The power of technology!

Now we all know that technology has taken over our lives - and this became abundantly clear when a power cut hit Manchester city centre recently.

The power cut only lasted two hours (for the lucky workers in the city centre at least) but it caused a fair bit of disruption. Trams were stopped in their tracks (literally!), the Manchester Wheel stopped spinning (with people inside!) and the shops in the Arndale Centre had to shut until power was restored (not what you need in these credit crunching times!)

We, at Ethos public relations, were also affected by the power cut. The phones were off, the lights were off, the computers were off – we couldn’t even make a cup of tea! But of course – we battled through and reverted back to the good old days!

Instead of having a cup of tea we had a glass of water. Instead of typing out a letter on the keyboard we wrote it by hand. Instead of using the calculator on the computer to work out a calculation we used a piece of paper and pen. And instead of using Google maps to work out the distance from one city to another we used an atlas!

My point is that it is amazing how much we rely on technology these days! About 20 years ago a power cut would not have affected a city centre that much, but now it brings it close to a standstill.

Anyway – I am off now to work on some HTML and use Skype. Ah the good old days…

Picture this...

My latest gripe is about the number of organisations that don't seem to want to spend a couple of hundred quid to invest in some decent photographs of their business. Instead they think they can take a couple of quick snaps with their mobile and expect to end up on the cover of Time.

It really is a false economy. No, we're not all David Baileys - face up to it please - and there are people out there called "professional photographers" who are trained to take GOOD photos. (Ever tried Google...?)

A good photo really helps to sell a story. You can go to all the trouble in the world to write a polished press release, only to be emailed a sad little JPEG of someone gurning in what looks to be a broom cupboard, with the inevitable line "I hope this is OK". Well no, frankly it's not!

Spend the money, get a good set of photos taken and use them for months and years to come for marketing and PR purposes, and really show off your business in the best possible light.

There, rant over. I feel better now...

It's in the trees!

Phew! We've finally offset last year's carbon emissions by pledging four trees to be planted in Manchester.

Ethos public relations monitors the journeys taken in the course of business and in 07-08 we did over 15,000 miles. Using the Carbon Footprint calculator we worked out that this equates to 3.24 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

As a tree absorbs approximately 1 tonne of carbon dioxide emissions in its lifetime, we pledged four trees through Carbon Footprint, to be planted in Manchester. These trees will more than offset our business travel carbon emissions for the year and would not have been planted without our support.

As we are in a serviced office, it is not possible for us to measure our office energy usage / carbon footprint, but we take lots of steps to make sure we minimise this - see our social report. By monitoring and offsetting our travel emissions, at least we are doing something to address this part of our carbon footprint.

However, I know that carbon offset is quite a contentious issue. Is planting a tree now, which will take maybe 100 years to absorb a tonne of carbon dioxide, the best solution? Although we aim to minimise our emissions, for those emissions we do create, we think it is important to do something to offset them, but are there other, better solutions? What do you think?

And here is the news...

With all the doom and gloom in the news about the economic crisis and violence, both in the UK and across the world, it is good to see that there are still those with a great sense of humour.

Lately, while going through the BBC News website, newspaper websites, etc, I have been finding myself chuckling away at some of the stories they have included.

For instance - did you read about the man who got stuck (well I say stuck - I mean glued!) to the toilet seat? And you must have heard about US vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin being the victim of a prank call at the weekend?

My personal favourite though was the story of a man who got his hand stuck down a toilet!

With all these stories in the media it shows a funnier side to the news in contrast to the endless stories of falling house prices and rising fuel bills.

School Governance Needs Serious Review

A recent report entitled Governing Our Schools suggests that people are put off from becoming school governors due to complex and demanding work comes as no surprise.

I have been a school governor at at Manchester primary school for seven years , including Chair for three years and the role as described by the local authority as a 'critical friend' is nowhere near the reality. An effective school governor must be prepared to give up a considerable amount of their time and they must be reasonably intelligent in order to fully understand the reams of paperwork that is regularly churned out from national and local bodies.

However, most importantly governors must recognise that they have considerable legal obligations under health and safety legislation and employment legislation. It is ridiculous to hold a volunteer group accountable for many of these issues, given there is a team of paid qualified staff on the school premises, in addition to the numerous highly paid (and often over paid) teams of civil servants at both local and national level. The system is seriously flawed and needs urgent review.

Finally, unless you are unemployed or retired you need to work for an employer who shares your commitment to 'putting something back into society'. Legally governors are allowed a reasonable time off work (but pay is at the discretion of the employer); I am fortunate to work for an organisation that has a social conscience - otherwise I would not be able to fulfil my governor duties. Sadly there are not too many companies like Ethos public relations that are willing to do this. This is another reason why schools have difficulty filling governor vacancies and that governors do not last long - or even worse have their name on the Governing Body but can never take time off work to attend any meetings

Bras for Aly

As part of our work for skincare specialists Laserase Bolton, we're helping to organise a Breast Cancer Care event at its clinic at Royal Bolton Hospital on 23 October.

One of Laserase's nurses - Alyson Porter - died in July from breast cancer. Alyson had fought and won the right to be prescribed the drug Herceptin by Royal Bolton Hospital a few years ago and, as a result, many other women suffering from cancer have benefitted from the drug which can increase life expectancy.

Laserase Bolton is asking that women send in old bras with a donation and hopes to get a mile of bras (1800!!) which will be hung up on a washing line around the premises. The bras in turn will go to Oxfam to send to women in the developing world.

We're really eager for every one to get involved, so if you have a bra to donate and live locally, please take it to Laserase Bolton - or even better - come along to the clinic and support Breast Cancer Care between 11am and 2pm on the 23 October - it's sure to be a good bash!

Subject Matters

I was talking to a journalist on a local newspaper recently and she was telling me that she only had time to read the subject line of an email to decide whether a story was worth following up on.

On the one hand, I can understand with the amount of emails we all get, that this could sometimes be inevitable, but on the other hand, it is a bit worrying if the local news agenda is being determined by the subject line of an email. This could mean that many good, relevant stories are overlooked and all the work that goes into PR and writing press releases is wasted.

I guess the important thing from a PR point of view is to make sure that the subject line of your email succinctly reflects the story you trying to communicate, and focuses on the appropriate angle for that publication. As an obvious example, if the release is about an organisation in Liverpool and you're sending it to the Liverpool newspapers, make sure you tell them that it's about Liverpool in the subject line. (Generic 'subject' descriptions which don't have an obvious local angle will almost surely be overlooked.)

As a result, my email distribution rules are fourfold:

1) Get the 'subject' description right for the media you are targeting.
2) Carefully summarise the relevant points of the press release in your covering email.
3) Include the full press release, of course, but assume that the journalist is only likely to read if if they have got through stages one and two.
4) Follow up with a phone call (probably most important).

Now, why did I send that press release about Norwich to the Edinburgh newspapers? (Only joking...)