Q: What has a blog, a twitter account, is on Facebook (great landing page there) and yet doesn’t want bloggers at its event?

A: The Scottish Baby Show at the SECC in Glasgow.

Read more…

There’s a book out there that’s a series of interviews between the very good chap who brought back Dr Who to TV and a journalist. As someone who profited from Dr Who (breaking the tales of who was going to be Doctors 10 and 11 back when I was a journalist) I can’t fault that, especially when the reviews have been very kind to both versions of the book.

But the URL show’s why every domain name I use has a hyphen it it. Yes, the book is called The Writer’s Tale, the new version is called The Writer’s Tale – The Final Chapter and apparently there’s 300 or so new pages of material, which is fair value for money (I never got the original so this is tempting).

The URL for it reads: thewriterstale.com which can be The Writers Tale or The Writer Stale. Now it’s not as bad as anything with Therapist or Pen Island, but it’s still a bit of a dig – especially given a few people put their digs in at RTD’s writing during the show and from a digital PR point of view, you wouldn’t have it as it just gives people ammunition for cheap digs (though you could buy it to prevent a competitor using it against you for cheap digs).

Presenting the third Scottish Social Media Dinner with a theme of Politics and Social Media. As with previous events, the idea is that people speak inbetween courses telling us their experiences of social media, what they’ve learned from it, what they use, how they use it and what their general thoughts are. There’s also a Q&A at the end which does what it says on the tin.

This month has been in the planning for a while and it’s got some good speakers lined up. We’ll be having speakers from either each of the main political parties in Scotland or someone well-known for a party in blogging circles. Talks are ongoing with a few people still but I can reveal that we have confirmed for Wed, Feb 17:

Read more…

Online Journalism Blog has an article on Augmented Reality (which I pointed out would be over-hyped in 2010) that’s worth reading to cover in part to see how misconceptions about what it is and how the next big thing in social digital communications is being portrayed. Also, if journalists are looking for a use for it, PRs and other communicators need to be able to deal with it (and we’ll come back to that point at the end).
Read more…

The latest Quiet News Day podcast is up and snuggled without fanfare or announcement in the first half of it is the first of what – depending on feedback – will hopefully be a weekly slot chatting about the latest news and developments in social and digital media.

Read more…

Proper write-up soon for the Scottish Social Media Dinners, but here’s some dates that may prove of interest:

• Feb 17 – Glasgow – Politicians and Social Media. MPs, MSPs and councillors from all parties talk about digital engagement.
• End of March – Edinburgh – topic to be announced.
• April 21 – Glasgow – Podcasts Matter. One of America’s most popular podcasters and two of Scotland’s best talk about podcasting and share tips.
• April – Dundee – Gaming and Social Media – more details to be announced in April.

Also, a website for the Scottish Social Media Dinners will be going live this week – www.ssmd.biz.

Trying this as an experiment as some people said they didn’t fancy food as part of the Scottish Social Media Dinners. So, there’s a range of tickets, priced at £10. These tickets will only gain you entry to the event, nothing else. You’ll still get to hear the Daily Record’s award-winning digital editor Iain Hepburn, Daily Dust Supremo Ewan Spence and just-launched Caledonian Mercury editor Stewart Kirkpatrick.

Read more…

No need to spam reporters, this is the email address for PRs wanting to reach the Caledonian Mercury. Or you can pitch via Twitter.

Donald Martin’s move from the editor chair of The Herald papers to The Sunday Post certainly perked up Scottish media circles on Friday, with a lot of tounges wagging and people wondering why (and some saying good riddance), but if you look at the decision it makes sense for Martin and also reveals how bad things are for Scottish journalism, which is bad news for Scottish society as a whole. And a potential Scottish PR crisis for the Herald’s owners, Newsquest.

Read more…

It’s a never-ending battle: journalists v PRs. On both sides, many a person claims to be harassed by the other while many others on both sides keep making mistakes in communicating (it’s not really that hard – the communicating or, sadly, the mistake making), but this list by Bristol Editor (which is a thumpingly good blog) shows one of the great errors that journalists often make in their ‘let me tell the PRs how the world works’ in that they don’t understand a lot of PR – some through ignorance, some through having no experience of the other side of the fence.

Anyway, I’m going to go through the list, offering some observation and if anyone ever compiles the three million blog posts and articles that have been written on this topic, perhaps it may help.

Many of the points are fair, I don’t doubt it’s been written with a sincere desire to improve communications and should be taken on board by PRs, but it shows three failings:

• An understanding that journalists are no longer the sole providers/outlets of news
• A lack of understanding of what PRs do.
• In parts it comes across as incredibly smug and arrogant, which is probably not the point but tone is important.

Anyway, it hasn’t been written to start a flame war or anything like that, but perhaps in 2010, PRs and journalists can understand each other a bit better and we can get rid of lists like this, along with the incessant ‘why social media rulz’ postings.

Read more…