Don’t mix business and pleasure

I’ve been encouraged by readers to separate out the posts relating to my work in technology PR and my leisure activities: mountain biking, climbing and generally enjoying time spent  in the great outdoors.

So if you’re interested in posts about PR, networking and how technology is changing our world, click through to http://phinesspr.co.uk/prblog/

If you’re interested in reading and sharing your mountain biking, walking and rock climbing experiences, stay where you are.

Thanks for reading and don’t forget to wear a helmet.

Freedom of Information costs

I was very interested to read an article in SC Magazine UK citing a litany of hardware lost or stolen from the Ministry of Defence over a 2 year period. The article estimated that this cost the tax payer in excess of £777,000 in hardware costs alone. We can only guess at the value of the information that was stored on the laptops, phones, DVDs and memory sticks that are now AWOL. http://www.scmagazineuk.com/ministry-of-defence-lost-340-laptops-in-the-last-two-years-and-only-disciplined-nine-staff/article/175122/

However, as a PR professional, I was intrigued to see that this information was elicited via a Freedom of Information request by Lewis PR.

There were three companies quoted in the article: criticising the department and citing best practice on device encryption and remote locking and wiping of devices that are reported lost or stolen. Out of interest I Googled each company and each was a client of Lewis PR.

Rather than “issues highjacking” and providing clients’ responses to breaking news, this was a extremely carefully planned campaign that created an opportunity for 3 clients to comment on the same story.

This got me thinking. With the current “bonfire of the quangos” heralding the demise of  17 advisory bodies including BECTA;  the WEEE advisory body and Martha Lane Fox’s digital inclusion campaign (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jul/19/business-quangos-scrapped-coalition-cuts how much does it cost the UK government, and therefore the tax payer, to respond to FoI queries?

According to the Information Commissioner’s Office FAQs site, FoI requests will be answered free of charge, save the cost of printing, copying and postage, up to a limit of £600 per request for central government departments or up to £450 for other public authorities.

“Where the limit is not exceeded, the only charges that can be passed to you are those associated with providing the information, for example photocopying and postage. These are collectively known as disbursements.” – Information Commissioner’s Office, FAQs (http://www.ico.gov.uk/Global/faqs/freedom_of_information_act_for_the_public.aspx)

But how many people are employed to respond to these queries? And how is this cost recouped?

Journalists are always telling PRs that they need facts and figures to back up stories and clearly the FoI request service has provided a useful mechanism for bringing important data into the public domain.

However, while UK government departments’ budgets are being slashed to the bone, how long will this be available free of charge to PRs?

Search and Rescue?

In his latest blog post, http://sn.im/ypo4s Daryl Willcox, founder of Features Exec,  and Response Source makes some excellent points about the convergence of search marketing and PR, with stats to back up his views that PRs are failing to make best use of search marketing opportunities.

The lines between Search and PR are blurring

Last night Daryl addressed PRs at the CIPR’s Social Summer Series and shared with them the statistics from press releases posted to Features Exec’s press release distribution service. He cites 20 per cent of the press releases are now coming from search marketing agencies rather than pure PR players. Daryl concludes that only 67 per cent of press releases distributed via SourceWire in May 2010 contained embedding links, thus limiting the SEO of the content.

He reasons that this could be because of a disconnect between marketing staff, who are used to using SEO to lift sales by driving traffic to their Websites and PR staff who are in the business of cultivating relationships and managing reputations on behalf of their clients.

In summary, Willcox found that while 89 per cent of the press releases distributed via Sourcewire contained links to client websites, only  67 per cent contained embedded links, which help to provide journalists with additional information and drive traffic to clients’ sites. While the May tally represents a 50 per cent increase in the use of embedded links since 2007, Willcox questions what the other 33 per cent of Sourcewire users are doing.

One of his audience commented that because of the disconnect between the marketing and PR departments of larger companies,  the smaller companies will be the first to demonstrate integration and innovation in PR and search marketing, because marketing is often managed by a single person with responsibility for both.

From my own conversations with smaller businesses, it certainly would appear that the smaller the business the better their handle on social media, search and PR (in that order). A recent pitch to a small information security company (with big name clients) revealed that even though they claimed they’d “done no PR,” they were already using a search agency extremely successfully and seeing measurable increases in traffic to their website, as well as forging strong relationships with their core press contacts by providing timely comment on industry issues and breaking news. The key point is that their investment in search marketing preceded their formal search for PR.

They’re a small company, they understand search marketing and they blend this with their PR, without using a large agency. This is precisely the wake up call that Daryl Willcox, Seth Godin and Philip Sheldrake are talking about. What are you seeing? Are smaller companies leading the way in the integration of PR and search?

And now for something completely different….

-Trail Tapas with Singletrack Safari –

Last night we returned from our first mountain biking trip to Spain, guided by Martin Hills, founder of Singletrack Safari. In that week, I’ve cycled higher than I ever thought I was capable of, been followed by eagles, encircled by vultures, developed a wary attitude towards caterpillars and been treated to a close encounter with a family of wild boar as they thundered across the singletrack I was descending. In other words, it was a bloody brilliant holiday.

Martin has spent two years getting to know the areas that he guides in, walking alone up trails that scale heights above 1000m, with views over opal green lakes, gorges and olive groves and picking out the best singletrack descents, with accessible climbs on double track. The “Tapas” title accurately describes a week that provides you with the opportunity to sample a huge variety of riding terrain: rocky gorges; technical descents; Roman viaducts; fast flowing dusty singletrack, with rooty sections for added interest; flower filled meadows and (my personal favourite) a descent down the steps of a medieval town, Italian Job stylie. Each ride concludes with a stop in a superb restaurant, where Martin’s love of the country and command of the language has earned him and his clients a warm welcome and a cold cerveza, with delicious tapas.

Each ride is cleverly designed to finish at a bar

Singletrack Safari's Pimpmobile

The holiday began when Martin picked us up at Malaga airport in what I can only describe as a Pimp- Your-Ride-dream-come-true. His long wheelbase black VW transporter is emblazoned with pictures of Martin and other mountain bikers silhouetted against Alpine and Spanish lake views, just to wet your whistle.  Inside, there are three rows of seats and a flip down video screen and superb sound system to entertain you as he drives you North to the first stop in Cabra, near Cordoba, where he swiftly rebuilds your bike and points out any tweaks that might be required to ensure that you enjoy your riding to the max. The hotels have been carefully researched so that you have a comfortable place to relax at the end of each day’s riding, with Martin expertly guiding you through the Spanish menus, providing his own recommendations and teaching you enough of the language that you can make your own choices on the evenings when you venture out on your own.

One of the funniest moments on the trip was when we were pulled over by the Civil Guard for a routine stop and search on the motorway outside Cordoba. As we slowed to a stop, I noticed the “shiny kit” gleam in the policeman’s eye. Martin leaned across with an impish grin: “Te gustas?”      “Si me gusto”, laughed the policeman. After a quick admiration of the van and contents, we were back on our way.

As a mountain biker with two decades’ experience, Martin knows exactly what makes his clients tick. So he started the week with a 782m ascent of a mountain track up to a monastery, followed by a rocky step descent to the road then a ride across flower filled meadows with vultures circling high above us. This led to a gorge populated by huge caves on either side, with the rock walls forming a window onto the beautiful town of Zuheros, with its fort perched on a rock outcrop.

Zuheros peeping through the gorge

After negotiating a rocky descent with switch backs we made a sweaty climb back up to the church, where we were rewarded with the best lunch of the week at Los Palancos: a restaurant so popular, that professional footballers are helicoptered in to visit it. As a climber, I was intrigued to see that the locals had bolted handholds to the overhanging rock below the fort. They would certainly make a raid more entertaining.

After lunch, Martin led us back to the hotel via a disused railway track, passing the old station converted into a cafe and stopping on the viaduct to point out the monastery that had marked the highest point of our circular route. After a 44km ride in 35⁰C heat, we were glad to be able to have a hot shower and take a dip in the hotel pool before venturing out for our evening meal.

The next day was a shorter route in Cordoba, starting with a steady climb up to woodland and a fast flowing descent on dusty tracks, which my husband dubbed his favourite ride. Throughout the rides, Martin fills you in on the information that you need for the next section: “this bit is quite technical, there’s a boulder about the size of a car bonnet in the path after you pass a cave on your right, so hold down your speed before the corner.” He seems to have a photographic memory of the trails and knows exactly where to stop to brief you on the tricky sections, which is why I have returned with even fewer scrapes and bruises than I do after my local rides.

One of Martin’s ambitions was to be a cameraman and he puts that to good use during the trip, taking photos at strategic spots so that he captures the essence of each trail. This is really an excellent service, as it’s often hard to capture the best parts of each route without impeding the flow of your riding. He spends hours editing videos of his clients’ epic descents so that they have a memento of the trails, as well as providing feedback on body positioning so that clients can improve their technique where necessary.

An important snippet of information Martin imparted, as we took a rest stop and munched chocolate doughnuts, was that Andelucian pine trees play host to a species of caterpillar that build a cobwebby nest in the branches and then at the appointed time in gestation, march nose to tail across the paths. If they are ridden over, or landed on, their blood is necrotising: “I saw a dog with half a jaw that had eaten one of these caterpillars” said Martin. Point taken.

Revenge of the killer caterpillars

Day 3 and Martin’s itinerary skills came to the fore. We packed up and left the Cabra hotel and travelled to Grenada, en route to our next hotel stop in Fatima on the outskirts of Castril. Granada offered up an absolutely stunning trail, that started in the town, took in a winding ascent up red dusty single track, with tantalising views of the snow capped Sierra Nevada. Towards the top we crossed two Roman aquaducts and saw a hole in the trail with brick work inside, reminiscent of school trips to Vindolanda fort on Hadrian’s wall. After a lunch stop at the top we were treated to the best singletrack I have ever ridden, snaking round the back of the mountain, with a huge monastery across the valley, the Alahambra fort just ahead and the hill side sloping away to our right covered in meadow flowers.

Monastery in Granada. Could this be the best singletrack in the world?

Round the back of Alahambra is a paved street which gave a fun descent down the steps and then a climb back up to the old Moorish town on the opposite side of the valley, where we could take in the full glory of Alahambra and the Sierra Nevada while tucking into ice cream. Another staircase descent led to a leafy street, where the best beer and tapas of the week was served up while we had a competition to take the most “arty” shots of our bikes through the beer glasses. Then it was back down to the Pimpmobile for the short drive to our next hotel and a welcome rest day, spent walking above the Castril gorge on a cantilevered boardwalk.

Castril, recognisable by the statue of Jesus on the pinnacle above the gorge, is surrounded by mountains. Martin led us up two on our final days of the trip, both covering around 35km with climbs above 1,000m. My favourite took in a long ascent through a gorgeous wooded valley, offering shade and pine scents and topping out at meadow filled with purple flowers, followed by a technical but very enjoyable descent through rocky singletrack with views of the opal green reservoir, which my husband again dubbed his favourite ride of the week. http://www.singletracksafari.com/photo-gallery/spanish-trail-tapas/on-the-trails

Opal green lake provides the backdrop to glorious descents

Our final day took in another mountain above Castril, with an hour long descent with 21 switch backs, which my husband also dubbed his favourite ride of the week. As I turned out of one of the bends I was treated to the sight of a family of wild boar hurtling down across the path into the undergrowth. They are hunted by Andelucians so they are naturally timid and it’s rare to get a glimpse of them in the wild. As I was told by Richard at Cyclewise as he battled to teach me how to ride berms, “mountain biking is just skiing on a bike.” Martin Hills has put together routes that admirably prove that point.

All too soon, it was time to fold our clothes and pack the bikes back into their boxes. Martin gives a step by step guide to doing this safely, not to say lovingly on his website: http://www.singletracksafari.com/video-gallery . After a final café con leche and a hug and kiss from the super friendly hotelier, it was time to trek back to catch our flight to Malaga – a journey made much more pleasurable by the Pimpmobile and sound system.

Six hours later as we pushed against a stack of mail to open our front door, we were pleased to see that the latest issue of MBR had arrived. After a hastily prepared supper, we sat down to read it and were delighted to see that Singletrack Safari has been reviewed on page 28. It’s a great piece of coverage, but doesn’t do Martin’s carefully prepared itinerary justice. Over the course of 5 rides we were guided around 103 miles of trails, 3 miles of which were spent cycling uphill, all for under £500 each, including 7 nights’ accommodation and hotel transfers. If you want to get away from the crowds while still staying in good hotels; improve your riding style and stamina; get a lesson in Spanish language, geology and history; eat the best tapas of your life and ride in parts of Andelucia, Cordoba and Granada that even the locals don’t see very often, then I can’t recommend SingleTrack Safari highly enough.

Update: you can read Martin’s side of the story here http://www.singletracksafari.com/2010-06/our-spring-in-spain-draws-to-a-close#more-1376

Alhambra, Granada, with snow capped Sierra Nevada in the background

Pack your bags!

Is the printed press pack passé?

Four weeks, four shows, four press rooms. First it was SelfBuild and Renovation, then InfoSec, then it was Grand Designs Live, then it was IFSEC.  Yes it’s been a busy month.

What struck me this year was that in spite of the exponential increase in storage capacity on ever smaller devices, we’re still stuck in the groove of printing off press packs and sticking them on racks in a room ten minutes’ walk from the main exhibition space. Perhaps it’s a comfort factor: maybe clients need to see their professionally printed press releases side by side with their competitors’ news to feel that they’re fully participating in the event. However, this year I really got the feeling that this practice has to stop.  How many emails do you see with this appended?

Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

And yet, we’re still firing off urgent emails to KallKwik requesting a quarter of our body weight in paper, so that we can courier 50 press packs up to Earls Court, Olympia, Excel Centre or the NEC and place them lovingly on a crowded rack in the press room. From experience, the rack is the only thing that is crowded.  I’ve been to all of these venues in the past month and the press offices were the same:  empty of journalists, but full of employees of the event management company and on the last day of the show still sadly displaying reams of uncollected press packs. Okay, InfoSec was the exception: there were plenty of journalists in the press office throughout the show, but I didn’t see any of them studying the printed press packs. They were all busily networking with colleagues, conducting interviews or reading press releases on their mobile devices.

I think today’s blog from Andy Clutton, editor of Risk UK, sums up the way forward:

“The award for the most useful innovation of IFSEC 2010 goes to the event organisers for making the decision to switch from a paper-based Press Office to a single USB pen. No more walking around the show looking like an overzealous postman for me this year; just one handy USB device, containing 189 press packs.” http://www.risk-uk.com/newsletterdetail.php?newsID=240

What do you think, should the PR industry collectively abandon the press pack in favour of email and social media alerts ahead of shows and portable storage devices on the day?

Goldsmiths: but is it marketing?

Tonight sees the next episode in the BBC 4 documentary, “Goldsmiths. But is it art?” http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s01xm

As a Goldsmiths alumnus I was really interested to watch this and compare it with the fine art tutorials I had heard my friends relay as they struggled to find their voice in this competitive and confusing market. What was surprising was how much the Goldsmiths style has endured.

I vividly remember a debate in the Goldsmiths bar, at the start of the 1990s, about whether projecting images onto a canvas and painting the outline constituted fine art.  Here we were in 2010 watching former police armour designer, Thomas Leahy, projecting images onto canvas and painting the outline.

It was painful to witness Leahy’s confusion as he tried to understand what was required of him by his tutors and switched from sculpture which was deemed “too literal,” to blasting a camouflage patterned canvas with a paint gun. This was followed by the complete change in degree show exhibition induced in painter, Ian Gonczarow, by director of postgraduate studies, Gerard Hemsworth.

After watching the programme, one could argue that the Goldsmiths style is created by a process of extrusion, following acerbic tutorials with Gerard and the mounting pressure of one of the most famous student exhibitions in the UK.

Last week’s episode ended with Ian Gonczarow living the dream and selling two of his paintings at the private view and landing a job as a tutor at a foundation course in Russia.

What did interest me was how neatly Gonczarow’s case study fitted the 5 P’s marketing model.

Product- Gonczarow had produced two very strong paintings that fitted the West’s current malaise over the Chinese regime

Place – Goldsmiths is no longer just a university: boasting alumni including Damien Hurst, Sarah Lucas, Tracy Emin, Rachel Howard, Graham Coxon and Alex James, Goldsmiths is a brand. What better place to launch your product to the art market?

Promotion – A BBC 4 documentary crew and one of the most well publicised art exhibitions in the country, attracting buyers and curators

People – As Hemsworth comments, much of the successful promotion of work comes down to the interpersonal skills of the artist. Gonczarow has an attractive personality; is able to articulate his work effectively and comes across well on camera.

Price – This is perhaps where the curriculum could benefit from some business input. Gonczarow made £3,000 selling his degree show paintings, with a little help from Hemsworth. But when the buyer initially approached him he had no idea what his work was worth.

So watch the programme at 9pm tonight and decide for yourself: is it art? Or is it marketing?

And then it gets smaller

I was once with a US client at the end of a press tour and went to buy a last minute birthday card, commenting that I really struggled to remember all the birthdays of my nieces, nephews and cousins’ children, because my family was always getting bigger.  She looked at me sadly and said, “and then it gets smaller”. I knew where she was coming from, having lost four members of our family to cancer. What I wasn’t prepared for was the impact of losing people in my professional network.

The last twelve months have brought the passing of the beloved wife of my former boss; the sudden death of a longstanding client and news of mobile tech editor, Lynd Morley’s death, but I really wasn’t prepared for this week’s loss.

On Thursday morning, I was really saddened to learn that Guy Kewney, editor of Newswireless.net had died.

Guy was one of the very first journalists I met during my Whiteoaks days, when we were representing Extended Systems. In spite of his 20 years’ experience in the computing and electronics arena, he sat and patiently listened as I pitched him about this new mobile synchronisation middleware. Had I had any inkling of the ocean of knowledge that Guy possessed on all things mobile, I would have been hard pressed to pick up the phone. But call I did, and to my relief and delight, he agreed to meet my client. It was the beginning of many meetings, the most memorable being the day that Guy doggedly criss crossed the road between the Hilton and Olympia’s exhibition hall, on his way to interview no fewer than 6 of eclat Marketing’s mobile tech clients.

In fact, I have Guy to thank for “coming out” as a grey haired old lady.

My mother died from bowel and liver cancer when I was in my early twenties. Two weeks before she died, I sprouted two distinct sections of white hair. During one of my final visits, I showed her, exclaiming, “Look Mam, I’ve got horns”. After years of painful parenting, a big grin spread across her face. As they say, Karma knows where you live.

For years, I dyed over the top of my white mop, until I met Guy.

After a particularly hectic fortnight of press tours, I had not had time to cover the regrowth.  I sat across the table from Guy in Carluccios, with the sun streaming through the window on a beautiful summer’s day and attempted to get an interview started. But Guy had other ideas. An impish look had come across his face and he looked away from my client mid question and exclaimed: “How curious. I’ve never seen a brunette go blonde before”. I said quietly, “It’s grey Guy”. He carried on with his questions, then stopped again, cocked his head on one side and said, “That’s really curious”. He was clearly enjoying watching me squirm, so I said a bit louder, “It’s grey, I haven’t been a natural brunette since I was 21”. He was greatly amused and went back to interviewing my client, then had a chuckle with me about it afterwards.

That evening I went home, binned the L’Oreal and went back to my roots. The game was up.

In spite of his towering reputation and huge understanding of his subject(s), Guy was always patient with my pitches on the phone and kindly in person. It was never stated, but he seemed to take the view that if you were doing your best to get your head around the information and present him with the most pertinent parts of the story, then that was good enough for him, even if that fell far short of his own encyclopaedic knowledge. I’m not alone in receiving this kindness. The many tributes I’ve read from journalists and PRs are testament to Guy’s support during their early careers.

Last year another journalist told me that Guy had cancer. To my lasting regret, I didn’t call him because I didn’t want to intrude when he was likely to be feeling sapped by his treatment and I didn’t want encroach on his family’s time with him: Mary had fielded enough of my calls when Guy was well. Reading his blog yesterday, I felt truly ashamed that I had not read it months ago and at least sent an email last year, or got in touch in January when he found out that his treatment was no longer working.  I’m sorry Guy. It was a great privilege to meet you and I wish my sincere condolences to your family and many friends.