CIPR Wessex champions social media

Within CIPR Wessex, the enthusiasm of committee member, John Weet, is encouraging more local PR practitioners to understand, and get involved with, social media.  Last week this involved an evening where six speakers gave brief presentations (and answered questions) on different aspects of social media relating to public relations: Tom Chapman (@TomChapman) of Headstream presented [...]

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Hey PR person – don’t you know who I am?

The recent blog by @GeorgeGSmithJr about blag-grabbing mommy bloggers is an interesting counter to the self-important Momdot PR boycott challenge.  It seems the PR world has created another monster by elevating the importance of “mothers who blog”.  As Bad Mommy Blogger implies this online network is rapidly becoming a laughing stock.  Remember the Motrin “crisis” [...]

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Enrol now for CIPR qualifications

Cambridge Marketing Colleges has just published the 2009/10 brochure for anyone wishing to enrol for the CIPR Advanced Certificate and Diploma.  This includes details of session dates, venues, costs – and an early bird discount for enrolments before 28 August.  I’ve been involved with these qualifications for a decade now and each year, the standard [...]

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Top student opportunity to shadow leading motor industry execs

Autocar has launched a very interesting award programme for final year University students (including those involved in Public Relations) in association with various sponsors in the motor industry. I think the chance for any young person to reflect on “the next automotive industry revolution” is fascinating – but the real value is in the opportunity [...]

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Why students are not consumers

One of the buzz phrases in modern education is “independent learning“, which emphasises that students need to take ownership of how they work towards achieving a qualification and not expect “talk and chalk” teaching.  I am generally in favour of this approach and aim to support students as much as possible. However, I’m beginning to [...]

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Fancy starting your PR career in Switzerland?

Reinforcing my belief that now is actually a good time to be starting out in a career in PR, MIPAA JobSearch has been informed of a vacancy for a PR Communications trainee by Nissan Europe to work in its offices in Switzerland. What is apparent from the recent opportunities that we’ve been asked to promote [...]

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Sales promotion is now PR

PR Conversations has been hosting an interesting debate around a new definition of public relations on the basis of a study to examine existing popular definitions.  However, the outcome seems very normative and doesn’t engage with, or reflect, the common understanding of PR as a promotional tool that is prevalent online.  In 1997, Philip Kitchen [...]

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