Archive for February, 2009

I spotted a really interesting piece from McKinsey this week on six key ways that companies can make web 2.0 work for them. The piece covers the management and technological aspects of deploying web 2.0 tools with a few interesting supporting cases from google, AT&T and Pixar amongst others.

So this kicked off my thoughts about the six (OK I tried ) seven biggest benefits that I have seen at Ruder Finn since embracing and actively using web 2.0 strategies and tools both internally and externally are:

1.  Recruitment. One example is a fabulous associate director through Twitter last year and have had some great CVs for a senior account exec post this year

2. Internal comms. A third of my team (tech and corporate division ) work remotely / collocate at least part of the time so using collaborative tools has helped the division manage account work as well as keep the banter up at a healthy level.

3. Measurement and trend analysis. We find that social media provides a much quicker and more reliable measure of current opinion that older forms of research.  Everyone from our managing director to graduate trainees use social media to crowdsource ideas, gain recommendations and give / seek advice from both inside and outside the industry.

4. New business. We have received new business briefs, recommendations, invitations to speak at events, training requests and various others through the blog and Twitter.  Writing a proposal in only 140 characters is our next mission

5. An even bigger focus on reading and analysis. Our agency believes passionately that you cannot be in PR without being a total media junkie however through use of RSS, embracing apps like Twitter and becoming bloggers ourselves, we read and consume more media than ever.

6. Genuine experience and better consultancy. Through doing it ourselves, we are much better placed to advice, counsel and help clients in their social media efforts - an essential in an industry moving this fast.

7. Feedback.  Whilst compliments on social media (or anywhere else) are always fabulous to receive, far more valuable are the more negative constructive things you learn about yourself, your agency or your clients that might previously have gone unnoticed.  The stuff that helps you improve as a company is, in my opinion, the most valuable result of all.

(I haven’t listed stronger/new relationships and conversations here as that is a given)

Reading this list you can see why the naysayers are so frustrating to us and others in our industry.  No matter what your opinion of web 2.0 is, I’m sure you’ll agree that the outcomes listed above are pretty impressive business benefits by anyone’s standards.

CROSS POSTED at my personal blog - balancing act

As a 26 year old woman it’s hard not to feel moved by Jade Goody’s battle with cervical cancer. Not only is Jade having to face leaving her children and partner, but also her own mortality. At an age where Jade should be going out with friends and buying shoes, she is writing her will, settling her affairs and preparing her funeral.

However, Jade’s legacy may extend beyond Big Brother, bad boyfriends and racial slurs. Women across the nation have followed Jade’s story and booked the smear test they’d been putting off for months.  The Daily Mail reported that the number of women having smear tests has gone up by more than 20 per cent as a result of the publicity around her story highlighting the significant role she is playing in increasing awareness of cervical cancer.

Today Sun Woman launched Jade’s Legacy - a campaign with her backing - to raise cervical cancer awareness and to get the screening age in England lowered from 25 back down to 20. Through exploiting the media to ultimately raise money for her children, Jade has caused a ripple of consciousness that may in turn save the lives of hundreds of women across the county.

The Jade Effect doesn’t stop with cervical screening. The subject of palliative care is finally receiving the media attention it deserves with an article in the Sun today dispelling the myths commonly associated with the treatment of terminally ill people.

Although there is no longer hope for Jade, her lifelong courtship with the media has finally paid off.

A number of my colleagues and I went to an lecture from Thomas Gensemer, part of the online team behind Barack Obama’s grassroots and fundraising success. Arguably, Obama’s online campaign will become the ultimate case study of the benefits of online campaigning and Gensemer was a significant contributor to this success.

What was personally interesting was that the basis of the Obama strategy lay in the importance of constant personal contact and simplicity. Gensemer made the very valid point that regular email newsletters, no matter the quality, are rarely consistently read by the majority of recipients. There were 7000+ messages sent out to Obama supporters over the course of the campaign and all averaged less than 300 words, all with the aim of getting “feet on the ground”.

The ultimate objective of the online campaigning was to create local, on-the-ground activism, so each request was aimed at getting the recipients to do something, whether that is volunteering at the local campaign office, knock on doors, leaflet or donate money. Hence, the huge amounts of funds raised and the huge number of volunteers and local organisers.

The individual touch was also vitally important and this was achieved through personalised replies. If a volunteer replied to one of the mail-outs, Gensemer said that their aim was to get a personalised reply back within 3-4 days.

It was a fascinating insight into online political campaigning, but the beauty of its simplicity means that aspects of the strategy could potentially be transferable to a good deal of what we do as public affairs and public relations professionals.

Much of our work is issue related, or can at least be linked or incorporated into issues. Therefore aspects of the Obama online campaigning strategy could be transferred across the areas of politics, global advocacy, patient group outreach, product promotion and the list goes on.

Therefore online campaigning and interaction is a fantastic tool and if done properly, can be extraordinarily powerful and transferable to a number of sectors. It is certainly something we, as communications specialists should all be getting a handle on.

For the men in the Ruder Finn office and similarly many of those across the UK, Saturday is generally a day to meet up with mates, watch some football and have a few pints down the pub. During February and March, you can even add watching the 6 Nations Rugby into the mix.

Life is simple!

But think again chaps because this Saturday is St Valentine’s day. Yes, Valentine’s day has come around again – just in case you had forgotten!

For most men, the mention of *this day* (I dare not even type it again) brings with it instant panic and chaos, with most men leaving the present buying duties to the last minute. And this year it’s going to be even harder, what with everyone feeling the pinch of the credit crunch. Becoming a gold medallist in love on Valentine’s day with no budget is like trying to knock out Joe Calzaghe with your arms tied behind your back: Impossible!

Going out for dinner and getting the flowers, lingerie, perfume and whatever other nice things you have seen in the London freesheets on the tube or bus home over the past few weeks is likely to be out of reach this year for some of us.  You could always try a home cooked meal – courtesy of Jamie.

And look on the bright side, at least we have a great excuse if we forget; “Credit crunch darling, I’m just thinking of our future”. Good luck with that though!

And finally, to the single ladies and fellas among us that don’t have the near-impossible task of trying to be the most romantic soul on the planet? Well firstly, count yourself lucky! Secondly, if you are feeling a bit lonely then pop along to the Innocent drinks website and declare who you ‘would like to meet’ (WLTM). If your response wins it will be printed on upcoming promotional bottles and you and your secret crush will win a box of smoothies to warm your love socks.

And who knows, you may even find you perfect match.

Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, yesterday told Marketing Magazine of its plans to start charging the brands that use it. Could it be that Twitter has finally figured out how to make money?

Biz was largely unspecific about the associated costs, but what implications will that have on the platforms continued growth? And how will they differentiate between “commercial” and “business” use – and how does this impact the idea of the personal brand?

Spinvox - a voice to text conversion service - is a fairly well-known company, but James Whatley is the company’s key representative on Twitter and he holds much more weight in the Twittershere than the company itself. @whatleydude has the greater brand value, yet in theory will not be charged – as Stone insisted Twitter would not charge individual users.

Increasingly in the world of digital communications, it’s not what you know but what you share with the community that you have around you. Will we see a move to companies hiring people with a stronger brand value than their product or organisation? Does this happen anyway? Is it a new thing? Will this force people to be less transparent about the brands they represent?

As Twestival approaches, another Twitter charity project appears in the rear view mirror - Tweetin’ hilarious.

In aid of Red Nose Day 2009 it is described as:

A new collection of comedy writing hopes to raise cash for Comic Relief – thanks to the micro-blogging site Twitter.

Journalists Linda Jones and Louise Bolotin are working on collecting and editing submissions for the TwitterTitters book by tweeting about it regularly.

Just one day after first mentioning the initiative on Twitter, they have found an illustrator and first submissions have been received. The deadline is Friday, February 20 at 4pm.

The resulting book will be published by self publishers Lulu.com, with all proceeds going to Comic Relief.

Short stories, scripts, poems and prose will all be accepted for the anthology and the word limit is 1,400 words. Copyright for the work is retained by the writer.

If you fancy yourself as a funnyman (or woman) get Tweeting. For more information, please contact Linda or Louise.

• Linda: Linda@passionatemedia.co.uk www.twitter.com/joner www.passionatemedia.co.uk
• Louise:  louisebolotin@googlemail.com www.twitter.com/louisebolotin http://louisebolotin.com

Cross posted with Becky’s own blog

I am possibly the world’s least qualified person to comment on design. A bizarre portrait of Mike Gatting prompted the following comment from my 2nd year art teacher: “despite Paul’s obvious lack of ability he tries his best.” Pretty damning stuff.

Despite this lack of ability I am still going to spout forth on the recent Pepsi logo. The design brief was leaked onto and reveals the ‘thinking’ behind the new design. It’s all about the earth’s gravitational pull synergising with the gravitational pull of Pepsi. Obviously.

As a tech PR guy of many years, working with designers and brand strategists is something that comes up from time-to-time. Sometimes it is illuminating, sometimes I think ‘what on earth are you banging on about’. But this really takes the biscuit. Is this representative of design briefs generally?

Pepsi

Anyway, the outcome is the smily logo you see above. It’s positive I guess, although it certainly doesn’t look like it has had the finest design minds working on it night and day. What do you think? Which brings me back to what prompted me to write this post - do any rebrands or brand launches meet with acclaim? The London 2012 logo got universally panned and it would seem that companies that choose to spend thousands of pounds are actually on a hiding to nothing. Everyone is a critic and the internet provides everyone with a platform to share their opinions. Although its got people talking about it’s brand, maybe Pepsi could have spent the money more wisely…

The global population is rapidly ageing; by 2020, about 719.4m people - 9.4% of the world’s inhabitants - will be 65 or more, compared with 477.4m (7.3%) in 2005.  We constantly hear about the strain this is putting on healthcare systems, pensions and the economy generally as we struggle to support a growing number of retired people but what about those people that don’t want to retire at 65 or, in today’s credit crunch, have found they can’t afford to?

Last night’s Dispatches addressed the issue of ageism amongst employers and recruiters. It seems older workers are more likely to lose their jobs and fail to secure another position frequently being told that they are ‘overqualified’ for the roles they are applying for.  The programme  followed the stories of people forced to retire at 65 by their employers, thanks to the Default Retirement Age introduced in 2006, and those who when made redundant later in life - some as young as 50 - struggled to even get recruiters to register them never mind get in front of prospective employers.  It made compelling but depressing viewing.  It seems we no longer value experience rather we see people of a certain age as a liability believing that they will be less driven or enthusiastic and take more time off work than their younger counterparts.  This of course is often not the case.  B&Q and Asda are among the few companies that have recognised the potential of older workers but how many of us would like to be told that our only work option is to take a lower paid job on a checkout purely because of our age?

What constitutes being an older worker can also be determined by the industry you are in.  Apparently, the average age of staff at The Times top 100 companies is 34. This made me think about my own industry.  I would hazard a guess that the average age of agency communications consultants is around 35 with the majority of staff being in their 20s.  A common topic of conversation is ‘what happens to people over 40 in our industry?’.  I’m not sure I know the answer but, until we find the fountain of youth, perhaps it is time we reconsider our attitudes towards older workers and see the value in balancing the enthusiasm and adaptability of a young workforce with keeping and attracting a few more experienced grey hairs.

Personally, I hope to be retired and travelling the world at 65 but I’d like to have the choice…

It would seem that the Brown Government has taken up President Obama’s online campaigning baton. Numerous Labour and Labour surrogate sites seem to have been popping up out of nowhere.

Labour List is apparently a place “where Labour minded people come together”. It has been around for a few weeks and is currently a beta, although it is updated at an extremely high-frequency. It’s due to be formally launched on the 12^th of February.

It was founded, according to the About Us section, by New Labour identity, Derek Draper and numerous Labour characters such as Liam Byrne, Andy Reed, Hazel Blears, Keith Vaz, Ken Livingston, Ed Miliband to name but a fwe. The actual list of contributors is huge and even Ken Clarke makes an appearance as a blogger, albeit Ken Clarke the Regional Director for the London Labour Party, not the other one.

GoFourth is John Prescott’s site which aims to propel Labour to a fourth term, hence GoFourth. The site’s USP include blogs and vlogs from the former Deputy PM himself.  It was initially dreamt up in 2008 (although Prescott didn’t start posting until late January 2009) by some well-known Labour names; John Prescott, Glenys Kinnock, Richard Caborn and Alastair Campbell and aims to “create a broad grassroots movement to secure a progressive Fourth Labour Term.” Prescott also explains he once bought Tony Blair a singing fish to cheer him up.

Alistair Campbell has also launched his own site suitably called, Alistair Campbell.org. Alistair is in the unique position of not being in the Government, but is still as feared by most Tories as much as any other Labour head kicker, so his vlogs will be interesting to watch. After posting his first blog only four days ago, he intends to;

…use this site to bring together the various things I do - writing, speaking, strategising, campaigning, whether for Labour or charitable causes close to my heart. I will blog when I feel like it, vlog at least once a week, give Dave Cameron the odd whack, and hopefully engage in a bit of lively debate. Tories welcome. Some of them anyway, if only to be told where they’re going wrong.

I’m looking forward to it.

On Alistair’s links page, there is yet another Labour site, CampaignTV, which claims to be the home of progressive politics on the web. This site is video after video of pro-Labour and anti-Tory imagery. It even rekindles footage of John Major from old Spitting Image episodes.

All this of course comes after the Number 10 website upgrade midway last year to include a number of social media additions including twitter feeds, flickr and facebook posts and so on.

We already knew that Labour has a crack team already in place to win over the voters occupying the digital space, but they are certainly trying to get their message out to as many people as possible by as many people as possible. But could all these voices effectively be drowning each other out?

If anyone can think of any huge leaps the Conservatives have made into the digital world, apart from the odd tweets from the Conservative Party, please let me know, but otherwise I think they are being left seriously behind by Labour in this department.

Gordon Brown has revealed he is a big fan of the Metro and has encouraged his cabinet colleagues to read it every day. So reports today’s, er, Metro anyway.

But the freesheet has become Britain’s fourth-largest national daily newspaper with a readership of around 3.5million every day, so as it approaches its 10th anniversary it certainly has some momentum behind it. But should it really be the daily newspaper of choice for the Government? Are these short news summaries with little or no analysis really the way forward for the industry?

I am a partial fan. Metro is a cut above the afternoon freesheets, with their seemingly never-ending stories about Alfie Allen and football players on the lash, but it is easy to rely on it as your daily news source. It is undoubtedly easy to read and contains a good mix of UK and World news but 10 years ago one would see the whole spectrum of newspapers on the tube - now it is just a wall of Metros.

So in that context it is perhaps commendable for politicians to read it so they get a sense of what everyone else is reading but I do feel that it offers a very ‘news in brief’ view of the world. Politicians of course will get their news from a variety of other sources but how many of your average Metro readers could say the same? I’d certainly be interested in any research on the amount of people that only read a morning freesheet…

But all told, the Metro is a pretty decent newspaper with good writing and reasonable content - what do you think?