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PR Insights

16 October 2005

When is a blog not a blog

I saw this site - http://www.shirky.com/ - refered to as a blog the other day.

It delivers RSS but nothing else about it struck me as blog-like. No regular posts, no comments, no engagement with readers.

To me, Mr Shirky's website is just that. A website. It's not a blog. Am I wrong?

Is RSS a conversational tool?

One of the comments in PR Week's RSS feature came from Georg Kolb at Text 100.

He's quoted as saying "RSS is not just another distribution channel, it's a conversational tool."

This got me thinking. Every piece I've read on line has discussed RSS as a distribution method. That's how I see it. It's blogs that provide a means for companies to have conversations with their customers.

Perhaps there's something that I'm missing here. I need to go and do a bit more reading (and thinking).

11 October 2005

Open (finds, minds and conversations)

My colleague Antony Mayfield from Harvard PR has started his blog. It's good too.

Called Open (finds, minds, conversations)..., it's all about

"Finds...
Sharing news, cool businesses and applications that I think are too good not to shout about...

"Minds...
Well ideas. Other people's thinking and mine. Innovations and business ideas. See if any of them are useful to you.

"Conversations...
Mainly it's about the conversations. With so much change in the air and the ether I'll bring to the blog some fruits of the more interesting conversations I've been party to (or just shamelessly eavesdropped on) and see if they have a life online."

09 October 2005

PR advice from The Sunday Times

In today's Sunday Times, Matthew Wall looks at how small firms can combine to lobby against new laws that might hurt their businesses:

"It is also worth trying to get coverage in the press. You do not need a PR company for this. Simply do some research into the journalists who regularly cover your industry sector and write to them or invite them out to lunch. Similarly, target the relevant section editors and leader writers."

PR Week on RSS - The future of news is (really) simple

PR Week is running a major feature this week on RSS.

It features many names familiar to any regular IT PR blogger as well as a smattering of PR agencies and journalists.

For anyone familar with blogging, there won't be that many surprises.

Dan Gillmor - PR: It's a New World

Dan Gillmor - pioneer of citizen (or grassroots) journalism - has started writing a monthly column for PR Week.

I think it's only in the US edition but Dan has posted up the first piece on his blog, PR: It's a New World.

In it he looks at the changing nature of communication and how "traditional methods must give way to different kinds of conversations...the nature of corporate communications must change from top-down control to multi-directional openness - from lecture to conversation..."

CEO views on reputation management

Last year, Chime (owners of Bell Pottinger, Harvard and Insight) published a report CEO views on reputation management on the value of public relations, as perceived by organisational leaders.

It might be a year old but if you've not seen the report, it's still worth taking a look at.

(In the interests of full disclosure, I work for a Chime subsidiary).

06 October 2005

The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade

I've just finished Piers Morgan's book, The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade.

It's a great read. Interesting, well written and full of insights into life as a national editor. Sometimes serious, sometimes trivial, sometimes surreal. Thoroughly recommended.

04 October 2005

Insight sets up press release RSS feed

Our sister company Insight Marketing has just started putting out its press releases on RSS. I said I'd give them a plug.

Four Candles

Ronnie Barker's dead. It's hard to believe.

CSR: Just good business practice

I spent two hours today learning about CSR courtesy of SMART, one of our sister companies. I know a whole lot more now than I did before.

What struck me most was that CSR (or CR as it is now becoming known) is simply good business practice. If companies behave responsibly then more people want to work for them, more people want to buy from them, communities are more likely to accept them and governments are less likely to regulate against them.

Niall Fitzgerald, the former CEO at Unilever, summed it up nicely in The Guardian in 2003. "Corporate social responsibility is a hard-edged business decision. Not because it is a nice thing to do or because people are forcing us to do it... but because it is good for our business... More and more people are looking at companies and ask themselves if this is an organisation whose values they share. This is a hard-edged business issue."