“Everyone has a plan ’til they get punched in the mouth.” ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson
Strategy, vision, mission, master-plan, principles, approach – all words that modern organisations bombard us with every day.
On websites, in the media, on corporate material and in meetings, the one thing a business or organisation has to have is a strategy right?
But what exactly does this mean and how can we translate this into a useful process for communications? Continue reading
A guest post from our new comms intern Jenn & her perspective on our latest social media campaign (@msjennjennPR)
For those of you who see‘#’ and are looking at the text abbreviation of Northumberland, please don’t judge me and think I’m one of these young ones who can’t spell and write everything like I tweet it!
It’s actually the brand of a great campaign I am currently involved in, Northumberland Fun. Continue reading
I’ve just finished reading a book that was written in the 1980s and like big hair or grindingly depressing economic news much of the advice contained in its yellowing pages seems to be back in vogue.
Roger Ailes wrote You are the message in 1989 and although it’s primarily about speaking in front of an audience, there’s a wealth of communications & PR advice that’s still relevant today.
In fact, Ailes himself defines an ‘audience’ as anyone more than yourself. It could be two colleagues in a meeting or a million people watching on TV.
This week I’ve turned the blog over to Hanif Laylabi (@hanifleylabi) our comms intern who leaves us at the end of the month. A year ago – inspired by the new CIPR intern guidelines – I decided to take the plunge and hire a university graduate for the first time.
I wrote about the start of the scheme here and everyone on it has been brilliant. The standard of graduates in the marcomms space in the North East is truly first class. Over to you Hanif.
Back in spring 2012, I was completing the taught part of my MA in Public Relations at the University of Sunderland and was looking forward to a long summer of dissertation writing.
One of my tutors had begun to email the class job and work experience opportunities, but I was set on finishing my dissertation first before I took on the job of finding work. Continue reading
In Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1987 film Full Metal Jacket the irascible old drill sergeant looks down the long line of new recruits and barks:
“From now on you will speak only when spoken to, and the first and last words out of your filthy sewers will be ‘Sir’. Do you maggots understand that? You will not laugh, you will not cry, you will learn by the numbers and I will teach you.”
Yes, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman was happy to give out some pretty clear instructions and he certainly knew exactly what he wanted from his new starters.
Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) it’s rarely so clear cut for most of us when we’re looking to break into the sector or find that new role in PR.
I asked some of the communications people who’ve influenced me the most what key skills and attributes you need to stand out from the crowd and get hired.
There’s a great awards acceptance speech by comedian Jerry Seinfeld where he ruthlessly berates the whole idea of awards ceremonies, before ending by saying how proud he is to have won and can they do it all again next year.
You can see it here.
The comedy aside it strikes a note with people because we’re all nervous about putting our own work out there so publically.
With the awards season now in full swing just what is it that makes so many organisations put themselves in the spotlight and what exactly makes the winning ones so successful? And, more importantly why bother? Continue reading
Low turnouts and a general apathy have been the hallmarks of local elections so far this year, so it’s even more important that we make sure we get the right person to lead our professional organisation the CIPR election. Continue reading
This time seven years ago I was sitting at an airport with no job, no responsibilities and a round the world flight ticket burning a hole in my pocket.
The only thought on my mind was which fruit would be going into my Daiquiri and how many countries I could fit into my carefully planned flight schedule.
How times have changed and although I wasn’t getting on a flight this week, my thoughts have been closely focused on tourism and how we use social media to inspire our locals to live like a tourist in their own backyard.
Continue reading
‘People power’ is probably an overused phrase but in this increasingly crowd sourced, community-led, two way street online world it’s one that’s at the very top of the PR agenda.
There’s seemingly a new example every month and this week it was the turn of 17-year-old Paris Brown to act as a case study on the shifting sands of modern news, PR and social media.
So now would seem as good a time as any to help push an excellent event taking place for communications professionals that will look to try and make sense of this rapidly changing environment. Continue reading
“As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him,” Charles Darwin 1871.
Change. Adapt. Evolve. That’s been the mantra for the past few years – certainly since the financial markets shook everything in 2008 – and that was the key message I took from the CIPR’s state of the profession survey. Continue reading
a day without OJ - A comms, digital & PR blog by Ross Wigham 
