Chairty Communications 08: PR Week Coverage

One session at the Charity Communications conference that I didn't write about was the keynote speech from Kelvin MacKenzie, the former editor of The Sun. It was controversial to say the least, with several delegates storming out of the room half way through in disgust. As such, I thought it wasn't woorth repeating what he said considering that a lot of what he said didn't appear to carry much worth itself.

The latest issue of PR Week contains a piece on the incident though and covers the story well (even MacKenzie's comments are taken slightly out of context). It makes for interesting reading, but the conference organisers did record the whole speech, so I'll let you know if (when) I get hold of it:

"Kelvin MacKenzie, the former editor of The Sun, has clashed with hundreds of conference delegates after arguing that you could never put a positive spin on a story involving a paedophile.

During his speech at the Charity Communications conference in London, he advised delegates not to judge coverage purely by its content, but by its volume, 'there is no such thing as bad publicity – ask Jeffrey Archer - unless of course you're a paedophile. I think that's probably the area where publicity is not helpful'.

But during the question and answer session a delegate told him that her charity worked with paedophiles. As the charity helped to protect children, was there not any opportunity to garner positive coverage?

'No. Next', he said, adding 'Are you serious? There is a paedophile charity?'

The delegates were visibly infuriated as they tried to explain what the charity actually did, and MacKenzie's response was met by audible shock.

'There may be an argument, but I'm not going to progress it', he said, 'Why don't you try The Independent, there's probably a few [positive stories] in there'. He said he wrote his own 'vile column' in The Sun adding, 'you can be sure the paedophile charity will get a good mention in it next week don't you worry about that'."

You can read the PR Week article here.

The Day There Was No News

This video using the new Flickr video service is doing the rounds at the moment, and it's really rather good.

The comments below the video reveal mixed emotions - relief, sadness, amazement, creepy.

Though as I'm working in PR, I'm sure that we could find a way to hijack it and get our clients some coverage out of it!

Adam Buxton did a similar video about a year ago, proving that no news is actually news:

The unconference that 'Shined' on us all

In case you missed it, the SHINE Unconference took place over the weekend. I blogged it where I could, but just found the sessions to be too engaging to really take the time and write it up in-depth.

Instead, I'll point you towards shine.socialreporter.net where a team of bloggers covered the event properly, a Qik event page with lots of glorious video, and a Flickr set with all its photographic goodness - including this one of me pitching my social enterprise idea to a crowded room:


Meanwhile, over on UnltdWorld - the social network for social entreprenuers - those who attended were asked for feedback on the event:

"What did you think of it? Which sessions did you like? Did the style and format work for you? Did you make any lasting connections?"

Here's my response to the questions:

• Walking round a random corner into a random room and joining a random session, but finding lots of great people doing great things and talking about great ideas
• The wide range of support for those at different stages, whether that was an idea, the beginning stages of setting up, or those further along.
• THE PEOPLE! Met some really inspiring figures and everyone I met was more than willing to help everyone in whatever way they could or point them out to someone who could!
• Made loads of connections and have a whole heap of business cards to get through - will email everyone I said I would soon!

I really did meet lots of inspiring people doing some great projects. I offered communications advice where I could to social entrepreneurs like Maureen (pictured with me below). I also ran a session on how to communicate on a tight budget, which seemed to go well by the smile on people's faces as they left the room.


Loads of other people answered the question on Unltd World. Here is a selection of their responses:

• I love the informality around the sessions. Great participation, networking, the venue. Though would have liked more participation.
• It was fantastic. Great vibe. It was about people, conversations and genuine knowledge sharing. It was about the power of context over formality, and of fun and passion over structure. Brilliant.
• Best things about Shine - the spirit, the people, the collaboration.
  The style and format worked in the spirit of the event. I'd been to Good Deals afew days earlier - a "Conference" that involved pretty much 6 hours of sitting & listening to (great) speakers. Shine is to Conferences what the Fringe is to the Edinburgh Festival.
• I enjoyed a 1:1 session with What if!, I really enjoyed the session I did on Entrepreneurs & Emotional Intelligence because of the participation from a lovely group of interested people.
  
• I loved the synchronicity of the whole event and all that busy blogging, reporting and podcasting. It all felt really alive.
• The visual impression: passing room after room and seeing circles of social entrepreneurs leaning forward in intense discussions.

As you can see, everyone seemed to think the event was a great success. Sure, some things did go wrong and there are plenty of aspects that could be improved, but it was the first time the event took place, so there was always going to be teething problems.

I hope to be there again next year - perhaps the various online content around Shine has inspired you enough that I'll see you there too!

SHINE 2008: Interview with SocialReporter.net

This morning, I was collared by Paul who is blogging about SHINE over at shine.socialreporter.net. Here's what he had to say about our encounter and a video interview he took.

"Social reporting has got off to a great start and I’ve already met Ben Matthews (and his EeePC) who heard about Shine via Twitter (NB professional as always the video only goes to 1minute and then I forgot to switch it off, fortunately I didn’t say anything libellous, but it’s not worth watching after that!)."

SHINE 2008: 10 points for starting a web-based project

This session was hosted by Alberto Nardelli and Nicola Jones of UnLtd. Here are the 10 points and the few key points they asked us to take away from the session:

1. Keep to your purpose - Your work should be coherent with your mission

2. Become successful by helping others be successful

3. Openness – build by sharing

4. Everything you do needs to help create real value

5. Everything you do should matter

Is it really important and essential?

How will it benefit your audience?

Does it impact large parts of your audience?

Is it mission critical?

Bottom Line: Focus, focus, focus

6. Think niche and don't go after entrenched players

What's your market?

The Long Tail and the Fortune 1,000,000

You can do anything, but not everything: do one thing, but do it really well

7. Road maps lead in the wrong direction

They make you think in the past: do the right thing at the right time

You can't build business models in any ivory tower

Innovative business models happen

8. Change the rules of the game – think big and radical

What's the issue?

Why is it broken?

How can you fix it?

Why do you want to fix it? - Purpose!

Web 2.0 is about community, networks and markets

9. Be transparent

Always place your mission and the interests of your audience first

Trust and loyalty are built

No short-term gain can justify breaching this trust

Feedback and conversations are essential: listening is more valuable than talking

10.Monetization opportunities must never destroy value

Key points:

• You only succeed as a business if you keep relevant to your audience

• Steadfastly refuse any opportunity that does not offer value to your audiences

• Your business model and economic drivers need to be deeply embedded in your purpose

SHINE 2008

For the next few days I'll be at SHINE, an 'unconference' that (according to the website) is "dedicated to connecting, informing and inspiring hundreds of Social Entrepreneurs."

"For three days, The Bargehouse at the heart of London’s Southbank will host a mash-up gathering, an ‘Un’Conference that will invigorate your thinking and give you the practical help to advance your business, whatever stage you’re at.

Long presentations, boring speeches and being trapped in closed rooms are out. Peer-to-peer exchanges, info-snacking and flexible sessions are in."

I'll be keeping notes and blogging when I can, but you can follow the event on Twitter through @shine2008 or go to shine.socialreporter.net for more in-depth coverage.

Charity Communications: Brave New World

This session was billed as "An interactive and entertaining session about the opportunities new media offers to charities, for communications and fundraising. A particularly innovative format; inspiring and a little outrageous."

And to be fair, Russell Davies (@russelldavies) - internet marketing guru and columnist at Campaign magazine - lived up to the hype.

Russell started by admitting that he didn't know what charity communications people do and wouldn't pretend to, but he was here to tell us what he tells all the brands he's worked with and hoped we were clever enough to use it in our own way.

The world is getting blurry, e.g. anyone with a camera is considered a journalist. This offers dangers as well as possibilities.

Brands have to get interesting or get useful - preferably both.

For the last 15 years, marketing meant find a message, fine tune that message, then hammer that message home.

Now, marketing has to question how it can get its audience to engage with it. Their messages must have depth, humour, subtlety, irony, anger, romance, excitement, etc, etc...

It's like velcro, which works because it's got loads and loads of hooks. It doesn't matter if they don't all hook, as long as some do.

Russell then showed this Nike advert:



It is effective not because of the message it is delivering, but the way it is communicating. It is bypassing language, as viewers smile an nod along with the music. You can't bash people over the head with your message - your communication needs to be more interesting.

The Run London campaign for Nike was a success because of its usefulness. Feedback suggested that Reebok and Adidas adverts were better, but the Nike campaign helped a lot of people run 10k. This usefulness was more effective in reaching the campaign's target audience.

He then showed us this clip:



There are millions of people out there who are smarter, funnier and better at doing this than you. Organisations need to work in partnership with these people, not ramming the message down their throat.

As an example of this, Russell showed the Nike 'Joga Chain' campaign:



This campaign worked because of the partnership. It wouldn't have worked without the individuals who created the content or without the global reach of the Nike.

Key Lessons:

1. You learn this stuff by doing it, not by viewing it
2. Think quick, small, real
3. You can't control the conversation, but you can build somewhere for the conversation to happen
4. It's not about more powerful machines, it's about more powerful people