The beginning of the talking postbox

This could be the greatest thing ever.

"Mini USA has launched a series of "talking billboards." The billboards can identify Mini Coopers using a coded signal from a radio chip embedded in the car's key fob. As drivers approach, a customized message flashes on the billboard. "Hi Jackie! Don't crash the car."

Now consider the potential of this for a minute? Will Nike implant chips in their trainers and team up with postboxes to greet you as you walk past?

Postbox - "Good afternoon Richard!"
Me - "errr, hi?"
Postbox - "how are you?"
Me - "fine, i guess, you?"
Postbox - "have a nice day!"

I'm delighted at the prospect of having conversations with inanimate objects.

Brand ambassadors are unethical

I've been thinking a bit more about stealth marketing. I think that unless those involved are transparent, it's unethical. Otherwise where does it stop?

So it's okay to walk into a playground and approach children to undertake your marketing activities? What about approaching the teachers and use them to promote your agenda in class? Dinner ladies could talk about the best crisps, sandwiches, types of bread. Is this ethical?

Lets take it further. Take those in society we trust the most, and let them beam out your brand messages. Imagine private doctors talking about great upmarket holiday destinations. Or why not policeman?

Arguing that 'brand ambassadors' can use their own judgement is rubbish:

Brand ambassador - "i've been paid by Nintendo to tell you that the Nintendo Wii is fantastic"
Normal person - "is it really?"
Brand ambassador - "how the hell would I know?"

Where does this end?

If there are no ethical boundaries to cross, we can't trust the judgement of anyone. What would mention if the Pope mentioned the great reception he got whilst speaking with the almighty on his Motorola Razor?

The ethics of stealth marketing

Today's MediaGuardian contains a great feature on stealth and buzz marketing. The article charts the rise of new marketing and discusses whether it is intrusive and unethical. Have a few snippets:

"Market researchers ventured into the playgrounds and amusement arcades of the city armed with a single question: "Who's the coolest kid you know?" When they got the cool kid's name, they went in search of him and asked him the same question. This carried on, again and again, climbing the cool-kid ladder, until eventually they met a little boy who said: "Me." To this Alpha Pup, Hasbro made an offer: $30 to come and play P-O-X. After accepting, the boy would receive 10 free consoles to distribute to his friends. The campaign managed to distribute consoles to cool kids in 900 of Chicago's 1,400 schools, and was hailed as a stroke of marketing genius."

A good idea, but it does have a few flaws. Anyone entering my old school playground to speak to kids would've been arrested pretty quick, and how long would it have taken all kids to suddenly realise that if they claim to be the coolest kid, they would receive 10 free consoles?

Towards the end of the feature it debates about the influence of PR upon the daily news agenda.

"Every interview in this article, and much of the information, came after initial contact with either a public relations professional or someone performing that role. You just have to hope that I have not been unduly influenced by any lunches, gifts or cajolements along the way. (I haven't, and none was offered.) In arranging to speak to Tom Himpe, however, there was an understanding with his publisher Thames & Hudson that I would mention his book. This is absolutely standard, and by no means sinister."

"Suppose you had a choice about whether to mention my book," says Himpe, when I raise the matter with him, "then you might say that the reason this book is there is because it contributes something to the debate." And he is right. His book is relevant, so I would have mentioned it anyway. But, like a Tremor teen, I was also encouraged by a marketer to do so, and usually I would not disclose this to you. And journalists, remember, who are flattered constantly by PRs, are as susceptible to the Hawthorne effect as anyone else."

Be sure to give it a read.

Getting slated at Getting Ink

Sally at the great GettingInk blog didn't like my advice about sending press releases and has offered her opinion. Everything she said there is right, except for her example.

Sally uses this as an example of an ideal pitch:

Hi Bob. I have a story for you about how small businesses can increase customer retention using a new wireless technology, which I thought might be a good fit for next month's gadget roundup column. My client Widget Inc (www.widget.net) has devised a new wireless handset that sends email faster than a Blackberry/is smaller than an iPod/whatever else you want to say....press release is below.

It's a great pitch, but lets look at it carefully and compare it to what I suggested. How much of it is personal? Really, look at it. It's only the second half of the first sentence. If i'm being really picky, it's just those 14 words: "which I thought might be a good fit for next month's gadget roundup column"

Actually, I would go further than that. It's only those three words "gadget roundup column". Everything else in there can be reheated for numerous journalists. Isn't it possible to just change "gadget roundup column" for whichever section you think it is appropriate for?

I want to make it very clear that I never advised people to just change the names to create their desired pitch. My advice was to stop leaving the WRONG name in the pitches. But tailoring a pitch doesn't require as much effort as many might think, and personalising a pitch, as Sally's own example suggests, rarely requires more than changing a sentence or two.

This just doesn't feel right does it? But sadly in my experience it works very well. It feels like a personal pitch to the journalist and allows you to pitch to a lot of journalists.

Distributing press releases for free

Content Done Better has recently investigated free press distribution sites. I've included a snippet below, but i'd like to reveal my own expirements with these sites:

Back in my apt marketing & pr days (yes, three days ago now) I began experimenting with free press release distribution sites. I did this with two clients, the first was AirBoss - manufacturers of segmented tyres, the second was the American Museum in Britain.

I distributed the first AirBoss press release to these free sites in October. At the time the AirBoss website was on the second page of search results for "Airboss". Since then no other changes have been made to the website, and the site is now the 2nd result for the term "AirBoss". Though the results have fluctuated significantly, at one point AirBoss worryingly plunged to the 10th page.

After submitting a press release about the Dollar Princesses exhibition opening at the American Museum, I received a very useful call from a lady writing a book on the subject.

My conclusion is that these sites are good for one thing, improving search engine results. Journalists aren't going to trawl through free distribution sites when they are being sent hundreds of press releases per day. From Content Done Better:

Many of the free PR distribution sites are Associated Content without the payment. They are the equivalent of free article distribution sites; you are just trading your content for potential exposure and an outside chance of viral backlink generation.

Does that mean you have to buy the upgrade for all nineteen of those sites or at PR Web? No. Does it mean that you shouldn’t bother submitting press releases to those sites? No. If you are going to submit the release somewhere, you might as well maximize its utility and get the word out everywhere. In many cases, it won’t do much more than score you an occasional backlink and create a new listing people to see when they Google your name, but the time commitment required to submit the material is minimal. So, if you have a few extra minutes to burn, send it to the next place on the list.

However, broadcasting the release to those nineteen sites using only free options is unlikely to make you the lead story in tomorrow’s papers.

The Content Done Better post also includes an impressive list of free press release distribution sites. Worth investigating.

Suddam Hanging Video

In my Saddam hanging post, I accidently made the mistake of spelling Saddam's name as Suddam.

This mistake gained me an extra 25 visitors from Google, compared with only 17 people found my post using "Saddam hanging video".

When writing keyword-rich press releases how do we cater for the market of people that mispell terms on Google? Is any PR agency bold enough to send press releases to clients which deliberately contain spelling errors?

Money for YouTube content creators

We're a step closer to a world of freelance content creators.

People who upload their own films to video-sharing website YouTube will soon get a share of the ad revenue.

YouTube founder Chad Hurley confirmed to the BBC that his team was working on a revenue sharing mechanism that would "reward creativity".

I'm intrigued to see how they ensure people don't 'game' this.

720 cups of coffee later

I've been working at apt marketing & pr for 47 weeks and 4 days. I’m conservatively estimating that I drink about 3 cups of coffee per day. That’s 720 glorious cups of coffee I’ve consumed during this time. Not all those cups have been great, mind. Some of it was the disastrous gravey-tasting, Tesco organic, some of it was filtered machine coffee and some of it upmarket Waitrose coffee.

Were this the second to last day of school, I would be in the thick of planning the grand finale befitting 12 years of academia. But, sadly, times have changed, and i'm not sure "great employee, until he stink-bombed our office" would make for the best reference.

I'm joking of course. I save my stink bombs solely for teachers irate about receiving history coursework after everyone else's has been bundled for collection. apt marketing & pr has been good to me, and i'm talking about something deeper than a steady caffeine intake.

apt marketing & pr has let me grow, both as a person and as an employee. I've been given the freedom fail - when failing is part of learning. The results have been positive, both for myself and apt marketing & pr. There’s so much to mention. My confidence has improved, my ability to handle the quirks of human nature, my creativity with new ideas, I’m proud of all of these. I’m also proud that Social Media wasn’t in my job description before I joined, now it’s 50% of what I do. I’m also the resident expert who contributes Social Media (and other) ideas to new business pitches.

There’s still work to do. I’m not as persuasive on the phone as when writing, not as relaxed in client meetings as I should be and not as enthusiastic at mundane tasks as I really ought to be. I’m young enough to work on all of these.

Right now I’m filling out my University placement book. Detailing my learning experiences. It’s a lot of work. Coincidentally I need to write up my whole placement year (yes all 720 cups of it) report before I leave for Kenya next Friday. Which is going to be tricky, but not as tricky as handing it in whilst I’m in Kenya.

Money then. I’m going to need to find new work after Kenya. I’m hoping to go back to freelance writing for various magazines. There is also plenty of potential for taking on any overspill projects from apt, if things continue to go well.

So, all things considered, it’s been a great 720 cups of coffee. There are some big posts due, but this post is big enough.

Processing data - a new key skill?

Technology is rapidly demanding graduates with new skills. Skills i'm very keen to learn. I want to be at the cutting edge of technology and communications. I want to be able to join a company with skills no-one in that company has. I want to ascend, quickly. This is why Seth Godin's recent post is so fascinating:

"I sat next to Cory at a conference today. It was like playing basketball next to Michael Jordan. Cory was looking at more than 30 screens a minute. He was bouncing from his mail to his calendar to a travel site and then back. His fingers were a blur as he processed inbound mail, visiting more than a dozen sites in the amount of time it took for my neck to cramp up. I'm very fast, but Cory is in a different league entirely. Rereading this, I can see I'm not doing it justice. I wish I had a video...

This was never a skill before. I mean, maybe if you were an air traffic controller, but for most of us, most of the time, this data overload skill and the ability to make snap judgments is not taught or rewarded.

As the world welcomes more real-time editors working hard in low-overhead organizations, I think it's going to be a skill in very high demand."

Cory is the editor of BoingBoing a blog directory of "wonderful things". I believe it is the second most popular blog on the internet (out of over 60m).

Sending personalised press releases to 60+ contacts in under 30 minutes

I thought I would share a quick outlook trick i've found useful.

Step 1) Goto tools > Spelling > always check before sending (this should be on anyway).

Step 2) Write the brief introduction to the press release which references the magazine and/or why this is relevant to them

Step 3) Copy/paste your press release into the body of the e-mail at the bottom.

Step 4) Remove the contact name and put something like "D$%^S" then remove all references to any individual publication and put "Anss342".

Step 5) Now copy the whole body of the e-mail.

You can now click/enter the e-mail of any contact, paste the copy into the e-mail and hit send. Then the spellchecker will prompt you to enter both the name of the contact at the top to replace D$%^S and then the publication name of "Anss342".

This is a quick way of sending personalised e-mails without the risk of using the wrong name of the contact or publication. It also allows you to tailor every e-mail to the recipient.

Well, it's what I do anyway. It's also something you can use when mailing out CVs/applying for jobs.

Cheap viral marketing

Tessa Wegert's Anatomy of a free online marketing campaign caught my eye this morning. It's a great example of creativity over budget.

"We considered our product, and the time of year. With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, our solution was a concept called “Show Me Some Lube.” We would write an open letter from a car to its owner pointing out the places where their relationship could use some help – which Servassist, naturally, could provide.

We created a light-hearted visual letter rich in double entendres, replacing certain words and expressions with images. Users could test their auto IQ by trying to decipher them all."

Read her full post and check out the campaign itself at ShowMeSomeLube.com.

Very clever. Very creative. Very cost-effective.

Service Alerts launched

So, a blog i've almost solely created (and i'm quite proud of) went live today.

Everybody please behold Service Alerts.

It's a blog to support the launch of a client of ours, Service Alert. The concept is to get staff and customers in the service and hospitality industries to discuss their horror stories. The good, the bad and the extremely funny.

So give Service Alerts a read and let me know what you think.

What are we looking for?

A good point was made at the The Marketing Professionals blog today.

Luntz lists a range of words that have gone out of fashion, as well as the words that have replaced them. I'll list one example

WAS: Used car IS NOW: Pre-owned vehicle

However, according to Overture, in December 2006, 730,958 people searched for "used car," while only 949 searched for "pre-owned vehicle."

Using a more extreme example, "Cheap sofas". People will search for a cheap sofa, but would rather own an "affordable sofa".

So the cheap sofa manufacturer can't have "cheap sofas" on its website. The manufacturer would not want people linking their website with the words "cheap sofa" neither, so is only option is to have the company listed as a paid search result?

What do we want? Dogs and Ducks

BBC News has an interesting 'Most e-mailed' stories section from their main page. This basically displays what stories have achieved that beloved "viral" recognition.

The top five most e-mailed story headlines right now:

1) Dog-owners 'lead healthier lives'
2) Duck survives two days in fridge
3) Ancient Greek gods' new believers
4) Canada pig farmer trial to begin
5) US man survives 17-storey tumble

Now compare this with the top story headlines from the homepage:

1) Fears after '200 tonne' oil leak
2) Home Office split 'within months'
3) Nationalists 'lead Serbia poll'
4) BA staff to strike as talks fail
5) No agreement in Palestinian talks

There is a lesson here.

Why learning to manage up is important

Passion, People and Principles' David Maister has sparked a great discussion by citing the importance of young professionals learning to 'manage up'. Young people should read it:

"The main thing that I want young professionals to know is the importance of “managing up”. It is often a neglected skill and you need to learn it early.

It means making sure your manager is aware of the big issues that are plaguing the team and possible topics that may be discussed at a management meeting he/she attends. It also involves filtering the less important details from the important so that your manager does not feel overwhelmed with information. The ability to recognize the important from the insignificant will help a young professional in his/her plight to becoming a successful professional."

In the comments people have tried to answer the question, "To manage upwards effectively you should..."

I would strongly recommend that you give it a read. One of many things that you can't learn at University.

What Social Media is

Quick point to make.

Social Media is not about setting up a blog, podcast, wiki or a shop in Second Life. It's about interacting with the people that read the blog, responding to listener's comments on the podcast, encouraging people to contribute to the wiki and making sure people visit your Second Life Shop (seriously!).

It's not about using new technology to speak to your customers. It's about using new technology to let your customers speak with (and about) you.

Big Bruva

I had a big post lined up about the Big Brother racism saga. But it's hard to add anything that hasn't been said already. In short, yes the comments were racist, the contestants aren't racist, they're ignorant.

Anyone that watched Friday's episode would noticed the PR hand forcing Big Brother to let Jade know what she faced when she came out the house. Which might explain a final episode dedicated solely to giving Jade non-stop screen time to constantly explain she wasn't racist.

For more information read this morning star post or Drew's post.

In short, Jade shares the same PR rep as all the Big Brother presenters. Never mind, I'm looking forward to her next fitness video.

Working weekends

The only bad thing about working on Saturday mornings, is working on Saturday morning. Everything else is great. It's much quieter on Saturdays. The phone doesn't ring, people don't talk and there's no pressure of making deadlines. Well, that isn't entirely true, why else would you be here?

I've done some of my most creative work at apt marketing & pr from home in the twighlight hours, or at the weekends. Expensive coffee in the foreground, Led Zepplin in the background.

If it weren't for the fact it's Saturday, i'm not being paid extra and i'm doing work, this would be bliss.

"We're honest, honest!"

I've just been undertaking some research for our new website. I came across a few PR agencies which claimed to differentiate themselves by being honest.

Honestly, what other industries do this?

A great PR move by the palace

This Kate Middleton scenario makes for a great case study. I have a few American readers here, so I'll lay it out clearer.

The background:

Kate Middleton is Prince William's (the future king of England) girlfriend. Recently rumours have been spreading that the two will become engaged. As such, our infamous paparazzi have been relentlessly pursuing Kate Middleton hoping to snap up some pictures and sell them on to national newspapers for prices ranging from £5k - £30k.

Our paparazzi work in groups of two, once Kate leaves her house one member of the team will shout the most offensive thing he can think of, and when Kate turns around with a look of complete contempt or outrage, the other snaps a wallet-busting picture.

The problem:

Prince William is the son of Princess Diana. Princess Diana died in a Paris car crash nearly a decade ago as a result of being hounded by the press. (Quite literally, they were chasing her car when it spun out of control and crashed). Princess Diana was much-loved in the UK and people will no longer accept paparazzi pursuing Kate in the same manner they did with Diana. However, most of these pictures are not coming from staff, they're coming from "freelancers" with nobody to answer to. And I use the term "freelancers" very loosely.

The palace would rather not pursue legal action against the paparazzi for invasion of privacy. Legal action will just restrict the distance from which they can take pictures, it wont stop the pictures. Eliminating the demand for them will do.

The Solution:

My guess is that someone from the palace or Kate's legal representatives (who are receiving an interesting amount of exposure) made a deal with News International (Rupert Murdoch's company which owns The Sun, News of The World, The Times, Sunday Times and the London Paper) to publicly state they won't purchase Kate's pictures anymore. This would be in return for a few exclusives pictures and interviews further down the line if/when they get engaged.

It really is a great PR move:

• Every News International title gains plenty of public support and widespread media attention.
  
• They begin a trend. The public begin to turn against papers which do carry these pictures, and as a result they will have to enact this ban themselves without the benefits which the News International papers received.
  
• Kate Middleton is left alone. The press will no longer spend as much time trying to dig up dirt about her.
  
• The story has been twisted. The focus over the past week hasn't been on Kate Middleton, it's been on the paparazzi which are hounding her. This makes things quite comical, as now you have Kate leaving her home, pursued by the paparazzi, who are pursued by TV crews/journalists.

The PR -vs- The Journalist

There is a huge debate raging on the UKPress forums. It began as most debates between PR and journalists usually do, criticising "Annoying PR people". But it has now focused on two sides of one issue:

Wahida shared this story as an example of poor journalism in the journo/pr elationship:

Last year we were treated appallingly by a leading media outfit. We'd commissioned some research on behalf of a client, which made a really nice news hook. This particular media outfit was really keen and wanted it as an exclusive. So we thought long and hard about it and eventually went for it.

On the allotted day the journalist forgot to file the copy!!! This was a commercial disaster. The campaign had cost in excess of 7k, the client wanted to kill us and we wanted to kill the journalist.

Initially the journalist ignored our calls. When we got hold of her she said "I was really busy that day. I had a lot of stories to file."

I told her that she was missing the point, we had a commercial agreement and she failed to deliver. We never got an apology. They just said that's how newsrooms work there is immense pressure and things sometimes fall through the cracks. They also refused to ring the client to apologies.

The editor and the journalist just didn't get that their actions, or inactions, had lost someone hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Which sounds pretty harsh on poor the PR agency. However, Guy Clapperton responded (in some detail) with his journalism perspective:

OK, I'll bite.

* To what extent did you really have a commercial agreement with the paper?
I mean a real, binding and contractual agreement? Things get squeezed out of pages all the time for all manner of reasons. That is genuinely how it works and if you've been in PR longer than ten minutes you're well aware of it.

* Did the newsdesk itself - by which I mean the news editor - understand they'd 'agreed' anything or had the journalist simply expressed enthusiastic interest? This can be misunderstood very easily. I had a call today confirming a trip to see a company that I hadn't agreed to - I'd been polite to the previous PR and said it sounded interesting and suddenly my name was top of the list.

* Did you double check with the journalist that she was definitely writing a story or did you get onto her list of probables/possibles to pitch to her news ed? Are you *sure*? And given that it's your job to be selling the story in, how did it manage to slip her mind on press day if your pitch was right?

There's more. Did you manage your client's expectations about how the media works? Managing client expectations is an important part of your job. And what did your client understand by this 'agreement' - the same as the newsdesk? Acting as the pivot point between these bodies is precisely what you do for a living.

The journalist doesn't work for you, she works for an editor. If the piece they're working on doesn't fit the page at the time and the editor or section editor doesn't think it serves the readers' interests, no matter how much it's cost someone - that is none of our business - it gets zapped. End of. The reader is the absolute ruler. It may appear unfair that you get so little say in the ultimate outcome but that's pretty much tough. If you don't like it you don't have to work in PR.

What do you think?

It is certainly easy to see both points of view. apt marketing & pr recalls a three page feature planned for The Times just before my time which our former PR Director spent several days working on. The editorial fell through due to a government announcement. Sadly, it happens.

Could there be benefits of revealing private information?

Every now and then I read something which makes changes my perspective on an issue. Danah Byod's post changed my opinion about revealing private details online.

"The core of our conversation concerned the story of a teenage boy who wrote a suicidal message on his MySpace. Zadi saw it and contacted the boy; he wrote back indicating that he was in the middle of taking a lot of pills. Zadi wrote to her friends, begging for help. One of her friends found the boy's school on his profile and contacted the principal who, in turn, contacted the family and got an ambulance to the boy in time.

I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if this boy had followed the "safety measures" that most parents groups advocate. The data that made him traceable - his school, his real name - helped a kind stranger save his life. I wonder how many people's lives are saved (or enhanced) by the presence of authentic data online."

What an interesting thought. The belief that it's better to reveal private information about ourselves than to hide it. Believe that the benefits of being traceable outweigh the consequences.

When I think about my own traceability, it is quite easy for stalkers (hi there!) to track me down. Anyone that reveals their place of work is an easy target. Yet very few (no-one I know) is a victim of cyber-stalking. Still, i'm left fascinated by the concept that if everyone revealed more of their personal details, we might actually be safer.

Danah has also added another post on the topic revealing that misuse of personal information is far less common than we are led to believe. 95% of child abusers are family members of the victim. Thereby, MySpace pages/blogs and other new media tools could become an outlet for victims to seek out help from friends and strangers.

Kodak - Winds of Change

This YouTube video was originally intended as an internal video for Kodak. But it became so popular they released it externally on YouTube. Or that is there story anyway. Like the Thresher reader offer, this was probably what they always intended.

But still, I love it. I think it's funny, unspeakably cheesy and actually quite powerful.

Always be different.

My plastic quotes dilemma

I've had an interesting problem recently. Sometimes, when I ask clients for quotes, they give me quotes which sound fake.

e.g. "We are delighted that [name] has done [verb] and we are [OTT-adjective] about what this means for our future. [Cliché sentence 1]. [Cliché sentence 2]."

I wont dwell on the quotes which include brackets (yes brackets like these inside quotes).

So what to do? Do you use the quote with the peace of mind that it is a proper quote from the client? Or do you send it back to the client "sorry, you talk funny, try again!"?

Obviously you use option number two, but in a much politer and encouraging way. It is also worth explaining that these days journalists want the quotes to sound the same as people would talk in the pub, they don't want corp-speak. You can also phone the client and type up the quotes whilst you ask them questions. That is probably the best way of getting quotes.

I do sympathise. At the beginning of my PR career (those many 10 months ago), I used to draft quotes on behalf of clients which began "we are delighted...". Back then this is how I thought PR was supposed to sound, it's funny how time has changed.

Plenty to read

As "blog more often" featured in so many bloggers' 2007 resolutions, it's getting tougher to read through all the new posts, let alone respond/blog about it. However these links do deserve some special merit, and i'll never have time to post about them all separately.

1. ProBlogger - How to find news for your blog
   ProBlogger strikes again with another great post. This time how to find news for your blog.
   
   
2. Stephen Davies - The newspaper bites back
   Stephen, the UK's best young PR blogger, reports on epaper. epaper could have a huge potential to the future of journalism. Be sure to also check two other great posts of his recently, innocent drinks rock and relevant, recycled, online news.
   
   
3. Buzz Canuck - Help Wanted - Casting for the Word of Mouth Stories from the Last Year
   A great post giving examples of a wide variety of separate word of mouth examples. Could you contribute?
   
   
4. Digital Inspiration - Useful HTML Tricks for Bloggers - Adding a Touch of Style
   A relevant post to all bloggers looking to improve the style of their blogs.
   
   
5. Advertising Age - Behind the Epidemic of Lousy Viral Campaigns
   Scott Donaton believes that most viral marketing campaigns suck. "Doing something just to do something still leads to nothing. "
   
   
6. Copy Blogger - The 5 essential elements of search engine keyword research.
   Copy Blogger, my favourite blog on the internet, explains how to make sure you use the right key words for your SEO/marketing strategy.
   
   
7. Guardian Unlimited - Google tops brand survey
   Google spends just £1.4m on advertising and is the top brand in the UK. Microsoft came 2nd (spending £40m), McDonalds third (£32.6m), Nokia 4th (£17.5m) and Tescos 5th (a whopping £75.5m).

That's all folks.

Social Media and the Royal Family - part 2

Heather Gorringe of Wiggly Wigglers has replied to my previous post "Social Media and the Royal Family" with some good comments. Heather has a particular expertise in both podcasting and the royal family having previously spoken with Prince Charles (her landlord no less) about podcasts. I would go as far as tipping Heather to get Prince Charles on her great podcast in the future.

"If you look back 12 months ago at the idea that The Queen would produce a podcast would have been ridiculous. Podcasts aren't just for the young - they are for everyone and it can only do podcasting good to have the Queen herself at it.

As for removed - take a real look, The Queen is the one constant people have in this changing landscape. She has vast experience - she sees governments come and go and her message was very clear this year - the young can learn from the old - and vice versa. Ooo and as for Prince Charles why not ask those millions of young entrepreneurs he has helped with The Princes Trust or maybe ask Al Gore if he is connected with helping stem climate change... "

Every point Heather makes is correct, but the popularity of the royal family (however constant their presence) is still decreasing. The Queen's message may have spoken clearly to the young, but no-one I've so far asked of my age listened to it.

Never has there been any real attempt by the palace to engage me, and I'm using myself to encompass many more like me. I'm one of several million young tech-savvy types who simply don't watch TV much and have little inclination to download podcasts by the Queen. The Princes Trust sounds great and isn't something I was aware of, which might again suggest either their PR is poor, or I'm in the minority.

I believe that the royal family is an inherently great thing for this country, and they serve a distinct purpose and represent the British people. But I also believe they're in real danger with this extremely apathetic generation.

The Cliché Finder

I was going to be clever about this post and fill it with plenty of clichés, sadly it's not even 8am yet and Lifehacker.com beat me to it.



What a great idea, a cliché finder. Now please be sure to use it on your press releases and eradicate your overused termites.

Give the cliché finder a go.

The secret of late night TV quizzes

"Most people are actually quite stupid" Said the smartest man I've ever met. He was watching Big Brother at the time. Every time I am privy to the collective stupidity of society, I think of that comment. Which brings me to this new craze in late night TV shows. I'm going to reveal a big secret and explain how these late night quiz shows make money when hardly anyone calls in.

So you can't sleep. You turn on the TV and see that there's a £25000 prize on offer to whomever can tell the presenter the male star of Gladiator. Strangely, no-one seems to be calling. Perhaps hardly anyone else is watching?

Excitedly, you grab the phone and dial the number. What is 75p when you will soon have £25000? Once you get through you're put on hold and told "if chosen" you will go live on air and give your answer. If chosen? you think, but no-one else is calling up! So you stay on hold, 75p becomes £1.50, £2.25, £3.00, £3.75...It can't be long now. He hasn't had a call in nearly five minutes...The presenter is so desperate for people to phone in he's almost begging me to call in.

In reality you're an idiot and there are about another 500 - 1000 (can be as high as 8500) other people thinking exactly the same. Your chances are slim to none. Where the genius of these quiz shows come into play is through letting people think they are unpopular. They let you think that no-one else is calling up, the presenters are deliberately desperate for calls...regardless of the 500 people on hold.

So with that in mind, please can everyone stop phoning these quiz shows up so they go out of business? I want my late night poker back.

Please also read this story in the Guardian.

Diary of a caffeine addict

John Walker, one of the UK's best freelance gaming journalists, has written an entertaining post about breaking his caffeine addiction. It is worth a read.

The doctor told me I must stop. Not because I was glugging back crazed amounts. I was genuinely having two or three mugs a day. And the “two” part was often true. They were damn good mugs of coffee, and certainly considerably strong (how coffee should be consumed, milky weirdos). But it wasn’t quite the intravenous drip it could have been. But because it was likely linked to my bundle of anxiety issues, and it was a first thing to rule out.

My response surprised me as I was spluttering it. I began bargaining with him. I genuinely said, “But I can’t! I have… a really expensive espresso machine.” He gave me a look.

My caffeine intake has skyrocketed since joining apt marketing & pr. Andy and I consume worrying amounts of the stuff. We're also very partial to drinking 'proper' coffee. None of that instant lark. My new year's resolution was to drink less caffeine. But then I woke up on New Year's day, on the wrong side of alcohol, voiceless, and with work to be done. So I broke my resolution within about nine hours of the new year. Which means i'll keep consuming until 2008.

Social Media and the Royal Family

I'll be honest, this post has been loitering around my draft posts for nearly a week, so sorry it's a little out of date.

The Queen podcasted her Christmas speech this year. It was an attempt to bridge the generation divide. It’s about time the queen and co got down with us kool kidz.

Podcasting the Queen’s speech isn’t a terrible idea, but our generation (my generation) won’t download the podcast. The problem with the Queen’s speech, has never been accessibility, it’s played on terrestrial television several times over Christmas. The problem is that it’s so tedious and remote from our daily lives that there isn’t much motivation for anyone not under the spell of tradition, or the demands of patriotic family members, to listen to it.

We’re not going to be interested in the Queen I’m afraid. She’s too old and too boring. The Queen represents the traditions which are dying out. Prince Charles suffers from the same problem. The answer lies in their best natural resources, Princes William and Harry.

Here you have two princes leading very interesting and public lives. Their mother tragically died amidst spectacular public mourning almost a decade ago. Since then we’ve followed them growing up. Their father has remarried; they’ve graduated from schools, universities and academies. Now they’re organising a concert (they are surprisingly talented in Event Management) to commemorate the decade anniversary of their mother’s death.

If the palace wants to bridge the generation divide then getting the two princes involved with Social Media represents a great opportunity. MySpace is ideal. Blogs, podcasts, perhaps even wikis, are all great too. Why not start a MySpace page or a blog and build upon success from there. Get us while we’re young. If we can identify with the princes now, we’ll support them better when Prince William is king.

Saddam Hussein's execution video (the one which includes the drop!)

Saddam's execution video (the one which "includes the drop!") is the most popular online video at the moment. Several million people have already seen it on YouTube and Google Video (all taken by the same Camera phone). No mainstream news agency would show it.

It's macabre. A noose hung over a rusting gate. Several hooded men, disturbingly similar to the terrorists seen executing hostages in Iraq, lead the former dictator up the stairs in the most primitive of places. Then the drop. There's clearly a debate in the barbarisim of this, which i'm not the best person to dwell upon. There is also a debate about the role of USA/UK in this execution. Obviously with the exception of declaring war on iraq, bringing down Saddam's regime, hunting Suddam, capturing him, holding him prisoner for 3 years and handing him over to Iraq an hour before the execution, the west had nothing to do with it. My point is about this video.

There's a big debate over at the BBC editors blog about their decisions of what footage to show and not show. The comments are even more interesting, many people critical of the BBC's decision.

Everyone is a potential journalist now. About 40% of the population are walking around with video cameras in their pockets. And these camera phones are improving by the month, as is our talents to edit and upload them.

So why is there such a huge demand to watch the last moments of someone's life? Is it a curiousity? How did a tyrant face death? Is it to see justice served to a tyrant? Is it because the mainstream agencies wont show it? Surely many of those watching these videos followed the execution on CNN/BBC world service and saw Suddam being led up to the noose, only for the coverage to cut away seconds prior to his death and be told they couldn't watch it. We always want what we can't have right?

Should we be watching these videos? Should someone be editting them? Should we have the freedom to watch Steve Irwin's or Saddam Hussein's final moments?

Money launderers enter Second Life, will the FBI?

Kenneth Rijock explains how money launderers are using Second Life for their purposes:

"I open 15 to 25 accounts at the virtual universe website, all with counterfeit identification. I fund the accounts with narcotics proceeds cash, all patiently deposited at the available ATMs by my smurfs.

I then purchase some virtual real estate from a co-conspirator, as a partnership of my bogus identities, and funnel all the virtual purchase money into his account.

The "seller" can then access these funds, either through ATMs, or through a bank. Perhaps I open a small bank account, using bogus ID,and obtain cashiers' cheques with my now-converted "virtual" profits. Is this a great way to move criminal profits ? You bet it is."

Criminals have entered Second Life, so isn't it about time the FBI establish a HQ there? Someone needs to get these evil avatars locked up...in virtual jails of course. Yes, i'm still a Second-Life sceptic.

How do e-mails work?

I’ve never been taught how to send an e-mail, nor do I know of anyone that has. Yet e-mail is a key means of communication in almost all jobs now. So isn’t it about time we learnt how to use it properly?

Everybody who uses e-mail should have a fundamental understanding of how it works. They should learn beyond the simple functions of how to send/receive e-mails, CC, BCC, attachments etc and learn about privacy, security, synchronisation, storage, spam, how it reaches the domain, who is likely to read it, what the error messages mean etc. Most people don’t. How you write and layout an e-mail is often not how it will appear to the recipient. Why, so often, are images withheld?

How do e-mail filters work? What do they block? We need to learn more about spam too. We need to know the tricks employed by spammers to bypass these filters and how to ensure that our subjects and solicitations don’t read like spam.

What about e-mail etiquette? Words are much more open to interpretation without a tone of voice, facial expressions and body language. How should this affect what we send?

These are so many things we don’t know about e-mail, yet we relentlessly continue to use it as a primary communications tool. Learning to use e-mail should be a module on most University degrees, or at least included in the training programme for new employees. I've come up with five very basic rules for using e-mail, but it probably wouldn't be too difficult to think of another twenty.

Five basic rules for using e-mail

1. No unsolicited attachments (that includes press releases as attachments)
   
2. Do not include images in e-mails (they are usually blocked by the recipient’s mail filter)
   
3. Keep the layout simple.
   
4. Formal versus informal. Think carefully about whether to use “Hi” or “Dear” at the beginning of the e-mail. Don’t assume it will be the same for everyone. Likewise think carefully when concluding the e-mail with “Yours Sincerely” or “Kind Regards”
   
5. If you access your work e-mail from anywhere other than work. Make your that the PC is secure on the network, i.e. don’t store cookies and keep the home network private and under a password. A company’s security is extremely vulnerable to employees working from home.

Update: Heather has added a few more rules in the comments. My favourite: "don't ever include the words 'enlargement', 'harder' or 'longer' anywhere in the title line.. " I would also add it's probably best not to use any cliché words "new", "unique", "solution" etc...

Ever had a bad service experience?

I'm going to be nice and open about something I'm working on, because I would like your input, dear readers. I'm soon to be launching a blog on behalf of a client dedicated to hospitality horror stories. Do you have any good ones to share?

What I'm looking for:

• Customer stories from catering establishments - Think restaurants and hotels etc...have you ever been the victim of extremely abusive or incompetent staff? Foreign objects in your food? Anything worse?
  
  
• Terrible customers - Did you ever work at a hospitality establishment? Do you remember terrible or bizarre customers? Hotel staff especially seem to have many fond memories of this one.
  
  
• Transport hospitality - Think trains, planes, coaches, buses. Any offbeat stories to share?

If you do have any great memories, then please do drop me an e-mail. Include your name, the venue and the story. I'm looking for stories around 250 - 500 words. But longer and shorter can be considered.

Of course if you have any great ideas for the blog then let me know. Good input is always valued. It's part of an online strategy to launch and raise the profile of a new product in the hospitality industry.

For everyone taking a Media degree

I got a fair bit of stick when I was studying Media at A-Levels. I wish responded to it as well as Heather.

Heather's blog is always worth a read anyway.

A busy start to a busy new year

Happy new year everyone. I'm literally speechless. My voice has gone. It left me during the new year celebrations and still hasn't found it's way back.

Much needs to be done in my final 19 days here at apt marketing & pr. I need to launch two blogs, generate plenty of coverage in very specialist magazines and work closely with Samantha (and probably Ian given his ferocious learning pace) to bring them up to speed with my activities.

Then after I leave I'm cycling 400km in five days across Kenya. Which I'm currently training for. Assuming I survive this, I then need to reacclimatise to University (what am I going to do with all that spare time?) and find a source of legal income (ah yes, bugger). Employment for me involves pitching feature ideas to a variety of magazines (a year in PR has given me some good editorial contacts) and hoping they pay me for several hundred words pieced together in a coherent fashion.

It would also be great if there's some freelance work going in the Social Media realm. Copywriting is another field in which I would love to get involved. There is just something about the craft of creating motivation and desire through writing which I enjoy.

Of course i'm going back to University to finish my degree. I graduate in 2008 and will be disappointed to achieve anything less than a first. So I need to put some hard work.

So on a more general note for 2007, there are some things I want to achieve.

1. I've already mentioned the Kenya challenge.
   
2. Figure out what I want to do with my life. I enjoy marketing, running events, social media, PR and writing. Somewhere in that mix is a future for me.
   
3. Get fit...wait, I'm already quite healthy. Instead I get to watch considerably less fit people push themselves too hard too soon. Begin with something very easy (how about walking for 30 minutes?) then gradually build up to running. It will be less entertaining for me to watch, but you are more likely to meet your new year's resolutions.
   
4. Don't pay for a TV license. This is more of a prediction than a cunning plan to evade authorities. My TV collects more dust than my vacuum. Which is to say that I don't use either often enough to justify their existence. I watch most of the newest TV Shows from Bit torrent before they are shown in the UK. I read my news online and any films I want to watch, I buy or borrow. So if I still even have a TV by 2008, it will be for watching my VHS film collection only.
   
5. I guess I could be a bit more organised.

Have a nice year.