Swine flu statisitics. It is all in the presentation

Posted by jameswdcrawford on October 30, 2009 under Public Relations | Be the First to Comment

This is a great image. Not only does the graphic illustrate how panic and fear can cause us humans to become irrational, but also how a stunning and eye catching diagram can bring a story to life. Too often are fascinating statistics presented in uninteresting ways.

If you can’t see the image well on screen you can also see it by clicking here

(I’ve not worked out how to get full size images on my blog yet )

Not enough hours in a day to blog?

Posted by jameswdcrawford on under Public Relations | Be the First to Comment

“Time and tide waits for no man,” so the saying goes, and nowhere are man hours more precious than in the world of work, where the management of seconds, minutes and hours has become a science. So the following guide is useful:

- when encouraging clients to use social media
- for consultancies trying to keep staff use of Social Media productive

Click here for the full article

The guide might be teaching granny to suck eggs for some, but no doubt most of those involved in Social Media will have a time management conversation sooner or later.

Twitter hack!

Posted by jameswdcrawford on October 29, 2009 under PR | Be the First to Comment

A few days ago I received a direct message from another PR agency that shall remain nameless.  The message invited me to look at a blog, so I clicked on the link and two days later my whole Twitter account is blocked, and friends have been receiving messages from me asking them to buy my weight loss pills!   It turns out I’d been hacked and I couldn’t access Twitter.  Luckily the problem is fixed now.

This follows an episode on Wednesday when my phone was hacked!

Posted via email from jamescrawford’s posterous

Football fans need a PR agency

Posted by jameswdcrawford on under Opinion | Be the First to Comment

The Football Association needs a PR campaign to show that hooliganism is no longer a big problem in England.

The reason for my post is that this story of the Italian FA telling Capello that “Hooligan is an English word” annoyed me today.

England has an issue with its reputation abroad, one that is no longer based on fact, but rather folklore.

With such strong, negative and ingrained perceptions of British fans there is a clear task for the Public Relations Industry. This is because unbalanced reporting leads to disproportionate levels of coverage, that then informs international football fans and organisations worldwide. It becomes a vicious circle.

The facts need communicating:

- England is the safest place to watch football (there is lots of evidence to back this claim up)
- France, Italy and Spain is a far more dangerous place to watch football
- France has ancient stadia with hooligans aplenty, as does Italy
- Spain has the added joy of racism to throw into the mix, click here

OK, here is my caveat, this season there has been more trouble than usual in the UK, e.g. Man Utd v Barnsley, West Ham vs Millwall, and England can’t take its eye off the ball, but look at this more severe example which happened this week in France at a match between Marseille and Paris SG. In my view it was under-reported, see here:

Events such as what happened in Marseille are a regular occurrence in France, but just aren’t reported worldwide, compared to when we Brits get involved. This lack of balance needs addressing. I just want to see us all up to necks in the same problem without other countries missing out on the criticism.

35 Italians died in a horrific incident involving Liverpool FC hooligans, yet during the war millions of human beings died. However we can forgive the nations involved in those war-crimes, so why not the same with sport?

Could the Football Association create a crisis management strategy which kicks into action every time there is trouble in the UK or the rest of Europe? Maybe it already has a crisis PR team but clearly more needs investing in improving our reputation. When trouble is severe then the FA will rightfully hold its hands up! However robust efforts must be made to put hooliganism into perspective when compared to what happens in mainland Europe. OK, we need to stamp the problem out here, but reporting of events in Spain, England, and Italy must be proportional on a global level.

Foursquare interview explains all

Posted by jameswdcrawford on October 27, 2009 under Social Media | Be the First to Comment

This is an interview by @steverubel of Dennis Crowley (Foursquare). It’s about three months old but still a useful overview of Foursquare.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPtujpFHb_U&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

Should Journalists Blog?

Posted by jameswdcrawford on under Journalism | Be the First to Comment

We, on behalf of The Carphone Warehouse, are beginning to undertake a project to encourage journalists to blog. I’ve only been blogging for the past five months but have found the whole process very rewarding. Hopefully a few journalists will start blogging who never thought they would!

They are better placed than me to come up with compelling content!

This presentation starts off slowly but by slide seven there is some good content. I should also say it is not my presentation, but lifted from Slideshare.

[slideshare id=1050992&doc=UsersjwilpersDocumentsConsultingINTERNSHIPPresentationsShouldJournalistsBlogJohnWilpers-090220062104-phpapp01]

My favourite news curation sites

Posted by jameswdcrawford on October 26, 2009 under Social Media | Be the First to Comment

Curation of the news is one of the most exciting innovations on the internet.  The internet is an enlightening place to keep up to date with current affairs and news, but now with news curation sites we can access, sort, consume and share thousands of news sources from around the world.

Fernando Rizo, a digital PR chap at Ketchum who I’ve met and respect, says he thinks that Google Reader is everything he could ever need.  See his post:

http://fernandorizo.typepad.com/blog/2009/05/google-reader-is-all-the-social-network-that-i-need.html  

However, I think I need my news in a more consumable format, so here are my three favourite ways to consume news (in no particular order):

-          www.popurls.com

The site recommends top content from all the main international sites, networks and blogs and aggregates it for you.  OK, so the content is far too US centric, but I find the layout excellent and the content engaging.  I’m also fascinated by the US, so the nature of the content doesn’t bother me.  It also presents images and video in a simple and visual way.

-          http://my.alltop.com/jameswdcrawford

Alltop.com is tremendous and above is a link to my Alltop list.  The great thing about Alltop is the user can choose the news sites and blogs from which they want updates.  The site also makes sharing incredibly easy.  One criticism is that if a user only turned to their alltop.com profile for news then they might never find out what is happening on, say Fox News, or another media channel, which they wouldn’t normally give a second glance.  

-          http://www.twittertim.es/jamescrawford

Twitter Times is a bit clunky still, but I love the way it curates news from my Twitter Network and provides it in an engaging way.  I can also see uses for this for my clients, say for example internal communications (for example a way for an MD to keep his staff up to speed on industry topics).  I also think Twitter Times is an intriguing insight into a person and their network.

I’d be interested to hear from anyone who has any better sites, or other curation tools which they think are more useful, or just different.

Have you eaten in Mo's Chippy, Deansgate?

Posted by jameswdcrawford on October 23, 2009 under PR | 8 Comments to Read

Mo’s Chippy on Deansgate holds a unique place in the folklore of the PR industry in Manchester. I want to see how deep this special feeling really goes.

Knott Mill, where the chippy is based, is like a mini PR hive of industry. Like Media City will be one day. Mo, the boss, has been serving fish and chips for years to the likes of Biss Lancaster, Weber Shandwick, MC2, Iris Worldwide and Staniforth (before they relocated to Didsbury).

I once witnessed three agency Managing Directors accidentally meeting in the chippy at the same time. Fish and Chips are a great leveller!

Apart from nourishing the minds and souls of PROs, Mo’s Chippy is a great way to get a feel for what is actually happening in the real world, away from the mollycoddled realm of Public Relations.

Food is only a small part of the experience. Mo doesn’t just serve chips but dishes out pearls of wisdom that someone should collate into a book.

So, I thought I would honour Mo with a post, especially as my blog has been really serious of late, with fascists, racists, all sorts of monsters, getting a mention.

So… I am asking the people of PR past-and-present who have fond memories of Mo’s to leave a comment at the bottom of the post and share your feelings for the big man with the deep fryer. In a month or so I shall print off your comments and present them to Mo as a little gift, as I love him like he is part of my family. Well sort of.

I’ll take a photo of the presentation and let you know what he said.

P.s. mine is a Fish Balm please with salt and vinegar

Question Time Censorship

Posted by jameswdcrawford on October 22, 2009 under Opinion | Read the First Comment

My view is that we should let Mad Nick*, the far right nutter, appear on BBC’s Question Time.

I might prove to be ill-informed, but I think censorship is pointless, even if Mad Nick’s views are abhorrent and disgusting.

Let Mad Nick on Question Time and show himself up as the nutter he is. Hopefully the audience will allow him to speak without too much interruption, as his own views will be what kill him off.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4′s Today Programme, Red Ken Livingstone, former Mayor of London, believes the Mad Nick appearance on Question Time will lead to more racial attacks.

I believe censorship is an aid to the party’s recruitment because the party recruits its members using conspiracy theories. One such theory is that the UK Government is censoring The Party because it is trying to lead Britain into a race war. So by letting the party onto the BBC we can take away one of his tools of recruitment – wacko conspiracy theories.

Instead, Question Time is a chance for Mad Nick to spout racist nonsense, which I think will ultimately embarrass him. This, coupled to a robust reaction from campaigners and protesters sends a better signal. A message that these are the views of a marginal party.

I think UKIP are a bigger risk to our country, but that is another blog post altogether….

(*His name has been changed to reduce his online presence via search)

The Daily Mail – Moirgate

Posted by jameswdcrawford on October 17, 2009 under Journalism | 3 Comments to Read

As you are reading this post on a blog the chances are you know all about the Moirgate at the Daily Mail, so no need for a recap of events.

Being a busy fella, I came to the story late and my initial reaction was one of surprise. Why suddenly had everyone picked up on this Op Ed piece when most liberal voices could find something shocking in every edition of the Daily Mail?  Comment and news like this are in every issue.  There are websites devoted to scrutinising the Mail after all, like http://www.mailwatch.co.uk/

My second thought was one founded in cynicism and perhaps created in a mind desensitised to media furores.  I thought the Twitter campaign against these comments wasn’t going to change a great deal and if anything will probably drive readers towards the Daily Mail, rather than in the opposite direction.

After expressing this thought to my Social Network, seconds later friends rightly told me to stop being so cynical and try and make a change.  A beautiful thing was happening live before my eyes.  Before I could even catch my breath to join in, a story appeared showing that M&S had pulled its advertising.  The Mail released a statement and it felt like the Twitter campaign had been won there and then.

Other messages were floating around explaining how Jan Moir had broken rules set out by the Press Complaints Commission (a commission where Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail is chairman, but that is another story).

Then the Tweets started to turn on Jan Moir rather than the publication.  Seeing that all columnists are disposable, a naive tactic seeing there are 9,000 replacement Jan Moirs in waiting.  Jan Moir’s home address was posted – raising fears about nut jobs “paying her a visit.”  Not a pleasant move.

At time of writing there are over 1,500 stories on Google New relating to the incident, and it was the number one and three story on Twitter.  It is safe to say the story EXPLODED.

So after taking story and looking at what seemed a victory, I feel a bit disappointed that perhaps nothing really has changed.  Unless the row continues, this storm will blow over and the Daily Mail will continue doing what it does best…

I also think that the Daily Mail will do alright from the coverage.  Most readers of the Daily Mail probably won’t care about what Jan Moir said, and if anything the owners of the Mail will be rubbing their hands at the amount of Unique Users the piece drew to the Daily Mail’s website, which is already the biggest online news outlet on UK shores.  I wonder too what the like-for-like readership will be for the Mail today compared to the same time last week?  I’d bet anyone five English pounds that it has gone up!

The other thing this news event further cemented in my mind is how clouded by their own network Twitter users can become.  If a user doesn’t subscribe to a wide array news sources and users, then one could suffer from a serious case of the Emperor’s New Clothes, believing that their world view has now become conventional wisdom.

Don’t get me wrong, Twitter is an amazing campaigning tool and has set the news agenda twice last week with the Trafigura gagging order story and now Moirgate.  Long may it continue!  I’m not saying ‘don’t bother getting involved’.  I’m trying to say ‘get involved but see things through’.

Yesterday was a really exciting moment for British media and long may that continue.  I just think that campaigns have an ethereal quality on Twitter, and tomorrow the mob move on to the next big outrage which Social Media will help shape.

And therefore I bring you back to my original thought.  Why are people only now questioning the Daily Mail when a liberal mind can find something equally distasteful in it every day?