BarCamp Bradford video

Razor sharp Twitter Wars

I’m not shaving at the moment. Don’t ask? I’ve never liked shaving but when I grow a beard I end up looking like a member of Al Qaeda but some time it’s nice to give the face a rest.
However, you would think something as innocuous as shaving would never enter into a Twit War but I have just witnessed one. And it underscores the dangers of abusing the openness of Twitter.
Now I use Gillette and I user Azor by King of Shaves so I was somewhat surprised that following the Hand of Theirry Controversy, consumers focused on Gillette (a sponsor of Theirry) and threatened a boycott to punish the French captain’s handball. And this is where it gets interesting because Will King, founder of King of Shaves somehow found his company in the thick of it.
He takes up the story here on his blog Brand Royalty underlining the dangers of masquerading as a loyal Gillette customer when in fact you are the company’s public relations strategist. Will recounts how he received the following Tweets:

“Time for everyone to boycott gillette and go @kingofshaves #henrylecheat”

“Cannot bloody believe Gillette is standing by Henry. There goes my Mach3 in the bin”

“Wonder if #Gillette will drop #ThierryHenry now? Reputation management issue for brand, they are getting targeted for their association”

Now Will tells it in his own words…

Having (naturally!) re-tweeted tweet #1, I was then intrigued to read the following tweet from @charliedm: “A lot more people would switch to Azor if it wasn’t a cheap plastic piece of rubbish that leaves you looking all Sweeney Todd”.

Now, as I - a) I’ve shaved with our Azor for over two years now (and get the close, comfortable and cost efficient King of Shaves each morning), b) know that a lot of people are switching to our Azor - it was the #1 selling system razor handle last month, and c) know it isn’t a bit of ‘cheap plastic rubbish’ - rather, it embodies all that is great in consumer products, not all that is unnecessary - I was interested to see who @charliedm was…

Turns out he’s Creative Strategist for Porter Novelli London…Gillette’s PR agency. Ooh er. Someone’s rattled out there.

The following tweet exchange then ensues:

@kingofshaves Gillette stick with Henry. Many others not sticking with Gillette, but going to King of Shaves, Azor. Good!

@charliedm Well done for turning the misfortune and misery of as entire nation into a publicity drive. That’s not at all cheap”.

@kingofshaves “Don’t Porter Novelli look after Gillette’s PR…?”

@charliedm “It’s great for the kind of razor you might get in a Christmas cracker…

@kingofshaves “Um, you would say that given you handle Gillette’s PR. The King of Shaves Azor is a GREAT razor

@kingofshaves “Surprised that as chief strategist you make such a negative, public comment. wait until you see our october sales - bit worried?.

@charliedm “Does a lion find a dormouse worrying? Anyway, this isn’t work - this is jousting”

@kingofshaves “BA used to think that way. And learned the hard way. Joust away, my friend”.

@charliedm “Interesting. That’s just the kind of thing XL Airways used to say…”

Then, another enters the fray:
@shedmenshealth Playground bitching on twitter? :o/ Charlie, consumers can read! You should know better in PR. Will, stay strong fella!

Then another..
@peterdean1 “*enjoying* @kingofshaves tweet jousting with Gillette PR’s > @charliedm.

Then another…
@atterolognis “Interesting joust - Funny that he refers to the Azor as a bit of plastic when his is exactly that. Oh wait, it vibrates.

Then another..
Adam: Is @KingofShaves tweet jousting with Gillette PR’s > @charliedm going to turn into another great Tweet war? Hmm….

As in the real - stones and glass houses. A PR lesson for us all.

Porter Novelli have apologised here.

We did a BarCamp

We did a BarCamp. Yesterday more than 100 people from a wide range of professions and industries attended and BarCampBradford which took place at the WOW Academy and the National Media Museum.

A big thank you to everyone who attended and who presented and many thanks for our sponsors Sponsors which included Screen Yorkshire, Yorkshire Forward, National Media Museum, Panoetic, Frogtrade, Shipley College , BMedia, GREEN Communications, University of Bradford and Challenge CLC.

People travelled to Bradford from across the north with delegates arriving from Lancaster, Chester, Scarborough, Leeds, Huddersfield, Sheffield and Halifax. There were more than 40 separate presentation throughout the day ranging from doing business in Second Life and launching and iPhone App (a good representation of the day’s talks can be seen in the picture above and in the tag cloud below).

However, a flavour of the talks is listed here.

• Google's hidden gems by John McLear - Primary Technology and Welcome3's MD exposes some of googles hidden gems including Android, CSE, Analytics, SSO, Adwords & Adsense.
• Twitter for Business - the dos and donts of Twitter and how it can make or damage a brand's reputation – Thomas Atcheson
• How a small local team of individuals are trying to find new ways of bringing social history to life - and aiming to change attitudes to open data along the way. (Jon Eland
• Rethinking the Presentation - how to not kill people with Powerpoint. - Ian Smith
• iPhone Application Development - Things I've learned from making my Zombies game - Matt West
• Setting up an ecommerce business & use of social media, blogs, Twitter, Facebook... - Chris Wildman
• A Decade of WebDesign - Tracking trends in design - Monica Tailor
• Retro Gaming - A session, round-table, discussion, demos of retro games and retro tech - Mohsin Ali & Pawel Dubiel
• The 'Civic App Store' - Round-table around OpenCities, OpenData, Cities as Operating Systems, Streets as Platforms, Unique AR useage & Mobile apps for cities - Mohsin Ali
• Version Control - An introduction to how we use it to develop large CMS projects - Panoetic
• Legal Challenges of Web 2.0 - Will cover such issues as ownership of copyright and other intellectual property in user generated content, liability for user generated content, privacy, dispute resolution and much more - Jane Lambert
• Internet marketing workshop - want more website visitors? Conversion/sales/downloads? Reputation? Round table IM problem solving with John Allsopp
• Drupal For Good - presentation on how Gentlehost are using Drupal for Social Change, then it's over to you for discussing ways in which Drupal can be used for good - Alice Kærast
• How to sell yourself better at interview - we've interviewed somewhere in the region of 50-60 developers this year, and only hired two. What we've learned in this process - Adam Hepton
• User experience in .net magazine December 2009 - a response on a couple of articles in the latest issue: interview with Brian Kalma from Zappos, and article by Craig Grannell on 'Master user experience design' - Keith Doyle (Usability Analyst)
• Making a Game! - A presentation on the process of game making and the various markets. (Simon Barratt - hoping he'll be able to get by just working from his bullet points!)
• Get rich with Free Software - Free Software, what it is, how it works and how you can get fat rich with it. John Leach

Some other facts about the day:

• More than 300 cakes were consumed at breakfast - baked by my daughter Mercedes
  
• 240 cups of tea and coffee were served
• 50 pizzas and countless chips were consumed at lunch
• 1,000 tweets were posted to Twitter at the last time of counting
• 200 bottles of water were drunk
  
• 59 bloggers wrote about the event before it happened and more are emerging as I write.
• 40 Twitpics were published and a Flickr account has also been set up
• Beers where drunk at the end of the day but no-one kept count
  

Will we do it again? You bet yah!

Learning about social media from an old fart

Now this story might appear a bit crude, but it really happened, and inadvertently provided a wonderful metaphor for understanding new developments in communications, particularly social media.
Picture the scene: my colleague Andy Green is in a busy Edinburgh pub, crowded with delegates from the CIPR Local Public Services Annual Conference, where he was a speaker.
At the end of the evening, Andy and some acquaintances were still talking shop at the bar, with one delegate airing his view that he ‘really didn’t see the significance of this social media thing.’
One senior delegate patiently sought to explain how social media was not just another channel for communication, but required a different mindset. And then, without announcement, surreptitiously, slipped away from the bar.
His new found friend at the conference, an Irish guy then declared in his Dublin brogue: "Someone has farted - and it’s not me!"
Andy reassured him that it genuinely wasn’t him either. The absent friend seemed prime suspect.
The episode instantly provided Andy with a metaphor: "This is how social media is different. You see, normal communications is telling the world what you want to say. Social media, is picking up conversations which may be about you, and may, in many instances not be instigated about you. So, you would not issue a press release for the equivalent of ‘You have just farted’. The fart, however, is a reality for those out there. And is more likely to be picked up as a conversation piece, regardless of your embarrassment.”
He added: "If you’re not out there listening, and appropriately responding you are in danger of living in an artificial, You-Centric world, and not being part of the real conversation. That’s the real difference with this social media thing.”
The metaphor seemed to work in making his new friend understand the different mindset of social media. It’s funny, how an ill-wind can bring new insight.

The craic that is social media

Usually we have to drag clients and potential clients kicking and screaming to the table of social media.

We believe that social media offers a veritable smorgasbord of opportunities for business and how they communicate with their customers and world at large – particularly in these straightened times when social media provides such a low cost entry to market.

However, in companies where the boards are dominated by middle-aged men convincing them of the merits of social media – whether it be a Twitter account or a blog or even a Flickr account – is seen as tantamount to inviting them to take up skateboarding.

So we are delighted to be working with Fitzgerald Group, one of Ireland’s leading leisure companies, which has completely embraced what social media can do for them.

They have just launched a new website which takes in Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Facebook. It’s also rich in user generated content written by happy customers who have stayed at its hotels in - The Louis Fitzgerald Hotel, Arlington Hotel and Arlington Temple Bar Hotel.

Stephen Williams, Group E-Commerce Manager at Fitzgerald Group has been an early adopter of social media and uses Web2.0 tools to engage with its hotel guests and customers of its pubs which include The Quays, Temple Bar, The Stag’s Head and Ireland’s Bar of the Year Grand Central on O’Connell Street.

It is now working with LouderVoice where guests can now review their experiences directly on the site and provide valuable feedback and opinion. Those looking for reviews of the hotels no longer have to trawl the web trying to find random information, but can read genuine reviews by real guests on the hotel sites themselves.

Recent research has shown that more than a third of internet users rate peer opinions and User Generated Content (UGC) as the most trusted and credible.

Reviews don't just appear on the hotel sites, they are also aggregated to the LouderVoice reviews website, its mobile phone applications and the use of Facebook and Twitter logins means that guests can recommend the hotels to their friends on their favourite social networks.
Conor O'Neill, Chief Executive of LouderVoice says: "The businesses that will survive and thrive in the current economic climate are those that listen and react to their customers' needs. The Fitzgerald Group embraces this and understands that customer reviews are a key part of that strategy."

So well done Stephen. Well done Fitzgerald Group. Others should look and learn because since we started working with them their UK internet traffic has risen by more than 25 per cent as a result of good old deadwood PR and online PR activities.

New recruit at GREEN

Here at GREEN Communications we are delighted to welcome Emma Franklin on board as account executive following a spate of new account wins.
Emma joins GREEN with the agency celebrating a clutch of recent account wins including Ireland hotel chain The Fitzgerald Group, Graduates Yorkshire and international communication network euNetworks.
Having worked for Chronicle Publications for three years as a reporter and news editor, writing for four publications across Yorkshire, Emma will work across a broad range of GREEN clientds including Warburtons, The Chartered Institute of Marketing and Yorkshire Housing.
Emma said: “I am extremely pleased to say I work for GREEN, a company that has proved it self to be one of the North’s most respected PR agencies. In the current economic climate it is important for PR agencies to be at the top of their game, delivering high quality communications services to ensure that businesses convey the right message to their customers.”
Client Services Director Dan Phillips said: “Emma’s background in press journalism brings further depth to the GREEN team and further strengthens our reputation for good solid media relations alongside our growing social media service.”

Come to the BarCamp Bradford

This year, we plan to host a BarCamp in Bradford on Saturday, November 14 and we’re expecting 130 attendees from Yorkshire and across the country with live linkups with BarCamps in the US, Canada and India. We are also seeking to link in with the Bradford Animation Festival 2009 which finishes on November 14. With this in mind we will be encouraging those presenting to look at new developments in film, animation and digital media and offer a Superstar Speaker supported by an appropriate sponsor such as Google.

With that in mind we would also love to hear from anyone who is currently working on an Android app.

We'd love for you to come - if you're a creative, an artist, a writer, blogger, technologist, or a developer, geek, entrepreneur, academic researcher, gamer or investor please join us. If you were just curious and interested in digital culture - we'd love to meet you too. Come and demo, talk, share or just hang out! Follow us on TWITTER for further updates. 

If you want to come make sure you register here. To find out more visit BarCampBradford.

Green Communications: News Articles: Graduates Yorkshire appoints GREEN

Green Communications: News Articles: Graduates Yorkshire appoints GREEN

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Interns - what's the problem?

First this weekend the Guardian did a big piece about how employers are exploiting graduate internships. In it Polly Curtis, Guardian Education Editor, highlighted how companies are exploiting graduates by offering the work for free with little prospect of a job at the end.
Moreover, this seems to be the mind set for British employers – whether they are in the public or private sector. The assumption is that there are so many graduates in the marketplace why would an employer offer to pay for their services when so many are willing to do it for free.
But “free” comes at a price for the graduates – especially if mummy and daddy can afford to support your career ambitions in the media, PR, marketing. Please note, these are the most oversubscribed professions and as a result they are the most exploited.
This point was underscored by Tyler Brule in his Fast Lane column in the FT (Inert interns need not apply) where he decried the high expectations of trustafarian wannabes who wanted to work on photoshoots but wouldn’t demean themselves with photocopying.
Between both articles the truth is that the UK doesn’t really get internships (an American word if we are honest).
At GREEN we do a lot of work experience placements, usually with high school sixth formers or undergraduates, for which we do not pay. We hope, and believe, we enrich these young people’s experience of what the workplace is like and generally we aim to give them genuine business projects to work on.
However, we are now doing our first internship (for the right candidate) for a 12-month stint in our business during which they will earn significantly more than the minimum wage and learn a hell of a lot about what it is like to work in a communications business.
Interestingly, this coincides with our work with Graduates Yorkshire which has just launched a programme of paid internships in Yorkshire whereby it is seeking to place up to 80 graduates with companies in the region in the next six month up to March 2010.
Polly, at The Guardian, is right that not enough is being done to legitimize and monetize intern’s input into the economy and Tyler is correct in that not enough is being done to match graduate expectations with the reality of the workplace.
However, initiatives like Graduates Yorkshire will close the gap. Watch this space.

GREEN client celebrates Yorkshire Day

http://www.greenblog.co.uk/2009/07/31/our-client-celebrates-yorkshire-day/

According to this chart I was a web developer, IT journalists and professional blogger when I joined Twitter. I am/was none of these things.

We are hiring again at GREEN

re you financial whizz? Are you AAT qualified with an excellent understanding of SAGE and a keen eye for managing cashflow?

If so, we would like to talk to you as GREEN Communications, based in Wakefield, is currently seeking a capable financial administrator to provide full range of financial administration and book-keeping duties.

This position provides for a flexible working environment equivalent to three days a week. Salary £14,000 - £17,000 pro rata.

Send your CV to Ian Green, GREEN Communications, Wakefield Media Centre, 19, King Street, Wakefield WF1 2SQ

El: ian@greencomms.com

T: 0845 4503210

F: 0845 4503211

Closing date for applications August 7^th. No agencies please

Public Relations: The next stage

I was at an event last week and a delegate I got chatting with said I should be worried about my business because public relations didn’t have a future – what with Web2.0 and all that.
The same thing was said to me in 2005 at LeWeb3.0 in Paris – I’m still around and doing PR and still thriving. The point is Web2.0 will not kill PR but make it stronger as a communications tool.
PR expertise is now paramount. SEO, social network marketing, Web 2.0 applications and the like have all served to increase - not decrease - the value and demand for high-quality public relations. The reason? PR has always been about the conversation and Web2.0 is all about the conversation.
In fact, thinking about it, is the concept of Web2.0 even relevant anymore? With PR, the problem is all about perception – most people think we just send out press releases and now that print media is in decline, they say PR is on it’s way out as well. They never understood that press releases and published articles are just means to an end. The core of PR has always been about communication skills and strategies - the ability to evaluate the competitive landscape, identify the right messages and effectively and honestly communicate those messages to the right audience – in deadwood media as well as any other media.
The slaggers argue that SEO is a dark art - add a meta tag descriptor here, create a load of keywords and move up the Google ranking. Bollocks! It’s all about content. And who manages the content? PR. And who influences user-generated content? PR.
Meanwhile, the press release remains as important as ever. Even with deadwood media the average 50-year-old hack working on a regional newspaper, or, indeed, a national newspaper, would be completely flummoxed if he received a social media press release with all the bells and whistles of podcasts, videos, links, images and third-party sources.
Remember newspapers, magazines, journals and their online companions have not gone away. They’re online, along with a host of bloggers, freelancers and forum writers that are also writing about you and your company.
This means that PR isn’t going away either. It has just become more complex and more important to a strategic communications plan than ever before. And that’s exciting!

Taking OpenCoffee to Barnsley

Following the success of the OpenCoffee networking events we have held in Bradford and Sheffield, bmedi@ are running another event on Thursday 23rd July 2009 in Barnsley.
The emphasis of OpenCoffee is very much on the internet and new media industries etc. These free events are informal and see a range of technology entrepreneurs, designers, bloggers, developers, geeks, investors and anyone else who’s interested in digital media and technology exchanging ideas and striking up relationships that would otherwise never have flourished.
The philosophy of OpenCoffee is very much of an Open House of ideas and people.
OpenCoffee Barnsley is being sponsored by bmedi@.
The event will take place on Thursday 23rd July 2009 between 10 and 12 midday at the Barnsley Digital Media Centre, County Way, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2JW.
Please click here directions.
The event is open to anyone who is interested in the region’s digital, creative and new media industries. You’re welcome to enjoy the coffee, bacon butties, the cakes and the company. We do however need to have an idea of numbers for catering, so please book your place by contacting Dev Dulai either by e-mail dev@bmedia.org.uk or ring 01274 747407.
We look forward to networking with you.

Working with Fitzgerald Group

Shameless plug! - We’ve just come back from a very enjoyable day in Dublin with Stephen Williams, Group E-Commerce and Marketing Manager at the Fitzgerald Group
For those of you who don’t know the Fitzgerald Group – it is one of Irelands leading leisure groups with more than 20 pubs on the Emerald Isle and owner of three of Dublin’s most successful hotels.
They are the Arlington Hotels – at Temple Bar and O’Connell Bridge – the eponymous Louis Fitzgerald Hotel after the company’s entrepreneurial founder who continues to drive the business forward with his unerring eye for detail and his ability to drive pubs and hotels forward where others fail.
Anyway GREEN Communications has been appointed to raise the profile of the three hotels in the UK and send more visitors across the Irish Sea to enjoy the Celtic pleasures on offer at the three hotels. Two of them - Temple Bar and O’Connell Bridge – offer fantastic value for money with great accommodation and nightly entertainment from traditional Irish musicians and dancers.
We – Thomas Atcheson and Kathy Burke – where at the O’Connell Bridge last night and where blown away by the whole experience and we have all vowed to go back independently with our friends and family.
Keep an eye out for further news as we will be managing a range of promotional competitions, special offers and events over the next 12 months to ensure the hotel’s get the reputation they deserve among UK holidaymakers.

Jet2com Tweet to perfection

I have to tip my hat to who ever it is that is managing Jet2’s presence on Twitter.
If the campaign is being run in-house the team at Jet2 should be congratulated for embedding themselves in the conversation that is Twitter at a time when many established brands remain coy about all things social media.
Jet2, which flies out of Leeds-Bradford Airport, in Yorkshire, UK has always been quite bold in its marketing and has now created a real buzz around its brand with a recent competition held on Twitter.
It should be noted that Jet2 has only been on Twitter for a short while – about a week ago it only has about 180 followers. However, since it launched its competition (hashtag = #freeflightsfromjet2), followers have grown three-fold and are continuing to rise as follows re-tweet comments.
The competition is simplicity itself – on the hour today Jet2 is tweeting questions about destinations it flies to and the first follower to send the right answer with the correct hashtag wins a free flight.
A great way to create a buzz around your brand, develop your online personality and brighten up people’s Friday.

This is what I think...

Life's a pitch - stop doing it

I’ve been some what surprised at the number of pitches we are getting to our blog at GREEN from so-called blog engagement companies.
I have been approached in the past on this blog and have actively engaged with some companies as they have been thoughtful enought to have read my blog and understand what interests me. Then they started a conversation with me and eventually asked me to comment on one of their products which I was happy to do.
However, the vast majority of the “social media” companies get it so wrong - take this for instance which I received last week and was aimed at GREENblog.

I am contacting you from NAME DELETED an online video seeding company. We think your site would be an appropriate place to feature the new environmental campaign sponsored by NAME DELETED.

The NAME DELETED campaign is part of an ongoing project to reduce the energy consumption of NAME DELETED desktops an (sic) notebook PC’s by 25% by 2010 (a goal they have already reached a year and a half ahead of schedule). Please go to their site for more information about this great campaign.

To reach this goal they are launching video campaigns in order to create buzz, excitement and awareness online. These two pieces of video content encourage users to save energy by turning off idle PC’s, a small change to your routine that can make a big difference.

If you are interested in embedding either of these videos on your site, please do get in touch as we would love to have you on board.

The point is they have not read our blog. They have just seen the name GREEN and thought we are some sort of environmental blog - and have effectly spammed us damaging their reputation and that of their client.

Getting ready for Google's next wave

Have been very busy all day – and was planning an early night - but was really impressed with the latest Google project which sets out to rewire the online communications with a new product called Wave.
Wave is a web-based application that marries multiple forms of communication and collaboration, including chat, mail and wikis, into a unified interface. Everything inside Wave happens in real time.
It blows MSN out of the water as you can see a comment being made as the person is typing it, character-by-character.
Wave, which was demonstrated last week at the Google I/O developer conference and has been thrown open as an open-source project which people can play with and mash-up.
The thing I love about it is that it pushes over the old email order by allowing people to chat, share information and collaborate with one another in a whole new way. In the old email meme messages can become twisted and fragmented into side conversations and becomes more and more confusing. Sure, there are more structured tools like IM, chat rooms, wikis, group blogs or web apps built for threaded communications, such as FriendFeed.
But Google Wave is aiming to replace all of these with a rolling threaded conversation, real-time chat, nested comments, media sharing, link sharing and wiki-style collaboration into a familiar interface, complete with folders for keeping things organized.
I’ve signed up for the Beta – check it out here…

Inglorious Basterds - bloody hell!

I'm not so much interested in the film, although I will watch it when it screens, than by the fact that on the official Inglorious Basterds (sic) website you can embed the trailer direct in to your blog without even accessing your own blog.
Great piece of viral marketing although I am disappointed it is so flash heavy and is not using some other social media tools like Twitter. However, I have just looked again and they are! Twitter and Facebook - look at it here. Brilliant!