25 things you didn’t need to know about me

Ok, so here it is – 25 things that you didn’t know (and didn’t need to know) about me…

1. I cracked my head open on my 18th birthday and had to go to hospital for stitches whilst my mates celebrated. I had my A-level results the next day

2. I am a Leo and think it says a lot about me

3. I have 12 first cousins on my Moms side of the family – 11 of these are girls

4. I am a perfectionist and don’t like it when people only do half a job of something

5. When I was younger my parents always took me caravanning – when I am older I am definitely getting a caravan

6. I love music and I love camping yet have never been to a music festival

7. I am an only child

8. When I was younger, toys that I owned include a Thomas the Tank train set, a microscope, a metal detector and one of those gadgets you can use to tune in to what air traffic control are saying (can’t remember what it’s called now)

9. I have a pet rabbit – the fourth rabbit I have owned

10. I have never been in love

11. I used to be able to write 100wpm shorthand but haven’t done any for about three years

12. When I was a child, I released my pet hamsters into the wild because I couldn’t bare to keep them after they ate my other hamsters

13. I used to play the piano, not very well, but always wished I was more musical

14. I buy lots of books but don’t always get around to reading them

15. I was a member of the Young Ornithologists Club (my Dad’s fault) but I am grateful that I can tell a sparrow from a sparrow hawk

16. I hate uncertainty but am quite indecisive

17. I am a big fan of Elvis Presley. I blame my mom for this. I have pictures of him in my flat

18. I love my flat but there’s no place like home. My flat is about 2 miles down the road from my parents and I visit them most days

19. I’ve celebrated New Year in Time Square, New York. It was cold and involved lots of standing around. I was with my aunt and four cousins – my aunt and three cousins went back to the hotel before midnight

20. Some people say I am bossy – I kind of am, but I call it organised

21. I am rubbish at remembering things – not things to do, but things that I have done, or heard or seen or said or read and I find it really frustrating. I wonder if it’s an evolutionary thing and i’m not meant to remember?

22. My parents are the most important people in the world to me and the best thing is I love spending time with them. They make me laugh, they make me feel secure and they constantly help me to grow and give me the space to be myself whilst always being there

23. I have been bought up as a catholic but don’t share all catholic values and haven’t really made a decision about religion

24. I love Twitter and the opportunities it has given me to meet people and do things that I might not have done without it

25. I already know the second song I want at my wedding (Everlasting Love by The Love Affair). My husband to be will hopefully help me pick the first!

So there you go – 25 things you didn’t need to know about me. It took a lot longer than I thought – I think that’s a bad thing!

My very special friend Zoe White sent this my way and now that I have done my bit, I am passing the burden to @citizensheep @lovelychaos @anthonyherron @jamiepotter @iheartjoan

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

EDIT – I thought 5 meme victims was enough but it seems this is meant to go to 25! So here’s another 20 – @mikenolan @deplorableword @gabysslave @john383 @karenstrunks @stevecarpenter @matmannion @dotbenjamin @danux @chrisunitt @tomabbott @tracyplayle @supercoolkp @crisbrown @benjaminbrum @urbanfly @sleepymeuk @robynslingsby @pezholio @jim_b

Lately, I have mostly been…

…helping to organise the Midlands largest Twestival! More info here…

Boo

I’m still here.

It’s been almost a month since my last blog entry – apologies for the absence. It’s been a funny time – since completing the CIPR Diploma I needed to give my brain a bit of a rest (i’m not sure it is fully recovered yet!)

The trouble with not blogging for a while is that it’s hard to know what to blog about to break the drought so I thought I might just start with a round-up of what I have been upto whilst I have been ‘away’ .

• Went to the CIPR PRide Awards where the University won a gold award in the Public Affairs category for the Warwick Commission (read the press release)
• Went to see Blood Brothers at the Birmingham Hippodrome (tweet)
• Went to the inaugral Birmingham Social Media Cafe
• Went to London for Halloween/my mates birthday (tweet)
• Went to Chatsworth in the Peak Ditrict for a week with my parents
• Went out in Birmingham for cousins birthday (tweet)
• Went to London for another mates birthday – Slim Jims in Islington followed by Lucky Voice karaoke

So, that kind of brings me up to date…

Now that I have broken the drought, I will try to think of something more interesting for next time.

Too many ideas

For a while now I have been thinking about the final assignment as part of my CIPR Diploma – the Personal Project. This is a piece of self-directed research into a specific aspect of PR practice and/or theory. It will be a 6000 word research document including a literature review, primary or secondary research, and hopefully some interesting conclusions/implications for public relations.

Over the past few weeks I have been toying with a few ideas that are of interest to me…

1. City Image and Identity: A Birmingham Case Study

How do people develop their view of the city? And how can this be influenced by PR? Who are the Gatekeepers? Who controls the messages – organisations tasked with PR or media? How is the image and profile of a city co-ordinated?

This idea translates the theory of corporate image and identity, organisational culture/structure, the cultural web of the organisation and the organisation’s paradigm (the overall reflection of the culture) would look at how these theories might apply to the wider context of a city.

2. PR2.0: The importance of the web in Public Relations

My original thoughts for this project were something along the lines of: “The pace of change of web2.0 technologies and the growing role they play in people’s lives means that public relations practitioners must really understand these new communications tools and integrate them into their communications toolkit.”

I hadn’t really thought this project through to be honest, I find continual talk of ‘Web 2.0′ a bit tiresome now. I work in online communications and I love my job (and I love the internet) but Web 2.0 is not a new phenomenon and I don’t want to produce a piece of work that is repeating old news. I’m not playing down the importance of social media tools, online community etc but I want to produce a more timely piece of work that will say something relevant in the medium/long-term, not the short term.

3. The Relationship between ‘Brand’ and ‘Reputation’ (in Higher Education)

My latest idea (and possibly my current favourite) would consider the relationship between ‘brand’, typically a tool of marketeers, and ‘reputation’, the concern of public relations. Inspired by Chris Chapleo, Portsmouth University and Justin Shaw, Communications Management, I might go further and focus on the higher education sector and University brands. They presented preliminary findings of some research into “Successful University brands and reputation” at the CASE Europe Annual Conference in Brighton. Their research so far has been qualitative only and I would need to find out their plans for the rest of their research as I wouldn’t want to steal their idea.

Doing a bit of online research on the idea I found an interesting blog by Elliot Schreiber, Brands and Reputation. He says: A Good Corporate Reputation Starts with a Good Corporate Brand

Most communications professionals do not recognize that building a good reputation is directly linked to the relevance their corporate brand has with key stakeholders. Too often, public relations and communications professionals try distance themselves from the term brand, arguing that it is related to marketing and advertising and narrowly focused on products and customers. This is not and should not be the case.

I do worry that my tutor will think this last idea is too marketing focussed so I will need to ensure there is good relevant PR theory considering the relationship between brand and reputation without it just being a discussion of definitions.

So they are my ideas so far. I obviously need to give them some more thought and consider the PR theory that will form the basis for the research and then the original research that I can undertake to produce some new and interesting ideas to contribute to the PR profession!

I haven’t blogged for ages…

I hate when blog posts start with “I haven’t blogged for ages” but I feel I need to say it! It’s been almost a month but I have been pretty busy! Very poor – especially since I was given a plug on Matthew Watson’s blog – I now have something to live up to!

So the month of July mostly consisted of my CIPR Planning Assignment but it was a massive relief to finally submit it and have it out of my life (unless of course I fail and have to re-submit!). Generally in life, I like situations when you know what the right answer or direction is – but this assignment was like feeling my way in the dark. There were so many options or possibilities that the ‘right’ answer was hard to find so who knows how I got on! Well, I guess I find out in mid-September! I am already thinking about the final project for the CIPR diploma – a 6000 word research project on a topic of our choice – but I will blog more about that another time!

Apart from that I have been enjoying having my social life back and have been to a few parties including Pickle Jar Communications 1st Birthday party and the University of Warwick’s Staff Summer Party. I have also celebrated Mom’s birthday and waved goodbye to my cousin Maria who was home for the Summer after three years living in Jakarta, and has now moved on to Singapore for two years! Plus it’s my own birthday tomorrow and on Sunday I am going to London for my friends daughters 3rd birthday. Then a week today (next Friday) my cousin is having a baby! There really is no rest for the wicked!

Work has also been pretty busy lately. People think that it’s quiet at a University during the summer months when there are no students around but they are quite wrong. There are lots of preparations to be made for new students especially with A-level results, clearing, confirmation, enrolment, preparations for induction etc. The University has also taken on a new enquiry management system to assist communications with prospective students and applicants so there is a lot of planning going in to that as well as the usual ‘comms’ stuff.

So after that re-cap, I think I need to change my approach to blogging and try a more little-but-often approach as this entry is far too long and boring…!

Looking ahead…

So I have resigned myself to the fact that, like April, July is going to be pretty much…

Where is my sunshine?

We received our CIPR planning assignment on Monday 30th June and progress so far has been slow. It’s a pretty tricky assignment and being busy with work I just haven’t made much headway with it so it’s time to knuckle down!

I have lots of things to look forward to in August so that should keep me motivated. I’m making a note of them here so that when I am struggling with the assignment and feeling miserable I can remind myself of the fun to come!

• Saturday 2nd August – Leaving Party for Sam and Mark (colleague and her husband who are moving to Brighton)
• Wednesday 6th August – Pickle Jar Communications‘ 1st Birthday Party
• Thursday 7th August – University of Warwick Staff Summer Party
• Saturday 9th August – Nottingham for final CIPR Diploma teaching session
• Tuesday 12th August – Mom’s Birthday
• Wednesday 13th August – Mom’s twin sister (Mag) coming over from Dublin
• Saturday 16th August – My Birthday – there will be a whole weekend of celebrations for this but I haven’t got round to planning it yet!
• Monday 18th August – Going to see Mary Poppins at Birmingham Hippodrome
• Friday 22nd August – Cousin Laura having baby (if not earlier!)
• Saturday 23rd August – Casey Leaver’s 30th Birthday
• Tuesday 26th – Friday 29th August – CASE Annual Conference in Brighton

EDIT: this list is not exhaustive – I shall be adding to it!

So, bring on August when I will feel more like this…

I can do anything if I try

EDIT: I also feel that August might need a theme tune so am open to suggestions…preferably in the form of links to YouTube please!

I’m a loving Leo lion

I realise that my last three blog posts have been a bit heavy going about my CIPR Diploma so here’s a bit of entertainment…

I recently discovered “The Astrology Songs” by Harvey Sid Fisher – “twelve hits describing the special qualities of each sign in the Zodiac”.

You can hear clips from all of the astrology songs on YouTube and they are very entertaining (although I can’t say that they are necessarily accurate!)

Lyrics:

I’M A LOVIN LEO LION
BORN UNDER THE SUN
I’M A LOVIN LEO LION
I CAN DO WHAT CAN’T BE DONE
CERTAIN TO SUCCEED CAUSE I’M A SPECIAL BREED
EVERYTHING ABOUT ME IS RIGHT
YOU KNOW I AM THE FUN SIGN YOU KNOW I AM THE SUN SIGN
YOU KNOW I AM THE LIGHT

I’M A LOVIN LEO LION
DON’T PUT ME IN NO ZOO
I’M A LOVIN LEO LION
I WON’T DO NO TRICKS FOR YOU
MY ROYALTY CAN SOMETIMES BE A LITTLE TO RICH FOR MY BLOOD
I ALWAYS AIM SO HIGH I WILL BE REACHING FOR THE SKY
AND I’LL GET STUCK IN THE MUD

NO WITTICISM IF THE JOKES ON ME
SHOW CRITICISM IF IT’S COMPLIMENTARY
MY VANITY LOVES FLATTERY

I’M A LOVIN LEO LION
A WINNER WITHOUT FAIL
I’M A LOVIN LEO LION
FROM MY MANE DOWN TO MY TAIL
A FLAIR FOR FASHION AFFAIRS OF PASSION
SOMETIMES IN SECRET AND SHAME
I NEED MORE SEX THAN MOST IT’S JUST A FACT NOT A BOAST
AND IF YOU LOVE ME WE’LL DO THE SAME

I’M A LOVIN LEO LION…

Full lyrics and audio clips can be found on Harvey Sid Fishers website. Let me know whether his description of your zodiac sign was accurate…

Good busy

Another busy few days ahead but busy is good.

Tomorrow I am off to London for a CIPR Education and Skills Sector Group conference, New Challenges, New Opportunities The Role of New Media in Crisis Communications. I am expecting it to be a good day. It has been organised by a former colleague and Director of Pickle Jar Communications and she has managed to secure the Director of Web Communications from Virginia Tech University in America – i’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the tragedy there last year. It will be really interesting to hear from their point to view how they handled it – i don’t think a University can ever be fully prepared for something like that to happen so it will be reassuring to see what lessons they learnt.

On Saturday I am in Nottingham for the sixth session of my CIPR Diploma. At the moment we are working towards for our second assignment – the Planning Assignment. We haven’t been given the assignment yet but basically we will be expected to develop a communications plan and rationale at just over 5000 words. Aapparently this is often a crisis communications situation so i’m hoping tomorrows conference will also be good preparation. The deadline is Friday 1st August so I exepct I will be knuckling down in July (but partying hard on the weekend of 1st August!).

After my course on Saturday I am then travelling across to Keele University for their Homecoming Reunion. I graduated from Keele in 2003 and don’t think I have been back there since maybe 2004 so I am excited and sentimental about returning. I spent three brilliant years there with brilliant friends and I am really looking forward to walking around the campus and remembering the good times spent sat out on the lawns of Keele Hall, drinking in Lindsay Bar and partying in the Union.

Then Sunday I will be coming home to sleep.

Theatre, Friends, Birthdays and Gigging

So it seems the weekend is catching up on me mid-week… this could be reinforced by the fact that I have spent the day in London at a CASE seminar (more on that another time) and last week was also busy with Custard Balti Comedy and Ideas Cafe at Warwick! Feels like I haven’t stopped lately so am quite impressed with myself for finding time to blog about it! I had a great (but busy) weekend…

On Friday night I went to see Into the Woods, a Music Theatre Warwick (student group) production at Warwick Arts Centre. It was performed in the Studio Theatre – an intimate little venue that I reckon held less than 100 people in the audience and the quality of the music, singing and acting was great! The best thing about the whole production for me was seeing members of the local community enjoying a Friday night out watching Warwick University students perform! Working in the Communications Office at Warwick, part of my job is in Community Relations and promoting the benefits of the University (and it’s students) to the local community so I really felt a warm glow when I saw some older members of the local community really enjoying the talents of our students.

On Saturday I had a night out in Birmingham for a double 26th birthday celebration – two old school friends (Lydia and Fiona) have birthdays on consecutive days so we went to the Yardbird jazz bar and Jamhouse to celebrate. A few of my friends now live in London so it’s great when there’s a birthday and they return home! What was even better was that I recently bumped into another old school friend that I haven’t seen for 8 years at a Comedy Club in Birmingham! I mentioned the night out to her and she came along with my old best friend from school! The birthday girls didn’t know about the surprise guests so there were shocks and smiles all round which was brilliant! I also had the opportunity to catch up with my friends families which is something I don’t get to do so often now that they live in London! It was really nice to catch up and reminisce about school days, sleepovers and Sutton Girls!

Finally, on Sunday I realised that my mate wasn’t returning to London until Monday so I made a flippant suggestion that Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong were playing Birmingham Academy in case she fancied it. At about 6pm on Sunday evening my mate called to see if I was still up for it and having seen them at Warwick University Students’ Union about a month ago I jumped at the chance to see them again (despite the slight tiredness from the previous night)! The support act, Beggars, were really great as well! Check them both out if you get chance!

A great weekend all round!

A Week On…

So a week has passed since the deadline for my CIPR Diploma CRT and I have been too busy enjoying having my life back to find time to blog. It’s one excuse after another with blogging – too busy working to blog then too busy having fun to blog.

I actually completed my CRT a few days before the due date as I had a busy weekend planned and did not want the CRT hanging over me. Last weekend I went to see Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong at Warwick University Students’ Union, the Kooks at Birmingham Academy and a friends new apartment and this weekend I went to a friends pre-wedding meal at the Mailbox and another friends engagement party! The social calendar is full to make up for the hermit I became for the month of April.

The Kooks, Naive, Live at Birmingham Academy

Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong (live but not at Warwick SU) - definitely worth catching live if you get the opportunity!

On Saturday I will be heading to Nottingham for the fourth of my CIPR Dimploma taught sessions and it will be the first session of the second module which focuses on planning and management in preparation for our second assessment in August. I was planning to publish my first assignment online here but I thought I should wait to see how good/bad it was before sharing! If the two essays (one on PR and Blogging and the second on PR and Ethical Propaganda) are any good then expect to see them here in June! Fingers crossed!

In the meantime, here’s a preview of my PR and Blogging essay:

Expectations from media, clients and audiences about new technologies are placing increasing pressure on public relations practitioners to increase their use of new technologies (Lordan, 2001). Whilst new technologies won’t replace traditional tools used in public relations the cost to PR practitioners in not using these tools will be in losing their competitive edge to those who have mastered new technology (Anderson and Reagan, 1992 cited in Lordan 2001). As advice to PR practitioners considering entering the blogosphere, Porter et al (2007) suggest an evolutionary approach in which “Practitioners begin using blogs routinely for informational purposes – seeking out alternative viewpoints, the latest news and experimenting with blogs for research purposes. Then use shifts to a more professional – albeit passive – orientation. This issues identification factor allows practitioners to continue to use blogs for information but in a more strategic and professional manner. The final step in the evolution of blog use is to begin engaging in two-way communication.” Whilst this model will not apply to all PR practitioners who use blogs, it does emphasise the importance of a familiarity with and a knowledge of blogs and the blogosphere before being able to use the tool for strategic and purposeful two-way communications.

References

Lordan, E. J. (2001) Cyberspin: The Use of New Technologies in Public Relations, in Heath, R. (2001) ed. Handbook of Public Relations, Sage, London

Porter, L. V. et al (2007) Blog power: Examining the effects of practitioner blog use on power in public relations, Public Relations Review 22 (2007) 92-95