Dear Facebook, enough already….
Dear Facebook,
Adele didn’t lose 4 stone in 1 month with just 1 easy trick. I’m pretty sure of that.
I’m also *fairly* certain that the perfect gift for people who have everything, isn’t an oversized gerbil print t-shirt.
I don’t want a FREE photo calendar, new smartpen or FAB UK app. And I am pretty damn sure all my friends don’t love Appliances Direct and Persil as often as you tell me they do.
Now Facebook, I have always been one of the unpopular. Ignoring the hipsters who left FB yonks ago and sticking with you, despite the crap UX, rubbish privacy changes and poor returns for many marketers but really….you are pushing me to my limits. Seriously.
You’ve been warned. Keep this up and I’m off. ‘k?
Yours exhaustedly,
Becky
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Tags: advertising, facebook, fail
Where else can you wander, slightly squiffy, with a two year old on your shoulders from Henry Rollins for Breakfast through to The Gruffalo Live for lunch, Rolf Harris for afternoon team and the The Happy Mondays for Sundowners??!
Camp Bestival is a magical experience for parents and kids alike. I would describe it as the Johnny Boden of festivals and yes, there is a fair amount of Joules wellies / Bugaboo dodging to be done but when it comes to a formula that both parents and kids will love, this has it nailed.
The Olympic themed event, which for many families was more like a fabulous holiday than a weekend festival, ended with the most magnificent 3D projection and firework show and really sums up how great it was.
Filed under: family life, holiday | 1 Comment
Tags: camp bestival, dorset, family, festivals, kids, music, parents
forget 50 shades of grey…..
….check out 50 shades of social!
‘Share This: The Social Media Handbook for PR Professionals’ is a crowdsourced social media book from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, due for publication in print and digital formats by Wiley on Friday 20 July.
It started as an idea at a meeting presented by Stephen Waddington as a way to capture all of the social media training that the CIPR SM panel runs over the summer each year. Since then, the idea has grown and finally came to fruition this week.
Since launch, the book has shot to number 1 on the Amazon PR and marketing bestseller charts based on pre-orders alone. The book is split into 26 chapters over eight topic areas, covering the media and public relations industry, planning, social networks, online media relations, monitoring and measurement, skills, industry change and the future of the industry. Each chapter has been contributed by one of the foremost experts in the given subject area. Even me. I did the psychology chapter 
‘Share This’ has been edited by Stephen Waddington with contributions from Katy Howell, Simon Sanders, Andrew Smith, Helen Nowicka, Gemma Griffiths, Me, Robin Wilson, Alex Lacey, Matt Appleby, Dan Tyte, Stephen Waddington, Stuart Bruce, Rob Brown, Russell Goldsmith, Adam Parker, Julio Romo, Philip Sheldrake, Richard Bagnall,Daljit Bhurji, Richard Bailey, Rachel Miller, Mark Pack, and Simon Collister.
During the coming weeks, the book launch will be supported by the release of YouTube video introductions to each of the chapters by each of the authors; a social media quiz from the CIPR, designed to test the digital knowledge of practitioners; and will culminate in an exclusive invite-only launch event at Google Campus, east London on Wednesday 18 July. I have a couple of spare tickets so if you’d like to join me, let me know
Perhaps the most exciting thing is the endorsements we have received about the book. ‘Share This’ has been endorsed by Lord Sugar; Paul Staines (aka Guido Fawkes); Paul Mylrea, Director of Communications at the BBC; Professor Tom Watson, Professor of Public Relations, Bournemouth University; Marshall Manson, Managing Director, Digital, EMEA, Edelman; and Avril Lee, Partner, CEO London, Ketchum Pleon, among others. Not too shabby, eh?
‘Share This’ will be available on Friday 20 July and is available in hardback (RRP: £16.99) and digital format (RRP: £10.99). It is available to pre-order from Wiley, Amazon and various other retailers.
Chapter One: An Introduction to Social Networks by fellow author Katy Howell is also freely available for download via the CIPR website.
Filed under: books, social media | Leave a Comment
Tags: Amazon, authors, books, CIPRSM, Share This, social media
definition: ideas person
What they say: I would class myself as an ideas person
What they mean: I am a lazy f***er who classes my job to be done just as soon as I have come up with a completely unscientific idea for a campaign that is basically abstract crap and I can pretty much guarantee nobody on the business side of the agency will ever be able to sell and no client will ever run.
Why would anyone brand themselves an ideas person?
As if people would hire anybody who COULDN’T come up with good ideas?
Ranty Thursday innit.
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Tags: definitions, ideas person, rant
DONTCONTACTME@facebook.com
On Monday, Facebook rolled out a new change where everybody’s published email address under contacts, was changed to a newly assigned one based on the @facebook.com format. What this means for Facebookers is that anyone emailing them via their Facebook account would see their mail end up in FB messages, not the usual email inbox.
Facebook maintains it is giving the user the choice of email but as The Guardian blog puts it,
We shall gloss over the question of whether a “choice” really exists if a user is not aware of it.
Filed under: social media | Leave a Comment
Tags: email, facebook
Hey, wanna share a job?
Licensed under creative COmmons from LydiaShiningBrightly
Why not? I am sure you’d want a bit more time off, no? Part time hours / three days a week but a role that is still senior, meaningful and client facing? Someone with complimentary skills to bounce ideas off? A team, even though you’re the boss?
Sounds pretty idyllic I think….
Why don’t more people work as jobshares in PR? I mean you see the co-CEO model every now and again but why not other pairings? Have you ever applied for a job as a pair? Have you ever received a pair of CVs for one job?
Part time jobs are so few and far between and flexible part time jobs (i.e. home working) even more so. Surely the best all round is if two people share the job, providing full time cover but allowing flexibility in their timings and their homeworking status.
As a client, I get two brains instead of one (pref a left and a right!). As a junior member, I learn two lots of skills, instead of one. As an agency owner, I have doubled my ideas, my perspectives and my skills whilst keeping my costs the same. As the jobsharer, I get to keep my job, have time with my family, be office based 50% of the time, have cover when I am on holiday and have a partner with skills different to mine to ensure the clients and teams get a kickass service.
Am I missing something?
Filed under: flexible/home working | 3 Comments
Tags: business, flexible working, jobshare, PR
YOU DON’T KNOW MEEEEEEEE
Why oh why oh why in an age where it has never been easier to reach a diverse population or hire a team that fully reflects a diverse range of people, do soooo many agencies leave diversity down the bottom of the priority list. This isn’;t about box ticking or an equal opps rant. This is about common bloody business sense.
Want to sell to mums, errr, have some mums on your team.
Want to sell to flexible workers….maybe don’t have an entire team of London-based twenty-somethings who live in Clapham and don’t have families doing the comms.
Running a campaign for women? Why are there only men on the senior account team?
You get it. I know. So I’ll stop ranting.
But a final plea to the PR industry….mix it up for Gawd’s sake….let’s get rid of this typical white middle class industry with mostly women at junior ranks and mostly men at the top. If we can’t get our shit together for equal opportunities, at least let’s get better at what we do.
Filed under: business | Leave a Comment
Tags: diversity, focus groups
