Summer Reading

Here is my employer’s (Weber Shandwick) latest thought-leadership piece for your consumption. I hope you enjoy the read.

The news cycle in 2009

My summary of the news events of the year is below. 2009 will be officially known as Groundhog Year.

My opinion about bonuses

In the most part I don’t really understand why bonuses exist, there are in essence a lump sum of money given to someone for doing a good job. Surely someone should just get a salary increase or promotion if they are performing well in the work place? I know it is slightly more complicated than that, especially in the banking sector, but if the process was simplified then I’m positive there would be less arguments, people would know where they stood and we wouldn’t have got into as deep water as we are in now, a complete balls up. This situation also should had been cleaned up a long time ago, it is just another example of the current UK government pushing out mixed messages and most importantly moving too late.

Memetastic

Esteemed PR folk – Ged Carroll and Jonathan Hopkins – asked me to join in on a meme for providing advice on not-very-technical things that every PR person should know. So here goes…

Every PR person should realise that a life is now one big RSS feed, and this also goes for the brands we represent. Web communications is moving towards a news feed of information, thanks to the likes of Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook. Consumer behaviour is at the heart of driving this so my advice would be for each PR person to try to understand this, and drive communications that fit within this trend.

Ged also invited me to another meme, this time on cheap to free online things you can do to keep PR clients happy. Linking to the above suggestion, we need to make sure that clients has a visible online lifestream. The cost attached to this is minimal, and the benefit most wonderful.

Meme: Looking for inspiration

Ged Carroll memed me to find out where I get my inspiration from for my blog and thoughts? Plenty of places but here are a few ideas…

- Suggested links from blogging, Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed friends

- Delicious, Digg and other social bookmarking tools

- Traditional media reading such as The Times, The Guardian, The Economist, BBC, NY Times

- An endless array of podcast subscriptions

- ViralVideoChart.com

- Top political blogs and PoliticsHome.com

- Job experiences

- Film, music and sport

- When I’m on a run

- And most importantly pub chatter i.e. people I meet

Next up for the meme? Well, my esteemed Weber Shandwick digital colleagues…James Warren, Robert Anderson and Simon Collister.