Tag Archives: claresiobhan

Jun 01 2010
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Course Related, PR Industry, Student Life, Wolfstar, Work Experience

Starting full time at Wolfstar


Today is the start of my first week of being a full-time employee at Wolfstar!

The Leeds Met PR course I’m on  includes an optional full year of placement and though it is not essential to complete the course, it is strongly recommended. The best way to really learn PR is to practice it and with so much competition in the industry it is those with good experience that stand the best chance of getting employment at the end.

As I have enjoyed my one day a week short-term placement throughout my second year at Wolfstar, I asked my managers Stuart Bruce and Tim Sinclair if it would be possible for me to do a full year’s placement here. Thankfully they also wanted me on the team, so today I join Amy Johnston, Sam Oakley, Phylecia Sutherland, Jed Hallam, Mark Hanson and another new recruit, Anthony Devenish.

I’m really looking forward to getting a full year work experience and if all goes well I’ll actually be here until August next year. I really enjoy working as part of the Wolfstar pack and the experience and advice I will gain from my colleagues here will be invaluable when I return to university next year. I’m also excited to be starting work on my own clients and accounts, which I’m being briefed on today!

I think that working full-time after ‘university hours’ for the last two years will come as a bit of a shock, but the continuity of work is something I’m looking forward to as seeing a project from start to finish is something you never really get to experience just doing one day a week.

So thankyou Stuart and Tim for giving me this opportunity and to anyone that reads my blog it will now become less ‘PR student’ and more ‘PR intern’ for the next year or so!

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May 05 2010
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corporate image, news, social media, Technology

Google gets social… But does it work?


Firstly, sorry for the lack of postings recently.

My uni deadlines have been eating up most of my spare time, as has doing a few more days at Wolfstar, starting some side projects and also starting a new blog which I’m sure you can find on your own if you’re interested enough!

The topic that has brought me out of my blogging slump and back into the blogosphere is the new Google layout. When I Tweeted about this earlier, I got little response and the replies I did get were of people not yet seeing the new layout, which sounds to me like it is either still in a testing phase (perhaps you need to be logged into your Google account) or it is a gradual roll out.

For those who cannot see, it looks like this:

The biggest noticeable change is the expanded ‘social’ new left hand side bar. Before this was a small, relatively underused side bar, however now it has taken a bigger role in search, allowing you to narrow down your search area to blogs, discussions and more in a much easier way. The feedback I’ve seen so far isn’t too favourable on the new side bar, but I’m kind of undecided yet. I think it has the potential to make things much easier, but for many it is eating away at the ‘clean’ view people know and love of Google.

The biggest shock for me is the lack of PPC advertising. The things that make Google its huge profits. Where are they!?! More importantly, how will Google make money without them?

Finally of course, is the logo change. A move to a cleaner more 3D look as well as cleaner looking buttons on the home page. Not quite as bigger change as the rest of the site.

I’m not sure how this change will affect how people view Google. For years now this was a search engine that hasn’t changed much, but yet still been very successful. It is perhaps Google’s way of keeping itself new and fresh with its heavily advertised (and Gossip Girl name-dropped) new rival Bing on the scene? Or perhaps this is the reaction to feeling threatening by Facebook’s new ‘Like’ linking?

Either way, I’m not so hot on the layout yet, but that’s probably because I’m not a big fan of change at first. If the top links on the search in my image are anything to go by, neither is the rest of the internet.

EDIT // My Google is now showing the ads along the side, which definitely makes things a bit clearer!

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Apr 09 2010
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PR Industry, social media, Student Life, twitter

Social Media training at British Waterways


Last week I joined my lecturer of last year, Richard Bailey, for a training session with the team at British Waterways.

This was the first time I’d ever really tried to pass on some of my social media skills and knowledge that I have accumulated over the past few years, mostly gained from my work experience at Wolfstar and my addiction to networks like Twitter.

I was very thankful for the opportunity from Richard and his continued belief in me, however I was very nervous about standing up in front of a team of adults and attempting to demonstrate that a 20-year-old student actually has something worth passing on! However after meeting with the team and finding out what they wanted to get out of the session I soon felt more comfortable and it wasn’t long before I was itching to get the chance to go up to the front and say my bit!

Web 3.0 could be just around the corner...

The session started with Richard giving an ‘informal lecture’. I use this term because even though he was talking ‘at them’, the team were invited to ask question and give their own opinion, which they did giving the talk a two-way communication feel – relevant when you are talking about social media! Richard explained how the web had adapted and evolved into ‘Web 2.0′ from owning content to sharing content, from presentation to participation and the way social media fits in with these new concepts. I learnt a lot from this session and also recapped on some of the old theories from my first year!

After a short break we moved towards the more practical side of the day, teaching the team how to set up and use social media sites. This was my main teaching section, and after giving the team my WordPress guide (which I’ll add to the e-portfolio and link here) I showed them my WordPress blog and the Dashboard. I love the stats tool on WordPress and so after a tour of the Dashboard I published a blog post I had written the night before live, so that I could demonstrate how to monitor the activity using the stats tool. I showed the team how I link my blog to Twitter and Facebook to let my followers and friends know I have a new post up and how this affected the stats, as well as talking them through Twitter itself. I demonstrated how I could use Twitter to monitor who was talking about me and who had retweeted my blog post.

The blog post proved a success and was retweeted serveral times drawing a lot of traffic to the blog. Further to this Alastair Campbell replied to me directly during the demonstration on Twitter, giving the day even more interest! I finished my demonstration by showing them other monitoring tools like Google Reader, Tweetdeck and Tweetreach as well as other sites like FourSquare, Last.fm and YouTube. By the end they were a bit stunned by just how many sites I used and asked how I had to time to check them all. As one of the team pointed out, if I could afford a smartphone I would become so ridiculously absorbed in it that I might forget about life outside social media all together!

The day was a real success and I thoroughly enjoyed teaching social media those unfamiliar with it. From the feedback I received from both Richard and the British Waterways PR team, I did a great job and seemed passionate and excited by the subject, which I’m overjoyed at as there is no better compliment!

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Mar 31 2010
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Current Events, news, Politics, PR Industry, Student Life, Wolfstar, Work Experience

Labour Party Fundraiser – Meeting Alastair Campbell


On Monday evening I attended a Labour Fundraiser with some of my fellow Wolfstar team at Oulton Hall in Leeds. Opportunities like this do not come often for a student, and again I feel very fortunate to have my work experience at such a supportive company like Wolfstar!

I arrived at the event with Tim Sinclair, who is the Chairman at Wolfstar. Oulton Hall is a truly spectacular building and I advise anybody who gets the chance to visit to have a look around! We went straight to the room where the sponsors were gathered (mostly men in business suits) and I admit I was a little starstruck when I saw Alastair Campbell chatting away to a small group of people. I know he is both loved and hated, but undeniably respected and was arguably one of the most influential men in Britain during the ‘Blair years’ and an important figure in the PR world, so I felt very lucky indeed to be in the same room as him (I’m a geek, I know!).

We were then led into a large dining hall full of tables paid for by supports of the Labour party. This included a table full of Leeds University (rivals!) Labour Party students who all seemed very excited. We were first given a speech by John Middleton who then introduced us to Jamie Hamney, the Labour Party Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the Pudsey constituency. The fundraiser was for him to try to help Labour keep this seat, as the Conservatives are targeting the area and have more funds available to campaign.

After a delicious starter and main meal we got the chance to listen to Alastair Campbell’s speech. Having never really heard him speak before I was expecting great things from what I’d been told and I wasn’t disappointed. Alastair had the room in his hands as he humorously described some of his past experiences in politics and his personal life before moving onto the serious business of how he thought Labour could beat the Tories at the upcoming General Election.

Alastair was still confident that Labour could steal a victory and thought that the chances looked better now than they did a few months ago. I’d have to say I agree with him. It wasn’t long ago that it seemed a Brown led Labour didn’t stand a chance in the Elections, but now the tides seem to have changed and even the media seems to have laid off Brown. Alastair also said that the Conservatives didn’t have any long-term, strategic plans and that their billboard posters (Vote for Change which was attacked with ‘Airbrushed for Change’) hadn’t been effective.

The way Mr Campbell spoke made everyone in the room feel elevated and it was obvious he’d had ample experience in public speaking, something I tried to pay as much attention to as possible as a PR student in the hope that some of his confidence might rub off on me! He had a way of connecting with the audience, which I suppose wasn’t too hard seeing as they were all Labour supporters, but even those of us that are floating in-between parties (such as myself) seemed drawn into the energy.

We were all given a free copy of Mr Campbell’s book, ‘The Blair Years’ and I went up to get mine signed personally along with a picture! It’s not everyday someone gets to meet Alastair Campbell and it’s not everyday a PR student gets to meet such a fantastic public speaker!

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Mar 29 2010
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Current Events, news, Politics, social media, twitter

Shadowing Conservative Parliamentary Candidate Jason McCartney


On Saturday 27th Adam Burns and I had the opportunity to shadow Jason McCartney as he campaigned in Slaithwaite, Huddersfield.

Jason was my lecturer during the first year of my PR course for Research and Writing, and my previous blog post about visiting ITV was a trip organised by him as he used to work there. So when it was decided at the Behind the Spin meeting earlier this year that politics would be a subject we would cover, I jumped at the chance to get in touch with Jason and ask about shadowing him during his campaigning.

Jason is the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Colne Valley, an area which covers Lindley, Holmfirth, Meltham, Marsden, Brockholes, Slaithwaite, Honley, Linthwaite, New Mill, Golcar and Netherton. This seat is particularly important as there is only 3% between Labour, who are currently the seat in the area, and the Conservatives. So if just 600 people change their vote the results could swing, which doesn’t seem much as there are over 79,000 people in the area.

Adam and I spend the day follow Jason as he campaigned door to door, visiting the people in her prospective constituency and asking who they currently support, if they had any queries about what was going on in their area or any issues that needed addressing. A full report on the day will be available on Behind the Spin, so i don’t want to give too much away on here!

The biggest eye opener for me, other than the insane amount of walking, was that being sat at home on my PC reading political tweets it’s easy to think that the current election is a ‘social media war’ and that online activity will be the deciding factor in the election. This couldn’t be further from the truth, and after a day out seeing Jason tirelessly go from door to door chatting to the residents made me realise that this election will be won on the door-step, not on Twitter. It may be the last election that this is the case, as predicted by Conservative Youth members on the day, as social media will probably continue its incredible and unstoppable growth, but right now its undeniable that a huge number of voters do not get involved in online debates, will never see the online smear campaigns and will not be swayed by online material – simply because they won’t look. Indeed on Saturday those who were most passionate about politics and had the most feedback for Jason were the older generations, who I can safely say probably won’t have a Twitter account, never mind a politically focused RSS feed.

So overall the day was enjoyable and educational and I will post the link to the Behind the Spin article when it is published. If anyone reading this has read my past politically focused blogs they will probably be confused about which party I really support; one minute I seem Labour focused and the next I’m following around Conservative MP’s. The truth is right now I couldn’t say which party I’ve aligned myself too. I seem to have been drawn into politics quite by accident, but I am enjoying it. I can’t make my mind up yet as to who I will vote for (something the Conservative Youth seemed pretty determined to change!) because I don’t feel that I know enough about this area yet to make up my mind. This will be the first time I’ll vote in a General Election, which I feel is pretty important, at least to me, so I want to make sure I make my vote count! I’m lucky to be surround by so many ‘politically passionate’ people, who I’m actually very envious of – I’d love to know as much about politics as they do!

My pictures from the day can be found here in my Picasa album

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Mar 05 2010
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Course Related, news, PR Industry, Wolfstar, Work Experience

Visit to London on behalf of Wolfstar


This Tuesday, I joined Andrew Macdonald and Tim Bailey to help out at an Appointments Commission event held at The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) in London.

The event was a great opportunity for me to get some hands on experience at event planning and management for my portfolio, as well as getting a chance to see other areas of Wolfstar’s services. Also, I would never pass up a chance at getting to visit London, which just feels so full of buzz and excitement to a Northern city girl! I had a little time to myself before the event to turn into the ‘typical London tourist’ and take pictures of some of London’s beautiful sights, before it was back to work!

The event was held for the many Appointments Commission ‘Talent Pool’ members. These already high flying business men and women had signed up to get the chance of public appointments, such as at the NHS or government departments. The roles, usually non-executive directors for a board or members of an advisory committee, give the public organisations many advantages. These include ‘to provide leadership, strategic direction, independent scrutiny and, in some cases, specialist expertise in important areas of public life.  Input from a non-executive board or committee member is always more strategic than hands on; key responsibilities may include agreeing strategy, overseeing performance targets, ensuring the finances of the organisation are managed properly and ensuring the organisation works in the public interest.’

The business men and women who are interested in doing this are in effect giving back and sharing their success with the public sector. The event provided a great opportunity for these individuals to network with each other and hear from speakers from the Appointment Commission and guest speakers like Sahar Hashemi, who co-founded Coffee Republic and Skinny Candy and wrote the bestselling novel ‘Anyone Can Do It’.

My role was to help out both before the event, setting up outside and organising the ‘meet and greet’ tables and meeting the other staff members, and during the event where I printed out name badges, greeted the talent pool and Appointments Commission members and helped make sure everything was running smoothly. When I got chance, I also took a few pictures for Wolfstar so they could see how things looked! The room the event took place in was incredibly beautiful, with intricate stone carvings and an amazing painting on the ceiling.

Once the event was in full swing, I was even given the chance to listen in and caught the end of Sahar speech. It was very inspirational to hear a fellow female doing incredibly well in business. Her motto for like was ‘If you don’t succeed the first 19 times, you will on the 20th’, a hail to the days where she was trying to set up Coffee Republic and the first 19 banks refused to give her a loan as England was a nation of tea addicts. However, the 20th banker agreed and the rest I guess is history!

I really enjoyed the experience and even though I didn’t get back to Harrogate until 12.30am, the day was really worth while! I really hope to get involved in more events in the future and thank Wolfstar for giving me such a great experience! I learn new things every week at my placement and it makes me look forward to my year out on placement even more!

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Feb 22 2010
2 Comments
Course Related, news, PR Industry, social media, twitter, Work Experience

First day at Ptarmigan Bell Pottinger..


A few months ago, I posted a blog about a group pitch that we did for Ptarmigan Bell Pottinger, with the hope of winning a place in their student branch set up this year.

Unfortunately, my group did not win but still felt we learnt a great deal from the experience. However a member of the group that did in was an American student who just spend once semester at Leeds Met, so the winning student group were a member short. Luckily for me Adam Burns was a member of the group and offered the open space to me!

For the past few weeks we have been putting together material and today we had our first day at the Ptarmigan Bell Pottinger offices in Leeds! We met all the team and introduced ourselves and found out what our schedule for the day would be.

The first client we will be working on as the Ptarmigan Academy are Tag:Pac, a packaging design company also located in the same Leeds offices as Ptarmigan Bell Pottinger. So our first task of the day was meeting the team and finding out what they wanted from the PR and as well clients they had and how we could generate some coverage. It was exciting knowing that our team had control over our own first account and I think that together we can make the most of the opportunity.

We finished the day by showing Nathan a pitch for another perspective client and had to opportunity to ask him about a range of questions from social media in PR to our placement year. We learnt a great deal from Nathan and his knowledge of PR and hopefully will have more chances to pick his brain in the near future.

We have started a Ptarmigan Academy blog which can be found here and will be updated with our news!

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Feb 12 2010
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corporate image, Current Events, news, social media, Technology

Not enough Buzz?


I’ve made my enthusiasm for Google pretty clear over my blogging history so it seems only right that I blog on their latest product, Google Buzz.

After all Google has just created its own platform to take on sites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, the social media giants. However, for some reason I’m finding it hard to get that excited about the search giant’s entry in the social media race.

One reason might be that I’m still finding it a bit hard to get to grips with. After logging into my GMail accounts and being greeted with the ‘Activate Google Buzz’ page I was initially quite excited about the new tool. However the Buzz section of my mail account is still very sparse looking despite it adding people from my contact list.

#GoogleBuzz may have become a trending topic on Twitter, but from what I could see a large proportion of the Tweets were about how to switch the tool off, rather than people talking about how to use it or how amazing it was.

Despite this, it seems that many sites (such as Mashable which already has ‘Follow us on Google Buzz’ adverts) are already embracing Google’s brave new venture, perhaps deciding that ‘if it’s created by Google, it is probably worth getting on board.’

I just hope that Google Buzz doesn’t end up becoming as redundant as the Google Wave, another tool that received a lot of hype and seemed like a great idea, but is now probably a ‘touchy subject’ at Google HQ.

So how do you feel about Google Buzz? Have you figured out how to use it to its greatest potential? Will the company giants be making full use of it, like they do on other social networking sites? Let me know in the comments.

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Feb 06 2010
6 Comments
Course Related, Current Events, news, PR Industry, Random Ramblings, Student Life, Work Experience

The fight of the interns…


It’s that time of year for second years. The intern application time.

If ever there was a time when the competitive nature of PR and those studying it comes to light, this would be it. Students up and down the country will be fighting tooth and nail to get a placements with the majority of placements being in… you guessed it, London.

Which does raise an issue for many students when it comes to finances. Living in London is expensive even for those living with partners and on full time wages, so imagine how much harder it is for interns on much lower pay and also still having to pay reduced university fees. The general view seems to be that those who want placements with the biggest London companies are those who have parents that can support them once all their wages go towards accommodation.

However, the less fortunate of us have not been put off yet, and have still joined in the rush of students humming around the 3rd floor of the Rose Bowl, hoping to get an application form for some of the companies that have contacted Leeds Metropolitan. I feel grateful for going to a university that does put a lot of work and money into its PR course as the support at times like this is really invaluable, even though the red brick universities may look down on us! I have a pretty good idea of where I’ll be doing my placement and I’m looking to seeing what working 9-5 is really like… (I have no doubt I will come to regret that statement within the next few months…)

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Jan 29 2010
2 Comments
corporate image, Current Events, news, social media, Technology

The iPad. Success or Failure for Apple?


If you haven’t already heard about Apple’s new iPad, you must have been living in a hole.

The hype for this product has been pretty incredible with thousands of blogs and tweets mentioning it for the past week or so. But will the iPad live up to its reputation?

Early reports would suggest that it may not be the case. For starters, it’s called the iPad. Which many are saying sounds like some kind of Feminine care product, hence why iTampon was a more popular trending topic in the UK then iPad.

People are also already complaining about the weight. The idea is that the iPad be held in one hand, with the other hand being used to browse the web, read an online publication or send an email, just a few of the many features the iPad gives users the chance to enjoy. But lucky reporters and bloggers who got a chance to trial the 1.5 pound product say that it felt too heavy to hold in one hand over a period of time.

There have been other complaints too including the iPad not supporting Flash, making many websites unviewable, and the lack of social features. There is also a big price increase to include 3G ($130) for materials that cost just $10. Oh and that fact that it doesn’t even include a camera.

Perhaps the biggest issue of all though, is that with prices starting at $499 and fragile materials like glass, if you accidental drop your iPad you can expect to shell out a hell of a lot of money for another or to get it repaired.

The iPad has not been released in the UK yet and nor has its price, but judging by the way UK products are usually prices, we can expect to pay much more than our USA counterparts. Woo.

I’m still unsure of how successful the iPad will be. It is one of those products everyone wants so will make good sales, however I predict it’s real success will come in the next few generations just like it did with the iPod.

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