PR In A Jar

Obama needs to learn from Brown

By Nathan Smith

I thought I’d be the first person to use this headline, it’s different, controversial and very rarely, if ever written.  While Brown suffers a 10% loss to the conservatives over the last month, Obama enjoys – well enjoys everything.  So what made me write this?

How to Blog - Part 5 - Recycle

by Nathan Smith

No, I don’t mean recycle your blog posts – but there will be plenty of things that you do as part of your day to day job that could easily be recycled to make great blog posts. 

In fact the whole of this article (How to Blog parts 1-5) is a great example –I originally wrote this to help the team at Smith & Smith really think about blogging, but it would be a bit of a waste to just use it for internal use, especially as I hope it could help other people.

Example:  This article parts 1 to 5!

So no more excuses! You should be armed with plenty to go forward this New Year and blog away.  As I said in the introduction (Part 1), this is just meant as a guide to give you confidence to go forward; there’s no doubt that the best blogs are the ones that have been allowed to evolve over time, but they all started somewhere.

Happy blogging.

How to Blog - Part 4 - Market Research & Feedback

by Nathan Smith

Have you ever written a piece of policy for work, or been asked to carry out a project you’re not sure where to start?  Well, start to think about your blog readers as part of your ‘fan club.’  What I mean by this is that people will help you if you ask.  The blogosphere is an incredible place when it comes to sharing and helping - in fact, it’s utopian compared to the offline world.  

Example: Stuart Bruce asking for your opinion.

Tomorrow in Part 5 of How to blog I'll be looking at recycling

How to Blog - Part 3 - The Resource

By Nathan Smith

Ever thought about using your blog as a valuable resource for your readers and followers?  Well if you haven’t you should learn how to do so now!

Following on from yesterday’s article on ‘The Review’, the resource blog is written with the reader firmly in mind.  You want the reader to come to your blog whenever they want to find out about something, in my case its PR. 

Let  me give you some examples of what I mean by this: when I think about my working day, and specifically all the time I spend actually doing PR, whether it be writing, emailing a journalist,  phoning a client, attending an event, whatever it is.   You know that you have your own resources to help you to carry out all these actions and tasks - it may be a book on the shelf that you always turn to,  or it may be a tip someone told you once about using the phone that’s always stuck with you.  It may even be a website or a piece of software that is integral to your working day.  In fact, when you start to write down all your own resources you’ll be amazed at just how much stuff you know. 

All this stuff is valuable, and valuable to your blog readers - so start to share it and start that conversation of sharing best practice.

A good example of a blog offering readers a value resource can be seen in Todd Defren’s piece alerting us tools to help us be better PR pro’s

Tomorrow in Part 4 – how to use your blog for Market research and feedback

How to Blog - Part 2 - The Review

By Nathan Smith

Being a critic and writing reviews is essential for any good blogger.  Firstly it gives some transparency to the relationships that exists in the blogosphere; by that I mean that a blog allows you to link directly to the subject you’re reviewing – this gives your review real depth.  Secondly, remember you have a following to keep updated, entertained and informed.  If I’m following someone’s blog with thoughts and observations on food and drink I’d like to be reading their thoughts on a new restaurant that’s opened,  and any new books that may be coming out on that subject.

In this blog 'PR in a Ja'r we try to keep in touch with what’s happening in the PR ecosystem and any changes to that system need to be brought to the reader’s attention!

For a good example have a look at Stephen Waddington reviewing ‘Partnering with the CIO’

Tomorrow I'll be covering how to make you're blog a valuble resource for people.

 

Closing the door to medical endeavour?

By Gemma McNeilis

Britain’s international lead in stem cell research is being threatened because of a halt in funding, reveals Steve Connor, science editor at The Independent.   Funding bodies such as the Medical Research Council and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council are reported to be refusing to finance new research into the creation of human-animal “hybrid” clones and existing projects have been run down to the point of closure.  

It is only a year since the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill became law.  It was supported by both Gordon Brown and David Cameron and a number of eminent scientists and scientific bodies, including the Wellcome Trust and the Royal Society.   So why has there been such reluctance to give funding?  Steve Connor understands that grant applications may have been blocked by scientists on funding committees who are morally opposed to the creation of human-animal “hybrid” clones.  In the US such research is banned from receiving federal government funding.

How to Blog - Part 1 - 'The Original Article' by Nathan Smith

Each day for the next 5 days I'll be covering some of the basics of blogging.

One of the biggest complaints about blogging is ‘what do you write about?’  Making the commitment to write a blog can often leave the blogger with great anxiety about making a fantastic posting at 4.40pm – having to work under pressure to make sure you write something that is not only informative but witty, original and strong enough that people are going to want to forward this on to their friends and contacts, hopefully giving you one of the best viral articles on the web that day!

Taking Innovation Seriously

In the current sisue of Director, Jane Simms writes about the importance of staff talent and how it becomes more important than ever during a credit crunch. She talks about innovation and creativity as crucial to nurture, citing Toyota as one example of an organisation that empowers work teams to work on problems themselves. "Generating innovative thinking ... means encouraging ideas from the bottom up," she says.

At Smith & Smith we held a company-wide meeting a few months ago to discuss innovation, what it meant for our business and how we could best create the time and space for all staff to work innovatively and creatively. Not as simple as it sounds, but really important if we're to take innovation and creativity seriously. Innovation may not seem as immediately apparent a key element for a PR agency as for Toyota, but we believe it's essential. Thinking freshly and creatively around campaigns, as well as around directions that individuals within our team should be taking, is worth making time and space for. By: Jane

Cause for Optimism in 2009

In business terms, going into the new year 2009 feels a little different than its 2008 predecessor, what with the dreaded C-crunch and all that goes with it. But coming back to work last week I felt pretty optimistic - while 2009 seems to stretch a long way ahead in terms of the business trials and tribulations we're all going to be facing, there's lots we can do about it, and we've already been putting some of the wheels in motion.

This month, for example, sees the launch of our 'Smith & Smith Academy', where our PR execs get extra training around all sorts of issues. There'll be regular workshops for managers, too, with outside speakers coming in to help our team do their job even better. We feel that an 'academy' system will help us get the trained, professional, motivated staff we need for the future, with less churn and more in-house development and progression.

We're planning on opening some of the sessions out to clients and other people in our network. Watch this space! Client-side, the credit crunch means that we've been having some serious looks at how we can best add value to our clients, with PR helping them through challenging times. Internal communications is looking like more of an issue for a lot of organizations at the moment; ditto crisis management, which has long been one of our specialisms and which was already coming into its own over the last 18 months. Liz Jackson MBE, MD of Great Guns Marketing, has written an inspiring opinion piece in the January issue of Management Today, where she outlines some of the opportunities that present themselves during lean economic times and how innovation and team-building are more important than ever. "A united team with a common purpose, excited about what lies ahead, is invaluable," she says. So here's to a year of unity, purpose ... and excitement! By: Jane