One thing that I’ve found since joining the NHS last summer is that it’s a hugely varied and all encompassing role. I’ve been pretty lucky with the timings because I’ve been the lead on communicating two fairly major and unique new buildings for the NHS. Continue reading
Sarah has a really impressive and interesting back story so it was great to see her make such a long journey and take the time to meet the North East group. Continue reading
The brewery has now been bulldozed after the familiar corporate merger/ acquisition/ sale process that seems to do for everything these days and a new science city building called ‘the core’ stands on the spot where millions of bottles of booze once rolled off the production line. Continue reading
This dry January thing is dragging on a bit isn’t it?
After living like Oliver Reed since the back of December, two full days of total sobriety is breeding a cumulative hangover so devastating that it’s threatening my sanity. That aside there’s plenty to look forward in 2015 (like the last series of Mad Men).
A brief look back at my blog stats from 2014 shows that the most popular posts align unerringly with some of the biggest themes for me in the last 12 months.
These were six the most popular posts and hopefully they say something more about the current PR economy and landscape. Continue reading
There’s a bit somewhere in the middle of the George Smiley spy trilogy where the characters reach a point where they know their place in the world is facing huge change, an era of cold war and Empire is coming to an end, and while their methods seem increasingly outdated they carry on regardless for want of anything else to do.
As bizarre as this may sound these amazingly atmospheric set of novels provided a nice parallel for two social media events that I went along to last month. Continue reading
In a week that most of the internet seemed to talking about THAT Tony Blair Christmas card, my mind went back to a time when the young pretender was the hottest ticket in town.
My own Blair experience was bookmarked first as a journalist in London in the early days of his second term as PM, and then as a PR back in Gateshead as his era limped to a close.
Images of Chris Froome and Bradley Wiggins flash through my mind as I race through the Northumberland countryside as the leader of an imaginary tour de France.
And in that absurd fantasy lies the first example of the classic perception vs reality gap. I’m only fooling myself.
That sounds like a fairly abstract question I know and it reminds me of a Louis CK stand-up routine, where he plays the part of someone trying to explain to an angry god what a ‘job’ is.
The premise of the joke is that a benevolent creator has provided everything we need to survive and the minute his back is turned the humans have massively overcomplicated everything, leading to a need for jobs, double shot Frappuccinos and bacon cheese burgers.
So there lies the problem for big thematic questions like this, because dealing with big problems is inherently complex, can’t be tackled by one organisation in isolation and there isn’t a narrative that’s easy to communicate. Continue reading
So I’ve worked in the NHS for five months now and I’m a bit further along in understanding how it all fits together.
So far in life I’ve been pretty lucky with health, so this job is my first real encounter with hospitals and medical staff and it’s fascinating to see how they work.
In my usual cross eyed way these are my six lessons that comms and PR people can learn from the medical profession. Continue reading
This week I’ve been working on something slightly different that puts another spin on the omnipotent use of tablets and smart phones.
Nothing as exciting at the ubiqetious iphone6 launch, but something pretty impressive to me (as a newbie to healthcare and the NHS)
Look around you almost anywhere in public and you’ll see a wall of faces staring into electronic devices or tapping on tiny, shiny black touchscreens.
Now even medical teams will be doing the same, but in a way that’s good for your health. Continue reading
a day without OJ - A comms, digital & PR blog by Ross Wigham 