PR Blogs

If the world is to escape quickly from this economic downturn then we need to be enterprising. To be enterprising we need to start thinking ridiculous thoughts, because to be enterprising we need to think about the future, and we can learn a good lesson from Albert Einstein who said: “If an idea is not at first absurd, then there is no hope for it.”

Not all new ideas mean old ways are forgotten.  We still read books and newspapers; we still ride bicycles; radio and TV are going strong even though social media means everyone can broadcast.  But new ideas are out there and we need to grab them.

Thirty years ago computers were rare in many businesses. Now most businesses could not operate without them. Changes – big changes – usually come about via three routes – from war, from natural disaster or from disruptive technologies. We need our young people – those in universities, in colleges, in schools, at home in front of their computers – to dream of these as yet unheard of disruptive technologies.

This is where our future prosperity lies. It’s easy to keep looking backwards and to celebrate what happened in the past. We need to anticipate the future with enthusiasm and grasp the opportunities that lie there.

It’s very easy to think of mad scientists, crackpot inventors and possibly frightening technologies. But we have an expanding global population, a huge global financial crisis and we have increasing competition in trade and business from all corners of the world. We need more crackpots and mad scientists and outrageous thinkers.

Attitudes change. Nuclear power was not acceptable a decade ago. Now most people accept it has to play a part in the energy mix, along with renewable energy sources.

Genetically modified crops must be carefully managed, but they may also offer a way of feeding our expanding world population. It’s easy to be against such things when you are not starving in Somalia or Eritrea.

And nanotechnology is also here and here to stay, despite the worries of Prince Charles. 

We dream of robots to serve us, but they already are. We don’t have a single robots to do our bidding but hundreds of them hidden away at work, at home and in our cars that do all manner of jobs for us.
But here again we are looking backwards. We need to gaze into the crystal ball and dream. Bring on enterprise. Bring on the absurd ideas.

They’re everywhere – these criminals with a wanton disregard for the rest of us, undermining standards, setting a bad example and generally ruining a once proud nation. How can we hold our heads up high, even in the knowledge that we finished above Australia in the Olympic medals table, or that we are going to stage the greatest sporting event on earth in 2012, while this sort of thing carries on?
It’s got to stop. We must join together and take a stand. We have to stamp out apostrophe crime.
It used to be known as the greengrocers’ apostrophe. You would see Apple’s  or Cabbage’s when it should be Apples or Cabbages. Nowadays this glaring error is not confined to greengrocers, oh no. We have the garages’ apostrophe, the supermarkets’ apostrophe, the practically any trader’s or company’s apostrophe.
The rules for apostrophes are clear and simple. They are used to denote missing letters, such as I mustn’t instead of I must not, or it’s instead of it is; they are used to denote possession, such as the Chamber’s policy or the writer’s pen or the directors’ meeting,
They are never, ever – not even in your wildest dreams – used to denote plurals. So we don’t have “MOT’s carried out here”, or “100’s of CD’s in stock”, or “Free magazine’s at reception”.
It is time for the great British public to rise up and demand that apostrophe criminals change their ways. Perhaps we could give them ASBOs (Apostrophe Standard Breaching Orders) or maybe give them 1000 lines (I must not misuse apostrophes for example by writing I must not misuse apostrophe’s) for every offence.
OK – so this is a bit of a rant, but there is a serious point here. We are always hearing about businesses bemoaning the inability of school leavers to cope with basic Maths or English. But who are employers to say such things when so many of them – and there are big companies which are in the apostrophe criminal classes – get such a simple rule of English wrong?
Now I am not against the English language evolving; it always has and always will. But we cannot throw grammar and spelling out of the window or down the drain just because we cannot be bothered to avoid mistakes.
So let’s name and shame the apostrophe criminals. Send your examples of apostrophe crime us at pr dogs and let’s (missing letter) get our readers’ (plural possessive) backing for this agency’s (single possessive) campaign!

There are good lessons for any business from the debacle of the Terminal 5 opening at Heathrow Airport. British Airways’ reputation has suffered greatly in the past few years through baggage handlers’ strikes and other misfortunes which have turned BA from ‘The World’s Favourite Airline’ to one which many overseas visitors have vowed never to use again.

So T5 was a golden opportunity to redress the balance – a wonderful ly-designed building by Lord Rogers, high-tech check-in operation, automated in almost every department. But as everyone knows it all went horribly wrong.
Things do go wrong. That can, in some ways, be forgiven. What cannot be forgiven is the response. Any good public relations practitioner has in his or her armoury issues and crisis management. The key is always to try to prevent an issue becoming a crisis.

Staff at T5 had been trained for many weeks on the new systems, but it seems no-one had done any crisis planning. No-one had switched off the power to see how staff would handle not having the computer systems, or how to move the baggage. There was no plan B that could be brought swiftly into operation.

What is even worse BA apparently had no effective system in place to manage the resulting passenger and media mayhem. Another painful lesson for both British Airways and the British Airports Authority – and indeed for any business – is that when you have scores of journalists around and no real information coming from the company, they will look for other stories, hence the rash of tales about the ‘goings on’ of various members of staff which would otherwise have not attracted any attention.

It now seems to be emerging that staff training at T5 had not been as good as it should have been and what we are seeing is the price being paid. Staff have to be fully-trained, not just in the new and unfamiliar systems but also in what to do if things go wrong.

Whenever a business is organising an event, an opening, a conference or anything else, always work with the adage in mid that ‘what can go wrong will go wrong’, Make sure your staff are trained, rehearsed and confident. Make sure the systems work, and make sure you have a plan B if things go wrong. A plan C is not a bad thing to have, either!

If you have PR support, make sure you listen to their advice about issues management, and prepare with them that crisis management plan.
You should do this as a matter of course looking at all contingencies that may arise in the normal course of business – fire, flood, epidemic, terrorist attack. You my have worked out how your business keeps going, but have you worked out how to tell your customers?

Reputation is the most valuable asset a business has, and it will take a big effort over many years for BA to get its reputation back. Make sure your company’s reputation doesn’t face a similar problem.

Power is fully restored. In the end we were only without power for about four hours. The reason for the power cut was the replacement of a footbridge close to our offices, but despite some strong winds a skillful crane driver completed the job in a much shorter time than any of us could have hoped.

Clients and suppliers should note that we do not have any power on Wednesday March 12, 2008, and consequently have no computers or telephones at the office. Some of us will work away from base and may have limited access to emails, but the best way to contact us for this day is on our mobiles. The main ones are 07843 436526 for John, and 07879 404892 for Chris,

…is a great phrase which is, admittedly, overused but which encourages us to be creative and adventurous. However we came across this cartoon which shows that while us Dogs can think outside the box, cats never, ever, should.

As part of our corporate social repsonsibity we carry out pro bono work for two organisations – ProHelp, part of Business in the Community, and the Media Trust.

Under ProHelp we provide PR support to Ellie’s Haven, an excellent charity based in Looe in Cornwall which is aiming to build a non-medical holiday facility for children with life-threatening illnesses and their families.

Under the Media Trust we are proud to support the Mental Disability Advocacy Center, an international charity which works in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Any PR companies which may not have thought of doing this type of work are well advised to do so, and we would be happy to discuss with fellow professionals. PR students may also like to get involved with this type of support.

Had a call today from another PR company about the NLA and their demands on our industry for money for copying what the agency says is a newspaper’s ‘copyright’ material.

Now we take issue with this. Most of the things we cut for clients through our payperclips trading division is based on releases we have sent out in the first place, and that, NLA, is our copyright material.

In addition we send our clients the original cutting, so in fact our service generates a lot of newspaper sales, so why should we pay any more?

We would be interested to hear from other agencies about this issue.

Formula One star Lewis Hamilton is to move to Switzerland to excape the ‘excessive public and media attention’ he has been getting.

Whoever is advising Lewis should point out that the time to worry is when he isn’t getting any public and media attention. The attention is what goes with the territory of success and high earnings. If he feels that he can’t go out with his mates nowdays, just how is he going to achieve that in Switzerland, which is quite a way from his home town of Stevenage. Or perhaps his new mates all live as tax exiles now.

If he is moving in order to pay less tax, then he should say so. But don’t, Lewis, try to blame the people who are, ultimately, the ones who pay those wages that you want to keep more of.