mediations

New look for my Orbit

Rather than work I have just downloaded and installed a trial version of the SPB Mobile Shell for my Orbit 2 (details http://www.xda-blog.co.uk/). I'd love to say I like it because it looks rather good (which it does) but it is also a huge boon for someone whose eyesight isn't quite what it used to be but doesn't like wearing glasses. Big bright symbols, an analogue clock and even a weather forecast function for when I can't be bothered to look out of the window!!!   

Blogging from my xda Orbit 2

Just downloaded typepad mobile. Does it work?

Update: Clearly it does...! I will take it to EuroBlog... but it won't replace my trusty Moleskine notebooks.

Steve Cater at VCCP, who are running the Orbit 2 seeding campaign has sent a list of links:

Being Lucy Diamond, Blog Til You Drop (2), Darren Straight, Keith’s Affiliate, Marketing Blog, Mediations, Mobile Phone Development (2), Neville Hobson (2, 3), The Engaging Brand Blog and Will McInnes – all have been put up on the xda_blog.

Interesting to see how 02 responds to Neville Hobson's video rant about (not) assembling the baffling 'car thingy'...

Passport to adventure: case study

Although blogging and other social media gained credibility with PR practitioners during 2006 there is still a clear need for supporters to produce compelling case studies.

Our Delivering the New PR conferences inspired a great deal of debate and constant emails show that people went back to work full of new ideas, but I suspect many found the hard bit was putting those ideas into practice.

And it is a challenge. Edinburgh delegate Jenny Glumoff works for VisitScotland, part of the team responsible for promoting adventure holidays - short breaks that exploit Scotland's potential as a fabulous destination for anything from mountain biking, kayaking, mountain walking, ice climbing, canyoning and gorge walking, skiing and snow boarding, ski mountaineering and white water rafting. Specifically she wants to promote an Adventure Passport which offers discounts on a range of different activities in the Lochaber and Fort William area.

It sounds like fertile ground for a social media campaign so I am asking PR bloggers to put forward ideas, and suggest strategies and tactics in a way that will establish an example of good practice that might be applicable to many other organisations.

Jenny's idea was to invite bloggers to come and try the various activities, being careful to be open and transparent about the pitches and follow up processes, and see how the messages - good or bad - travelled around the blogosphere.

She is also setting up an Adventure Passport blog which as well as being a focus for publicity activities, will provide a regular update on new activities. Luckily Jenny is keen on adventure sports herself, and many of the posts will tell of her own experiences as she roadtests Scottish attractions. If she can find the right voice, content and pictures shouldn't be a problem...

So is inviting bloggers a good idea? Assuming they are approached in the right way - and they enjoy their stay! - this seems a sound strategy to me (though it is interesting to reflect on the many differences bewteen managing these visits and a usual press facility trip).

The challenge is deciding who to invite. Jenny is looking for committed adventurers, ideally from the south of England, to try sea kayaking, mountain biking, mountain walking and climbing, ice climbing and extreme sports.

Sea kayaking is a narrow field and there don't seem to be many dedicated blogs out there; it is easy to find hundreds of bloggers who enjoy mountain biking, but they are either commercial (connected to magazine etc) or highly individual. The PR blogging community, for example, has quite a few conversational 'hubs', fairly high profile bloggers with a significant readership to whom less established bloggers look to for new ideas which they then take up and comment on. So far I have found it hard to identify adventure sport bloggers who have this sort of following - if anyone has any suggestions on how to find them, please let me know.

Another idea would be to identify a couple of high traffic general interest bloggers who might like the idea of a trip to Scotland.... Again, any ideas on who to approach, or more importantly, how to identify a useful shortlist would be appreciated. You never know, Jenny might even invite a PR blogger to visit Scotland a weekend.... (and, yes, the photo shows my bike enjoying a trip to Scotland).

I am going to be advising Jenny and watching the way the social media campaign works as part of an academic case study that will hopefully prove of value to a wide range of participants. Anyone who would like to contribute will be fully credited.

Over to you....

The wild, the innocent and the e-media shuffle...

Nine o'clock on a Friday morning is not the best time to lecture students on the impact of social media on PR practice (especially not those students for whom the weekend starts on Thursday evening). Happily, most of them seem reasonably interested in my Introduction to Weblogs module, but you can certainly tell when they become engaged. This happened twice, when I used case studies prompted by Delivering the New PR colleagues Stuart Bruce and Elizabeth Albrycht. They were captivated by the contribution of consumer generated content around IRobot's Roomba vacuum cleaner (and the marvellous Roomba wiki, but even more so by the Innocent smoothies Daily Thoughts blog.

This is how social media works as a promotional tool. My students were hugely amused by the idea of making hats for Innocent smoothies, and were soon exploring the Flickr pages, and quick to seize on the chance to win an Innocent hoodie. But the thing that would have delighted the team behind the blog was the conversation, where Innocent enthusiasts (and there were quite a few) set about convincing others of the merits of the drink - vibrant, completely spontaneous endorsements that would have sounded hollow and artificial if written by a PR person...

Students taking Introduction to Weblogs have to write their own blog - and some of them are pretty good. Only one engages directly with public relations - Sam Wilcox's Believe the Spin, which she set up before the course began. In a recent post (Breaking news.. I don't want to be a journalist) she questioned whether PR students should, as they do in Sunderland, have to study journalism, and she sparked a lively debate. It would be interesting to see more people contribute...

   

Tack Stockholm, tack Margaretha

Just back from a few days research in Stockholm, talking to practitioners about their conceptions of public relations and the assumptions that underpin ethical decisions. Much of my visit was arranged by Margaretha Sjöberg and her colleagues at the Sveriges Informationsförening (the Swedish Public Relations Association) who arranged for me to meet a number of fascinating and helpful people working in a range of PR and comms roles.

The sharp-eyed will have noticed that Sveriges Informationsförening doesn't translate exactly as Swedish Public Relations Association; the general feeling seems to be that whilst it is OK to tell foreigners that they work in PR, practitioners would prefer to be seen by fellow Swedes as working in information or communication.

This is perhaps not so surprising in a country where PR and advertising generate the lowest level of public trust of any professions... Needless to say this is not because Swedish PR is particularly unscrupulous, but rather more to do with the challenge of shaping persuasive nmessages in a country which puts a strong emphasis on openness and transparency.

More of this later...   

Moving the goalposts

In the first session for new PR students we talk generally about reputation and relationships, and about how people find out about things. I usually ask about what brought them to Sunderland, how they heard about the course, and what had attracted them to it. A reasonable number of Sunderland students come from the North East so word of mouth and teacher recommendations play a big part. For those coming from further afield, UCAS and our website are more important, and it was interesting to hear that although overseas students generally have little idea about the city, they are impressed by our state of the art, £10m media centre.

But there is always scope for innovation and new thinking. One guy explained that he was playing football with friends and they used a pile of prospectuses for goalposts. The game was going badly, he was in goal, he happened to pick up on of the booklets and saw our course. The rest, as they say, is history...

Paul's magic blog

"You'll like it. Not a lot, but you'll like it..." Here's an interesting case study (thanks Niall). TV magician Paul Daniels is blogging about life as someone who used to be very famous but is now deemed out of step with modern tastes...

Busy, busy days, he writes, "But the sad thing is that none of the work is bringing in any income.  Sometimes this life style does that.  You work all the hours in the day for nowt."

Daniels runs a regularly updated AOL Journal (Paul Daniels' Diary), with comments and an RSS feed alongside a slickly-designed 'Official Website' site which carries the same comments but without comments or RSS and a more overtly commercial presentation; both blogs link to an online store, Paul Daniels Magic Shop. The blogs are trailing a new video podcast showing the secrets of tricks but there are no details as to when tis goes live.

The Diary archive shows around five postings a month and says it has been read 1535 times since June 2005; the postings are clean and crisply written, an odd mix between the personal, professional and idiosyncratic, with Daniels' 'love him or hate him' characteristics regularly showing through.

The All About Me sidebar suggests one of Daniels' motivations for the blogs:

Why am I here?  Well, for years I have sent friends silly notes of what I am up to and where I am so I thought why not let fans know, or even people who are just curious.  At least here you will get the truth and not what some journalist decides to create!

The News section of the Magic Shop, not dated and referring to a Christmas pantomime, includes this:

In the past there have been many criticisms of Paul and/or Debbie in the British Press.  Most of the 'facts' in such reports are simply not true and to see a prime example of British journalism at its best read the article on the website http://www.pauldaniels.co.uk.

Most of the content for the report was fabricated or at best, distortions of the truth.  It is interesting to read what Paul says in response to the 'facts'.

Worth further investigation...