United in Manchester: Delivering the New PR

Just back from Manchester and taking part in the University of Sunderland's Delivering the New PR conference. Lots of positive feedback and as ever a pleasure to be working with blogstars Elizabeth Albrycht, Stuart Bruce, Neville Hobson and Tom Murphy.

It is only three months since Making the News in Sunderland but the whole feel of the event was that things have moved on quite a way since November. More of the delegates seemed at home with blogs and it was obvious from eavesdropping on lunchtime chats that people across a wide range of disciplines are working on new and exciting ideas.

Neville was on good form - which was a good thing as podcasting was the clearly the hot topic. A show of hands suggested that about two in three delegates had listened to a podcast, and about half of them said they'd done this for the first time within the last few weeks.

Sarah Jafar told us about a very useful feature, downloadable mp3s giving first aid advice, she had added to the St John Ambulance website - here it is.

"St. John Ambulance believes that everyone should learn at least the basic First Aid techniques. You may need to use them at any time at home, at school or work or even while you're travelling. Knowing what to do can make the difference to a person's recovery, and you could even save their life.

And only a couple of days ago I discovered that another of our Sunderland delegates, Simon Collister, of CicadaPR, has launched his own blog, Simon Says.

Comments

[Simon Collister]

Thanks for the plug Philip! Although I went to the Sunderland conference I would like to have paid a visit to the Manchester one as well to compare and see how far things had moved on since November.

[Nicky Wake]

Philip, as always the speaker input was inspirational, so much so that I started my own blog 'Eventualities' which is loosely based on the field of event management and the trials and tribulations of running a small business.

I'm really looking forward to working with you all again when we take 'Delivering the New PR' to London in May and I think the delegate list from Manchester just shows how much of a hot topic new communicatons tools such as blogging, RSS and podcasting are becoming for major players in the PR world.

For anyone interested in reading about the conference from an event perspective please check out my blog Eventualities(http://www.eventualities.blog.co.uk/).