Great news! After much hardwork care of Bvisible’s sister company Base Creative and some frantic copy writing Bvisible Communications new website is live. I think the site is perfect for the new web and features a new blog which will be regularly updated with news, views and contributions on professional communications.
The first contributed blog post is from John Kennedy and features his thoughts on pitching stories. Essential reading for all in PR.
Also check out Digital Ireland in the Independent today for an article by Bernice Burnside on Online Engagement. You can read the article here too.
Meetings can be debilitating. A whole day can be wiped out by commuting and sitting in reception areas. I think the ratio of time wasted to time achieving something in certain meetings is 500,000/1 in favour of the former.
Meetings are often necessary and preferable to communicating over emails and phones. For designers, visual direction can be essential on pieces being put in for consideration. The attrition of commuting and waiting around for precious feedback is a huge waste. If only the internet could jump in and save them?
Thanks to Damien Mulley for linking me up. I cannot take full credit for the Tuesday Push hook up as this was done as part of my work in Bvisible Communications and thorough thanks should be extended to my colleague Bernice Burnside for working on the pitch to Whitespace with me. Thanks are also due to John Kennedy and Darren McAuliffe for believing in the Push and joining in with its work as part of the Digital21 campaign.
The Tuesday Push is one example of how our collective social capital can help start-ups and innovators. It deserves everyone’s attention on their online space as the business ideas being pushed and their success is our collective success.
I am breaking radio silence to give a mention to this month’s Tuesday Push which is…
The Tuesday Push.
Clever and interesting products and companies can get in touch for a collaboratitive “push” via the website at Tuesdaypush.com
The guys are at pains to note that to get involved you must be contributing to other pushes via your own channels.
In other news I will be updating this whole website and restarting my blogging very soon. Suffice to say I got a great job with an excellent agency am very happily working into my second week.
Just a follow up on a topic I covered before on how to engage online opinion forming sites that allow direct consumer-to-business contact I am glad to see an Irish company grabbing the bull by the horns.
IGO People is a professional social networking site that connects clients, consumers and businesses with direct open contact. It is currently getting an airing with Damien Mulley’s Tuesday Push and is certainly worth a look for businesses looking to immediately set up a visible dialogue with customers to improve lines and make sales.
For an excellent quick introduction on how the service works check out EirePreneur’s IGO blog post.
As more PR companies start to keep a blog on their site I thought I’d share some of the tips I have learned and to make a very special offer to PR firms and other media companies and to journalists. I will install all this for free for you or your company in exchange for a link and a coffee meeting. There will be some small print to this as I am limited by time and such but I will set up as many blogs as I can so drop me a mail or call (contact page to the left) and I’ll see what I can do.
The first Collision Course last night was a major event for me. It was my first time at a large gathering of PR folk since college and, while I was primarily interested in educating myself by attending, the fact I was in the presence of so many would-be peers, or worse, possible employers, weighed heavy on me.
Collision Course I was the first in a series of meetups organised by Damien Mulley with assistance from Piaras and Donncadh from Edelman to exchange views between the PR community and the citizen journalists of the Irish Blogosphere.
I’ve started two groups for Irish PR and communications professionals. One is on Facebook and can be found here and the other is on Linkedin and can be found here. Both are entitled PR practitioners Ireland.
Membership of the Facebook group is open to all though membership of the Linkedin group will be closely monitored to ensure that it’s focus as networking point for professionals is maintained.
The absence of such groups in the Irish websphere has been glaring and I’m glad to report that interest in both has been high so early on in the game.
The State magazine is no longer in print and is moving online. This was put out on the wire as bad news but I think that in the long term this could be the best thing that’s ever happened to them. They are now in a position to compete with Hot Press without the expensive baggage and costs of print production.
A few things the State should start looking into:
- Print advertising - RIP. Cheaper online advertising your hour is nigh! Start thinking of all the packages you can and get on to Mindshare et al. I hear that their online is flying while traditional is rotting.
The tragic situation in Gaza has turned up some new twists on old themes. Conflict reveals PR techniques used in their most morally bankrupt fashion. History frequently reveals examples of extreme PR abuse from Lord Haw Haw’s “Germany Calling” broadcasts, to the Lippman and Bernays work in the USA during World War I, the media has been influenced to maintain public support or, in the case of the former, create public alarm.
Here, in the 21st century, war propaganda has become easier in one sense and more difficult in another. Easier in that there are a multitude of channels to exploit, more difficult in that those multitudinous channels can contradict and test the truthfulness of propaganda.
