I'm bored with it - not of it!

There was a story in Metro this morning that appealed to my inner pedant and gave me and fellow PR and friend Laura a good chuckle on the train. I stand firmly alongside John Humphreys when he complains about tautology saying it is the 'the linguistic equivalent of having chips with rice'. Brilliant.

As a PR bad grammar and the misuse of words is something that just shouldn't happen and fellow PR Steve Earl and journalist Sally Whittle are just two people who agree and blog about this topic regularly.

And so inspired here are a couple of my all time bugbear phrases that this article overlooked:

1. Blatantly obvious

2. To be fair

3. Bored of (trust me, it is with. A big thanks to my friend Barney for drilling that one into me and all my friends!)

4. At the end of the day (yes it's in the article but is just THAT annoying)

5. No word of a lie (thanks Claire!)

6. Oh yes, and any unnecessary acronym, like ITCEC

So, if you use any or all of the above - stop it.

That is all.

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.

Forget G4 (if you even know who they are anyway) it's all about G1

Google has finally launched G1 in conjunction with T-Mobile. It's a very different strategy to the launch of the iPhone with O2 and one that, I think, will get more people excited. Ok, so it doesn’t look quite as flashy as the iPhone - in my opinion - but I have to say I'm more keen to get my paws on this bad boy.

One of the most interesting things about it is that it is going to bring debates about mobile advertising into focus. I'm not a big fan of excessive advertising - who is? - but I can appreciate it if it's going to reflect in reduced costs for me. If it's anything like the Gmail advertising - scarily targeted by picking out key words from emails in your inbox - then I don't really have a problem with it. With companies like Phorm leading the way in targeted advertising that won't jeopardise your personal information, G1 may well be a winner.

PR and marketing in a 2.0 world - what does it mean?

Web 2.0, social networking and peer2peer and online communities: What does it all mean for business? Some agencies sat back thinking it was a fleeting trend that would die overnight. Some people thought FaceBook would have an RIP written over its head a long time ago and as for Twitter – why would someone be interested in my inner thoughts throughout the day?

Luckily, we realised a while ago that there is a variety of emerging valuable communications tools for the business world. And, these mediums are getting stronger. So strong, that they will have a profound and lasting impact on the business world, internal and external communications and the way brands work.

So, we decided to release an eBook uncovering the mysteries that surround the online world and the changing methods of communications in the PR world. My favourite a chapter is on online communities, it touches on the reorganisation of the business and the economy. Check it out here.

How to outshine Apple...

Finally worked out how to upstage Apple's latest iPod, iPhone, AirBook type PR announcements...

...fire up the worlds largest scientific experiment!

misTweeting an embargo?

Last week I was mildly amused to watch two well known and respected journalists slate a PR story that - thankfully - wasn't mine on Twitter. "New leader in rubbish PR stunt of 08. Firm gets psychologist to "identify" new net deprivation syndrome they call "discomgoogolation" announced ruskin147 (aka Rory Cellen-Jones - BBC). "@ruskin147 oh, is discomg... a Sunday for Monday? No doubt." replied charlesarthur (Guardian)

What I didn't realise was that this same story actually only broke this morning. You can note also that ruskin147 wasn't impressed with this coverage "cannot believe that even Reuters fell for "discomgoogolation". For shame! Only goes to show how smart PR people are…"

Embargoes are never 100 per cent reliable but Twitterers were reading about this news, albeit in brief, five days before it launched. Although 118118, sponsors of the survey, won't be too upset as they've still secured thirty plus pieces of coverage to date, this could have been potentially damaging if the journalists had been discussing a story of financial bearing.

I'm not a great advocate of placing rules and regulations on things like Twitter, which are intended to be informal social networking arenas, but I think it is something PR's need to be taking into account and addressing when pre-selling news to journalists who are active in this sphere.

Have you got the X Factor?

Love it or hate it, the X Factor has returned to our screens and we've already had a corker of an audition fiasco in the shape of Welsh brothers - Ant and Seb.

I also spent a bit of time watching re-runs of Dragons’ Den, something I've never really been into. The whole thing put me in mind of job interviews - just watching how some people came across. You can tell the ones who are going to do well from the second they get on camera - they are the ones who are quietly confident and go about proving themselves. The ones who you just know will make you cringe are the ones who come in completely over the top and over-sell themselves from the outset. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating judging people on first appearances, I'm talking about seeing through the hype.

PR is one of those industries where people often mistakenly think that the more outgoing you appear to be, the more people will believe you are good at your job. Of course the job does require a certain amount of willingness to get out there and talk to and meet new people, not to mention a thick skin, but more than this - it requires the ability to stop, think and take a considered approach to any task.

When meeting prospective employers, colleagues and clients it is important to sell yourself and your skills but you have to be able to translate that in a real way.

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.