north east

Travelling in your own back yard (and getting a social buzz for your event)

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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.
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The thick of it – 10 tips for engaging with Parliament

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As a local government communicator I often have to spend quite a bit of time convincing friends that my job is nothing like that of Malcolm Tucker, the fictional anti-hero of the BBC comedy series, despite a similar job title and natural swearing pattern.

So it was fairly amusing to find myself hosting a CIPR North East event called: The thick of It – a practical introduction to Parliament. Continue reading →

Power to the people

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‘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 →

Snow blower

Hadrians wall snow

So, you’ve had some snow recently? There’s been so much written about it in the last week that the only remaining headline is a reference to robot-based 1980’s comedy movie Short Circuit.

But while you were kicking through a light dusting of white powder, I hope you spared a thought for us in the most Northern English County. Redesdale in Northumberland was the snowiest place in England with 33cm in a single day. On top of that we had 12 foot snow drifts and a 3,500 mile road network to worry about. Continue reading →

Land of the rising sun (colliery)

360 view from the top of pit shaft number 1

(Much cooler 360 images can be viewed here & here)

Directly below my muddy shoes, almost 760 feet under the earth 1,400 men once hewed a living from the hot, dark, grimy pit of the land.

Less than 40 years ago the landscape would be scarred with soot, sound, smoke, grime and fire as armies of men and boys earned a living mining coal as their fathers and grand fathers had done before them.

But now it’s silent, calm and green with just me and a bike looking out over the Tyneside skyline.

I’m standing at the top of a former pit head that was once part of one of the world’s largest coal mines.

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How a hashtag helped our summer

Summer fun

What summer?

Up here in Northumberland (and like most of the UK this year) our summer was restricted to about two weeks, giving us just enough time to construct an arc or drain away the flood water (see here for photographic evidence).

But in between all that we did want to do something to online to help publicise the best events, attractions and locations for fun days out in the summer holidays.

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Tourism gets social

A guest post this week from @angela_tait, who works in our tourist information centres, but has really embraced social media to help promote what’s on offer. She writes:

Joining the County Councils Tourism Team back in October 2011 I was charged with managing the Tourist Information Centres and developing visitor information.

Immediately I was impressed by the staff I was going to manage, their immense knowledge of the county and their passion for attracting new faces to Northumberland. It’s not just about providing visitor information though, we also support more than 250 local producers, showcasing the finest locally made products from art, photography, jewellery, food, crafts and much more which made me question from day one – how do we tell people about this?

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No hiding place

Continuing with the Likely Lads theme from my earlier post one of the most famous episodes is a great example of how much technology has changed our lives in a single generation.

No hiding place was filmed roundabout  the year I was born (1976) and the lads set out to avoid finding out the score of an England game, so they can watch the TV highlights later that night.

Part of the joke is that this should be a relatively easy task to achieve because England are playing in far away Bulgaria and in the 1970s they didn’t have Sky Sports, iPhones or rolling news.

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I’d offer you a beer, but…

I’ve just been lazily watching the likely lads in between Sunday dinner and wall to wall live football (a hard life I know).

It includes one of my favourite TV quotes, when a forlorn Bob goes to visit Terry on Tynemouth Pier:

“I’d offer you a beer, but I’ve only got six cans.”

That got me thinking how much has changed since then and not just in the Tyneside landscape.

Thanks mainly to social media it’s all about sharing now, so to help honour that here are some of my favourite blogs/websites: Continue reading →