I’ve finally caught up on a lot of recent RSS reading – I have to be honest coming back to a full RSS reader is often as stressful as a full inbox – so here’s some of the more interesting stuff.  Some is older, some irrelevant.  You be the judge…

 

Edelman

I think Edelman deserve a lot of kudos for their committment to the new changing world of online communication.  It could be argued that any agency “pushing the envelope”, so to speak, has a higher probability of hitting some speed bumps – however we could also be moving from careless and silly to stupid if they keep grabbing the headline – albeit the bloglines.

Trevor Cook | Neville Hobson | Shel Holtz | John Wagner | Kevin Dugan |

 

Irish PR Blogger

Even with a booming technology sector (booming for about 20 years at this point), Ireland remains behind the curve when it comes to new technology.  This includes blogs. I’m delighted to see that there’s no a third Irish PR blogger, long-time technology and finance PR guru Ronnie Simpson. It goes without saying that the ever industrious Piaras Kelly of Drury Communications was the second. 

 

PR Myths

Mason Cole takes a stab at some PR myths.

 

Taking relations from the other side of the fence

Mike Manuel provides bloggers with some advice on how to approach corporations.  It’s first time I’ve seen such advice provided and it’s a great idea though obviously will be ignored.

 

Watch your URL

Probably a little off-topic and definetely straying in adolescent humour, however John Collins’ post on unfortunate corporate URLs made me smile.

 

I need a third life

OK so I have previously been a little hesitant in supporting the whole Second Life thing.  I certainly don’t (yet!) share the passion it’s generating among certain PR commentators but it continues to crop up all over the place and is worthy of a mention. (Still haven’t registered or visited it).

• Text 100 have produced a video on YouTube
• Gary Goldhammer outlines six ways to know when PR has taken over Second Life.

 

New media, social media and other terms

• Kami Huyse has a post on emerging trends in PR, drawing on discussions with Paull Young and Dr. Georg Kolb – a former colleague of mine and someone who speaks a lot of sense – though I’m still not sure on the Second Life stuff 🙂

You can listed to Paull, Kami and Georg’s discussion on the Forward Podcast here.

• Stuart Bruce on using social media in PR.
• Neville Hobson outlines how to create a social media communications strategy.
• Susan Getgood offers some thoughts on viral marketing.

 

CEO Blogging

Shel Holtz takes on Dave Taylor’s assertion that a CEO should never blog. I have to say I agree with Shel, there are of course CEOs who should never blog, but some CEOs will find it incredibly successful.

 

The death of the press release (at TechDirt anyway)

Read all about it… [Via Jim Horton]

“However, too many PR folks either think we don’t mean it, or don’t bother spending enough time on the site to realize we don’t want press releases. You think we plan to pay attention to either type of PR spammer? We’ve had our fair share of posts highlighting stupid PR practices in the past, but (of course) the worst offenders don’t actually read this site — they just spam us. It’s not surprising, of course, to find out that we’re not alone in feeling this way.”

• On a related subject, Mark Jones of the Australian Financial Review gives his view on the relevance of the press release. [Via Trevor Cook]
• Meanwhile in case you think there is a future in press releases – at least the online forms – Todd Defren has announced a new Social Media Release Builder.

 

tags: PR, Second Life, Social Media, CEO Blogging, Press Release, Public Relations

England take their football/soccer very seriously indeed. They recently appointed a new manager for the national team, Steve McClaren, who it’s fair to say wasn’t a popular appointment – among the fans or the media – and their 2-0 loss during the week to Croatia has created something of a firestorm among the tabloid media.

No suprise then perhaps that McClaren was the lead story in the sports section of Saturday’s edition of the UK Daily Mail, except the subject of the story was something of a surprise.  The headline read:

McClaren Fired!

Then the sub-head explained he had been fired by his PR advisor (not his employer). You know things are getting bad when the flack jumps ship – and when it’s the lead story.  Of course the fact that the flack in question is one Max Clifford explains a lot…

 

“In the early stages Steve certainly seemed to understand my advice and I think a lot of the things I talked about, he would like to have done but it just didn’t materialise.

“The relationship now is virtually non-existent. If I can’t take part and I can’t contribute then there is no point in me staying involved. What was made very clear to me in the beginning was that the FA were very unhappy with my appointment.”

PS: It appears Mr. McClaren’s job is fairly safe.  The ruling body of English football are still paying £13,000 per day compensation to their previous manager so it’s felt that they are committed to avoiding having to pay McClaren the £10 million compensation they’d have to if they fired him.  I want one of those jobs.

tags: Max Clifford, McClaren, PR