been for a lunch at Cocoon Restaurant and thought I would share my thoughts.

The entrance is tucked away just on the corner of Air Street, close to Piccadilly Circus. You go upstairs to the main restaurant which is surprisingly big. The food is sushi, sashimi, dim sum and bento boxes and there is a sushi chef man in view on the restaurant floor, which is nice.
Vegetarian and meat options are both good.

In terms of suitability for a client meeting - its great, very stylish and not too busy. The tables are perhaps a little too close for a journo briefing but having said that I didn't hear much of what the business men on the next table to us were talking about and they were the only other people near us!

Deffo worth a try.

We made it!

Sophie and I completed the 10K at Hatfield House on Sunday in very respectbale times (Sophie much more respectable than me but it's the taking part that counts). Thanks to everyone who sponsored us, including Wadds and Steve and for the good wishes I got from everyone like Paul. It was all very much appreciated.

We had an amazing day and the 2000+ people who took part did their bit to raise over £100,000 for Cancer Research UK.

I just wish people would stop asking me to do the half marathon next!

It's finally here...

...10K race time is this Sunday.

Spare a thought for me while you are relaxing on Sunday over your lovely roast dinners, Sophie Jarvis and I will be hauling ass round the Hatfield House 10K run for Cancer Research. I have to confess, my main concern is getting round ahead of my mum who is also taking up the challenge.

Of course we will be rewarding ourselves afterwards with a trip to the pub!

I'll let you know how we get on!

Berocca Blogger Relief

It arrived! My Berocca Blogger Relief pack! Well ok, I got it a couple of weeks ago and I've been so busy playing with it all that I forgot to blog about how much fun I was having.

As you can see I'm making good use of the bubble wrap key ring - how comforting to be able to pop away in order to restore calm after a difficult call or email.

Anyway - a big thanks to the lovely folk at Berocca.

If I continue to survive the winter without catching the office cold I'll big you up some more!!

Hearing your health

As I mentioned in my "happy news" round up blog, I like it when important health issues make it onto the news agenda. Not the scare stories like "eating cooked food will give you cancer" but the real health stories. So I was really pleased to see hearing, or rather hearing loss, make it on the pages of our national newspapers today. According to an EU Commission study one in 10 people with personal MP3 or CD players could suffer permanent hearing loss because their music is too loud.

It's a story that also appeals to my inner "angry commuter" - just because you want to listen to your music doesn't mean everyone else does, turn it down.

Anyway, this story highlights something really important in that hearing loss is becoming a much younger issue. This isn't just tied to MP3 players, but you can't deny they are a factor. I met with a journalist a while ago who was telling me about his hearing loss, he played in a band and enjoyed going to gigs. When he started missing bits of conversation he just ignored it, after all he was too young to have to wear a big hearing aid.

By the time he finally addressed the problem the damage was done. His only saving grace now is that there is a lot more variety on the hearing aid market today – tiny, funky hearing aids that can be colour co-ordinated with your outfit are the new must-have accessory! - Like this one from Siemens Hearing Instruments (if you can see it!)

And, with organisations like Don't Lose The Music providing a great range of ear plugs, you can still enjoy gigs and make protecting your hearing a fashion statement at the same time.

Couple this with my other favourite hobby horse - education about the bone marrow donation process following on from the late, great Adrian Sudbury, and my parting note is that education about health from an early age is crucial, whether it be our ears, bone marrow, or something else – it’s all too easy to pay lip service to it and think it will never happen to me.

Google Goggles

An excellent new app from Google launched today - Mail Goggles. No longer will we be the victim of drunken late night emails! Hoorah. An old manager of mine is one person who might be especially pleased with this news as I seem to remember her attempting to rekindle a flame with a journo contact via drunken email after a work night out!

While new applications are all very well, there are some really good ones already in existence that many people don't take advantage of. It never fails to surprise me how many people don't have spell check set up on emails as standard. In PR we are all about creating the right impression and spelling is no small part of this.

Always look on the bright side of life

I've had enough. Every day it's doom and gloom on the financial markets on the front pages, even on BBC Breakfast we're hearing from everyone and their dog about the way the crisis is impacting us. Dom at PR-otagonism makes some interesting observations on this. I realise there is a school of thought that PR has only worsened the coverage by linking all money saving products etc to the credit crunch, but seriously, try talking to the press about something else. It's hard!

Today I saw a story that new car registrations are down 21% in September (no mention of course that there is always a natural drop the month after a new registration plate is launched) and that has pushed me over the edge.

So here are some positive news snippets that I've dug out for you to remind you that there is some light in the world:
Goat 'condoms' save Kenyan Herds - population moderation means that the goat herds can now survive on the scarce vegetation and live better happier lives. I love goat cheese so this is excellent news.
Scrabble fan wins elusive trophy - an excellent tale of persistence. If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again. A big well done to Mr Allan Simmons.
J.K Rowling's earnings top £3m a week - hooray someone who isn't feeling "the pinch". Of course I'm insanely jealous but she deserves every penny for creating such a wonderful set of characters and for the compulsive reading that was the Harry Potter series.
Cancer: Getting a clearer picture - any positive development in the field of medicine should be front page news.

The last one also brings me neatly on to the point that me and Sophie (Rainier PR) are running the Cancer Research 10K at Hatfield House on the 19th October. We are both working very hard to attempt this run which - for us - may as well be a marathon! If you'd like to sponsor us (a pledge for one is a pledge for both) the link is on the left hand side of the page.

The Media Show

Mr Waddington has written a note recommending us PR type folk tune in to the Media Show on Radio 4. I did indeed tune into this new weekly programme to hear its flagship show and I was pleasantly surprised. You can listen to it here.

It covered a good mix of current issues with the media:
- is the media fuelling the financial crisis?
- can blogging really influence public thought?
- how can David Cameron use the media to get people to really understand his campaign?


It's a bit ironic to have the media commenting on itself...but it certainly captured my imagination and I'm looking forward to the show next week.