This one is from our kid.

I have some more from Vince Holt of 11 out of 10.

The value, what do we learn about our media, profession etc?  Not much, but I hope you find it funny.

It is good to hear the insights of what makes journalists tick / giggle /show disgust / show appreciation, and simply use material.

I like Michael Taylor of NW Business Insider revealing a release that made him chuckle:

A local floor resin company making a vital contribution to health and safety at sea with a floor surface that does not erode when oil workers are buffeted while relieving themselves.

How BP must be putting the supplier on their Christmas card list, if not giving them some shares.

But Michael, did you use it that is what we really want to know?

I came across quite a creative holding / perhaps contents page for a digital marketing agency called Arc Creative in London.

Their opening page has CCTVs pointing at all the teams, and with different shots being exchanged.

Actually I think they have a number of cameras and they just swap them around, whether they are related to the account or not.  But still its a different idea, albeit slightly disconcerting.  Would I work more effectively if my clients could spy on me, actually one conducts surveillance, so I can put work back their way.

I had a quick peak on the clearing university courses for PR and a staggering 300 plus degrees came up.

Some were single discipline, others were combined with journalism, languages and business.

If I was going to college again I would find the choices very attractive. But are there simply too many courses?

I couldn’t say how many openings there are for PR graduates in agencies or in-house. Of course it is worth doing a course for the enjoyment and skills learnt. However, many PR graduates will want to be in PR, naturally.

Is that reasonable? Is it possible, or are many people going to be disappointed? I think PR is open to all graduates, especially ones with wide interests. I would say that luck is going to play as much a part in their careers getting off the ground as choosing the “right” degree.

Tom Cheesewright of The Lever expresses an outraged stance on a recent talk given by a non-marketer on how easy it is to do.  Why use those useless “marketers” when it is such as doddle?

The originator of such a view is a finance professional.

I know that marketers and finance people are often of different temperaments, but
surely saying another discipline is easy has its risks.

I could do my own accounts, contact finance companies about pensions myself, investigate shares.  But I would rather have a good professional to help me.

It is not that someone cannot have success doing PR or marketing, but hopefully the professional will be better versed, more efficient and effective over the medium and long term, even if a stater has an initial PR coup.

If they are not, change your supplier.

Inflation must be having a toll on PR and marketing agencies.

Pressure from employees trying to compensate for the decreasing value of their wages by pay rises, fuel costs rises for the office and transport amongst other things.

But it is hard to ask clients to pay more if they are more cost conscious than for some time and return on investment is key.

One exception seems to be the tracking / cuttings agency I like to use.  Prices have doubled in more than a year.  There are some improvements in service and their suppliers have upped costs, but it is too much.

Businesses have to know what the breaking point is.

Pricing can lose you business, for being too high or underselling your services.  It needs to be tackled with sensitivity or at least thought.  Doubling prices without a strong enough argument (in my view) can be classed, if we are being generous, as “bold.”

The last thing I want is to see magazines going bust.

Over the last couple of years a number of NW business publications have fallen away.  They have been replaced by Crain’s and Good Company and How-Do, which have been life savers PR wise.

The lifestyle press is the North West has been doing well if the number of publications are something to base this statement on.  Buoyed by city centre living, a favourable economy and a property boom the numbers of magazines that I could pick up in Manchester about a year ago I estimated at 14.  There was one named after me I think called “Bob.”

In the last month The Magazine has been the centre of speculation as to its future and now YQ magazine has had to defend its position after cuts fueled speculation.

The lifestyle press has enjoyed the boom.  Any fall off in the property sector and its advertising and worsening of the credit crunch and you have to winder if more stories will unfortunately be appearing in How-Do with increasing frequency.