Enjoying the craic in Dublin
24
2009
We’ve just come back from a very enjoyable day in Dublin with Stephen Williams, Group E-Commerce and Marketing Manager at the Fitzgerald Group
For those of you who don’t know the Fitzgerald Group – it is one of Ireland’s leading leisure groups with more than 20 pubs on the Emerald Isle and owner of three of Dublin’s most successful hotels.
They are the Arlington Hotels – at Temple Bar and O’Connell Bridge – and the eponymous Louis Fitzgerald Hotel after the company’s entrepreneurial founder who continues to drive the business forward with his unerring eye for detail and his ability to drive pubs and hotels forward where others fail.
Anyway GREEN Communications has been appointed to raise the profile of the three hotels in the UK and send more visitors across the Irish Sea to enjoy the Celtic pleasures on offer at the three hotels. Two of them - Temple Bar and O’Connell Bridge – offer fantastic value for money with great accommodation and nightly entertainment from traditional Irish musicians and dancers.
We – Thomas Atcheson and Kathy Burke – where at the O’Connell Bridge last night and where blown away by the whole experience and we have all vowed to go back independently with our friends and family.
Keep an eye out for further news as we will be managing a range of promotional competitions, special offers and events over the next 12 months to ensure the hotel’s get the reputation they deserve among UK holidaymakers.
Six degrees of separation - minus 95%
15
2009
I am a great proponent of networking, viral, social media, and word of mouth communications, in spreading a message and for creating change in the world.
I was fascinated to read over the weekend (FT Magazine, June 13) about how social scientists sought to recreate the legendary study by the psychologist Stanley Milgram.
In 1967 he asked 160 people in Nebraska to get a letter to a stockbroker in Boston, passing it only to someone they knew on first-name terms.
The popular story is how the letters arrive after six steps and how we are all just six handshakes away from anyone on the planet. (It is also known as the ‘Kevin Bacon’ Theory – you are only six degrees of separation from him, if you don’t know him.)
Reflections on Darwin’s ‘Big Idea’
9
2009
Just thinking back to the time I went to the Darwin’s Big Idea exhibition at the Natural History Museum given my interest in memes and evolutionary theory, how ideas are generated and popularised, and to explore an idea of how Darwinian theory can be applied to the task and challenges inherent in communications. The exhibition got me thinking.
How ‘VISTA friendly’ is your communication?
I love conceptual models and acronyms which can provide a tool for developing your work. Natural selection can described using the acronym of VISTA:
V - variation
I - inheritance
S - selection
T - time
A – adaptation
Using this as a conceptual model for communications it highlights how any message has to:
Think before you pitch
8
2009
I have been approached in the past on my own personal blog and have actively engaged with some companies as they have been thoughtful enought to have read my blog and understand what interests me. Then they started a conversation with me and eventually asked me to comment on one of their products which I was happy to do.
However, the vast majority of the “social media” companies get it so wrong - take this for instance which I received last week and was aimed at GREENblog.
Paddy Hopkirk and recession-proof PR
8
2009
Had the chance to meet with rally car legend Paddy Hopkirk - winner of the Monte Carlo rally and still working in the motor industry – while speaking at the Motor Industry Public Affairs Association conference in London last week.
The event was called ‘Delivering recession-proof PR’ where I covered material from my new book, ‘The Upturn: my part in its rise’ (due out this summer, Tangent Publishing).
I actually came to the conclusion after my talk, and also the session given by industry doyen Tony Spalding, (now enjoying a new life on the Isle of Wight), that there is no such thing as ‘recession proof PR’ – everything will change in some way or the other during this global downturn. What instead you can aspire for is ‘recession-responsive, or recession-friendly PR’.
Free football and a lecture tour of Wales
20
2009
Here’s a way of getting free football tickets (if that is your wish) or creating a week-long lecture tour of Wales at about 15 different locations with the minimum of resources - which happens to be on my latest wish list.
I am passionate about the power of networks and people coming together to achieve great change. During a training event organized by Leeds Chamber of Commerce for small businesses called You Are Never More Than 12ft From An Opportunity I proved how my teachings work.
The course aims to boost opportunity spotting skills. Normally, we do a session on getting connections with a celebrity. On this occasion I added another challenge to the mix.
Being a football fan I was keen to get a ticket for the sell-out game that evening, the hottest ticket in Yorkshire - the play-off semi-final Leeds United v Millwall. Tickets were like gold dust. On giving the group the challenge of finding me a ticket, they quickly identified at least three potential avenues – within an hour, I had got a ticket for free!
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