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Google+CIPR Fresh – Top tips for running a PR campaign on a low budget
Last week I attended the most recent in the series of CIPR Fresh events (read about the first two here and here) – this time on running a PR campaign on a low budget. This workshop was taken by Laura Townshend, who is Acting Media Manager at housing and homeless charity Shelter. Laura had some really fascinating insights into her work at Shelter, as well as of course some great practical tips for creating impactful campaigns when the big glamorous budgets just aren’t available! Here’s an outline of Laura’s golden rules...
read moreThe power of communications events as learning experiences
As founders of the DigitalSurrey community, and now thefuturestory, we have known and experienced the joy and advantages of 'in real life' for a while now: its about creating an experience, and not just putting people together and hoping they gel.
read moreSocial media and the power of the public
With so much thought at the moment on your customer and how much they contribute to your brand, I came across a video this morning which made me think. Wow, how much power do we really have nowadays via all these wonderful channels of communication? Greg Karber, has decided to give Abercrombie and Fitch a brand readjustment following a comment from the company’s CEO about ‘not so cool’ kids wearing large and x-large sized clothing. In the old days this comment would have ruffled some feathers, you might have written a letter of complaint...
read moreDigging deep to communicate
Confident and open companies are increasingly giving their employees access to unpoliced ‘networking’ channels.
read moreHoliday and the chance for change
I just got back from a holiday, a week cycling along the Mosel river in Germany. I highly recommend this by the way. It’s beautiful. At the start of my trip it took a while to stop thinking about work, as usual. But gradually as I cycled along, my thoughts followed the river and I focused on finding schnitzel, beer, and ice cream when I needed it. I stopped worrying about what was going on at the office and started watching out for cafes selling homemade cakes. Yum. Now I’m home, and everything feels a tiny bit different, as usual. I’m...
read moreCommunication for all
A news item at the end of last week caused quite a stir in theblueballroom office. This is the article in question. It concerns last week’s release of a new mobile phone model – not something that usually causes controversy. But this particular handset is aimed at four year olds. Yes, FOUR YEAR OLDS. Is it just us, or has the world gone crazy? OwnFone, the manufacturers of the new ’1stFone’, claim that this product is the perfect way to stay in touch with your children without all the risks that a mobile phone brings,...
read morePsychology for marketing and business success
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending Chinwag Psych, sponsored by Nokia@Work a conference that aimed to ‘bring together academia and business’ by focusing on psychology, neuroscience and big data for business and marketing.
read moreWomen in tech: Watch them Bloom!
Its not often you get that goosebumps feeling at any kind of conference or networking event (although we’re aiming for that with ours, naturally!), but last night’s gathering organised by networking fundraising and mentoring organisation BloomUK certainly did the trick for me, and by the looks of Twitter, many others felt the same. BloomUK is for women working in communications, and in itself is a great business model, managing to support, inform, broker relationships and fund-raise in one fell swoop (£600...
read moreDo you know how to use Big Data in your business?
On Tuesday 30th April, Jacqui Taylor held a workshop in one of RADA’s rehearsal studios at thefuturestory – Today, part of our thefuturestory platform, named ‘if Big Data is the answer, what is the question?’. Jacqui Taylor is a web scientist who works with Sir Tim Berners-Lee and is a mentor at Tech City on the Google campus (I know, clever hey?). In the workshop Jacqui gave ten people, including me, a glimpse into how to work their way through the overwhelming subject that is Big Data. The biggest message we took away from the...
read moreAccident-proof your communications
I had one of those incidents at the weekend which really makes you step back and think ‘whoa’. I was at a rugby club waiting to pick up my brother, and a freak gust of wind caught a 15ft metal cricket screen and sent it toppling on top of the poor gentleman who had the misfortune of walking past it at the time. It really was one of those awful wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time moments, but it also could have been so much worse. Although the man was badly injured, there were a couple of us around who had been first aid trained to be...
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