More Red faces...

So, you've soaked yourself to the skin getting to the Post Office to pay for a piece of crappy post that some idiot has forgotten to put a stamp on and, just when you think it couldn't get any worse, you arrive late at work only to find that some divvies from the very same PR company representing the very same client have camped outside your office to create a bloody awful racket.

Read all about it here.

Is this funny, or is it just me..?

I don't know about you, but I've been seeing headlines like these all day, and every time they've made me laugh:

Pope embarks on controversial Turkey visit
Massive security for Pope's Turkey visit
Thousands Protest Pope's Turkey Visit
Catholic World News - Confirmed: Pope to visit Turkey in November

What's he doing? Apologising for Christmas?

Red faces...

This morning, a journo found a slip on his doormat from the Royal Mail telling him that there was an item waiting for him with unpaid postage on it. What can you do? I mean, it might be something important...secret plans for poisoning people leaked from the FSB...Michael Grade's new contract...a Christmas hamper from Fortnums. So you trudge off down to the sorting office in the pissing rain to pay the postage and pick it up.

And what happens..? You pay £1.23 for a cruddy little invitation to the Nokia party next Wednesday because some numpty at Red forgot to put a stamp on the bloody envelope.

A one off? Not according to the Post Office clerk...he said there'd been loads of them this morning. Uh-oh.

That'll teach them for clashing with our very own Christmas Party...

Is that American Englich..?

So, Text 100 ("leading global PR agency") and some bunch called Squiz (I'm sorry, I've been through the website and I still haven't a clue...) have produced a "co-authored whitepaper" called "Communications 2.0: Beta is Better", all about Web 2.0 and "how it can help you improve your communications strategy."

There are people far better placed than I to comment on the content of the whitepaper. What I do know, however, is that when the sub-heading of the press release tells me that the whitepaper "provides best practise advise on how to exploit new web technologies!" the whole venture is devalued to the point of my not bothering to read it.

Though I can't be bothered with the whitepaper itself, the rest of the press release is an entertaining read, if only for the sublime use of meaningless cliché by a Squiz Director (which sounds vaguely disgusting to me...I can direct my own Squiz, thank you very much). He says, in one memorable sentence, "The good news is that it's not rocket science and it shouldn't cost and arm and a leg."

We're over the moon about that.

Me..? With my reputation..? Tally ho…

“Reputation” is a funny old word, isn’t it? Look it up in the dictionary, and it’ll say something along the lines of: “the estimation in which a person or thing is held by the community or the public generally”…which makes you think that, yes, as public relations professionals, we should be right there in the middle of the reputation game.

So why then, when I visit Harvard PR’s website and read this on its homepage…

“Reputations. Designed, built, managed.”

…does it really get my goat?

I’ll tell you. I don’t think that anyone should be able to claim that they can “design” a reputation. You might be able to design what you’d like your reputation to be, but whether it becomes that or not depends on how you act and, crucially, what people think about your behaviour (and products, and services).

In many ways, your reputation is out of your hands…particularly in today’s world of social media. So, for instance, Sony’s reputation as a creator of high-quality consumer electronics is taking a bit of a battering at the moment…however much “design and build” it might have done around its reputation isn’t worth a great deal now, is it? And you might even take issue with its ability to “manage” that reputation, however quickly it replaces laptop batteries or digital cameras.

No, reputation goes much deeper than public relations. Reputation is about product design, manufacturing, service, ethics…reputation is impacted by every aspect of your business and, right now, PR people don’t influence every aspect of business (and may the Lord help us if ever they do…).

What Harvard is talking about is image. Image is what you want to say about yourself, what you want people to think and believe…whether it’s true or not. In fact, when you get into the “People” section of the Harvard site, it uses the phrase “’perception altering’ outcomes”…which I think is getting closer to the mark. And before anyone says, “ahh, yes, but perception is reality…” that’s bullshit, I’m afraid. Experience is reality.

The problem is, “Images. Designed, built, managed” doesn’t sound nearly as good, does it? It doesn’t sound real enough…it even sounds a little bit underhand…in fact it sounds like what many people believe public relations to be.

Interesting…many think that the public relations industry has a poor reputation. Shall we design a new one? I mean, if we can't, who in the world can?

Sell Sony, buy FedEx...

I'm in something of a quandary, and I thought you might be able to help me out.

Looking around my house this weekend, I noticed how much Sony kit I've got. TV, VCR, DVD player...there's an old stereo, a very old discman and I've even got a Sony MP3 player.

I'm presuming that it will all have to go back at some point, so my question is this:

Do I get one big box now to send everything back together, or lots of smaller boxes and do it bit by bit?

Help..!

Over to our sister agency, Miserable…

Interesting story filed by John Oates over at El Reg this afternoon about goings on at business networking site Ecademy…the one whose “cause is to build the world’s premier Trusted Network.”

Oates tells the story of how “seventeen members of Ecademy…have had their accounts suspended following a row on the company's messageboard. One member was banned for using the word "shit" while others were banned for posting messages in a thread which questioned the original decision. One member was even banned for making rude remarks on a different website.”

There’s some back and forth between Ecademy management and Ecademy members... accusations, denials…the usual.

Now, Ecademy boasts that profiles appear high in Google rankings and members are encouraged to use profiles to advertise their businesses. Consequently several of the banned members - including a number of successful business people - responded with threats of legal action for defamation of character and libel when their accounts were blocked without warning and they were accused of using false identities.

Ecademy issued a series of retractions - claiming that members' accounts were merely 'suspended' and that members had not been 'banned'…although the message "This member has been banned" appeared prominently on the website in place of their profiles for some time.

Ecademy management were recently reported in the Telegraph to be looking to sell their company for up to £20m. Ex-members suspect that in the light of this article, Ecademy management were seeking to remove anybody likely to criticise either their policies or their claims regarding membership numbers. The management unsurprisingly denies this.

According to The Register, management have appointed a "psychosexual therapist" as a mediator, but he's busy until December 1st. Oddly - or not - those banned were less than chuffed that they would have to wait more than three weeks for a resolution. In the meantime, they continue to pay Ecademy for membership.

Interestingly, Ecademy does have a PR representative in Jenny Rose…who is no doubt dusting off her bluffer’s guide to crisis management. Still, she seems an optimistic sort...her company’s called Happy PR.

Time for a rebrand?

A rose amongst thorns…

Now, normally, we don’t have a great deal of time for recruitment consultants. They just seem to pass people from job to job, agency to agency…taking a nice fee each time until they’ve run out of options. But we’ve recently come across one company that seems to be the exception.

Ever heard of Indigo Red? Of course you have. It’s such a brilliantly distinctive name. They’ve got a top bunch of people down there helping great candidates find the most rewarding roles and helping inspirational companies fill wonderfully fulfilling positions. We really think you should check them out.

There are also a number of blogs linked to Indigo Red. There’s one from the boss Steve Mallison-Jones, one from his lovely wife (and Indigo Red co-founder) Lydia and one from consultant Sarah Hayman. All well worth a read.

It is probably at this point that I should disclose that it is Steve - and the wonderful, best recruitment team in the PR industry at Indigo Red - who has agreed to be the headline sponsor for the forthcoming TWL Christmas Party! Yep, he’s dipped his hand into the corporate coffers and come up with a few hundred quid to go behind the bar at the soon-to-be-confirmed-for-those-that-have-emailed-us-(theworldsleading@yahoo.co.uk) venue. Though this fact clearly had no influence over our hearty endorsement of Indigo Red above.

It’s all coming together party people…if you’re a little concerned about appropriate behaviour, the lovely Amanda Chapel has some top tips.

Tripe for brekkie...

This morning, Lewis held its Industry Forum 2006, where big hitters came together over breakfast to thrash out the issues of the day. Jon Silk of Lewis is blogging away, offering up gems like this:

"This is no longer a 24/7 world - the world we're living in is 25/8. In other words, constant."

For more, ummm, "insight", visit the Lewis 360 blog...

Hand wash only (don't spin)...

It's funny, if you stick "Firefly public relations t-shirt" into Google (well, I don't know, you might) you get this:



Of course, this has nothing to do with the Firefly public relations we know and...well, we know.

Firefly's t-shirts look like this:

Don’t worry, everything happens for a reason…

…like, you weren’t right for PR in any case.

Andrew B. Smith over at Object Towers alights like a butterfly to a rose on a subject we too have touched on before; whether we will see PR grunt work outsourced to India or, indeed, any other country where labour costs are a fraction of the UK.

I think we will…but which bits? The immediate reaction is, “oh, no, no, no…you need to be able to develop relationships to do my job…with the client, with the media…you can’t outsource that.” But there are parts of the job that don’t require the relationship, just a bit of knowledge and ability.

Here’s an example from another profession (nicked, if I remember it rightly, from Thomas L. Friedman’s “The World is Flat”). It is now common practice for doctors in the US to email to doctors in India scans of their patients’ x-rays for overnight analysis and diagnosis. Now there’s a profession if ever there was one that demands a relationship between client and professional, but obviously some aspects of it don’t. The client is none the wiser, and the service is better (i.e. faster results).

There are aspects of the PR job that could be outsourced. Reporting, for one (do I hear anyone complaining about that?). I could also see some aspects of financial PR being outsourced…the process-driven, regulatory announcement-type activity. Indeed, couldn’t the whole top-and-tailing of US press releases for international distribution be very easily undertaken at a central location, rather than in each country?

It’s definitely on its way. And you know what? I’m kinda looking forward to it.

Chrimbo party...the date is set...

Meetings have been held, diaries consulted, negotiations commenced, research undertaken. We've brainstormed strategised and planned.

We have an objective:

"Have a Christmas Party"

We have a strategy:

"Generate interest and secure funding through the awesome power of social media"

We have tactics:

"Get on with it"

We also have a date:

Wednesday, 6th December 2006

So stick that it your diaries and remember it.

If you've been keeping up with the comments on the original post, you'll notice that Stephen "Wad" Waddington has pledged some cash for drinkies and, between you and I, we've also received a formal offer of sponsorship from a proper company! So it's all systems go.

If you want to come, make sure that you drop us an email (theworldsleading@yahoo.co.uk) because it's the only way you'll find out where it's all taking place (that's the next thing on the TWL To Do list, by the way).

Thanks to those who have been in touch already. We're excited.

Boys and their analogies....

If you’ve tired of counting the amount of breast glances a marketing manager steals during a meeting and you never found bullshit bingo very interesting in the first place, why not try analogy analysis?

It’s a simple game based around the only analogy that’s ever used in the wonderful world of tech. Cars. And also, at a push, roads.

The greatest Hackneyed Carriage of them all, of course, is the information super highway. Like Ford Fiestas, examples are cheap and plenty. Speaking slowly and loudly to its old and disabled customers, BT splutters a laboured analogy with the reckless abandon of a pensioner on a Sunday afternoon drive..."You can think of broadband as a massive motorway which brings all kinds of information very quickly straight to your home. The motorway is never closed. "

But can you get a dodgy coffee and a Ginsters every 40 miles?

Cheap Broadband Providers, meantime, gives a souped-up chavesque opening line for its description. New Zealand’s TVNZ recently trotted out this horrific pile-up of a quote from Ernie Newman of The Telecommunications Users Association:

"If you expand the access ramps onto a motorway, you can get a lot more traffic onto the motorway. But that doesn't mean that when you get on there you're not going to slow to a crawl."

Operating Systems is another favourite area where the dear old car is used in place of any truly rational explanaion, especially in comments and forums where it’s used in wonderful pub-logic arguments:

On Microsoft and Novell patent cross licensing deal

On upgrades

And on services packs

When tired of using home security analogies, IT security people find their next inspiration in the garage with trite rhetorical questions such as:

“I have always enjoyed the analogy of the guy who owns an expensive car like a Porsche, yet keeps it secure in a garage with a door lock that's barely worth $100. If the threat of the lock being broken so the car gets towed away in the middle of the night is high enough, how much should he spend on a lock? A thousand dollars? Ten thousand?”

"Enjoyed the analogy"? I've always taken pleasure in the odd analogy, but to be honest it's metaphors that really give me a hard-on.

However, in pole position with car analogies must be AMD which is about to launch its 4x4 chip architecture and, separately inspired just about the most tortured car analogy ever.

So let's ditch the car anlogies once and for all; send them to the scrapheap. If you hear one in a meeting, put the brakes on...flash red lights everywhere.

We know you can do it. We are, after all, the industry that brought you SMART objectives.

What do you want for Christmas...

...apart, that is, from an invitation the The World's Leading Christmas Party?

Maybe a Microsoft Xbox? Maybe...but if you're MS&L, Edelman/JCPR or Weber Shandwick, you're more interested in the Xbox PR account...and they're all pitching for it in the next week or two. To be honest, though, one of the three is probably feeling a tad more confident that the other two.

MS&L is the incumbent agency, having run the Xbox account for the past six years - a decent stretch in anyone's book. You'll remember, however, that only a few weeks ago PRWeek reported that Dave Bennett, MS&L's "Xbox supremo" had left the agency for Edelman, leading to speculation that Microsoft might take the opportunity to review the account.

You'll also remember that about a month ago, PRWeek also reported that JCPR had split with Sony Computer Entertainment, just a few months before the launch of PlayStation 3. So that left a neat games console-sized hole at Edelman/JCPR, and presumably a highly-skilled team twiddling its thumbs (waiting for Bennett to appear, no doubt). Oh, and since August, Edelman has also handled Xbox PR across Europe.

Let's just say that if Edelman doesn't pick up the business, there'll be a load of head-scratching going on down Haymarket way...

And what about poor old Weber? It really looks like it's making up the numbers, doesn't it? But it'll still be ploughing loads of time, resources, expense and creative energy into the pitch, I'm sure (as will MS&L, which can't be overly confident of its chances either).

Let's see what happens. But I'm not expecting a surprise in my Christmas stocking.

Borkowski...bullshit...

Big up to Stephen Davies...it would seem that Borkowski has been stupid, again...

Shiny balls and a huge sack...

It cannot have escaped your notice that Christmas is fast approaching. It certainly hasn't escaped the attention of one loyal TWL viewer, as a simply genius idea dropped down the chimney of our inbox this afternoon:

"Dear TWL. Why don't you have a Christmas party?"

Of course we should! So we're going to.

In true cloak-and-dagger, secret-squirrel, Daniel Craig-inspired covertness, joining us in the festivities will be no simple matter. If you'd like to come (and to give us some idea of whether we'll need a small booth at the Crown and Two or start negotiations with the London Arena) you need to drop us an email: theworldsleading@yahoo.co.uk. As and when we firm up any of the details, we'll let you know. We've already created a new folder called "Christmas Party People."

Oh, and due to the fact that we're not Stephen Waddington, we'd welcome any proposals for, um, "refreshment sponsorship" or you'll be buying your own drinks. Suitable subsequent endorsement will ensue.

Party on!

Where’s Aedhmar..?

Anyone seen Text 100 CEO Aedhmar Hynes? At least, has anyone seen her near a computer keyboard?

As far as I can tell, one of the golden rules of effective blogging is to do it regularly. I think that helps people come back time after time to see what you’ve got to say. Or something.

When Aedhmar Hynes set up her blog back in February, I thought she did quite a smart thing. She called it Monday Morning (not that smart in itself, I admit) but in her first post she explained that its name stemmed from the fact that she was going to blog just once a week, on Monday morning. This is what she said:

“As an avid reader of both 'traditional' and 'new' media, my blog will be a weekly reflection on how these diaglogues affect the public relations industry and the companies we support. The weekend is a great time to catch up on my reading, so Monday Morning will be a reflection of the writing that intrigued me the most.”

And before anyone corrects me, she really did write “diaglogues.”

Maybe she’s stopped reading? Or perhaps her Monday morning musings weren't as interesting as she thought, "Mowed the lawn, cleaned the car...husband fell asleep in front of the TV after roast beef and yorkies, kids ran riot. Didn't want to come to work."

Whatever, she’s been very quiet for a good while now. Her most recent post was on September 8th. In fact, by my reckoning, there have been 39 Monday mornings since Aedhmar’s first foray into the blogosphere, but only 20 posts on her blog. As some of her American colleagues would surely say (before being slapped by a Brit), “you do the math.”

She set the expectations and has failed to deliver. Presumably not a reflection of Text 100’s work as a whole?

Pull your socks up, hack…

One of the wonderful things about the new, all pervasive “I’ll never read a magazine again” world of social media that we haven’t really talked too much about is the ability to comment directly on the quality of a journalist’s writing…or lack of it. In the dark and gloomy bad old word of ink on paper, if a hack wrote a shoddy article we’d merely grumble into our pints and possibly consider a letter to the editor. But now – praise be – with more and more editorial appearing online in the form of blogs, we can comment with abandon.

A case in point has arrived in our inbox from our old buddy Mr BadHack. As some of you will know, BadHack was a blog set up to highlight less than exemplary behaviour of the journalistic community. Surprising to us all, however, a lack of content seems to have done for Mr BH and he’s been quiet for a long, long while. So it was nice to hear from him.

He points us to this extremely superficial review of Microsoft’s new Media Player on eWeek’s Microsoft Watch site. Previously, such a shoddy piece of journalism would’ve passed and been forgotten, but not in the new age. Now people can comment…and boy, have they?! Stuff like this:

“I could write a more extensive (and USEFUL) from the time my cheeks hit the porcelain to the time my hand hits the two-ply.”

“Get some info, not vapid spin.”

“Seriously, they call this journalism?”

“You call this a "review"! .... pure drivel....”

“I used to get F's for this type of thing in high school”

Nothing like a bit of feedback, eh? No response, as yet, from the journalist Jim Rapoza.

It’s great though, isn’t it, to think that hacks across the industry are sitting at their desks, fingers trembling over the keyboard, nervously considering whether to his the “publish post” button, wondering whether their piece really is good enough to stand up to critical scrutiny and the response that might be delivered instantly?

Aren’t they?

Iain’T staying….

A not particularly well kept secret is now officially out in the open. Iain Thomson, who recently left IT Pro, is headed back to Broadwick Street, this time as managing editor of VNUnet.

Boomerang Thomson, as he’ll be known forthwith, is not the first to yo-yo back to VNU and probably won’t be the last. “I liked working with Chris [Green] and the rest of the Dennis crew but decided I could do more of the stuff I really enjoy in this job,” said Boomerang.

Though not a direct replacement for Thomson, Rene Millman has joined IT Pro which has perked up the IT Pro offices no end.

When Rene walks through the door he’s met with a cheery ‘Allo from Chris, and an ‘Allo from Maggie ‘Yvette’ Holland. “Bonjour,” replies Rene, and pointing at Chris says: “It’s ze fallen Madonna with zee big boobies.”

The ensuing merriment is broken by a Dennis accountant: “It is you, a Clerk,” chuckles Chris Vert. “Leesen verrry carefully, I weel zay zis only once,” says Michelle from accounts. “Vee need more readeeers and more advertisiiing, ozerwise ve weel go ze vaay of all 1980s BBC zeetcoms.”

A slippery slope for the guru...

We notice this morning that Stuart Bruce has changed the header on his blog. He's followed a growing number (including fellow "big name" UK social media in PR specialist...now there's a niche...James Warren) down the landscape route. But whereas Warren's shows the bright sun heralding a new day over lush and grassy parkland, Bruce's is a dark picture of some dangerous-looking and rather misty mountains.

What does this tell us? That Warren's an optimist and Bruce has darker thoughts about the future? Or that Bruce can help you navigate your way through this strange and murky environment? Not sure...get us an amateur psychologist, somebody.

Of more significance in Bruce's new look header, however, are the words. Not only have they shrunk, they've changed. That's right...gone is the PR Guru! Bruce now says he is merely a "PR guy" (though a little too late for November 5th). Guru to guy can only be regarded as some sort of serious demotion, can't it? What's next...genome?

Luckily, Bruce still tells us that he's been blogging since 2003 which is a bit like me saying that I've been walking since 11 months. At the time it seemed important, but now it's a bit irrelevant...everyone's at it (and some are even better than I am...).