Strive Notes

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How do newspapers choose which case studies make their pages? What’s the difference between pitching a feature to the FT and a column to the Mailon Sunday? On September 9th 2008, the folks at the:101 are giving people the opportunity to sit down with experienced BBC and national journalists to find out!

The latest Nationals Pitching Day is taking place 9 September in London, and there are a few places left. The workshop focuses on providing practical skills that enable PR executives to pitch any journalist with confidence. Using interactive exercises, role play and Q&A sessions, it will provide insights into:how to craft attention-grabbing email pitches who to call on a national newspaper and when tailoring pitches for blogs and websites using news wires and regional press as a gateway to nationals and more.

About the trainers:

Neil Aitchison is a freelance radio, broadcast and online journalist whohas spent many years working with BBC Television, BBC Radio and BBC Online.

Catherine Cooper is a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph, Observer, Sunday Telegraph and Guardian newspapers, as well as a range of women’s and parenting magazines.

Linda Jones is a freelance journalist with almost 20 years experience. She regularly supplies stories to the likes of the Daily Mail, Daily Express, News of the World, Guardian and Telegraph newspapers.

Sally Whittle has been covering business, HR and training for almost ten years, and today regularly contributes to broadsheet newspapers on a range of topics, including charities, technology and small business.

The workshops will take place at 44 Portland Place in London on the 9th September and run from 9.30am to 5pm.

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Jeff Pulver is encouraging us to take part in Blogday 2008 and I figure why not?  It’s a great way for us all to check out different blogs and maybe learn a thing or two.  So here are my five blogs (non-PR)  to celebrate BlogDay.

1. Special Little People provides aromatherapy products for children. Blogger Janine Wood shares how she uses scents in her own life as a mother.  She has a nice writing style and reveals quite a bit about herself and her life.

2. I love reading Dan Santow’s blog Wordwise.  It’s chock full of expert information on writing style and grammar.  Everyone who reads or writes English should subscribe to Dan’s blog.

3. I’ve been following the Invincebelle blog for the past few months.  It’s an online community for women who live and work in a multicultural world. Its goal is to provide both personal and professional development for women who work.

4. I’ve been incredibly impressed with the Ramsey Daily Photo blog ever since I found it a couple months ago. This blog has an incredibly active community and showcases this photographer’s incredible creativity.

5. I’ve been following Rita’s Musings ever since she launched the blog a couple of years ago. There is no central theme. She doesn’t update often. But this blog gives a window into Rita’s world and me feel that I’m still connected to her even though I now live thousands of miles away and haven’t seen her in years.

Happy BlogDay 2008 everyone!

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Media Week is reporting that Johnston Press, owners of Isle of Man Newspapers, has seen advertising revenues plummet by 21.0% year on year in the first seven weeks of the second half of the year.

Total revenue fell 6.3% to £293m for the first six months of 2008, year on year, while operating profit fell 15.6% to £81.6m. Interesingly, the group reports that digital revenues grew by 52.1%, but I suspect they were starting from a very low base.

The company said it has cut costs by £7.6m in the first half and will continue to do so.

Well cost cutting is all well and good as long as the quality of the reporting doesn’t suffer. Management needs to ensure editorial staff is sufficient in both number and ability to turn in the content that that readers need.  Otherwise they’ll leave in droves and advertisers will follow them.

I’ve seen a real change in the Examiner’s business pages since reporter Julie Taylor left several months ago and haven’t heard anything about a replacement being sought.  The Editor’s post too has been vacant for some weeks now, but Richard Butt will soon be arriving to take the helm.

It’s comforting to know that Isle of Man newspapers is one of the most profitable outfits in Johnston Press’s stable.  Hopefully the cuts here won’t go much deeper.

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There is so much incredibly good content in the PR blogosphere. And, the pool keeps expanding with more people getting into it.  Picking just five to highlight here is getting increasingly difficult. But here goes:

1. Chris Brogan has some excellent tips on technologies and tools that will help us all save time.

2. Here is something you don’t see every day.  This journalist is almost begging for PR pitches.

3. Bashing the PR profession seems to be the latest trend in linkbait.  Guy Kingston is jumping on the bandwagon with his search for the Britain’s Worst PR Agent.

4. Seth Godin has an excellent post about creating stories that resonate. Frankly, this is the art of PR.

5.  Ramsey Daily Photo is not a PR blog, but this lady is really getting it done.  A great case study in building an online community.

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Recently returned from London two traumas affronted me: first, my daughter’s UFO broke, so had to be returned; second, and more importantly, when returning it to the store whence it came, Harrods, I realised the world’s most famous store has lost its apostrophe!

Diligently adding the apostrophe throughout the refund request letter, it was only on the website the apostrophe omission came into full and alarming view. Where – and why - has it gone?

The store was established in 1834 by Charles Henry Harrod, so it is his store and should therefore be Harrod’s. Apparently the apostrophe has been mislaid in fairly recently history and in 2006 the store was criticised by the Apostrophe Protection Society, along with Selfridges and Currys, for discarding the punctuation mark.  In an article on the subject The Times quoted John Richards, chairman and founder of the society, as saying: ‘Many corporations have started to drop the apostrophe arguing that it looks better that way.

‘It amounts to a deliberate corporate abuse of the English language and sets a very bad example to schoolchildren.’

It seems odd that the third most visited tourist attraction in London, arguably the world’s most famous store, with a commitment to excellence, should not complete its mission and add that little grammar mark. I thought it was striving to keep all of its customers happy …

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This is the theme of a report by Timi Aganaba, a graduate student from the International Space University (ISU) in Strasbourg, France.

She’s just finished a three-month secondment in the Space and Satellite division of Island law firm Cains.

‘The very first thing I noticed when I arrived in late May is that the people here are really helpful and open,’ said Timi. ‘I’ve done research in other space jurisdictions and the Isle of Man surpasses them all in terms of accessibility.’

Click here to read the rest of this Tech Talk column

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Don’t be.  Dosh Dosh explains why using the element of surprise in a viral campaign can significantly improve marketing effect.

“Surprise’s effects are immediate: An stronger focus of attention on the stimulus, a heightened consciousness, better retention of memory at the expense of other stimuli. All of which eventually result in curiosity and exploratory behavior. This arousal also intensifies subsequent reactions, the excitation from being surprised transfers over to other experiences.”

Interesting perspective.

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Some readers might say that boobs and chips are two of their favourite things. And that’s exactly what Canadian franchise New York Fries is hoping people think when they see this advert. You might think I’m about to climb up on my feminist soapbox over this one, but no.  I’m just saluting great Canadian ingenuity.

Thanks to Franchisor Marketing for highlighting this campaign.

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According to the Social Media Club blog there are nine get togethers organised before the end of the month. All of them are in American cities, plus there is one other taking place right here in the Isle of Man.

The Isle of Man Social Media Club meets the Third Thursday of each month and that means next week, 21 August, we’ll be meeting for lunch at Paparazzi on the Douglas Promenade.  12.30 -14.00.  Everyone with an interested in blogging, Facebook, podcasts, Twitter, etc are welcome.

The Third Thursday initiative has four main aims.

We want to share knowledge and experience.  Each of us has a different perspective on social media; we’ve learned different things. Our meet up is a great way to exchange ideas and information and have a nice social lunch at the same time.

We want to expand the use and understanding of social media generally. That’s why anyone who is curious about online communication and networks is welcome, whether you’re interested because your kids are on MySpace or your employees are congregating on Facebook, or you want to find out how to blog your travels.

We want to promote ethical behaviour online.  Issues such as privacy, plagarism, fraud, reputation, freedom of speech, libel and others all need to be explored and discussed.  We’d like to do our part in raising standards.

We want to encourage adoption of industry standards. By raising awareness of Creative Commons, data protection, best practice we’ll improve the credibility of social media and make the blogosphere a safer place.

But most of all these meet ups are just a great way to meet people who share your hobbies and interests.  You’ll definitely learn something new.  You get to actually meet people you’ve corresponded with online.  You’ll make new contacts too.

Please come!  Tweet me if you can make it. Or even use email or the phone if you like

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In the last couple of weeks we’ve seen two new internet launches designed to upset the market. In one case it’s an industry leader going after an open source success; the other sees a start up taking on the global leader. Let’s start by taking a look at Knol, Google’s attempt to unseat Wikipedia as the leading source for encyclopaedic-type information.   Then we’ll look at Cuil.com, the second new entry into the internet world, a new search engine (pronounced ‘cool’ and is the Gaelic word for ‘wisdom’). Click here to read the rest of this Tech Talk column.

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You don’t have to agree with someone to admire them. It is with just such a sentiment I regard Dr Ken Smith who suggested certain key words, often misspelt by his university students, should be accepted as ‘variants’ and their misspelling overlooked.

You have to admire him for coming up with such a bad suggestion with such conviction.
It was a bit like watching the Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf who gave a series of press conferences during the invastion of Iraq that have put him in the annals of least plausible comments in modern history. Remember when he said that US troops were not in Baghdad at the start of the Iraqi invasion, when we had all seen plenty of footage to the contrary.

Both Dr Smith and Minister Sahhaf provoke amused incredulity, with a touch of admiration, because they’re so wrong and yet prepared to broadcast their statements.

Professor Smith, who is senior lecturer in criminology at Bucks New University, said in an article in the Times Higher Education Supplement, that he’s ‘fed up’ with correcting his students’ ‘atrocious spelling’ so suggested certain words should be accepted as variants.

These words included: arguement, Febuary, ignor, ocurred, opertuniry, que, speach, thier, truely and twelth.
It ocurred to him (possibly on the twelth of Febuary) there was the opertunity to ignor truely bad spelling. He obviously couldn’t be ‘bovvered’ to correct them any more.

Naturally his proposal has provoked mainly negative feedback on the Times’ website. Good spelling demonstrates attention to detail, said Jon C and is the ‘hallmark of professionalism.’ Sloppy use betrays sloppy thinking.

Alex D said getting ‘thier’ right does matter and that there’s quite a difference between: ‘Let’s shoot there son’ and ‘Let’s shoot their son.’

How would the professor feel if the same relaxed standards were applied to criminology, asked another. You’ve almost got to admire the professor for this wholesale surrender to bad education.

Ironically, support for the proposal would probably not come from Sahhaf, who is now living in the United Arab Emirates (although he’d possibly deny that) because he has a masters degree in English literature from Baghdad university and was intent on becoming an English teacher before Saddam Hussein and Iraqi’s ‘arguement’ with the rest of the world interrupted/interupted.

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Happy Birthday Laura!  Twenty years old today!

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As my time at Strive PR comes to an end, it only feels right that I reflect on my experiences here. I began working for Sherrilynne in June 2007 (having first volunteered for a few weeks earlier that year). I knew, as soon as I got stuck in, I was about to learn more about PR than I could ever do sitting in a classroom. In fact, last summer I learned more here than I had from two semesters of uni put together!

At first, I was scared of making mistakes, but I was reminded that I was now on a learning curve and all I could do was my best. I’m still on that same learning curve however now I have added confidence. Today, I have an increased knowledge surrounding the virtual world, social media and writing, to name a but a few of the tasks I’ve been involved in. Accolades are what really drive me, and when I know I’m doing a good job, I become even more determined.

In terms of my future, I can’t help but feel excited about delving deeper into the real world of PR with my upcoming one-year work placement. Wherever my journey leads me, my time at Strive PR has given me great training and prepared me well. I couldn’t have asked for a better platform to send me off!

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I was just reading Sally Whittle’s post about how ‘clients suck’ and was reminded of an incident this week. Sally’s premise is that it’s hard to deal with some client’s egos. My response is client ego becomes less of an issue as you become more experienced and skilled in PR consulting.  Here’s my anecdote:

A young writer on our team was tasked to write an appointment release for a new guy at a client company.  I sat down with her and went through the questions she was planning to ask (as you would with an inexperienced team member).

She called the chap and explained the purpose of her call, asked if he had time for the interview now, or should she call back?  He suggested she send him her questions by email and he’d reply as soon as he could.  Sounds pretty straightforward right?

Well when she reported this to me my reaction was this: “That was the wrong course of action. Instead of having a five minute chat with him, you’ve now given him work.  It will be last thing on his task list because it is not his work.  He’ll tell his boss who will ask to see the questions.  His boss will fly off the handle because ‘marketing’ is forcing a bunch of work on his already over committed team.  He’ll fire off a nastygram to the marketing director.  The marketing director will email the PR manager. The PR manager will ring me and tell me to fix it.”

I got the call two hours later.  We’re not going to announce the appointment after all.

Bottomline, something that should have taken up five minutes for a junior member of a client’s team ended up taking up to two hours of senior management time.

Mea culpa.  I should have cautioned my writer that she might be requested to send questions and counsel her against sending them before she even picked up the phone.  A more experienced client handler would never have used the word ‘interview’.  She would have asked for a ‘chat’ and  explained to the new appointee that he’d see the copy first and  that his boss and the head of marketing  would sign off everything before it went out.  The key is to make him feel comfortable and eliminate any sense of risk.

But like I said in my comment on Sally’s post…it takes time and effort to build client management skills.  You can’t rush it.  You learn as you go.  Just enjoy the journey.

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