I really enjoyed reading PR Week’s Focus of 9th March “Can hard times create successful start-ups”. It was particularly heartening to read Tony Langham’s story about how he set up Lansons as well as the stories behinds some of our best loved UK PR agencies like Frank and Launch. It seems lots of successful agencies were set up in dark economic times and still going strong.

Seven years ago we set up The PR Network and we’ve ridden some pretty turbulent economic storms, but stayed firmly focused on a flexible structure that has kept us agile and one step ahead of the market.

All those featured in PR Week’s article urged a cautious start, and keeping up front investment to the minimum; they cited working with freelancers as a necessity - something at the heart of our proposition. This is a trend we’ve embraced and seen grow in strength over the last year or so. This type of flexibility will enable even more entrepreneurial comms professionals to take the plunge and set up on their own - something our industry, and more importantly our economy needs.

Just a quick trawl of recent PR Weeks show that on average there are 2 new agencies launching a week in the UK at the moment. So, why is the PR world growing at a time when Experian records that 21,000 business failed in the UK last year? Well, arguably PR is something you shouldn’t cut in a recession, marketing is increasingly important to stay ahead of an even more competitive market place.

Perhaps also it is because we are in one of the few sectors that can celebrate entrepreneurship. You don’t need to invest heavily to start up a business in PR and comms. You just need your reputation, your contact book and a good idea. Seven years in, we’ve not regretted going out on our own for one single minute. We are proud to be doing things differently and to be supporting some of the best and biggest and newest PR agencies in the UK. We work collaboratively with many of the leading agencies in each sector and provide freelance and permanent recruitment solutions to a huge list of consultancies and in house teams.

Let’s hope this trend continues and I wish all the recent joiners to the world of comms business owner all the success over the next year. Keep the faith and keep doing great work for your clients, the rest will follow. And, to those of you sat there reading this and still debating whether to take the plunge I say, just do it, you won’t look back!

Happy New Year one and all! Echoing the sentiment of Russ’s last post – it’s great to get back to work after the long festive break. I, for one am glad I took some time out to rest and recuperate as January has started with a bang!

We’ve had a number of new enquiries come into us this week and some briefs that were on hold before Christmas are now key priorities! Watch this space as we hope to announce some new wins next week and if you are an associate, you are sure to hear from us shortly. Our pipeline is going to explode at this rate!

We are also delighted to announce we are working with ABC Spy – a great iphone app aimed at the early years education and entertainment market. It’s an app that combines learning your ABC with nifty iphone features. In essence it challenges children to create their own ABC by photographing and videoing objects for each letter of the alphabet. It’s got the support of key educational specialists including Prof. Mark Alter, professor of educational psychology from New York University and the eminent Ian Livingstone OBE, life president of Eidos. As a mum of two under 7, I was pretty excited to land this piece of business, although it’s yet another reason to try and prise my iphone out of their sticky hands!

From a business perspective, this is even more exciting for us as it’s another non-domestic win. We are helping Stealth Education raise the profile of their app in the US, not the UK. We are now working with two US only clients, which demonstrates our truly global footprint. We already have a strong EMEA heritage and are used to fielding global teams on a retained basis – but to be briefed and hired solely with the US market in mind is a huge milestone for us.

For those of you with young children, make sure you download the ABC Spy app (£1.49 from the App Store) and for those of you looking for international PR, you know where to come!

Here’s to a cracking 2012 if this week is anything to go by!

George

We’d like to take the opportunity to wish everyone a very successful 2012. We certainly saw a resurgence in the demand for comms support across our business in 2011 – alongside the expected and occasionally painful troughs – so long may the former continue.

I’d also like to thank the heavens that this first week is over. Not because it’s tough adjusting after the festive indulgences (well not just that). But because its actually going to be refreshing when normality returns, the vast majority of us are back working our normal hours, and things can actually start progressing again. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas and New Year more than most, but that fact that work-wise everything seems to be placed on-hold or take five-times as long, does get a little trying, even with ‘Fairytale of New York’ playing in the background.

Whilst Tuesday was a struggle, it has been nice to see that more and more of my emails and calls have actually been returned as the week has gone on. Hopefully, come next week, it will be business as usual, at least until the May-June bank holiday madness anyway.

And finally, a quick wish that the London Olympics bring with it vast amounts of cash to the UK economy, and subsequently lots of opportunities across all those brands both officially or unofficially involved with it. Whilst the booking website remains an absolute shambles (if anyone actually figures out how to successfully book even a single resale ticket, please let me know), I for one remain very optimistic about what should be a spectacular occasion. And if it’s not for you, a great time to rent out your house/flat and use the money to get as far away from the inevitable public transport disaster as possible.

Here’s to a successful and prosperous 2012!

Russell

This will be my last post for a while as I’m about to go on maternity leave to have baby Imrie no.2 (or three, if I can count The PR Network as my other baby - although it’s now approaching middle age in dog years at least!).

Although it’s been a difficult year in some respects, mainly due to economic turbulence making it hard to forecast and plan, we’ve ended the year on a high. We’ve won a number of new clients and welcomed several great new associates to the fold.

I’m also pleased to say that we have promoted James Read to the position of Managing Director, after a successful year deputising for me and George. Congratulations to James! It’s great to know I’m leaving the business under his stewardship for a few months. James is well supported by Russell who will continue to run the network as well as managing some key new business initiatives across our PR and recruitment divisions.

Next year will certainly be an Olympian one for us as we have a number of major changes planned which will benefit both our clients and our network of associates. Watch this space for an announcement early in 2012.

In the meantime, I wish you all happy holidays and a prosperous New Year.

Nicky

There has been a bit of a hulabaloo recently about comments by Thierry Breton, the CEO of Atos on why he banned email at his 8.6 billion EURO IT services company. Comments across the world’s media and twitter have ranged from “stupid” to “bold”. The BBC this week did a great follow up interview with full explanation behind the decision. It’s definitely worth a read and can be found here: http://bbc.in/tELYlT.

Before we run screaming for the hills from this madman, it should be pointed out that he is only referring to internal email. You know, the group emails about Christmas parties, what’s on in the canteen, reminders about expenses and if you have worked at one of the agencies I’ve worked at – some rather dodgy borderline jokes. He still clearly sees a role for external email, but is just trying to shake up internal communications making the company more relevant to a much younger workforce and much more efficient. As a man who lectured at Harvard and ran France’s flagship company France Telecom, I think it’s fair to say that he knows his stuff. The decision wasn’t snapshot either – it’s well thought through and made on the basis of findings of an internal task force. The team at Atos realised that on average their 80,000 strong workforce were receiving over 100 emails a day. More staggering was the fact that most polled only found 15% useful and reckoned that they were spending 15 to 20 hours a week responding and checking internal email. Now you don’t need to have lectured at Harvard to realise that those stats do not make for a happy and productive workforce. The other thing I found really interesting - and frightening - was that most new joiners under 30 (of which Atos employs 10,000 a year) weren’t used to Microsoft Outlook! This seems like the first real indicator that twitter, Facebook and IM has really now taken over from email in the younger generation.

This all got me thinking. As you know PRN is a virtual organisation and we like to think we are pretty innovative. We are always trying to think about how we could do things better and differently and researching new ways to work smarter. So as we do have someone who is under 30 on our management team, we are going to get down with the kids and ban internal email for a week. We already have various other ways to communicate – whether it’s skype, twitter or good old fashioned iPhone 4S, so it shouldn’t be too hard but, let’s see how we survive. We will report back to you in 7 days time. I might even come over all EMO too (for those of you over 30, I think that is the new Goth/Grunge look). Promise not to post pictures.

George

Today is the third “annual celebration of freelancers” (www.nationalfreelancersday.org.uk) in the UK, a campaign designed to raise the profile of independent working as a career choice, and run by NFP freelance representative organisation PCG.

No doubt a worthwhile campaign with good intentions, but it got us talking about the term “freelance” and its perception in the comms industry.

In short, we think its past its best. If anything it often carries negative connotations – someone that lacks loyalty and goes where the money is – “free-loader”, “Sir Lance-a-lot” etc. This is actually no surprise when you think about its origin – first coined by Sir Walter Scott in his novel Ivanhoe, where he referred to a “medieval mercenary warrior” as a Free Lance:

“I offered Richard the service of my Free Lances, and he refused them—I will lead them to Hull, seize on shipping, and embark for Flanders; thanks to the bustling times, a man of action will always find employment.”

Determined and focussed perhaps, but beyond that not quite the connotations we are after.

For us, we feel the term freelance fails to do justice to what we do, and the standards and professionalism of the people we work with. We’ve developed a rigorous entry process and strict standards, aimed to smarten up the market in the comms sector. We tailor fit the best independent professionals to specific brands, as well as building teams, to provide the best-fit scalable solution available to our clients.

There are undoubtedly those out there in the comms industry that have damaged the freelance name – causing literally more trouble than they are worth. So they can keep it. However, we feel that the professionals we work with deserve something better. Something that we can coin here and take out to the industry, starting with our own clients (direct and agencies alike).

So we’re keen to hear your suggestions and thoughts. Post your these on our LinkedIn Group page – The Buzz Board – or email them over, and we’ll chose a favourite and post it here next week.

We are serious about this and keen to cut the word “freelance” from our own marketing materials across the board, so it would be great to know what you think.

Russell

We recently had a coaching session with the lovely Sam Howard of As If:http://www.as-if.co./

Sam is a PRN associate (and erstwhile client), trainer and PR freelancer extraordinaire. The session was based on using the latest psychometric principles to tease out what makes individuals in a team tick, and how that plays out to create an overall team dynamic.

By completing a detailed questionnaire, we were able to see how each PRN team member’s strengths lie in a particular area (and conversely, spot a few weaknesses!). Overall, everyone in business (and life) will fit into one of a few loosely defined personality types. It’s hugely important to know which, so you can put teams together, match team members to clients and share out tasks.

I won’t give away the crown jewels on how it works, what it shows etc, because to get the benefits of this training I recommend you get Sam in to lead a session.

However I will say that it was really refreshing and helped us all understand each other that little bit more. From a management perspective, we now know where our skills gaps are, who works best together and if there’s a job that needs doing, who’s best placed to deliver results fast (and who might procrastinate!).

Ultimately though, the point is that a team – and business – needs all sorts to work. One person’s strength is another’s weakness, and the idea is that by identifying who is good at what, you will become more effective, productive, and outshine your competition. You’ll also drive down staff churn, as although we all have to do a bit of what we don’t like (it’s good for us, don’t you know?) if you get employees doing more of what they enjoy, of course they’ll stick around longer.

Make sense? We think so. Give Sam a ring to find out if you are a red, a blue, a yellow or a green – or a funny looking mix of them all.

Nicky

On flicking through the PR Week Awards booklet last week I was pleased to see some of our agency and in-house clients featuring for successful campaigns and good practice (congrats!). I was not so pleased to turn to p.4 and look upon the faces of the judging panel. Don’t get me wrong, they’re a perfectly nice looking bunch – but there was something strikingly wrong when gazing at the panel as a whole. Have a look if you’ve got a copy. Spotted it?

Of the 50 judges, chaired by Google VP of comms for EMEA DJ Collins, there are only 16 women (less than a third). Even more astonishing for a sector which aspires to embrace diversity, there is only one non-white judge.

The PR Week 2011 Census showed that as an industry we have big issues to overcome to keep women in the profession at the higher levels (most of the judges are agency bosses or run in-house comms teams). Two obvious reasons are the continuing lack of robust solutions to support women through their child bearing years, combined with the lower salaries on offer compared to their male counterparts (also evidenced by the Census). The Census also revealed a lack of representation across ethnic groups.

The gender and ethnicity issues are complex, certainly not unique to our sector, and require more research and resource dedicated to their resolution. However making the judging panel look like a cross section of society would have been a positive step in the right direction. At the lower levels (up to AD level say, or PR Manager) the gender bias is very much skewed the other way, so much so that many people consider PR to be a female-dominated profession. Something is clearly going wrong during the critical middle management years. It’s a shame, as we are working in one of the few industries where female representation could be equal to men in the boardroom based on the number of women who enter and train in the profession.

As a senior working mum in PR, so part of one of these “minority” groups, I want to see women as equally represented and renumerated as our male counterparts. This will incentivise the younger talent rising through the ranks to stay working throughout their PR careers, to make a valuable long term contribution to their employers and more importantly to the industry.

Nicky

My mum is better on social media than I am. Fact. I realised this as she is now on twitter more often than I am and has a better grasp of various political blogs, breaking news and an incredible list of RSS feeds. She’s a one-woman live news centre. In fact, she’s gone as far as to say that (bar the religious commitment to Radio 4), she gathers most of her current affairs from twitter – not the papers. It doesn’t stop with the daily news either. Photos are uploaded to Flickr and Facebook and she’s partial to the odd music site too. Am I the only one who has a mum who is more tech savvy than they are? Why is this? Is it because her generation are quick to adopt new technologies and have seen such rapid progress and innovation in their time that this is nothing new (think TV, the birth and death of Teletext, the Internet, mobile phones…). Or is it that they have more time on their hands? Or because the silver (admittedly, ash blonde in this case) surfers have the time to peruse, familiarise and practice perfect social media manners? Or, perhaps it’s a combination of the two. I thought a post I read over the viagra summed it up the best. They argue that it really is just about good old-fashioned manners – something my mum has in bucketloads. This came through on my Linkedin alert (something my mum has yet to dabble in – but probably doesn’t need to as she’s not in the workplace). Definitely worth a read – a great way of summing up how we should approach and respect people when engaging with social media - 10 things your grandmother can teach you about social media: http://linkd.in/syPdE9

George

After a couple of weeks in Thailand I am now finding myself waking at ridiculous hours of the day and night, struggling with jet lag. You will have to excuse the ramblings here, but writing this post helped me pass the tedium of the early hours of this morning and get back to sleep. But, I do hope it doesn’t put you to sleep

Unless you’ve been snoozing for the last few weeks, you can’t have missed the fact that Thailand is suffering some of the worst floods in its history. A third of the country has been affected and nearly 400 dead – many more displaced and no sign of an improvement for the near future. Many predict that devastating effects will be felt for as long as the next decade. The impact on the economy is huge. Tourism (which contributes heavily to the country’s GDP) has dropped dramatically as news of the floods reached fever pitch and many holidaymakers cancelled trips. Also, as a number of facilities are under water – notably Japanese car giant Honda as well as lots of small manufacturing businesses - things are at crisis point. Thousands are without homes, many more without a livelihood. It’s a sobering thought as I sit here in a very dry, nice suburb of London.

I don’t want to depress you - there’s enough of that on the news – but highlight the overwhelming role that social media has played in this situation. Something I find incredibly interesting in my line of work.

In a country where corruption is commonly accepted as part of the politics process and the government is still reeling from the riots of two years ago, many have lost faith in the government to communicate truthfully and effectively in a crisis like this. The media is still largely owned by the former prime minister (Thaksin Shinawatra) and as such is often perceived as a voice for the government’s propaganda. As such, many used Twitter, Facebook, Blackberry Messenger (BBM) and other local version social media sites as the way to spread information from community to community. At times this led to unrest and panic, but it also saved lives as people were able to evacuate ahead of time. For me, this was incredible proof that social media isn’t just a PR platform but totally ingrained in our human psyche (as the swiftest method of communication). Particularly in a developing nation like Thailand, it’s breathtaking to see the sheer volume of people who are online and run their lives through mobile devices and social media sites; from the business man in Bangkok, to the stall holder on the beach in Hua Hin. For those in Thailand, social media communities and communications is way more than a gimmick used by “the yoof”, it’s often a trusted source of information.

I came back to work this week (with a crash) and went straight into a meeting with a visiting US exec. He was explaining the problems he has encouraging his marketeers to use better online marketing and social networking tools. He gets constant push back that as a B2B company, it’s just not relevant. I felt his frustration. As communications professionals we are often trying to compartmentalise social media, digital marketing or online PR – or whatever term we want to use here – but the reality is that it’s got to be at the heart of everything we do. Whether a company is B2B, B2C, a start up in Norwich or a family restaurant on the beach (getting ratings on TripAdvisor) we need to be cogniscent that this is now a way of life not a communications tool. My Thailand trip was huge proof of that for me. This is why we insist that all of our clients follow a methodology that includes digital counsel on every client. We have also run regular training courses (last one held last month) to ensure that everyone in our Network has an understanding and a capability to advise clients on approach. No comms specialist can afford to be ignorant of it, and no client regardless of sector can ignore it.

I for one, am definitely embracing it – I’ve seen real life examples of how this “new world” can make the difference between life and death and am convinced that it’s here to stay.

George viagra