I’m sat on the train to London and East Midland Mainline don’t provide wi-fi or power points. And I’m sat in the quiet coach. None of these things really work with me, I’m no good without something to keep me occupied (interwebz), my phone is dying so I’m a bit angry and I can’t make any noise because I got in the wrong carriage and I have a weird ‘Final Destination’ thing about changing seats.

So, the only thing I can really do is read through what Feeddemon downloaded this morning (and catch up on the other 3k+ posts – it’s been batshit busy at Wolfstar recently). After skimming a few thousand titles something dawned a bit. We’re running out of things to write about. It’s official, there are now that many PR and social media bloggers that we’ve written everything. Well, I don’t quite think that that’s true, but that did lead me to something else…

In the beginning there was a core of about ten PR / social media bloggers, they gave everyone a leg up and got others started, then came the second wave, and on and on and on. Those original bloggers don’t write everyday, they don’t tend to link bait and they’re more concerned with contributing to an ongoing conversation than finding their next job because ‘they blog, so they must ‘get’ this social networks thingy everyone’s talking about’. They write for their readers and their industry, not for their CV.

It’s not a bad thing that your blog or ‘presence’ can bring you attention, but you’re playing around in the airing cupboard rather than in the garden. And who ever pays you the attention will eventually find you out and expose you!

Jed’s ironic moral: write for a reader, not a recruiter.

I’m in London this morning to help Sony Ericsson launch its GreenHeart initiative via a Kyte webcast – I thought I’d share my morning with you all; frantic, hot, geeky.

Here’s the player, and if you’re into mobile phones, green technology or the environment then you can embed the channel into your own blog (code below the viewer).

The webcast will be at 1pm (GMT) today and it’ll be chaired by Ernest Doku from Omio.com and because we’ll be streaming it via Kyte, you can ask questions live (a good opportunity to talk to some of the top people at Sony Ericsson, ChemSec and Telefonica).

Code:
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.kyte.tv/js/kyte.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var kyteplayer = new Kyte.Player("channels/308544", { p:622 });
</script>

So I thought I’d share three videos that, regardless of how foul a mood I’m in or how nasty I’m being to the ever tolerant (and always lovely) Paul Crouch, always manage to put a Cheshire cat grin on my pudgy little face…

Ladies and gentleman, I give to you Keyboard Cat, Mr Mayor and Printer Jam.

First up Play him off, keyboard cat. Apparently these have been around for ages but I caught sight of them the other day and got a bit hooked. I just love how the cat looks while he plays those damn sexy keyboard riffs.

(Maybe NSFW?) The second video is something that I found today. Now it’s weird and makes me feel wrong for putting it on my blog, but I admire how it manages to conjure a laugh in five seconds (and if we look deeper into the implicit meaning of the video, we’ll see that the director is casting a disapproving eye over the devolution of local governments – Mr Mayor is destroying our children’s future (and he’s probably expensed the fancy suit he wears in the video too)). That may have been the longest sentence I have ever written.

The third video is an office favourite and deserves little introduction, ladies and gentlemen, I reveal to you, the finest office-related drum and bass track in the history of the world.

I sat in the first session of the day this morning, Susi O’Neill spoke about how the internet is affecting the music industry and hit some really great points – she’s completing an Masters in it, so she should know!

I did shoot a video, but my fingers are too fat to press record properly, so it fell off after about 12 seconds. I promise I’ll shoot another interview with her this afternoon though, but until then you’ll have to be content with Kutiman…

For those of you that don’t know, Media Camp is ace (‘mad-props’ to Chris Hambly). It’s an un-conference were loads of social interweb folks get together to share stories, knowledge and haircuts. OK, well not haircuts. I’ll be serious now, promise…

Media Camp Nottingham will focus around discussing;

• Web design and development
• Communications, branding, advertising and PR
• Arts, media and culture
• Games and virtual worlds
• Digital media, blogging and social media.

Here’s the blurb;

MediaCampNottingham is a FREE one day event for digital media professionals wanting to share and expand their knowledge, and businesses or social enterprises who are curious about the digital phenomenon wanting to learn more.  This event is to share, explore, challenge and build understanding in digital media. Veterans and new comers alike can learn about audio and video podcasting, blogging, web marketing, graphics, email campaigns, Second Life, Twitter and other social media tools. This event is coordinated through online collaborative working using a wiki.

I’m really looking forward to seeing Caron (as usual, she’s ace!) and meeting Phil and Christian.

On the day I’ll be tweeting, blogging (here, duh) and maybe video streaming too…

The premise of Matthews post is that the #PRFail website (set up by Jonathan Hopkins to amalgamate all of the #PRFails) and highlighting PR mistakes so aggressively might be seriously damaging – not just to the PR, but to the agency and their client.

This got me thinking ‘in what other industries is it deemed acceptable to highlight someone else’s failure?’. Erm, anything in the public eye, pretty much. Sports, check, news, check, advertising, check, the list goes on. And what is PR? Public relations, which, surprise surprise is in the public eye. So, while it’s not particularly nice to name and shame, the PRO or agency should be confident enough that when they hit send, reply or chat that what they’re saying is appropriate and acceptable. It’s their choice to put it into the public domain – they can control what they say.

Naming and shaming is a blood sport. We’ve all had the chance to do it, and some of us have done it. If you play then you might get hurt yourself, but then again, it’s your choice to put an opinion out into the big wide world and your in charge of your own image. You control what you say. Again, if you’re not comfortable then don’t put it!

As everyone (or most people) will know, I’m not really one for self-moderation, and it’s got me into trouble before (but I wont point out where and when, that’d be silly (journalism and PR are the same, anyone?!) but I listened to what people said, stood up (had stuff thrown at me!) and then made a bit of an awkward joke about it! The intimacy of social media is often a bit of an issue, not the conversation or the context, but like Matthew said, the after effects of search.

While #PRFail’s will continue, the biggest issue really is that the people that commit the FAIL’s aren’t usually savvy enough (read: care enough (brash generalisation)) to see that their work is being scrutinised. So we just end up laughing at people from inside our little bubble while the few on the outside continue to slip up without consequence.

So, what do you think?

Let’s ‘unwrap this a little bit’.

I joined Twitter about 15 months ago (not to be too precise). I joined because I didn’t know anyone that worked in PR, never mind social media. I wanted to talk to people that did a similar job, people that enjoyed similar interests and then the niche, people that had the same sense of humour.

For me, numbers mattered. As a young PRO I needed to expose (not naked or ‘owt) myself to a large number of people in the industry and on Twitter.

If numbers don’t matter for PRO’s on Twitter, then why should they matter to clients? Why should they matter to salaries? Why should they matter with anything?! (You can probably imagine my typing rage at the moment, identified by increasingly ridiculous assertions). What I’m trying to get at (albeit very badly) is that to a young PRO it’s important to build lots of relationships. The industry isn’t a ‘one employer for life’ market place, and it most certainly is ‘who you know’. Now Twitter isn’t an alternative to meeting people in real life, let me repeat that;

Twitter isn’t an alternative to meeting people in real life.

Neither should it act as a shield for people that aren’t really cut out for PR. If you’re in PR you should be able to have a conversation (in real life) with anyone. Literally anyone. Twitter (for networking) simply takes away some of that first conversation awkwardness. As we’ve spoken about before (or rather, as I’ve ranted on about before) social media isn’t a solution, it’s a tool. The same goes for social media and networking. If you can do it offline you’re fine, if you cant. Hmmm.

So (here’s the conclusion I suppose), if you’re new into the industry and you don’t know many people, then get out and about (or in and online, then out and about) and meet as many people as possible. Network your fingers/mouth off! The more people you meet, the more people you can clash with learn from, the more people you learn from the more you know, the more you know the further you’ll go!

So in short, build relationships quickly and soon you’ll be an MD.

Next week: picking the right lottery numbers twice in a row!

I wanted to pop my hand up a few times, throw something and shout a few times and storm out a few times – but (to the relief of the people I sat with) I did none of that stuff. So I’ll do most of it here and now.

#1 A ‘one world order’ industry

Antony Mayfield suggested that there’s a race on, and that the type of agency that gets to effective online communications first will write the bible on it and own it. In my view (or IMO, if Vikki Chowney will let me be a digital native – for she is the chief of the natives) this is a ridiculous suggestion. The bible is already being written; every time a client hands a huge small pot of gold the industry takes either a step forwards or a step backwards (I will concede that it’s often a step backwards though). However the point remains, while people use the internet to communicate, the bible is being written. Then rewritten. Then burnt and written again. This isn’t traditional communications, it’s fluid, it moves, it changes, it contradicts, it’s human.

No single type of area of communications will lead; the fact that (for all intents and purposes) two distinct areas of communications sat at that table in Zigfrid Von Underbelly highlights that at least two industries know that something is going on. PR wont just wake up one morning and forget about the internet, and neither will digital (and we’re all screwed when the ad boys learn how to turn wifi on).

#2 The general attitude towards public relations

Many of the issues raised at the NMK debate referred to public relations as media relations. Which it is not. I’ve worked in PR (both in traditional, social focused, in-house and agency) for a while now and I’d estimate that media relations makes up for about 10% of my job. Even then, good media relations isn’t ‘let’s create a database and phone people’ it’s ‘I wonder who I know that might be interested in this’. Media relations is relationships with the media – not relationships with Media Disk. That would be Media Disk Relations.

Last night was a tricky one for PR, because the good PR agencies (I.E. those that were savvy enough to know something was happening and turn up) had to support the bad agencies. Most of the issues that came up were issues with bad PR agencies, not good ones.

The idea that PRO’s aren’t in the perfect situation to take over relationships using the internet is crazy. Crazy I tell you.

#3 Measurement

The final throes of the debate centred around digital’s apparent ‘joker’ card – measurement. There are two issues here; measuring influence and using important metrics.

Influence: Those that claim that they can measure influence are being 50% inaccurate. And that’s a bad stat too. Influence means a mass of different things, (I’ll use the bad example that I gave to Andrew Smith at the bar) there could have been one hundred people telling the CEO of Oracle to give Sun Microsystems a wide berth, each holding a tiny bit of influence over the CEO, but then one person strolls over at lunch and states that he thinks the CEO would be stupid to not buy Sun… Influence isn’t a numbers game, it’s a relationships game and PR is perfectly situated to pull out how those relationships work. That’s exactly why sociologists, politicians and psychologists (gasp, even the great Edward Bernays) tend to make great PRO’s. They understand relationships and social mechanics. Neither of which can be measured by click-throughs or bought on Google AdWords.

Important metrics: There is a single metric that is important. Not inlinks, outlinks, internal links, authority, page rank, click-throughs, alexa. But conversions. To come back to Stuart’s bad bar analogy from the event, marketing might make you more attractive, advertising might bring you more short-term attention, digital might bring more click-throughs and promotion might help spread the word, but public relations keeps peoples interest and ensures that the reputation is managed. I’ll take the point that brands cannot guard their own brand identity, because people create that, but PR can influence that. And almost like magic we’re back to influence and social mechanics again!

I’m terribly aware that I’ve babbled on for too long already, so I’m cutting it short and stopping. I’d really like to hear from Anthony and Roger – I have massive respect for both of them (and the other good guys in digital) and I would hate this post to look like a slight on them – it’s not.

I’d love to hear from Ian (massive thanks have to go to Ian – cheers again), Stuart, Drew, Adam, Kerry, Adam, Vikki, Simon, Tim, Ben and anyone else who I had a chat with on the night.

Also, here’s a sort of summary of who’s covered the debate so far…

Lloyd Gofton talks a good talk and treads the steady tightrope of digital and PR.

Peter Hay gives us the PRWeek edit of events.

Jo-Rosie Haffenden throws down the gauntlet of changing public relations to interactive relations (I wholeheartedly agree, but still stubborn as a mule I’ll say public relations is interactive relations).

Rowan Stanfield talks about the debate from the perspective of digital – and gives a comprehensive overview. As you’d expect, I’m preparing a long winded comment.

Danny Whatmough chirps in – but I’m still mad at him for not making it.

Roger Warner expands on his panel chatter further – again, comment is in the post Roger!

I was driving into work this morning thinking about how record labels can try and resurrect their shipwreck, blissfully unaware of the Pirate Bay storm approaching (pun intended). The thoughts had stemmed from a post that Guy had written talking about how The Streets (word to your mother – hat tip to Tim) were planning on giving away free tracks on Twitter. I’d made a comment on Guy’s post about live sales outgrowing record sales or something like that.

So anyway I was thinking about the whole industry and how it’ll all WIN or FAIL based on a few things… Here’s an attempt to explain what I think.

Labels

Labels need to offer more than the standard single/album. Now the chart has loosened its rules on singles and what you can and cannot include in the CD, labels need to get smart and start adding value. Music simply isn’t about singles and albums, it’s about the whole experience, man. Why don’t labels employ similar tactics to fancy advertisers and marketers? Sell albums that come in huge boxes filled with information, stickers, posters, access codes to secret sites, interview videos on USBs, rare tracks, live footage, branded memorabilia, booklets, additional artwork, karaoke versions, stripped down versions, remixes? You could probably charge £30 per box! Just add some value to the album and then see how album sales do. You can’t download added value from Pirate Bay – well, not in one go anyway.

Shops

Record shops are going to have to face facts; the only people that will remain record buyers are the ones that spend hours in little indie shops trawling through 70s bluegrass and obscure German techno. That is, unless labels get smart. I would imagine the obligatory five year cycle for vinyl being cool will probably help too – I still love vinyl, it’s a sound thing, but I can understand why people have moved on.

Bands

This is a great time for a band to start. They can pretty much control everything these days; they can market themselves, do their own PR, sell their own records, sort their own live dates, network with promoters… Everything! The best thing about the current music situation is that bands will make music for music, not for fame or money, and that’s the best thing that could happen for music.

Consumers

Consumers, from now on, will always win. Music hasn’t always been paid for, and just because some quirky fellas decided a while back that they’d sell sounds doesn’t mean it’ll always be that way. Creativity has always been in battle with business, and probably always will be. That’s why young bands talk about ‘not selling out the man’ and then a month later sign to EMI.

Piracy isn’t cool, but it does happen. Any music fan worth their salt probably downloads an album to see if they like it and then if they do they buy it in the shops the next day.

Now, I’m sure I’ve probably said some stupid things, I don’t work in the music industry, I’m not in a band (the world is missing out there) and I’ve never worked in a record shop, but I have collected music obsessively since buying my first Blur album. I love music, and love most of it (the exceptions being; comedy music, bad R’n’B, ‘donk’, gangsta rap and Blink 182).

Taking into consideration the fact that I’m only one quarter of the wheel, I’d like to hear what David Moynihan, Sebastian Mysko, Matt Churchill and Sue Keogh.

#Update#

Matt has stood up and declared his allegiance to music. I was really interested to see what Matt would say because he’s a musician as well as a social media Jedi.

Those of you that are well prepared/well lucky will already have secured either an internship with an eye to staying on or a place on an elusive graduate scheme. For those of you that haven’t got either – don’t panic. Here’s why…

Something really interesting is happening in the social media end of public relations at the moment (and it’s not me blogging more regularly, but that’s pretty good too): agencies and consultancies are recruiting in huge surges.

While in the slightly less-evolved (not a criticism, but an opinion) areas of public relations, agencies are laying people off and freezing recruitment, social media appears to be on the rise.

There are a few reasons why I believe that this is happening;

• As Matt Churchill pointed out in an interview on Adam Lewis’ blog, social media isn’t even a toddler yet. Those brands that got involved early doors are reaping the rewards, and as this happens successful case studies are built and more brands make the jump. More business means more money and more capacity.
• (I’m not advocating that this is a long term model for social media, but it’s its current model.) Social media is often cheaper than a traditional public relations campaign. Of course it can be more expensive, but as I wrote a few months back on the Wolfstar blog, a bottleneck of agencies fighting for a small pool of good clients means one of two things; a handful of agencies win all the clients or social media becomes cheaper through basic supply and demand. The later has happened, but I think that as the industry matures and difference in quality between agencies becomes more apparent, meritocracy and fees will align.
• Young PRO’s with an interest in social media are perceived to be more immediately au fait with how different networks and methods operate (see define: digital native). That isn’t to say that if you’re over thirty your rubbish, but at the social media end of PR it’s increasingly common to see younger PRO’s given a chance. Plus, if you establish a voice in the space in your final year of study then you’re in a much better place to be cherry-picked than a student who still balks at Twitter and doesn’t know their Spotify from their Dopplr (that sounds filthy, I know).

With these three things in mind, new graduates should remain calm and collected. The agencies that practice social media are looking for fresh meat every day, make sure you’re in the butchers window. Or something a bit cooler. Ok, scrap that, but don’t worry.