Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Chrome_screen This is a test post using Google's new browser, Chrome. I like the integration of search with the address bar and find multiple tabs essential (as poineered in Firefox and now used in Internet Explorer), but have spotted one minor glitch while using Typepad.

Posted by Richard Bailey at 09:05 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Monday, September 01, 2008

I've had an optimistic conversation with Anderson Lima about the uncertain future facing the worlds of marketing, public relations and academia. Optimistic because change is a constant, and change brings opportunities.

Another person embracing disruption is Stephen Davies, who has started his own online communications consultancy, 3W PR. Stephen is a pioneer whose moves are always worth watching. 'The world has changed; so has PR'. I certainly hope so.

We could be gloomy about the state of the economy or the threat of a new Cold War, or we could welcome the opportunites presented by disruption. Fortune favours the bold. Happy New Year!

Posted by Richard Bailey at 12:24 PM in Academic | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

As reported in Management Today, entrepreneur Guy Kingston is so fed up with 'dodgy PR agents' he's trying to find Britain's worst public relations agent.

He lists 9 signs of a bad PR agent - a reasonable list of bad practice indicators.

What's unsaid is that a good PR consultant (note how I prefer to use the c word) will choose to develop long-term business relationships with the best clients. The problem here, as so often, probably comes down to expectation management. Short-term publicity does not always equate to long-term reputation, which is why payment by results is usually such a bad choice (it ensures the focus is only on tomorrow's headines whether good, bad or ugly). Seven PR agents in just over a year does suggest a focus on the short-term.

Yet this stunt's clearly gained him some publicity. Either he's going alone and shows he's learnt the rules of the game or - quite possibly - this was dreamed up by his latest 'scumbag masquerading as a PR agent.' If so, it's a textbook example of how to turn around a difficult client. Trebles all round!

Posted by Richard Bailey at 01:59 PM in Consultancy | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Monday, August 18, 2008

The_fame_formula Mark Borkowski writes that 'in the media world, very few genuflect to the past - the zeitgeist is all.' Yet he's rather different ('I fell into publicity because I failed to get into university to read history' he says) and has written this history of the Hollywood publicity machine in follow-up to his previous book, Improgperganda: The Art of the Publicity Stunt.

It's full of stories: Barnum's elephants, a Tarzan publicity stunt involving a tame lion, and the hilarious tale of how a publicist protected the reputation of actress Tara Tiplady and her co-star after an incident involving oral sex and a hot frying pan required medical intervention. Tiplady was starring as the Virgin Mary in a film about the birth of Christ at the time, so publicity would have been a bad thing.

But what does it tell us? 'The great skill of the publicist in this era [ie 1930s Hollywood] was making journalists think they had the measure of power they craved when in fact they were simply desperate for access to be granted.' Not perhaps so different then from the world of sport, entertainment, politics and even big business today.

Continue reading "Sex, lies and celebrity"

Posted by Richard Bailey at 08:01 PM in Books, Celebrities | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Friday, August 15, 2008

Then read Brendan Cooper's sharp and funny manifesto for action.

Someone who's learning fast is Natalie Smith. Having kicked off the lively discussions reported in my previous post, she's now upgraded her blog to PR Girl.

Posted by Richard Bailey at 10:27 AM in Social media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

So I asked Natalie Smith to help me. She's just completed her first year and is now on a placement at Wolfstar, and I'll be using her list to guide me next year.

But note how Natalie's learning through doing. It might be self-defeating for a university lecturer to admit it, but there's something rather passive about only learning through teaching. Besides, here's a list of some of the things I might have taught in the past that would seem useless today: WordPerfect for DOS; desktop publishing; using a scanner; network protocols; research using online databases; using bulletin boards; CB radio...

It helps to distinguish between teaching principles - which shouldn't change - and teaching practice, which can date very rapidly. And to realise in all humility that it matters less what you teach than what students learn.

Posted by Richard Bailey at 01:49 PM in Social media, Students | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack (2)

Friday, August 01, 2008

Our Communications and Public Relations group has already made two appointments in preparation for the new Journalism degree course and still has a one-year full-time vacancy to fill, teaching undergraduate public relations students. The notice will appear soon on the university's vacancies page, with an application deadline of 29 August (and interviews to follow in early September).

I'm keen to answer any questions about this vacancy, though my response through any of the usual channels (email, blog, Facebook, phone) may be slower than usual during the holiday season.

UPDATE: Here is the vacancy notice.

Posted by Richard Bailey at 02:43 PM in Academic | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

There's a great post from an Auburn student who found an internship at SHIFT Communications. Note how she went about finding the placement and the role social media played in this. Note how she overcame her disappointment that PR isn't that glamorous.

As Wolfstar's Chris Norton points out in the comments, the lessons are equally applicable in the UK.

Posted by Richard Bailey at 10:20 AM in Students | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Thursday, July 31, 2008

I've contributed this post to Ron Culp's excellent Culpwrit blog. In it I address two paradoxes that have been puzzling me all year: how come graduate prospects appear so good in spite of the credit crunch; and why do employers rate our students even more highly than we do? Please join the conversation at Culpwrit if you've any thoughts to add to this.

Posted by Richard Bailey at 09:58 AM in Careers | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Monday, July 28, 2008

Mark Borkowski has a new book coming out called The Fame Formula and he's written an article on this theme in today's G2 section of the Guardian newspaper.

I take the science with a pinch of salt (it's a classic publicity stunt), but Borkowski is worth listening to on fame and celebrity publicity as he updates Andy Warhol's concept of 15 minutes of fame:

Madonna is an excellent example of a celebrity working the fame formula to perfection. From her early days as a sharp-witted 80s party girl, she has moved onwards and upwards in her quest to stay famous, creating controversy through videos of her kissing a black Jesus, her Sex book and her flirtation with lesbianism, changing style for every album, acting parts in movies, adopting children, writing books for children and becoming a member of the English landed gentry by dint of marriage and money. Even her sporadic film roles, lambasted though many of them have been, are part of her success. Each new innovation has caused her fame to spike and kept her in the media spotlight.

Posted by Richard Bailey at 10:00 AM in Books, Celebrities | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Graduation Another university year ends with another spectacular graduation ceremony. Graduates are moving on to new things, leaving their lecturers to draw strength to start the process over again.

Amidst all the talk of grades and feedback, what have I achieved or learnt this year? It's a humble list, but here goes:

• Many of our graduates have already started work - some in big name consultancies and corporations. While I worry about the effect of the economic downturn, I don't sense that we're over-producing graduates, or giving them the wrong tools. (But we need to keep alert to this possibility over the next year.)
• I agree with our Vice-Chancellor that coaching is often more important than teaching. Our influence is often subtle and unpredictable, but it was pleasing to hear so many words of thanks today.
• Challenge and responsibility are a good thing (at the right time). I know to trust my own instincts, but I'm learning to trust the ability of our better students and involve them in research and presentation challenges.
• Something old, something new: young people expect and revel in novelty. But I need new challenges too. The teaching I most enjoyed was when I was delivering new material and exploring new approaches to engaging students.
• We assessed some 180 students out on full-year work placements across this faculty this year. In general, their employers have praised their skills exceptionally highly; this is encouraging.
• So many of my conversations today (and this year) have revolved around dissertations and placements. This makes me feel that we have the balance between vocational and academic about right. (And the students with the best dissertations, who tend also to have been on year placements, are those who've been quickest to find graduate jobs. So I don't sense any major conflict between the vocational and the academic.) 

Posted by Richard Bailey at 06:26 PM in Students | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Henry Porter, writing in The Observer, is optimistic about Generation Y (his daughter's generation), but unsure of their attitude to his key theme, liberty.

Meanwhile, Harry Mount, in a book review in The Telegraph, puts his finger on one difference between the present generation and previous ones:

According to Julian Baggini, a philosopher, we are now living in a grievance culture, which encourages complaint and denigrates apology.

Because of increased wealth and rampant consumerism, we feel we are entitled to more than we actually deserve. So, when life gives us what little we deserve, we feel slighted.

And, in a grievance culture, we then blame those deficiencies on someone else. If your personal relationships go wrong, that's your parents' fault. If you do badly at school, it's the school's fault, and so on.

UPDATE: Porter Novelli has published this document (in PDF format) about the Millennial generation - another name for Generation Y. Via Karen Russell.

Posted by Richard Bailey at 10:26 AM in Students | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Planespotting high flyers

PR Week is again seeking to identify and name 29 PR high flyers under the age of 29. Don't ask me why it's 29, not 30.

It's a good idea, though. Careers in PR often start young and climb high quickly (didn't Matthew Freud sell his consultancy for the first time when he was around 30?). And success can become self-fulfilling.

Tech PR consultant and blogger Drew Benvie was named a few years ago. And in another field, Granta's list of 'Best of the Young British Novelists' from 25 years ago now looks stunning in retrospect. Martin Amis, Pat Barker, Julian Barnes, William Boyd, Kazuo Ishiguru, Ian McKeown, Salman Rushdie are among many other now-famous names on the list.

So if you can think of someone worthy of this attention, please nominate them before 25 July. I'll be curious to see if any PR graduates make it onto the list (there are several of our graduates in the PR Week Power Book).

Posted by Richard Bailey at 02:25 PM in People | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Women's pay in PR

The gender pay gap is once again in the news. Decades after the introduction of equal pay legislation, the figures are often startling. Take public relations: here's a field in which women clearly do well (being in the majority in our industry by 62% to 38% according to the study mentioned below).

Yet research for the Chartered Institute of Public Relations in 2005 suggested a stubborn pay gap remained. The average salary for all men working in PR was recorded as £57,165. The figure was £39,507 for women (these figures are on page 50 of the report). What can explain this gap?

Averages can be misleading, since men are disporportionately well-represented at the most senior levels. So the gap may not mean that men are earning more for doing the same work as women. But what else?

I'm inclined to think there may be some male boastfulness or female bashfulness involved. There are ways to compare salaries without this bias, but it's likely that people were asked to volunteer their earnings on a questionnaire.

But the most compelling rationalisation of these surprising figures came from a first year student in a lecture theatre. Could it be he asked (note this came from a male student), that men tend to choose the better paying roles and sectors (financial, public affairs, corporate), and women the less well paid (such as consumer PR). It's a good explanation, I think. Do you have a better one?

Posted by Richard Bailey at 10:07 AM in Careers | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

A do and a don't

Best to start on a positive note... I always make time to talk to students if I can. They might be individuals I'm assigned to teach or supervise; they might be others from my university, or students from elsewhere. If I can, I'll answer your questions. Normally that's where it ends. But I was particularly pleased to receive one hand-written thankyou card through the post; given that most contact is by phone and by email / blog comments, this stands out. Well done Ciara - and thank you.

Now for the negative. I'm also happy to provide references for students and graduates - I'm keen to watch your success in the workplace. But it's time-consuming for me to respond to requests from those I don't know well, or barely remember having taught several years before. The answer? If you want me as a referee, try to maintain some form of relationship. This might involve an email updating me on your career and your aspirations (particularly at the point where you've applied for a job you really want); you could add me as a friend on a social networking site (I'm on LinkedIn, PROpenMic, Facebook); you might even consider sending an old-fashioned card (see above). Christmas is the conventional time for this.

Posted by Richard Bailey at 11:24 AM in Careers, Students | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)