While it's tempting to write 'I'm on Speed', this is to let you know my blog has moved

I’m moved my blog and content to the Speed web site. Please point your browser or RSS feed to http://www.speedcommunications.com/blogs/earl/. See you over there for more shrewdness and rudeness. Thanks.

Adieu, Rainier

We started Rainier PR on 1 September, 1998. The day before I'd put up the shelves, wheeled in the wonky fridges and put up the desks.

How times change. Rainier grew to be an agency with a strong reputation in the technology sector (and a perennial iritant to some of its rivals).

Today we're launching Speed, a new consultancy that will have Rainier as its technology team. Speed extends our reach into broader types of PR though, with corporate, business and consumer teams. And enables us to maintain our focus on technology while being part of a larger business with more clout and more ideas.

Speed is six months in the planning and hopes to make an impact at a time many PR firms are running for cover. I could wax lyrical on here about how we've instilled a modern approach, smarter methodologies and better measurement models. But that'd be blatant self-promotion.

My new blog launches on the new site today. Expect your usual dose of frank and relentless insight.

Crystallised thought shower output flown from flagpole - fight this from the beaches

All hail the Local Government Association. Finally, someone had had the balls to really take on the scourge of business bullshitspeke and attempt to choke the life out of it. And advocated a Churchillian approach to communciation - simple and clear = powerful and memorable.

In a list of 200 "banned" examples of awful jargon, the LGA blasts (if that, indeed, is not overstating the reaction and therefore appropriate terminology) such sins as:
- Benchmarking
- Seedbed
- Slippage
- Value-added
- Holistic
- Contestability
- Synergies
- Tranche
- Subsidiarity
- Potentialities

That's right, 'potentialities'. What a pile of toss.

What's more, the LGA even got a good recession angle into the story, stating that the economic shambles makes clear communication even more important.

Brilliant job.

Weathering the storm

Amazing what a bit of blue sky can do for the mood at work isn't it?

It is a real battle for PR businesses at the moment. Not just the economy, but the transition (and to a degree, those are linked) to a more commercially-astute and tangible service model. And one devoid of fluff.

But after arriving at a new office yesterday and seeing blue skies through the windows today, perhaps things are looking up. Rather than dwelling on the long road to recovery and the weekly check on finances, perhaps a bit of sunshine will bring some positive perspective.

At least the cranes next to my new desk mean I'm having to look up.

Moving on up (2)

We're in. Several hundred empty crates and many bottles of flimsy wine later, and the company is now in its new home: The Communications Building, Leicester Square.

It's amazing what a positive effect moving to a better office can have, particularly in the middle of a recession. I came in this morning to colleagues even brighter and more chipper than usual. What's more, most were in early.

We should move more often.

Out for the count: why lists can fall short

Lists are great on blogs. And for PR actually.

So forgive my shock when the Institute of Directors (I left a few years ago) emailed me with eight reasons why I should rejoin. The IOD is a very useful organisation, but eight reasons? Surely rounding up the list to 10 isn't too much of a stretch? Here's the email. My suggested extra two reasons:

- While not inexpensive, the biscuits provided with tea in the main meeting room at 116 Pall Mall are mighty fine
- Director magazine is actually pretty damn good and deserves to be highlighted more

====================================================================
Dear Sir/Madam,

I would like to personally invite you to re-join the IoD, the UK’s largest professional network for business leaders.

There are critical reasons to re-join in the year ahead. IoD membership is one of the most cost-effective methods for maintaining your competitive edge in the challenging business climate of 2009.

Re-join today for the following free business support:

1. Access to exclusive IoD meeting premises across the UK
2. Specialist business tax and legal advice is only a call away
3. Easy and quick access to business information
4. One-to-one business advice on an extensive range of topics
5. Exclusive online networking with the IoD Group on LinkedIn
6. Advertise your business to 60,000 decision makers on our business directory
7. Access to our award-winning specialist business research team for prompt support
8. Insightful commentary and reviews on current business topics in our IoD publications

Morgan, Marmite, money and modernism

Piers Morgan’s interview in Media Guardian yesterday was as incisive as ever.

Morgan compares himself to Marmite. A lot of people would say that even that’s being kind to him, but who can argue with the man’s self-assurance and drive?

One thing that jumped out for me was his contention that hacks who ask him when he’s going to go back to journalism are daft because he’s now earning far better money and doing a far nicer job.

Morgan did the same journalism course as me – he at Harlow, me at Cardiff. He started on a newspaper three years before I did. While his career rocketed in the red tops, I got sick of papers far earlier and made the switch to PR. But we both seem to have realised the same thing - newspapers typically pay many of their editorial staff poorly and offer pretty barbaric working conditions. So life on the outside can be a lot more appealing.

My aim here is not to slag off the publishers - far from it, many are good businesses. But if they have not taken a revolutionary look at what they do and how they charge for it, now is the time to do so. The established media hierarchy has to realise that unless it modernises and creates a commercial model that makes better pay and conditions feasible, it will lose its best assets: people.

Once on the other side, for example, I was amazed that PR agencies had dedicated people who looked after things like HR. In newspapers, people management tended to amount to a nurse who did the cough test on day one and a newsdesk who told you to just shut up and file the copy if you complained.

Of course, grizzled hacks don’t need nannying, just a little ego stroking. But most are skilled, intelligent, shrewd people, which means if their employers don’t look after them they’ll doubtless find other careers more attractive in time. I know of countless reporters who have left the profession in the last decade simply because they realised their talents could be put to more profitable use elsewhere. But given the choice, they’d rather still be journalists.

Journalism is, in my humble opinion, one of the very best jobs in the world for those who thrive on it. It’s also one of the best jobs for preparing people for other jobs. But unless the media can grasp and address the sweeping changes that are forcing many regional newspapers to their knees, it will continue to offer an increasingly less attractive career path.