Archive for March, 2010
Northumbria police PRide award
Posted by John Weet in Public Relations on March 29, 2010
I read a couple of blog posts this morning railing against the decision to award the Northumbria Police a PRide award for their handling of the communications following a fatal accident caused by one of their drivers. One of the posts (which i will not link to) went so far as to name the PRide awards judges suggesting they should be ashamed of themselves.
I totally agree that it was wrong of Northumbria Police to nominate themselves for the award. I also agree that the award should never have been given. What I do not agree with is trying to name and shame the judges. At the end of the day the judges are just like you and I, giving up their time free of charge, to undertake the onerous task of judging these awards. They are given a set of papers and asked to judge them against a set of criteria. They are not asked to decide the rights and wrongs about whether a particular campaign should have been entered. This decision should have been made before the papers reached them.
Leave press releases to the professionals
Posted by John Weet in Public Relations on March 12, 2010
I was reading a local business magazine last night and was amazed at the quality (or should I say lack of quality) of the editorial. One article that particularly caught my eye was a one paragraph story in a sidebar announcing that a particular company was doing very well. I read the story through twice and still did not understand what sort of services the company was offering.
I am making a big assumption here that the person who wrote the press release was not a professional PR person. If they were then shame on them. If a writer fails to get across, in words that a layman can understand, what the message is then they should not be writing press releases.
I suspect that what happened in this case was that the person who wrote it is internal to the company and is used to the way they talk about themselves. To them I am sure it made perfect sense. What they failed to do was to put themselves in their audiences place and ask whether they would understand it. A very common error and one that should not happen if they were to employ a professional writer.
Meet the Professionals
Posted by John Weet in Public Relations on March 3, 2010
I was at a meet the professionals evening last night at Bournemouth university. It was just like speed dating (not that I would know of course). Picture if you will a group of PR Professionals sitting at various tables around a room. A whistle blows and a group of students descend on each professional. The professional has just ten minutes to explain the type of PR work that they do and then to answer as many questions as they can.
The students use the event to gain an insight into agency and in-house life as well as understanding what it is like to work in the industry. They also use it to make connections so that when they are looking for placements or their first jobs they have a stack of business cards as a starting point.
This is the third or fourth time I have done this and I always find them great fun. It is good to meet so many enthusiastic people just starting out on their careers. They were all, without exception, keen and eager for knowledge. As a professional in the industry I feel it is part of my duty to attend these events but you do generally see the same professionals there. A shame, if some of the others in the area attended they just might get to enjoy themselves too.