GUEST BLOG: We're not in Kansas anymore

I hope you read all this text but, if you simply can't be bothered, I won't be offended but do skip straight to the following link: http://annagillespie.blogspot.co.uk/p/we-are-not-in-kansas-anymore.html
- As long as you have a pulse you won't regret it.

Still here? Ok I'll go on before you get to read the guest blog. I was planning on writing a blog today but that changed after I read a blog by someone I knew.

Anyone that knows me, and most of you reading this don't alas, knows that I've not had the easiest of times over the last 9 months or so. However, having read the latest blog by Anna Gillespie the Director of Business Development at the amazing charity Mayday Trust I realised how lucky I am. 

I've worked with Anna with two different organisations but, as much as I always liked and respected her, I had no idea of how much of a special person she is until recently. She has helped me enormously in my personal and working life. She has an insight that screams 'CEO in waiting' and has supporting people at the forefront of her thinking whilst understanding how to achieve that on a business level. 

I know it's bad but I don't respect the vision of many people. Whether that's because I'm up my own backside or because I'm more like some of the gracious plaudits I've been lucky enough to receive, I'm not sure but I really rate Anna. 

It's because of that that I'm not posting her blog for me here. Instead I'm going to ask you to exercise your finger, click your mouse and go here and read her wonderful, extremely touching and important blog http://annagillespie.blogspot.co.uk/p/we-are-not-in-kansas-anymore.html instead. 

I'm asking you to read Anna's blog for yourself then start following it. You can find her on Twitter @annagillespie74 and her supporting people charity is @MaydayTrust or go to www.facebook.com/MaydayTrustOfficial and like them

Ok then....off you go and see how some people really #MakeADifference and set about #ChangingLives

I'm feeling crazy

I'm feeling crazy. I'm going to do something that will blow your mind once you have finished calling me a dreamer and a loser. To be continued.......................... Click the link for your first tip

Every bit of Blu-tack counts

"Every bit of Blu-tack counts."

I heard someone say this today. It was someone that's great to work with even when we disagree - I reckon they'll fall into the point 2 camp that you'll find later in this blog.

Sometimes the title of blogs I read are so delightful that the blog itself cannot live up to it. "Every bit of Blu-tack counts"  is one of those.

Upon hearing it said, I immediately thought 'that sounds like a great blog title'. A shame then that it's too nice a title to spoil with a blog. So I will abandon the blog there.

 You will now feel one of two emotions: 
1) That you have wasted your time reading this blog
OR
2) Be inspired to think and contemplate the many usages of such a title.

If the former strikes a chord with you, we are unlikely to have much in common and you're probably too busy muttering a snide remark or jibe in the direction of someone with real talent. There's a good chance you dream of carrying a placard that says "Down with this sort of thing" but never dare to even take that tepid protest a stage further and realise it.

However, if the latter, we should meet for coffee, perhaps some cake, and then work out how together we can make a difference whilst turning the world on its head. I'll bet you're not a huge fan of steering groups for most challenges, and have a creative streak that I'd probably admire.

There's a very good chance that you're smart enough to be sending a DM to @thatPRman right now. Speak soon then.....

PS Be brave good people.....be brave - dare to dare. #creativity
PPS I bet if you chose emotion 2 you've just realised you're in both camps after all.
PPPS If you've just said "What a load of..." - you're right.

Save your BBC

Here’s a thing that matters greatly to you. You may not think it does but believe me it will. Hopefully it won’t be too late when you realise the impact of not saving your BBC.
Every licence payer in the UK has a vested interest in this blog. It’s a local issue of national importance.

The BBC seems intent on the closure of factual production in Birmingham. This will have a direct impact on every household of the West Midlands that watches news programmes, every cameraman, journalist, presenter of any station and perhaps most importantly to the region and its standing in the UK.

With the loss of this facility virtually no network programme making (besides some small independents) will remain in the West Midlands. In the 70s and 80s huge chunks of BBC and ITV output was made at either Central (previously ATV) or at BBC in Pebble Mill. That has gradually been eroded as production has moved to Manchester/Salford or London, in both cases.
There has been an outcry when other industries have moved out of the West Midlands - but the politicians remain silent over this particular industry. Shouldn’t this be a key issue for those hoping to be Mayor of Birmingham or Police Commissioner of West Midlands Police?
If you live in the West Midlands and aspire to a life in the media - you will have to move away in the future to get a job - most already have to.

The BBC is making cuts to network newsgathering - but again it is concentrating its efforts in Salford, London & of course Cardiff and Glasgow as well. Is anyone speaking up for Birmingham? No – didn’t think so.

Can you imagine another situation like the riots without a regional BBC prescence able to keep you up-to-date and warn of any dangers? How many of you kept checking your radio, television or BBC online to check on the latest developments as the situation escalated? Or what would have happened if Tariq Jahan, widely attributed with stopping the riots following the death of his son, had appealed for calm and there were no news teams on the scene to report it?

Incredibly, BBC 5Live are getting rid of their dedicated reporters in the Midlands!

If you live in Coventry, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Walsall, Solihull or elsewhere in the region then don’t be fooled into thinking that the Save BBC Birmingham campaign doesn’t apply to you. It applies to you just as much, perhaps more. Without the support of the central hub in Birmingham, how long before your hyper local news is effected in the same, or perhaps more drastic, way?

If you work in the media how long before you have to move to another region to stand any chance of continuing in your chosen career or else find a new career?

There are clear holes in the BBC argument to remove production. Most of them are finding their basis in austerity. They have a lease on the Mailbox until 2026, so plans are afoot to take half the building away, pay huge redundancies & relocation fees (funded by your licence fees), then doing the same again at some stage in the future by moving admin staff from London to Birmingham. What is the cost of not keeping the creative industries the West Midlands?

At present the West Midlands boats the “Second City.” With so many creative industry jobs already moving to Manchester, Bristol and London, the consequential increase in unemployment and news vacuum you can bet that the success of those three cities will be tantamount to the demise of the West Midlands. It is set to create a Bermuda triangle like space of everything in between.

Discussions include moving the rural affairs expertise from Birmingham to Bristol because it shares some similarities with the Natural History Unit based there. That’s like asking the LTA and FA to share because they are both sports played with a ball. Go figure.
The problem that Birmingham & its broadcasters have, is that they have no powerful advocates on the national stage, and for that reason they are overlooked. I understand great incentives were offfered to ITV and BBC to move to Salford. Birmingham (or Wolverhampton or Coventry ) could have done the same, but didn't. But that doesn’t have to be the end of it.

Bottom line is that network news and radio's coverage will be severely hit in places like the Midlands. While there are cuts in Salford and London too, they're not going to have any serious impact on the output from those areas.

The BBC powers that be will argue that their correspondents in Salford and London can easily get in the car and travel to areas where stories are, when they are big enough. How can they decide what is difficult without a local prescence and how can they react to breaking news? I’d suggest they can’t. We have some of the finest broadcast journalists in the country and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to lose them.

I’m not originally from the West Midlands but I have made it my home. For me that means it matters. Make it matter to you too. You’ll be poorer off without it in more ways than one and the effects on the region as a go-to place for employment, tourism, and events could be lost forever.

• So let’s Save BBC Birmingham.
• Let’s ask our politicians and councilors to Save BBC Birmingham.
• Let’s ask the Birmingham Mayor to candidates to Save BBC Birmingham.
• If you care about your region let’s Save BBC Birmingham.
• If you work in the media or PR let’s Save BBC Birmingham
• Let’s ask the candidates for commissioner of West Midlands Police to Save BBC Birmingham.
• If you live in the West Midlands Let’s Save the West Midlands…….
• If you live anywhere in the country and value local news and factual production let’s Save BBC Birmingham.
Save BBC Birmingham – after all….you need it - you pay for it.
#SaveBBCBirmingham

Help and support?

Hello everyone - I need your help and support

Not my usual @thatPRman blog but one where I will be asking for your help and support.

I am going to have to get mega fit (basic fitness would be a start), shed several stone and cycle well over 1,000 miles in fourteen days. I will be cycling from John O'Groats to Land's End but unlike others I am going to cycle into Wales calling at Swansea and Cardiff also whilst not missing out Birmingham en-route. It's the equivalent of over 3 marathons a day for 2 weeks. I'm yet to refine the ride but it will look something like this map:

"...make a genuine difference..."

I have decided that I want to try and make a genuine difference to changing lives of at least some people for the better. We are going to choose four charities, that could really benefit from an injection of cash.

I say 'we' as I'd like your help. I need to choose four charities or charitable organisations. I'm open to any suggestions but I'm interested in youth/children projects, supporting families in need/crisis, mental health, bullying, and/or charities that support people with illness or their families. Ideally the money raised will go to specific projects or work and will

I will post details in the coming weeks of how you can help with financial contributions but in the meantime please send any suggestions of charities or offers of help with bikes, places to stay en-route or just shouts of encouragement would be really welcomed at my email address thatPRman@gmail.com. You can also contact me on Twitter @thatPRman or by phone on 07912 762850

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE copy and paste this link to your Twitter and Facebook pages and help drum up support.

Right this is calling for me in my conservatory:

social housing 'consensus' is proof of its professionalism

It is without doubt that Guardian Housing Network Editor Hannah Fearn is one of the most innovative and passionate people in housing.

Hannah asks the questions that others in housing think but don't ask and offers support to the sector when others fail to. Her questions can sometimes be uncomfortable for the sector though, and that's whether you are a government minister or a housing association, but undeniably they are necessary and a breath of fresh air.

It is for these reasons that I have asked Hannah to be my guest blogger about the social housing 'consensus'.

I’d also highly recommend that you sign up to the Guardian Housing Network here though if you work in the housing sector and care about your profession I’m sure you will have done so already. With no further delay then over to Hannah………

social housing 'consensus' is proof of its professionalism

Pictured: Housing Minister Grant Shapps

Earlier this week, at a seminar organised by the Guardian Housing Network, the discussion turned to professionalism. With no accredited course or series of examinations to mark us out, how do we know that housing professionals are meeting a basic set of standards in their work? How can we be sure they are striving for an agreed common good, rather than simply "pushing paperclips"?

One of the most frustrating soundbites to catch the public attention, largely thanks to the concerted efforts of housing minister Grant Shapps and his slick team of PRs, is the idea that housing professionals are caught in the quagmire of a "lazy consensus".

Lazy? Certainly not. Housing staff have shown an admirable resourcefulness, faced in the past five years with untold changes to the structure of their sector, continual cuts to government support for their work and the need to innovate to stay afloat. The speed and dexterity with which housing associations responded to the introduction of Affordable Rent is illustration enough of the appetite for working hard to make change.

But is there a consensus in housing? I would argue there is. Another frustrating message currently touted by Shapps and others, including Westminster council, argues that housing is not a right but a privilege. We, as a professional group, disagree. Maslow's hierarchy of needs, that great cornerstone of undergraduate study, tells us that shelter comes right up there with food and water as a basic human necessity. Without it we cannot function, let alone flourish.

Those working in housing don't need Maslow's colourful pyramid to tell them this basic fact of life. We know that without a decent home, all other social outcomes are compromised. A chance at an education requires a quiet and safe place to concentrate; children in very over-crowded living conditions are least likely to thrive in school. Good health is predicated on a safe, warm home; living in a damp property increases the risks of respiratory disease, while poorly maintained homes are a major risk to elderly and frail residents.

So if there is one consensus in the housing sector it's this: housing is a human right, and one that professionals will strive to provide for those who cannot, for whatever reason, meet this need for themselves. This is the essence of professionalism in housing.

Speaking at this week's seminar, Abigail Davies, assistant director of policy and practice of the Chartered Institute of Housing, pointed out that if we do not like a phrase such as the "lazy consensus" we should not spend time repeating it. But while it's already in the public sphere, let us turn it to an advantage and celebrate the positive consensus that we share.

Hannah Fearn – Editor of the Guardian Housing Network

This article first appeared in the Guardian Housing Network Editors blog on 10/02/12 here

Many thanks Hannah for agreeing to be my guest blogger.

Square pegs fit round holes

Square pegs fit round holes.

Please take the time to read all of this blog. I humbly, not brashly, submit it could be the most important blog you or your business ever read. I'd so love to believe that as it's written with heart :-)

The world is changing. No, I don't mean there's an end to racism and other injustice, nations haven't shifted from austerity to prosperity in a seamless shift overnight.

What is changing though is the mindset of some people in business. Teams of 'round peg for round hole people' have started to recognise the value of the odd square peg person.

I've worked with businesses where I've seen square pegs around the business. It's exciting and so heartening. I know that square pegs can make some people uncomfortable even there but relax people. If you trust them they will remain the most loyal. Don't pull the rug from under their feet just because they see things differently. That's more priceless than any mastercard advert strap-line could come up with.

I'll be the first to admit I'm a bit of a square peg but that doesn't stop me being a huge team player. I've been very, very lucky so far. I've always worked, albeit by luck rather than judgement, for companies that knew how to how to harness my square peg-ness and get the best out of me and my ideas for their business. Because of this I feel confident enough to write this blog.

There was a time, and let's be honest it still exists in introspective businesses, that the 'square peg' person would have been vilified - accused of not being a team member or not with the program. The truly smart teams though, now recognise the worth of the square peg man or woman. It's the people that recognise this that are the true leaders.

So smart industry is shifting its attitude to square pegs - are you? This shift is possibly due to the late, great Steve Jobs from Apple. A man who is spoken of with admiration and awe now, was once vilified as being too much of a square peg, not a team member, seen as not being an 'Apple person' and even thrown out of his company - Apple.

Of course, he ended up back at Apple and history now speaks on his behalf. From an ostracised, even loathed square peg to a square peg that people realised cared more about Apple and changing lives than they ever dared to believe the day they threw him out.  So my second doff of cap goes to Steve Jobs and Apple for daring to let his square peg fit their round hole. For eventually recognising that althought it would be a nightmare if everyone was a square peg, it is vital to welcome one or two into the team.

So square pegs really do fit round holes. Who would have realised they care the most? Who would have thought? Who would have dared to have thought? Go on - I dare you.

Note: Be bold and change lives no matter what your industry - make a difference.

Online Piracy Act

If the Online Piracy Act is not, at the very least, re-shaped then many of my favourite news sites could in future be saying the following:

































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"I wonder if...."

Anyone that knows me knows I love ideas. Grand, small, ambitious or simple ideas, they all float my boat. To me they're like air. I need them and when they're as fresh as a chilly morning they excite and inspire me. Here’s my quick guide to ideas about ideas.

1) Never be afraid to have an idea. Every great idea starts with a “I wonder if….” moment.

2) Don't worry about having bad ideas, they're the route to great ideas - nobody just has great ideas. The trick is applying a filter to ascertain what's good and what isn't. Just don't implement an idea until you are sure as can be that every particle has been filtered.

3) Be prepared to fail. The greatest ideas are fraught with the greatest challenges, some of which will be out of your control. That is not a reason not to pursue them though.

4) Never sit on a good idea. By all means schedule the idea for the most opportune time but doing nothing shouldn't be an option

5) It's fine to copy ideas (just don't breach copyright). Someone once said to me “Why shouldn’t I copy an idea. After all, that way I know it works” – Fair comment, though always apply number 10 of these points.

6) Find your own angle to ideas other people have. Look outside your industry/business and see if their ideas that you can tailor.

7) Trade ideas with other ideas people. This can be incredibly productive and more often than not inspires extra ideas for all concerned. I speak to my contacts constantly running ideas I have past them, testing the water.

8) It's good to be an ideas square peg for a banality round hole as long as you remember what you need to achieve from being so.

9) Always credit the people whose ideas you use or who inspire ideas from you. You may be the one implementing them but you should still doff your cap to the original ideas person and/or idea inspiration. Failing to do so is tantamount to stealing the idea, which leads me nicely to…….

10) Never try to, or accept, credit for ideas that are not your own. Anyone who has ideas will have experienced this and found it to be royally frustrating.

There you go – ideas about ideas. I look forward to hearing yours soon.

Will you be GREAT in 2012? (What counts and how will you survive?)

Adverts for newspapers are encouraging us to be "Great, Britain" in 2012. Such an important comma between those two words but how do we become 'Great' in the world of PR and Communications? What are the new challenges that we as PR professionals and the businesses we communicate on behalf of, must overcome to be 'Great' in 2012.

Is it time to throw away the comms text books? Perhaps not but it is time to tear out whole chapters and insert new ones. Social media isn't a new idea in PR but its place is ever evolving and presents new challenges to businesses and PR professionals alike.

PR used to be judged by how many column inches were secured. There have always been flaws with that such as the value people present are always based on 'rate card' advertising prices. The Advertising Equivalent Value is £XYZ the PR Manager/Director would bellow executives as a justification of their worth. 2011 was the year that such measures of judging comms/PR finally became ineffectual and, worse than that, wholly misleading.

It could be argued that the best PR professionals are now the hardest to gauge. A dilemma for a business - for these professionals can make one Tweet, one Facebook post and make things happen for your business. They can set a ball rolling that you will never fully realise but will certainly feel the effects of either directly or indirectly.

I recently made a simple video filmed mostly on my iPhone. It gained masses of tv, radio, online a physical press as well as over 3000 YouTube hits. It would have been a incredible figure based on old school advertising value equivalent figures. So much of that exposure would not have been picked up though. Not one of those YouTube views would have been calculated by any "cuttings service" though, not one of my tweets would have been attributed any particular worth. How useless a service then that cannot gauge the effect every tweet has every day, hour, minute, second? Furthermore, not one relationship building tweet that led to other opportunities would have been recognised by these methods.

These are different times and PRs need to morph quickly, if they haven't already, or leave the arena. Some will advocate new roles (for themselves to fill of course) but it won't be the same. The "old school" may accuse you of being self-serving, self-promoting but pay no attention. Those that cannot keep up have always sought to "have concerns" over how the innovators do things - the once vilified Steve Jobs at Apple anyone?

The other day a comms person in my industry, that should know better, accused another of being self-serving - I was gobsmacked. I really rate the person they were referring to. It's a shame the person that made the comment so obviously doesn't "get it." It's essential we all do.

Great comms people today will still use all the traditional tools of their trade though. No comms professional should ever arrive at your business unable to hit the PR ground running. The best PR have always come with a host of contacts that are either relevant, or can put them in touch with people who are. If they don't have that the smart businesses always smell a rat.

These days businesses can buy in contact information. It costs thousands, though has some uses, but it will never be a replacement for actually knowing your contacts. There's also a case to say that such purchases are unnecessary for those that can be bothered to build their own. After all, you are already speaking to the media aren't you? You know where to look don't you?

The savvy PR will engage directly with the media, customers and other key stakeholders via social media, picking up a phone, going to see them. The less savvy turn themselves into professional administration managers and comms of a bygone age. Sure, still professional - but more admin rather than comms focussed.

Comms teams can still use alternatives like email newsletters, for now, but be smarter. Embed video links, use 'one liners' to encourage click through. The click through should then land on your website or socmed portal and so drive up hits to your website and YouTube channel alike. This will increase consumption of your messages and your improve your search engine optimisation.

Do all of the above though and soon enough you'll see others in your team get results, perhaps even bigger results than you, if they care enough about what they are doing even if they've been unable to previously. After all, PR does not mean posting an article yourself on the website belonging to someone else and those that just employ this or traditional methods will find it hard to exist in modern PR.

The modern day PR needs the trust of their CEO and company if they are to be 'Great.' They need to be allowed to innovate, shoulder criticism from others that do not really understand or fully use social media, cope with others stealing the credit for their ideas and be part of a 24/7 business. Businesses, embrace those in your teams that do this. Don't ostracise them as you can bet they are the ones that want the best for your business if they are going to these efforts and they are the ones that can deliver too. PR professionals, it is our job to "Get it" then "Get on with it."

Be brave in 2012 everyone. Be 'GREAT.'



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