About
Created by Heather Yaxley
Thanks for stopping by. About me… I am passionate about public relations and, as well as consultancy and professional development/training work. Following 10+ years in motor industry PR (in-house and consultancy roles), I became a self-employed hybrid practitioner-academic-educator-consultant in 2000.
I’m an experienced and qualified trainer, teach the Chartered Institute for Public Relations qualfications (I’m also a CIPR Fellow), lecture part-time at Bournemouth University and run the Motor Industry Public Affairs Association (MIPAA) Limited.
The concept of Green Banana is a meme for continous improvement – so if you’ve ideas and news to share, let me know. I created www.greenbanana.info/career as an educational resource (currently supporting those studying the CIPR Advanced Certificate and Diploma with Cambridge Marketing Colleges).
My hot topics are public relations, especially in relation to automotive matters and educational issues. I’m passionate about connections and taking a pro-active approach to accelerate learning. I love trivia and bizarre facts too.
Personally I’m a mad dog woman sharing my home with two stroppy old mongrel boys and a beautiful, wilful and adorable Rhodesian Ridgeback – all rescued from less charmed lives than they have now. My other hobbies are reading (everything and anything), hypnotically watching the sea and the social sin of enjoying driving.
I have a degree in Psychology and am currently studying a PhD at Bournemouth University on Career Strategies in Public Relations. A paper I presented on the History of Careers in PR at the 2nd International History of PR Conference in 2011 will soon be published in Public Relations Review. I’m also building a nice library of PR books, with my own special history collection.
You’ll find two chapters written by me in the 4th edition of the Public Relations Handbook, edited by Alison Theaker and we’ve written the Strategic Public Relations Toolkit to be published by Routledge in 2012. I’m also writing a chapter providing a PR perspective on Convegence for an edited marketing text.
You can also follow me on Twitter @greenbanana – or connect via LinkedIn and Google+. To get in touch, leave a comment here or contact me via email (hyaxley at supanet dot com).
Thanks for you comment posted to Force for Good. I’ve posted a reply there (hopefully not to long-winded!) — http://jon8332.typepad.com/force_for_good/2007/03/an_open_letter_.html
Let me know if you agree.
Jon Harmon
Hello. I’m interested in PR, new media, and automobiles too. I just started my blog at http://medianoche.wordpress.com. Please have a look and feel free to comment. I’ll be back, and glad to have found another interesting PR blog here.
Nice to meet yuo both – and you are now added to my bloglines.
Hi Heather,
Can you tell me how I can contact you through email? Thanks!
Hi Heather
As you’re a sometimes commentator to my blog, wonder if you’d consider adding me to your blogroll?
Thanks
Gerry
Gerry – consider it done.
This is Caroline from SocialRank.
I am trying to get in touch with you but couldn’t find your email address.
We will index your blog posts as part of our content filter. I’d like to send you an invite to a beta preview of our new Web 2.0 site.
Can you get back to me with your email address.
Mine is caroline@prvoices.com
Kind regards,
Caroline
http://www.SocialRank.com
Heather,
Please contact me by email … I cannot seem to find your email address on your blog.
David
I tagged you!
http://strivepr.com/wordpress/2007/11/01/media-snack-attack/
Hi Heather,
Congrats, your blog Greenbanana has made it into the TOP 20 of the PRVoices blog community, powered by SocialRank!!! Since your blog is in the top 20, tell your readers about it by adding the SocialRank badge to your blog. See it all here: http://www.PRVoices.com/Community
Cheers!
Really glad to have found this blog – Sally Whittle on the journobiz forum happened to mention it so I tracked it down.
I’m a journalist and author (The Girls’ Guide to Losing Your L Plates – how to pass your driving test and The Girls’ Car Handbook – both published by Simon and Schuster). Years ago I also worked in PR (for charites) and it would be good to get back into doing a bit of it in the motoring sector if possible.
Plan to bookmark your blog!
Best wishes
Maria
http://www.mariammcarthy.co.uk
Apologies for the website typo – of course it’s http://www.mariamccarthy.co.uk!
Hi Heather,
Could I also trouble you for an email address please? Mine is jonathanATwebitpr.com.
Great blog by the way!
Kind regards,
Jonathan
Hi Heather, great stuff… and seeing that we’re ‘bumping into each other’ here and there in the virtual pr party I thought I’d give you an official ‘hi there, great blog, great insight’!
Oh, and if it’s bizarre and wonderful trivia that you’re looking for… I’m loaded! When you do a BSc in Zoology and an MSc in Animal Behaviour, you accumulate some odd facts… like how the black widow does NOT eat her mate, or how the mythological ‘Griffin’ can be traced to dinosaur fossils and little lizards in Mongolia, etc. etc.
Cheers!
Hello Yaxley i’m from the jungle of Africa and so glad to find this place
Heather, are you OK with me adding you to the PR links on my blogroll?
Hi Heather,
just wanted to say hi and congratulate you on very inspirational comments and thank you for helping get more deeply involved in PR theory…
Aleksandra, Bosnia (one of your former CIPR AC students)
Thanks – nice to hear from you. Hope things are good with you.
Yes, doing great. I am actually a second year student of undergraduate PR university study opened just last year in my home town. Very interesting and confusing to go through some stuff that seems to be “past experience” for you in UK. but have to go through that to gain this so much needed credibility. However, the stuff I learned through CIPR course enabled me to go through these first two years with no effort at all.. That is why I felt obliged to thank you. Very interesting to be able to see difference between countries in which PR has had a history and those (like mine) where PR is just being “born”. Anyway.. I just wanted to keep track of what is happening in “developed” PR world.
best regards and keep up good work
Hi Heather,
I hope you don’t mind, we really liked your posting on the Fat Duck and have put a link through to it on our website.
I look forward to reading more, keep up the good work!
Felicity
Felicity – that’s great, thanks.
Not that I’m totally impressed, but this is a lot more than I expected for when I found a link on Delicious telling that the info is quite decent. Thanks.
Hi
I’m a recent History graduate and have decided to take a year out to properly explore the career opportunities available to me (a decision well suited to the current economic climate!). I’ve found the world of PR to be a rather attractive choice for some time now but my lack of knowledge about it has left me feeling a bit out of my depth!
I really enjoyed reading this blog, and it’s already been immensely helpful. I’ve used your suggestion of applying for unpaid work experience by calling up the Leukaemia Research Press Office (eek!) as I’m all too aware that my lack of experience in this field will work against me when it comes to applying for actual jobs. However, I was hoping that you might be able to recommend a few books for someone from a non PR background like myself which will help me to get my head around the “what”, “why” and “how” of the industry.
Look forward to hearing from you, and thank you again for an informative and entertaining read!
Fatima
Fatima – thanks for the comment. Regarding books on PR – Alison Theaker’s PR Handbook is a good start on what/why/how for the industry.
All these people here should thank me, I suggested Heather to have an About and a Contact page on this page. Lol anyways, I found this blog by searching for ‘Mongrel’ in google image search and I might have not visited this blog again if Heather didn’t have a link to her twitter page. I’ll take a look around. The name “greenbanana” caught my attention and also liked, “if you’re green, you’re growing”. And of course, Heather is so nice!
I’m Sanya, 19, animal & nature lover.
(@jimmymycrushie on twitter)
England Cricket Blog – http://www.jimmymycrushie.me
jimmymycrushie – http://jimmymycrushieinfo.blogspot.com
Sanya – thanks for the reminder about this page. As you’ll see, most of the above comments date back sometime, because there was such a page here until I recently changed the design. So very useful to add it back and once again, thanks for noticing it was missing.
Hi Heather,
Great blog, really insightful!
I was wondering if you would consider letting me conrribute to your blog by writing an article on PR graduates and the current PR and marketing job market? I work with PRMoment and feel that I could give a good insight into what its like to apply for a job in PR when you have just graduated. I have recently gone through the process myself and have some great tips and advice which your readers may benefit from!
I look forward to hearing from you, please feel free to contact me either by email or telephone on 01962 888 116.
Many thanks in advance!
Sarah
Hi Heather,
I really nenjoyed your website and really appreciated your views. I am a student at Sunderland University and for an essay im writing i need a PR practioners view on churnalism. I understand that you have commented throughout your website on the aspect of it however my essay requires me to personally ask you the question and have an answer i can report on, i was wondering if you would be able to give a response to this: According to Nick Davies in ‘Flat Earth News’ (Vintage 2009) journalists have become “passive processors of of whatever material comes their way, churning out stories whether real event or PR artifice, important or trivial, true or false.”
Is this an accurate portrayal of the relationship between the journalist and the PR, or has the process of producing news evolved into a dialogue between the two professions? – anything you can say on churnalism will be fantastic and hopefully enable me to reach my degree! even if it is something you have wrote before anything will be great.
Thank you
Mellissa Moody