Book review: For whom the Bell tolls Following a recent blog posting on a speech by former BBC war correspondent and independent MP Martin Bell at Loewy Group’s monthly speaker’s club, his publishers very kindly sent me a copy of his new book The Truth That Sticks: New Labour’s Breach of Trust. A chronicle of the corruption and abuse of public fund – not least to say good will – that Bell alleges to have witnessed first hand at Westminster, if this tome was handed to every citizen in Britain we’d be battering down the doors of Parliament like Citizen Smith armed with the zeal of Guy Fawkes.

Bell’s central driving force isn’t a naïve shock to find that British politics is far from clean, he centres more on the UK Government’s incredible capacity for hypocrisy, seeking to impose ‘democracy’ on countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan when the self-styled ‘Mother of all Parliaments’ herself far from represents a good model of democracy in practice. Bell appears to argue that corruption and lack of accountability – in the modern era, at least – hit a zenith during Tony Blair’s premiership, with the invasion of Iraq the rancid icing on a dirty, seedy cake.

Bell’s arguments are passionate, often siding with the foot soldiers at the coal face as he himself once was both as a Corporal and news reporter, but if you’re familiar with the works of Rory Bremner and his ilk then you’ll have heard all the charges before: Blair lied about supposed Iraqi WMDs, New Labour rewarded some of its paymasters with peerages, Alistair Campbell elevated spin to unprecedented levels. The differentiator about The Trust That Sticks, however, is that Bell has been on the inside of the House that claims to represent us, and it’s riddled with flaws. This should concern us and we should all strive to make a difference, which I imagine is Bell’s key objective in writing this book.

Labels: PR

  Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 9:00 AM

  Future of recruitment agencies lies at the network edge We’re not the only agency to have made a hiring via Twitter. You’ll see from the comments on my last post that other people in the PR industry have done the same via LinkedIn and Twitter.

What does this mean for the recruitment industry? Over the last decade we’ve seen the web squeeze businesses based on an agent or intermediary model many times. Think about estate agents, dating agencies and travel agents. And during tough economic climates such as that which we’re currently predicted to be facing the impact will always be exaggerated as businesses seek to drive down costs.

This isn't the death knell for the recruitment industry. After all, we've been here before. Monster was going kill the industry five years ago with its ability to make direct connections between employers and potential employees. It didn’t of course. Instead smart recruitment firms embraced the online environment and were forced to innovate to survive.

Web 2.0 doesn't spell the end of the recruitment agency. Using a social network to recruit is no different to using a traditional network. The reach may be greater but it will always be finite. Recruitment agencies will be pushed to the edge of the network. While we've just made a hire utilising a social network its likely that are next couple of hires will be via recruitment agencies.

So what is the future of the recruitment agency?

Labels: agency life, PR

  Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 10:47 AM

  Twitter hiring We’ve made our first hiring via Twitter. Liverpudlian Matt Watson joins us next month. He’s run a cracking blog for the last five years about his experiences as a student, most recently at Huddersfield University. We got in touch directly via Twitter. Welcome Matt you’ve got a great career ahead of you.

Recruitment via social networking: it’s the brave new world. Like traditional networking but much better. A place in the network is earned not only by who you know, but crucially through personal expertise and reputation. And best of all it doesn’t involve recruitment consultants.

PR students listen-up. If you want a fast track career in digital PR use your holiday time to get work placements and like Matt immerse yourself in the tools of your trade such as Blogger, Facebook, Flickr, Google Tools, Twitter and Wordpress. Chances are that if you do you’ll have a head start on many of those that have been in the industry for several years.

I’m always gobsmacked by candidates, both graduates and those that have been in the industry for some time, that come for an interview (almost always via recruiters) at Rainier PR that don’t make an effort to look at the agency web site or our blog. They typically don’t use an RSS Reader and haven’t had “time to look at Twitter”. Bollocks. Don’t waste your time – or ours.

And to those people to whom I dismissed Twitter last year I got it completely and utterly wrong and I apologise unreservedly. I’ve now got a case study with absolute return on investment. We’ll all learning, right?

Labels: agency life

  Permalink | 9 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 9:27 PM

  Building a Google-indexed web site in 60 minutes, for free I’ve just built a web site to support the fundraising effort for our Three Peaks Challenge and act as a central information resource for the team.

Granted its basic, but its looks professional and will enable us to add content in the lead up to the challenge attempt. It took 60 minutes to build from start to finish and cost precisely nothing.

That’s the thing with web 2.0, there are so many excellent tools available for free that elegantly interoperate with each other and require minimal web skills. The hardest thing is literally remembering your username and password for all the various web tools and resources. Other than that it’s relatively straightforward and hugely empowering.

The site was built using Wordpress. Images were edited and formatted using Picnik and sucked into the site from Flickr. Maps and routes were pulled in from Google Maps.

When I did hit an issue (how do you format a RSS feed from a Flickr photo set so that it works with a Wordpress widget) I found the answer immediately on the Flickr community site.

The really neat thing is that with some clever linking and cross posting both Google and Technocrati had indexed the site within 30 minutes and picked up its tags and keywords.

The site could have been a response to a communication crisis in which case I could have been communicating with interested parties within 90 minutes.

I’m not in this instance of course. I’m fundraising. Please sponsor us.

Labels: after work, threepeaks

  Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 11:09 AM

  2.0minous
  Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 2:02 PM

  Andrew Smith’s PR 2.0 tools Here for the sake of completeness are Andrew Smith’s blog posts about how web 2.0 is commoditising aspects of the PR agency business.

More tips on journalist backgrounders

How to create a journalist backgrounder in 5 mins with Google

An open source model for PR?

How to create a (free) powerful media monitoring and measurement system with Google Reader, RSS, Google Alerts and Blist

BBC tech correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones: a case study for the death of the journalist background briefing document?

Labels: agency life, PR

  Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 10:45 AM

  Using PR 2.0 to define a unique company position or why traditional PR agencies are dead Andrew Smith has run a fantastic series of posts recently about how free or low-cost web tools are eliminating a lot of agency grunt work. We caught up on Tuesday night at a Brodeus / A Plus reunion and chewed over how the PR industry is slow to catch-on to the application of web 2.0 to simplify PR practice.

An example that I’ve been citing to colleagues for a couple of months is how Google has made available a stack of intellectual property and search records that eliminates much of the analytical and empirical analysis associated with developing a market position for a company.

Google’s Keyword Tool is intended to help Google customers build compelling and targeted ads. It also allows a company’s top level positioning and key messages to be tested against historical search records, average search volumes and advertiser competition.

The tool squirts out a dashboard of stats based Google’s vast database of keyword search records. Its also provides synonyms and alternative search terms together with search records.

Consider three examples:

Example 1
A new client is seeking to position itself as a mobile social network. The Google tools tell us that advertiser competition is low and that search volumes are also low – but rising. Given that the client operates in a growing market the current positioning is spot on but will inevitably cease to be unique over time as competitors jump into market. The new client is advised to maintain its current market position for the time-being but to constantly evaluate this and look at applications as a way of creating a unique differentiation.

Example 2
A start-up in the electronics sector has developed a digital value for the precise control of oil and gas. “Digital valve” has low advertiser competition and low search volumes. The client can either seek to define this new market – an expensive exercise for an early stage company – or redefine its positioning so that it is aligned to a recognised market, issue or application.

Example 3
An enterprise ERP software client is seeking to reposition itself. Google confirms that its positioning is wholly undifferentiated. Search volumes are good but the market for adwords is highly competitive. The tool throws a couple of options such as “ERP business software” and application areas where search volumes are good and advertiser competition is low but the client clearly needs help redefining its market position.

A high value service traditionally provided by agencies has just been commoditised. Research tools and agencies have been rendered redundant. It’s time to reinvent the PR agency.

Labels: agency life, PR

  Permalink | 1 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 10:36 AM

  Hands on approach

Labels: after work

  Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 4:37 PM

  Spin flint We know the Labour Government is lousy at keeping secrets, but Housing Minister Caroline Flint dropped a clanger today, unwittingly allowing paps to get a shot of her Cabinet notes which acknowledged the state of the housing marketing in the UK.

Although I think blogger Guy Fawkes is over the top in calling for Flint to be charged under the Official Secrets Act, I do agree that Flint’s closing statement is classic New Labour bollocks: “... it is vital that we show that at this time of uncertainty we show that we are on people's side,” she writes.

What’s required is firm action, not a few clumsily-spun words.

Labels: media, PR

  Permalink | 0 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 2:42 PM

  Faceblood Last Friday, two of our boys became extras in the latest Charlie Brooker project – a TV horror series.

Labels: after work, media

  Permalink | 2 comments | Stephen Waddington @ 12:39 PM