Dan Howe

New Blog

2011-01-03T13:06:00.001-08:00

2010-02-23T10:29:00.000-08:00

Apparently, having recently changed jobs there is an expectation that I should announce the move in a blog post. The post should be "wanky", titled with some cliché like "On The Move…" or "New Beginnings" and describe how much I’ll miss my former colleagues but how excited I am to be starting something new.

Well, I usually hate doing what I’m told but I will miss all my former colleagues and I am very excited to be doing something new. So there.

I will be blogging here even less frequently than I already do, in favour of my new work blog, found here. Please add it to your RSS reader or bookmarks. If you want to keep updated on the comings and goings of my career, why aren’t we connected on LinkedIn already?

See you later,

Dan

Things To Do

2010-02-20T00:15:00.000-08:00

Feb 23 - OpenSoho w/ Mark O'Neill, Chief Information Officer for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport
Feb 24 - Cozy Tweetup
Feb 24 - Digital Lounge w/ Mark Curtis, Flirtomatic
March 2 - Ignite London
March 3 - Tech PR Drinks w/ all these people
March 6 - TEDx Warwick w/ Noam Chomsky, Dr Rachel Armstrong, Steve Martin, Alex Wright and others
March 8 - Social Media Monday
March 10 - Social Media Summit 10 w/ Paul Evans, political blogger and journalist, Tom Watson MP and Iain Dale, one of Britain's leading political commentators

Anything else I should add?

Free pizza from Foursquare too good to be true?

2010-02-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

It is pizza for dinner tonight. I usually order a tasty vegan pizza from Hell’s Pizza but seeing the recent news from Marketing about Domino’s promotion with Foursquare I thought I’d check them out.

Foursquare is a location sharing social network and game, awarding points and achievements for people who “check-in” from locations with their mobile phones. The top achievement at an establishment on Foursqaure is to be Mayor, the person who has checked in the most.

Debenhams is trialing a promotion in one location, rewarding the most frequent Foursquare visitor with a daily free cup of coffee. Like in Marketing, it was also reported in Electric Pig and other blogs, that Foursquare has “inked a deal” with Domino’s Pizza, offering a free pizza to the Foursquare Mayor every week.

The news spread on Twitter and I was eager to find out more and join in. But, after a Google search, I couldn’t find out any real details.

Unable to find any information, I turned to a source I knew would be reliable: PR people.

Within 15 minutes, I got a reply.

There is a lot of misreporting about this link up at the moment. One of our franchisees in Liverpool has linked up with FourSquare – but we aren’t doing anything at the moment on a national level.

We are in initial discussions with FourSquare and will update you if there’s any progress.

Disappointing news, but it is also a good sign of what innovative social media marketing might be coming soon.

Happy Valentine's Day

2010-02-12T01:57:00.000-08:00

"Journalists need love too," but PRs might also enjoy these Valentine's cards from 1000Words.net.

Thanks Sabrina.

Turn Off Buzz

2010-02-11T07:22:00.000-08:00

Google has made its push against Facebook and Twitter with Buzz, and if you have Gmail, without your consent, you are already a participant.

By now, Buzz has already risked your privacy by exposing your most frequently emailed friends. It is automatically following contacts, and having them visible to other Buzz users (read this for more info).

I’m quite happy with my arsenal of social networks and RSS readers and I don’t know if I like the idea of depending on Google for so much. Buzz is apparently set to replace Twitter and Facebook for sharing content with friends, and Buzz buttons are already showing up in blogs:

But, to me, this invasive social network offers nothing I don’t already have, and I suggest that there is just one button you should click:

Spokesperson FAIL

2010-02-09T10:16:00.000-08:00

LCEC, an American electricity provider, created quite a stir recently as their PR manager's discussion with Florida FOX 4 reporters led to many facepalm moments.

Watch the video here.

A little goodwill towards a customer in need could have saved LCEC a whole lot of trouble, but their PR manager just seems determined to keep digging herself into an even deeper hole.

The whole video is full of #PRFAILs, like telling reporters that the more they bother the PR team the higher the rates will go for customers, trying to entice the FOX 4 manger with promises of a "mutually beneficial relationship" (does that mean advertising?) and calling the media's credibility into question by demanding off-the-record meetings.

For dealing with bad coverage, this is a great example of what not to do.

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Should you cite tweets as a source?

2010-02-06T04:12:00.000-08:00

Last week, five journalists in France locked themselves in a farmhouse for five days to test the limits of reporting using sources sent to them on Twitter and Facebook exclusively. Their goal was to test the legitimacy of social media as a news source, and to see if it can stand up on its own.

The debate whether Twitter is a legitimate source for journalists continues, but many journalists are using Twitter to gather information and pitches from PR people with great success. Some have even made accounts especially for it, to separate it from their personal tweets.

Another way a journalist can use Twitter as a source is to crowdsource ideas, making traditional research a lot easier and faster.

One journalist who really embraces crowdsourcing and Twitter is Charles Arthur from the Guardian. He frequently sends out tweets like this:

Before writing articles like this:

Top five Twitter gaffes
The past year has seen been a string of slip-ups on micro-blogging service Twitter, from cricketers to Vodafone staff

Charles has 10,339 followers listening in, and he draws from their knowledge, experience and opinions for his articles. But what do his contributors gain?

As a PR, we know our role in the news process and any form of acknowledgment would never be expected. We’re paid to provide journalists with information in the interest of our clients. But, out in blog land, credit is expected where credit is due.

In the blogosphere, a hat tip, or even a small mention, is common courtesy, and anything less might be considered rude. Even in mainstream news, a newspaper wouldn’t use information from another paper or a blog without acknowledging credit. So, where do tweets fit in?

If Twitter is increasingly becoming recognised as a legitimate news source, should citing individual tweets be standard?
Or, are tweets akin to overhearing someone in the street, and not a citable news source?

As mainstream media moves more and more online and increasingly acts like a blog, should they adopt the standard blogging practices?

I’d really appreciate hearing your opinion on it.

I Fancy A Snog

2010-01-20T05:09:00.001-08:00

I spotted this cool marketing campaign using Twitter and Facebook posted outside a construction site today. Responses tweeted to @ifancyasnog get placed on to the wall. The combination of eye-catching display on the street, social media involvement and first-kiss nostalgia is a creative way to sell frozen yogurt.

Twitter is...

2010-01-19T14:05:00.000-08:00

Google Real-Time, SEO and Wyclef Jean

2010-01-18T08:16:00.000-08:00

At the end of last year, Google introduced real-time search results. There’s since been a lot discussed about how real-time results, including Twitter posts and other social media sites, will influence Google’s rankings.

I’m not an SEO expert, just a casual observer, and I’ve only just come across a possible example of Google real-time making a noticeable difference in my search results.

Wyclef Jean has been all over Twitter recently. When I went online Wednesday morning, I woke up to tweets about what had happened in Haiti the night before and, using Twitter Search, I followed the story. Before I could see any other charity fundraising teams awake and online looking for support, Wyclef was running the conversation and leading the appeal for aide. He caught the public’s attention for his ongoing campaign for Haiti, and then caught it again after accusations about his charity. Through it all, he has been an integral part of the Haiti conversation, and now Google’s results are reflecting that:

Seeing Wyclef at that spot on Google could be demonstrating Twitter’s impact on Google’s results. Which leads me to this thought from Andrew Heaps, Head of SEO at Latitude, in Econsultancy:

And a final thought to ponder: will retweets become the new links?

What do you think?

:)

Canadian Technology News Twitter Feed

2010-01-15T05:29:00.000-08:00

I'm learning a lot from living and working in the UK. The PR and the technology industries are both much bigger here and there is so much more going on. When/if I do return to work in Canada, I'll be taking a lot of the lessons with me. One of the groups that help make UK tech PR a great industry to work in is UK Technology Journalists and PRs. Andrew Lim from UKTJPR recently put together a UK Tech News Twitter feed that posts tech news from top websites. I thought it was such a great idea, that I had to try it with Canadian news:

Canadian Technology News Twitter Account

@CDNTechNews will post automated updates every 30min from RSS feeds of the best Canadian technology websites and blogs.

I'll be continuously on the lookout for more websites and blogs to add to the feed, but if you notice something I'm missing, please leave the link to the RSS feed in the comments below.

Book Review: The 50 Laws of Twitter

2010-01-14T13:26:00.000-08:00

I’ve been thinking of ways to motivate myself to write here more, and I thought of perhaps trying to blog book reviews. Lou has a copy of Guy Clapperton’s This Is Social Media on her desk that I thought would be a great start, but something else came into my inbox before I could get my hands on it.

The 50 Laws of Twitter by Tremendous News.

The nature of social media means that printed books on the subject generally have a short shelf-life, and with e-books anyone can publish their ramblings easily, so they tend to become less relevant even quicker.

Many social media e-books, like Networking with Friendster for Business Success or Dave’s Guide to Everything Myspace, are pretty useless. They either become irrelevant within a week, or offer tips so obviously simple that if you can’t work them out on your own you have no business being online. “How can I stop receiving MySpace email notifications?” Really Dave? Really?

The 50 Laws of Twitter is different. It is by Tremendous News, the hilarious blogger who writes articles that are easy retweet fodder, while still being good. Written about in The Globe and The Times, Tremendous News offers insight into the internal thinkings of the “douchebags” and “hot chicks” of the social media world, as imagined by a lonely man, self-admittedly deprived of real-life social contact.

His book offers the kind of tips for Twitter that could have only come after sitting for hours with nothing to do other than stare at your Twitter feed, while becoming increasingly frustrated with the trends many of us get caught up in. But in his frustration, we benefit. Not only is it a great laugh, it is a great resource.

Enhanced by his illustrations, the Twitter rules along with his off-topic ramblings and examples, offer real guidance for those not social media savvy enough to figure it out. Whether intentional or not, his 50 laws of Twitter are actually well thought out practical tips that if more people read, Twitter would be a better place.

This e-book is probably the best thing to ever come out of an overweight, unemployed man who lives in his parents’ basement. Tremendous News can be found at http://tremendousnews.com/. I’m sure he’ll put details as to how to buy the e-book online soon.

If it means he’ll write another one, I sincerely hope this guy never finds a real job.

Facebook Colour Status Updates

2010-01-08T07:18:00.000-08:00

Black, blue and red polkadots. Facebook status updates have been colourful today as part of a viral meme making its way around the web.

For those of us excluded from the women-only viral, here’s the apparent text of the message:

Some fun is going on…. just write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. And send this on to ONLY girls no men …. It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before the men will wonder why all the girls have a color in their status… Haha.

I’m not sure how I feel about the effectiveness of the no-boys-allowed meme, considering that although breast cancer in men is rare, the disease still touches most of our lives.

I do have to agree with the below thoughts from Twitter that it is a shame it is exclusive. That said, it is spreading the message very quickly, and although it doesn’t seem to have any charity behind it, it shows that there is lots of potential for viral marketing techniques for breast cancer awareness from charities. Hopefully, they’ll include men too.

Then again, maybe there’s a reason why men weren’t included:

Gambia School Supply Drive Update

2009-12-18T14:23:00.000-08:00

I didn't blog as much as I would have liked, but operation Collect School Supplies for Gambia went really well and we successfully manged to reach our maximum luggage capacity.

We'll be meeting with the Fresh Start Foundation's Gambian representative on Tuesday and delivering the the pens and notebooks to the school ourselves, which will be a great experience.

Rosie and I would like to thank everyone for their school supply donations and support, especially:

Wendy, Clare, Eilidh, Saj and Ann from Professor Wendy Atkin's Research Team at Imperial College London
Laurie, Kerry and everyone at Wildfire
Amanda from Fresh PR
Asda (thanks Dom!)
Tealeaf
Lorna
Geni from EvenANerd
Our parents and family
and everyone who donated direct to FSF's JustGiving Page (please let us know who you were!)

Have a great Christmas. I'll be sure to post pictures upon on return.

Retro Social Media Manuals

2009-12-17T05:18:00.000-08:00

I'm loving these retro-looking social media manual covers from Stéphane Massa-Bidal.

Prints available here.

How to get 1000 Twitter followers by doing nothing remarkable and not being an expert in anything

2009-12-12T02:45:00.000-08:00

*Edit: this post is really just an excuse to show off this wicked cool GIFThis week my Twitter follower count ticked over the big One Thousand mark. What does that mean? I guess, 1000 Twitter users, either people, spammy marketers or robots, thought that what I have say is worthy enough to greet them in their Twitter feed throughout the day.

I am really thankful that of those 1000, many of them are friends and colleagues who wanted to connect online, and am kind of blown away as to how fast my Twitter activity has grown over the past few months.

They are really basic, but here are some reasons why I think you're following me and some tips to get more followers yourself.

Be yourself
Kinda lame advice, but personally, I only ever follow faceless feeds when they provide really useful information. It would be hard to compete with them from your personal account. Plus, I don't think people want to follow robots, they want to connect with other people. So, be a person online. Have opinions, share your thoughts, rants and raves. Just be careful not to over do it.

Don't be afraid of mistakes
Despite how some people might present themselves, no one is really an expert at social media. Microblogging is still pretty new for all of us. It's rules are changing all the time, so don't be afraid to try new things. What's the worse that can happen? People might start a hashtag about it:
Okay, so, that was embarrassing. If you do fuck up: apologize, learn from your mistake and move on. The internet moves fast, your disaster will be old news in a day or two. Besides, you'll probably end up better off. You'll have learned what not to do and you might meet some interesting people throughout the episode, as people like controversy and gossip.

Vary your interests
I work in technology PR, but if I only tweeted about technology PR I would not have found half the cool people I now follow on Twitter. I'm an avid nature lover, with a passion for loud motorcycles, vegetarian recipes, tattoos, comic books and zombie movies, and every now and then, I tweet about it. Sometimes, people end up following me because of it.

Expand globally
My Twitter blew up when I crossed the Atlantic. A new city, a new country with so many new people to learn from. But really, online there is no reason why geographical boundaries should dictate who you connect with. Go ahead and make some new friends in far away places.

Learn, share and prepare to be shared
This is hopefully why you are on Twitter in the first place. Few of us want to hear broadcasts about your breakfast. Instead, interact with other users, retweet them or let them know what you think. Share something neat, cool and useful. And when you do tweet, craft your message so it is easily retweetable, leaving space for the "RT @You:" Also, don't wait for others to find and follow you. Be proactive about it. Find cool people, follow them and say hello.

Be my follower 1001 here: @DanHowe

How to actually make money with Twitter:

2009-12-10T01:20:00.000-08:00

Use it to help find a job!

HOW TO: Find a Job on Twitter by @PRsarahevans

Building an Online PR Network by @akenn

The Beginner’s Guide To Finding A Job With Twitter by
@jacobshare

Using Twitter and Facebook to Find a Job on Time.com

How Social Media Can Help Get You a Job by me

Any other way is probably SPAM.

The Perfect Press Conference

2009-12-09T08:45:00.000-08:00

How easy would this be?

Metro Photo Cock-up

2009-12-08T02:20:00.000-08:00

Yeah, that is an awful blog title.

This morning my co-worker, Chris, pointed out an inconsistency in the London Metro. We have two copies in the office, which appear identical, with the exception of the photo of Lady Gaga on the top right hand corner of the cover, as well as in the Lady Gaga article inside the paper. Each had a different photo. Perhaps they were different editions, or one was printed before a better photo of Lady Gaga became available.

Either way, it isn't anything like the photo mess-up in yesterday's Toronto Metro, as pointed out by b logTO on Twitter.

The picture is a little too small on purpose, if you want to see the wardrobe malfunction in it's full glory, you can head over to this blogTO post and scroll down.

Best part of it all is Metro's reply on Twitter:

What happens to your Twitter after you die?

2009-11-17T00:06:00.000-08:00

When you are dead, what happens to your Twitter account? Last week Alltop posted an article explaining what becomes of your Hotmail, Gmail and Facebook accounts with a link to an article on what happens to your MySpace and Yahoo after death. But what about Twitter?

I was unable to find any mention of Twitter’s policy with death when scanning their Terms of Service or Privacy Policy pages, so I sent the Twitter support team an email.

As per Twitter’s Privacy Policy, they cannot disclose account information or passwords to anyone, even after you die. That means that your next of kin won’t have access to your direct messages and they wont be able to send out a message to inform your followers.

Twitter will remove the account for you though, if requested. A family member needs to fax or post a copy of the death certificate in to Twitter along with the Twitter user name of the person who died.

Without thinking too hard about it, I can name two dozen online accounts that I have opened, from blogs to banking, shopping to socializing, but I am sure I have even more. With so much of our lives online these days, do you think people will start leaving instructions as to what to do with their empire of online profiles after they die?

You can find me on Twitter here: @DanHowe.

Gorilla vs. Bear: channel executives decide

2009-11-16T07:48:00.000-08:00

From the Five Minute Interview section in the back of MicroScope magazine, where they ask a series of questions to channel executives, this question made me smile:

If a grizzly bear and a silverback gorilla decided to have a no holds barred fight, which would you put your money on and why?

From past interviews, four out of seven channel executives chose the grizzly, citing the claws, teeth and the size of the beast.

Those that sided with the silverback thought that the agility and intellect of the gorilla would help it dominate.

Who’s right? There’s only one way to find out:

Oh yeah, there’s also some IT channel questions in the interviews… but I prefer to focus on what’s really important.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

2009-11-13T05:57:00.000-08:00

In a video posted on PRWeek today, Shel Israel spoke about how PR practitioners need to change tactics as social media changes the game:

There are a bunch of PR people who think that their job is to pitch and pitch and pitch and pitch and if they keep going on this route and keep up these practices and bring them into social media, I see a future for them in the restaurant service industry.

One of the changes that social media has brought is the way journalists find sources for their articles.

Last month, work took me to the office of a national UK newspaper. Once we got passed the bottleneck at the security gate (the Canadian papers I’ve visited don’t have nearly that much security!) and made it into the newsroom, we were able to sit down and chat with one of the writers.

He spoke about how he is increasingly getting more and more sources and stories from the comment section of his online articles. Despite the amount of extreme ranting, it turns out that most journalists actually read every one of the comments to their articles.

Instead of pitching clients to a journalist in an email or phone call, there’s a place for PR to identify articles and help clients craft comments to insert themselves into the conversation with an opinion on a subject both of interest to the journalist and relevant to the client’s business. This can be done on the newspaper's website, or in 140 characters on Twitter or even through sites like LinkedIn.

Maybe that’s one of the changes Shel was talking about.

Learning French with social media

2009-11-06T01:31:00.000-08:00

In the new year I am going to regain my competency in the French language. Having scored only elementary on International House's online grammar test, I thought I’d get a head start on January classes and see what I can pick up using YouTube and Twitter.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find much out there.

On Twitter, there’s a neat game called Tweet French, where users reply to a daily question, but @TweetFrench has not been updated since the summer

On YouTube there’s a lot of video French lessons that look as if they are from 1993, there’s also a few ‘repeat after me’ videos but memorizing words for fruit or body parts isn’t the same as learning conversational French. And there are channels like jremy7, which looks kinda useful, but just isn’t for me.

Where is the excitement in learning French? Where are the cool, funny, interesting Twitter or YouTube lessons? Where’s HotForWords en français?

Anyone have any recommendations?

For now, I'll just stick with watching Coeur de Pirate videos.

Why I buy the news

2009-11-04T13:30:00.001-08:00

Despite newspaper circulation dropping, and ad sales falling around the world, I can proudly say that I am one of the Generation Y who is reading the papers.
Even though I get all the dailies at work, I still buy a copy of the Times to read on my way in on the train every morning. Why? It is all down to the freebies:It's like getting a toy with a box of cereal. With a new book every day, my winter reading list is set.

EEEEK!

2009-11-03T09:09:00.001-08:00

Today I sent out an email on behalf of some friends and their new website.

For some reason, the email sent multiple times.

And wow, Twitter is a powerful thing. Those who received the multiple messages are venting for sure.

I can’t apologize enough for the mistake and inconvenience the multiple emails have caused.

In response to some of the Tweets, don’t worry. I was helping out friends, they are not my work clients and you wont be receiving follow-up calls ;)

Sorry again,

Dan

PS. My blog traffic is also exploding. Hopefuly, while you are here you can check out my Gambia project.

Collecting School Supplies for The Gambia

2009-10-29T15:00:00.000-07:00

This Christmas, Rosie and I will be enjoying the sun on the Gambian coast. But, despite the flashy new hotels on the beaches, The Gambia is one of the poorest countries in the world, ranking 160 out of 173 countries in the 2002 UNDP Human Development Report. We wanted to see if that while enjoying our beach holiday, we could also do something to help.

My Dad traveled to The Gambia when I was a kid and he told stories of the beauty of the country, but also of the poverty. He told me how children would run up to his group asking for pens and paper so they could attend school. It turns out, things haven’t changed much since.

Since Rosie and I usually travel with only our hand luggage, we decided to take advantage of the airline’s maximum baggage allowance and bring with us bags filled with school supplies to help give these kids an opportunity to learn

Tonight I spoke with Lamin Daffeh, Executive Director of the Fresh Start Foundation (FSF):

The Gambia is one of the poorest countries in the world. Therefore, most parents don’t send their children to school especially girls because they simply cannot afford to buy uniforms, books, pens, pencils etc. Such children became victims of abuse and exploitation, early marriages or child labourers.

For the past four years, the FSF is dedicated to providing educational resources to two rural schools with a total enrolment figure of over 700 children and are struggling to retain children’s attendance due to lack of resources. We believe that the education of these children will contribute to the eradication of poverty. We are a small charity but making a huge impact in the lives of disadvantage children in The Gambia. Recently, we have seen an increase of the enrolment of girls and in one of our schools, we currently have more girls than boys. Most children are keen to attend school but due to lack of educational resources they can't, so your idea of taking some pens, pencils, note books etc is welcome.

We could really use your help in filling up our suitcases. Raid your office supply cabinet, or stop by Poundland to pick up a few items while you are doing your Christmas shopping. Anything you can give would go a long way in helping a child attend school.

Below is the first suitcase we are hoping to fill. Over the next couple months I will post pictures of our progress along with 'thank yous' to those have dropped off items.

If you have something to donate, we can meet in Surbiton by day, in Clapham in the evenings or central London on the weekends. I’ll also be at various PR industry events, and CS meet-ups if it happens to be convenient.

Fresh Start Foundation is a small UK registered charity doing some amazing work in The Gambia.

The death of the glosssy

2009-10-29T14:17:00.000-07:00

The magazine industry is continuing to decline. Some are capitalizing on dead celebrities, other are trying to be innovative, but most are still putting out the same crap.

One trend that really confuses me is when magazines print memes and pictures that are making their way around the web. If I wanted to see LOLcats I'd visit I Can Has Cheezburger, not spend $4.75 at the corner store.

I think it is great when the commuter papers print the latest big internet thing because I can't spend all day on Twitter, and being able to catch up on yesterday's craze on the train is kinda nice. But with most people these days being online, magazines printing things long (in internet terms) after they already become overplayed doesn't make sense to me.

PS. Yes, that is a Czech magazine.

UFO PR

2009-10-29T14:03:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I tweeted about how much I wished I did PR for the Raeleans (and I kinda was), but I only just visited their website.

Check out their press site:
http://www.raelpress.org/

Cult or not, the Raëlian movement are pretty good at getting attention. I could spend hours going through their past media releases and *cough* press gallery.

Old Time Viral

2009-10-22T10:40:00.000-07:00

BoingBoing is wondering if giving viral videos an old-timey silent moving picture feel will make them even more popular. I hope so, because this old-timey version is hilarious.

Jenkins, I've been hoodwinked.

Link

Canadian Community Newspapers Map

2009-10-21T02:50:00.000-07:00

Here it is. My map of community newspapers across Canada.

I started to work on this a while ago, when I was in Canada. A client had some news to announce with a customer that was based in a remote northern town. It was a cute story and I thought I'd send the release to the local community paper. As many of the small newspapers had very little web presence, it was hard to track down the closest one, so I thought that a map would be a great solution.

But, I got frustrated with all the data and gave up on putting the map together. Yesterday Rosie came across my old files on her laptop, and being the spreadsheet wizard that she is, decided she would have a go at making it work for me.

Probably by now, someone has already made one of these. I know here in the UK, Gorkana have a regional mapping tool for publications. But this Google map is free to access, and hopefully of use to somebody out there.

Too see all the community newspapers, click to view in a larger map, then click through the pages of newspapers on the left hand side. They should be ordered by province.

View Canadian Community Newspapers in a larger map

PS. There is a massive hole in the map. La belle province is missing. A lot of the french addresses would come in as errors on the map, so I removed all Quebec newspapers as I try to fix the problem.

25 UK PR recruiters and other helpful people to follow on Twitter

2009-10-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

I was cleaning up my Twitter the other night, and noticed all the job search people I was following from back when I was looking for work.

They came in handy for me, so I thought I’d pull them together in a list for anyone out there who’s looking for a job.

The full list can be found here on TweepML. With TweepML you can follow them all really easily.

Here are a few of my favourite:

PRJobsLondon – This is the best feed I’ve found of PR jobs. They take jobs from various sites and post them all in one place for your convienence

PRjobs - Lindsay doesn’t work with PR jobs in the UK, but she does write a blog that’s full of great tips and tweets interesting articles

UKTJPR – Tech journalist and PR updates. Occasionally retweets job opportunities, but better for just keeping on top of industry news

TwitjobsMedia – This is another great feed. These jobs are hand selected by a human though

See the full list here.

If I missed anyone, let me know by Twitter.

PS. See also: Danny's 70 people to follow in UK PR

Puppets 2.0

2009-10-17T10:21:00.000-07:00

I think every cool new social media site should be explained by puppets

Super-Social Networking

2009-10-16T02:20:00.000-07:00

Super-Social Networking: Superhero Facebook

Link

I want my life back

2009-10-16T02:19:00.000-07:00

Regret The Error

2009-10-15T02:18:00.000-07:00

LOL

The Game Meats Company at Myrtelford is a halal-accredited organisation which processes only goats, emus, ostriches and deer…At no stage did export operations manager Rick Cavedon say Senator Fielding had ’saved our bacon’

- The Border Mail

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Top five ways to keep learning outside of school

2009-10-14T02:16:00.000-07:00

I kinda really liked school. Alright… so I may have complained about it the whole time while I was there, but look at how much fun I’m having in the photo below.

And it isn’t just the laughs I miss, I also miss the learning, as well as the challenges and growth that go along with learning. After leaving school, I have managed to keep some of that development alive. Since everybody loves lists, here’s my top five ways to keep learning outside of school:

5. Read
Pretty obvious. Keeping up to date with what’s going on in PRWeek or just reading the dailies are great ways to exercise your brain.

4. Webinars/Teleconferences
In this industry you can never be too far away from a phone or an internet connection, making these ideal to keep you PR skills sharp. In my experience, most are pretty dull, but there are some out there that seem worthwhile.

3. Keep in touch with your classmates and teachers
Through social media it is pretty easy to keep up with what is going on in your old school, and it is always really interesting to see how the curriculum is changing. I keep in touch through Twitter, and my school's own network on Ning.

2. Industry events
In Toronto I went to Third Tuesday, in London there’s events like NMA Live. With Tweetups and Meetups there’s always an excuse to get together with other PR professionals to chat about what is going on in the industry.

1. Blog
For your agency, your clients or yourself: blogging is a great way to keep you thinking about upcoming trends and cool ideas. I've only been posting at this blog for a week, but I am really enjoying it and hopefully will be able to keep it up.

PR: a fate worse than death?

2009-10-13T10:14:00.000-07:00

Come on, it isn't that bad. Atleast, not most of the time.

I always thought PR would be a bearable job if you got to choose what you sell. I could start a PR company where we talked about Gatorade, Maker’s Mark, Fridays, ball gags, stilettos, Black Flag, poutine, inside jokes, and catching something someone tried to whip at your head. However, having to sit on the phone and tell people about the new Chili Peppers shoes must be a fate worse than death.

- Gavin McInnes, Street Boners and TV Carnage

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The Rape Tunnel and the dangers of not doing research

2009-10-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

On Monday, Gawker posted a story about a pretty far fetched art installment called The Rape Tunnel.

Of course, it turned out to be a hoax. None of the names or places showing up in an online search should have raised suspicions, if Gawker had spent the time looking into it.

I guess it's an example of the dangers of just copying and pasting from whatever comes across your desk, without taking the time to research or think about the story.

Cashing in on photo crashing squirrel

2009-10-10T10:13:00.000-07:00

Amazing.

The cheeky squirrel that popped up in a vacationing couple’s photo last month, then began crashing photos all over the internet, now has a full time job:

Banff Lake Louise Tourism’s new mascot.

See the squirrel on their homepage or check out the squirrel’s own Twitter.

Great SEO strategy: threats and lunacy

2009-10-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

A unique solution to help your business rise in the Google search rank: send crazy emails and unrealistic threats of legal action to your competitors.

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Byte Night London

2009-10-05T02:15:00.000-07:00

It is Monday morning and my head still hurts. But a three day hangover is worth it for charity, right?

Friday was Byte Night. With a group from work, I braved the cold and slept under the lights of tower bridge along with dozens of other IT workers, PRs and journos, all while raising money for Action for Children.

Here is a photo of my boss in a funny hat:

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