Murphy's Law

Feel like you are being far too nice to your PR agency? Do you want to make them toil for your hard earned dollars?

Well there’s loads of great tips being published that give some great ideas on how to be a more grumpy and unpleasant client.

Hot on the footsteps of Morgan’s advice, Topaz Partners have also done some sharing and there’s some great tips on client behavior to avoid from Andy Beaupre.

With a little reading, some preparation and a quick review you can revolutionize the relationship with your agency. It’ll be great craic!

[Light fuse and stand back…]

Footnote:
Thanks to Steve Hodgdon at Beaupre for letting me know I had included the link to the wrong article. That’s taken some of the wind out of my sails….

Andrea Weckerle reports that the Mr. Men and Little Misses series created by Roger Hargreaves is now thirty five years old.

C’mon folks, whatever happened to originality?

Can it be true that we have yet another anonymous him/her PR scandal mongering blog with a scantily clad female?

At least the last one had some content – regardless of its nature.

How about a real world PR scandal blog with a short, fat boy on the cover image? For the right money…..

[Via Media Orchard]

There is one person, above all others, who has single handedly contributed more to the world of PR blogging than any other. That person is Constantin Basturea. From the NewPRWiki to the Global PR Blog Week, he’s been tireless in pulling together the vast number of PR bloggers and resources.

Well congratulations are due to Constantin who has joined Converseon as Director of New Media Strategy.

Best of luck Constantin and thanks for all you’ve done to date!

• If you’re wondering how else you can torture your PR agency, Morgan McLintic at Lewis has helpfully published some advice, there’s some great tips in there for all of us clients. Chris Lewis has chimed in with some tips on how to be a good client. So you naughty clients have no excuses. Hopefully some clients will publish some similar agency guidelines.
• Speaking of Lewis PR, Clogger’s come out of the closet, it’s written by Jon Silk at the agency.
• Long suffering readers will know I’m a big beliver in the need for PR people to understand search engines. Here’s some useful tools and resources [Via Interactive PR]. Andy Lark has another interesting snippet regarding press releases and Google.
• For Immediate Release #125
• On a related note, Shel and Neville at For Immediate Release are hosting an online survey to garner feedback on the podcast.
• Forward is a new site aimed at providing advice and guidance for people getting started in PR. It’s been kicked off by Erin Caldwell who is part of Robert French‘s group at Auburn University. There’s also a blog.
  [Via Allan Jenkins]
• Richard Bailey and David Philips ponder the PR professional as a Relationship Manager.
• Derek Gehl writes for Entrepreneur.com on the benefits of using blogs and how you can be a successful blogger. Nothing too exciting but not a bad summary. [Via Steve Rubel]

Dear Horse Admirer…

Couple of items I meant to post on previously…

• Thanks to Stuart Bruce for kindly sending on a link to the Open Charity Blog which is aimed at people in the charitable area.

• Philippe Cherel from Edelman in Paris has a blog up and running called PR.ojetz en francais.
• Kami Huyse runs the Communication Overtones blog.
• Intelligent Measurement is a new blog from Richard Gaunt and Glenn O’Neil.
• Harold Burson has a third post up.
• Testing out Qumana… Hat tip to Jeneane Sessum.

Since last Friday my blog has reached a stage of development where according to Wikipedia you should start to notice the following changes in tone and behaviour:

Delights in wordplay

Produces elaborate sentence structures

Speech is almost entirely intelligible

Changes tone of voice and sentence structure to adapt to listener’s level of under-standing

Outgoing; friendly; overly enthusiastic at times

Moods change rapidly and unpredictably: may throw tantrum over minor frustrations; sulk over being left out

Imaginary playmates or companions are common

Boasts, exaggerates, and “bends” the truth with made-up stories or claims of boldness

Cooperates with others; participates in group activities.

Often appears selfish

Insists on trying to do things independently

Relies on verbal rather than physical aggression

Name-calling and taunting are often used

Should be an interesting year.

Once again proving that one should actually listen to the wisdom of their elders, I ignored the old adage: “if it ain’t broke..” and now my templates and archives are in an state of major chassis. Don’t worry if they look odd, it’s by design…

Update:
Hurrah! All fixed!

“Citizen journalism won’t supplant professional journalism, but it may actually professionalise it”. [Niall Cook]

Josh Hallett on the PR blogger lifecycle.

The Hobson & Holtz Report: #123, #122 & #121

Dedicated PR Blog Practices?… for the love of all things pure and simple… remember the bubble, remember the BUBBLE…

Shel Holtz with some much needed common sense on podcasting…

Morgan McLintic offers some advice on getting a job in PR.

Todd Defren believes that the traditional models from International PR are broken. Morgan McLintic adds his viewpoint. There is no easy answer to International PR – regardless of what anyone tells you.

John Wagner offers some more common sense on remembering the customer and the inherent benefits of doing a good job!

PR websites suck… has it ever been any different??