Author Archive

Brian McFadden: 4 males and one not male in Westlife

Monday, August 18th, 2008

‘Saying pink is a form of red is the same as saying homosexual is a form of male.’

As said by Brian McFadden.

He made a lot of money from females and not males through the years. He worked with more than one for a while too. Nice bloke that Brian. The fat talentless cunt.

iFoods.tv on Dragon’s Den

Monday, August 18th, 2008

Blogger’s fav iFoods.tv are on the Dragon’s Den tonight. The very best of luck to them. Great to see Irish talent on the show. I may even break out the telly from the attic and plug in the skybox and watch it.

Here’s a Dragon. Well it could be a cow too:

The Rt Hon. Margaret (Baroness) Thatcher LG, OM, FRS, PC
Photo owned by SouthbankSteve (cc)

O2 Experience Stores in Ireland – Even more bad behaviour

Monday, August 18th, 2008

John has a very long rant about his bad experiences with O2 Experience Stores and their staff. Just a quick piece from the rant:

they did tell me to try the most difficult number in Ireland to get through on the O2 experience store on Grafton Street.

After an hour and a half of the phone either being engaged, sounding like it does not exist and occasionally ringing off I got through, only for the phone to be put on the counter and left there for 8 minutes, without a hello or any sort of chat. I was able to hear the staff talk between themselves talk to the occasional customer, but not one word was uttered to me!

After as I said 8 minutes of me saying hello, hello, hello I gave up and hung up the phone only to retry and hear the engaged tone

Previous my issues with O2 in Patrick Street and Alexia’s experiences.

I really hope PR isn’t dead as companies will die too

Monday, August 18th, 2008

PR agencies are needed. PR people are needed. There I said it. I know. * shock *

I’m one of many that participate in the sport of PR people bashing. But then I bash politicians, dull gits, businesses, SEO folks and everything. There are many faults with some PR people who got into the job for whatever reason and don’t want to do the hard graft and also don’t want to tell a client they’re being stupid and to cop the feck on. Instead they’ll fling out press releases to anyone and everyone (I got one about a fridge last week!) even when the release is not newsworthy but the client dictated word should be spread. Good PR people are not part of the story if they’re good. Bad PR people turn into a story.

Now we see loads of mostly tech bloggers and blogs saying PR is dead, dying or not needed.

PR people and companies are needed in my view to be the filters and the polishers of rough communications, to find something interesting in the pile of bland a company offers up, to teach companies how to make their lips move and tell their story in a meaningful way. That’s just one aspect of PR.

Mr. Graves likes his new wallpaper.
Photo owned by Hryckowian (cc)

Having a tech blogger find out about your product and talk it up without you the tech company doing any work whatsoever is not how it works even if you build a great product. Newsflash. Geniuses are plentiful. Great products are plentiful. Throw a stone in Silicon Valley and you’ll find a great product. Scoble’s post where he found a great company is that company winning the lottery. Same odds I should think. Scoble is a natural force, he’s a hurricane of wonder and evangelism. For every great product Scoble finds there are dozens he won’t find or maybe 100s. And there are not a lot of Scobles in the world.

A good PR person sends information to a journalist or blogger they know, knowing that what they send is valuable and knowing the journalist will be happy with the information. Spray and pray never comes into it.

A good PR person takes what their client is mumbling and not communicating and turns it into something that’s polished enough for the general public to understand and that PR person has said client communicate it via networking or doing it for them in terms of press releases.

A good PR person also makes their client realise what they need to change about their product, service and the way they communicate it to the public.

Remember we’re now in information deluge time. More information from everyone going to everyone. Journalists are swamped and have less time for a story these days too. Even Mike Arrington from TechCrunch talks about 23,000 unread emails in his mailbox. That’s a lot of companies trying to get found that don’t get found in Arrington’s mailbox. We’re not all one degree apart from Scoble so a friend can introduce him to your beta.

PR is hard, it’s soul sapping. Despite me saying I don’t do PR for people, I did four press releases in the past week and it’s draining writing something good and interesting even when you have great material to work with. Imagine doing this day in and day out? No thanks. It also takes time and effort for those not used to it.


Photo owned by Misserion (cc)

I think there’s a bigger opportunity then ever for PR people as it becomes cheaper to build businesses and cheaper for people to distribute information online. Who’ll be there to direct the information and show how to direct it? Of course companies need to realise they need to do PR (and have good sales skills) but that’s another whiney post to come.

Tom probably thinks I’m a muppet since I too am an outsider looking in and so I don’t understand his industry and have used the term PR instead of the term media relations. So is it a PR or marketing issue that people are calling this PR? 🙂

Read what Kerry has to say too.

If you’re thinking of doing meetings in Cork in August

Monday, August 18th, 2008

Check out my favourite hotel. I got a discount when I booked a room for the Media Training because it’s Summer (you wouldn’t think it with the weather) so I thought I’d let you know about their Summer rates too* because they might be useful for meetings and it’s nice to reciprocate after Carmel and Caroline were very helpful organising the rooms for the Blog Awards and the Train the Trainer events and Dave in head office Yo bro! (who asked for a shout out on this blog since his Mum reads it)

Summer prices to the end of August
€275.00 full day or €137.50 half day for Delta/Echo/Oscar or Tango
€200.00 full day or €100.00 for half day for Alpha/Bravo or Lima

*They didn’t ask me to blog this and I get nothing in return. I can be nice at times. Even to companies. No. Really.

Cool marketing
Photo owned by hiddedevries (cc)

Fluffy Links – Monday August 18th 2008

Monday, August 18th, 2008

Tweet Tweet – Archive your Twitter communications inside your WordPress Dashboard

MP3 Hugger has Little Boots doing a cover of My Rolex. This girl is a-rocking.

Via Elana, this is a screwed up Cake Wreck.

Alexia got her O2 iPhone but not without even more bother.

My Morning Jacket play Kilmainham on October 29th, oh yeah and yer man Seasick Steve will do the warm down after…

Cathal shows how insanely civil serviced the new An Post mobile top up is.

Paul points out an interesting report commissioned by An Post about direct mail marketing. Looks like someone in Amárach has discovered the Cluetrain as the report is called “The Future is a Conversation” or else they had to gently introduce An Post to the concept.

Rate This Toilet is back and flush with new reviews. Badoom.

Nialler says invest in Minotaur Shock.

Video of the Space Shuttle launch from a passing airplane.

Personal Space.

The art of food. A sneaker burger.

Pac Man: The Movie. I thought it was kind of interesting.

Regina Spektor – On the Radio

Genius

Sunday, August 17th, 2008

Looks like these guys are legit, even if the ad is over-the-top, it’s an SEO/marketing dream:

12 days to nominate your work for Moviestar.ie Irish Web Awards

Saturday, August 16th, 2008

Nominations open for the Moviestar.ie Irish Web Awards. For now only the creators/builders/owners of websites can nominate their own creations but this will probably changed given the feedback we’ve gotten already.

12 days to go to get nominations in.

When is my wedding

You should be reading these in the pub

Friday, August 15th, 2008

Not at your desk.

Can you answer Keith’s question?

IrishBlogs.ie has changed their front page after feedback. Now you can see the latest posts on the front page.

I <3 Flirty Something:

the type of guy you should settle down with and pop out kids like a pez dispenser.

Maryrose points out how to get off phone spam lists.

Well done to Educate Together in Greystones.

Giving up control in politics = Create superfans?

Friday, August 15th, 2008

Let your voters tell others why they’re voting for you.

Jason Kander sign

Jason Kander distributes signs for his campaign where those that display them on their lawn write in why they support him on the sign.

This will scare the total crap out of the parties here in Ireland. Give someone a sign you paid for and let them fill in the bits? Lack of control, lack of control! This is what this whole new web thing is all about though and now it’s being re-applied in “the real world”.

Blogs, social networks, YouTube etc. – Give people the space to express themselves. Their dime, their time, their effort. Build those places and let them be creative. They’re better than you at being creative, they’re more intelligent than you. Be the provider, let them play. Give them the tools to spread the word and evangelise their work which is on your space. They’ll bring the traffic. For Jason they’re expressing themselves on “his space” (his sign).

I should think that entrusting someone with one of those signs means they’ll appreciate that trust and be more proud of supporting you and showing off their creativity.

Go democracy.

Pledge
Photo owned by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com (cc)