Maybe I am being a bit too harsh.

I was traveling past the Manchester University student Union building and happened to see the mess of campaign banners for the student elections.  What struck me is for all their garish “look at me quality” they said nothing.

Well literally not nothing, they did not say anything that would give me a reason to vote.

One said “Rob Pinfold Mr Incredible” and another said “vote for Vicky its not tricky.”  One sounds like a night club Lothario and the other a silly schoolgirl.

I am sure this is the level I was at when I was at secondary school and I might be generous in that small appraisal.

Where is the messaging?  What do you stand for?  What commands me to spend my time voting for you and not in the pub?

I am not saying that I want them to be at David Ogilvy’s level, but you wonder when it so pathetic….

Surveys, surveys, surveys.  Where would PRs be without surveys?

I am sure many journalists get irritated by surveys unless they really show something highly insightful or entertaining.

One Manchester Evening News journalist started a piece a few months ago with: “According to another pointless survey……..”

I like NW Business Insider’s approach: a monthly half page round-up of surveys complete with thumbs up or down according to what they show.  Put all surveys in one place away from proper news, then you can choose whether to indulge or not.

I do not know whether Insider was making fun or being tongue in cheek or serious but it works for me and them.

The Manchester Evening News mentioned a survey that Facebook had lost 400,000 users last month and Bebo and My Space had a drop of 2% in numbers.

Is this the end of social networking.

No!

I am not very good at maths but if you have 5 people sign on to my Artisan social networking site and they each tell 5 more people and each new friend does likewise. Then after a cycle of this occurring 10 times you have 9.7m users.

The dynamics of this mean social networking sites can gather pace quicker than an August forest fire in California. A dampening in enthusiasm members is to be expected and can easily be in the hundreds of thousands.

What it all means is that social networking sites can be as transient as a pop star: some will survive others are waiting to be usurped by new pretenders.

Shocking isn’t it?  The picture above shows some of the damage from the epicentre of last week’s quake.  Some people were woken up no doubt, others lost crockery.

Apart from a serious injury was there any need to dominate the pages and airwaves with this?

And then there was Prince Harry.

Brave lad.  He has done the right thing and you have to admire him for that.  But surely the disproportionate coverage the media has devoted to the story works against their original aim.

When a personality or a story have too much media coverage it undoubtedly starts to grate: people push back against it as though they were being forced into believing something.  It is a natural reaction.

Half the coverage of the Prince Harry story would have got the message across just fine and with more impact.

What else happened in the news last week?  I really don’t know.

Sorry for the long delay in getting to my latest post: there is a real possibility of Artisan being sold for a six figure sum.

But what is a six figure sum? Is it £100,000 or more? Or is it £1000.01 or it could even be £100,000 of the Egyptian variety going at 10:1 against Sterling?  All are six figures and we know in PR presentation is everything.

What am I driving at? I have seen stories in the local business media where businesses have reportedly been sold for impressive amounts but you do not need to be Columbo to work that it doesn’t make sense when you know the companies.

Of course it is all amounts to what anyone would pay, but this doesn’t apply in this case.

My problem is that when such dross doesn’t get filtered out what can you believe?

Gloss yes.  Delusional rubbish no.