Archive for August, 2008
August 24, 2008 at 9:33 pm
· Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged bloggers, camera phones, internet, Modern life, TV
A sideways look at life, and how techonology is changing the operating environment of communicators, is wonderfully summarised in the following snapshot of modern life. It has been passed to me by a PR colleague and I believe the credit due on assembling this factfile goes to Paul Willis from the Centre for Public Relations Studies at the Leeds Business School. It is now said, and who are we to argue, that:
- 1 in 3 mid-week visitors to a major UK theme park is pulling a sickie from work
- 70% of internet porn sites are accessed during the 9 to 5 working day
- Two billion people now have access to the Internet
- The number of bloggers is doubling every five months
- There are now one billion camera phones in the world
- Teenagers spend 60% less time watching TV than their parents
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August 21, 2008 at 8:18 pm
· Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, speechwriting
Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was 269 words long – 205 of these were one syllable – demonstrating the power of words when less is more. So it was interesting to see PR Week’s handy hints to speechwriting this week, although not sure that these are the Do’s and Don’ts that the US leader might have referred to.
DO:
- Make sure you know your speaker’s mannerisms and speech patterns
- Know what the speaker’s real agenda should be
- Have some good sound bites scattered within your speech
- Expose the conflict in a situation up front, then take it to its resolution
- Write in the active not the passive
- Practise, practise, practise
DON’T:
- Write over-long sentences or try to cram too much in – the best speeches have a single line of argument
- Over-use metaphors – one will do, which you should come back to near the end of the speech
- Disturb people’s values – start with what they want to hear then take them on a journey
- Write it at the last minute
- Whisper, threaten physical punishment for yawners, or undress
The last one was made up. PR Week assume we know that.
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August 3, 2008 at 5:52 pm
· Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged Alzheimer's, Nottingham conference, Trent DSDC, www.pwpcomms.co.uk
News this week that a drug has been developed that can halt the progress of Alzheimer’s and is twice as effective as current treatments. Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia, affecting about 417,000 people in the UK, a figure which could soar to 1.7 million over the next two decades. Readers might wish to be aware of a major conference on dementia being staged by one of our clients, the Trent Dementia Services Development Centre (DSDC), on September 12th in Nottingham. One of the speakers is Neil Hunt, Chief Executive of the Alzheimer’s Society and a leading figure in helping draw up new Government plans on tackling dementia, improving lives for people with the condition and their carers. For more news, please visit our webpage www.pwpcomms.co.uk and visit the ‘News’ web page. The conference is aimed principally at health and social care professionals. More information on the Trent DSDC is available from www.trentdsdc.org.uk
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