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Who could’ve thought that a bunch of wee snails could cause such mayhem?
Today I’ve been up to my eyeballs in snails stuff (not literally), publicising the brilliant Evolution Megalab project. We have a good relationship with a BBC correspondent so this meant lots of early hits on radio bulletins and on the BBC website (great link from the front page first thing, hoorah!). My day has been a steady flow of interview and information requests from other outlets wanting to speak to our academics and highlight the research project. It has been keeping them very busy!
It’s great fun when the phones are constantly ringing and I really enjoy selling in a story which has such obvious news value. The only downside was being on the phone last night (with a very achy neck thanks to playing rugby on hard ground) and an anti-social early start this morning with a 6.20am interview request…
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Went to the BBC launch of its Darwin season on Tuesday night at Bluebird in London. Very lovely venue and when I got there I wish I’d made attempts to dress a bit more like Carrie and a bit less like a scruffbag.
Anyhoo, the great and the good were there and even the great man himself, Sir David Attenborough, was in the house to show his support. It was very exciting to be in the same room and I became a bit of a stalker-esque starer, sneaking subvertive glances to see who he was chatting to.
The montage of Darwin season looked really fantastic and featured some of the OU/BBC co-productions. Some of the cinematography is seriously good – the pictures were just incredible. It’s bound to go down a storm.
To go along with the TV co-productions, the OU has come up with a fab free giveaway of a Tree of Life poster. I have a stash in my drawer for journalists and am keeping a close guard as I’ve had interest from colleagues across the office who are sniffing after them. Hands off! To get yours, visit www.bbc.co.uk/darwin or call 0845 300 88 54
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It’s been announced that the VC designate is Martin Bean of Microsoft, who’ll be taking up the Vice Chancellor post on 1 October 2009. With education and technology moving ever closer and developing new ways of teaching, this could be a canny appointment to steer the OU through the next phase of IT influenced learning.
With the 40th anniversary of the OU in 2009 as well as a new VC coming on board, it bodes for an interesting year ahead…
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Yesterday was not a productive day, it has to be said. A colleague and I bundled into the car and headed north on the M1, destination Nottingham.
Our mission? To attend the SRS open day – that’s Student Registration and Enquiry Services if you didn’t know. They’re the people who help students with all their questions and concerns, register people for courses and man the phones. And they’re expected to take their 500,000th call this year, any day now.
Anyway, my colleague and I were going up to take it all in, learn about what SRS does and then write an article for the staff magazine Open House. I was also going to do some filming, interviewing a few willing volunteers to create a video short on SRS: the voices on the end of the phone.
However, just as we were tootling along the M1 , just passing j20, I foolishly commented that the traffic was pretty clear for the morning rush hour. Fool! Two minutes later we came to a standstill. It took us three hours to crawl three miles.
So, we weren’t just late for the event, we missed it altogether. When j21 finally appeared we jumped off and headed homeward. Apparently we’d been stuck between a massive car crash ahead of us and a jack-knived/car crash combo behind us. Disaster.
As we headed back to OU HQ in Milton Keynes we counted 20 miles of traffic queuing up behind these two accidents. We arrived back at the office almost seven hours after we left – and achieved nothing but being patient enough to wait to grab a bite to eat at a service station before we collapsed with hunger. A toilet break was in order too.
So, I didn’t get to experience, first hand, the valuable work of SRS and will need to make a return journey. Let’s hope next time I make it further than half way.
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I’ve been plunged into the pool of ’social media’ for a little while now, and I’ve become a bit of a Twitter devotee. Actually, it’s more like a sea of social media (not least cos of Twitter’s whale – there’s a fan club of this would you believe!) – there’s umpteen fathoms to this new world, it’s full of wierd and exciting things some of which are good, some of which aren’t, and sometimes I feel a little bit queasy riding the waves….
OK, analogy aside, I am loving Twitter (possibly not as much as Martin Weller though – check out his Twitter love song!). It’s not one of those things you can immediately relate back to work, and see concrete professional results for, but I do feel it’s positive to be “out there”. Some PR bods and journalists are getting into it, and I have decided that it’s better to be involved, and potentially make a twit of myself, than not. However, like Stephen Davies, I’m quite rubbish at explaining Twitter to people without it sounding like a constant diversion from ‘proper’ work…
From my experience, a big part of understanding social media is just getting stuck in. Yes, we might slip up once or twice or spend a lorra time on something that doesn’t bring massive payback – but surely there’ll be long term benefit to getting in these spaces early doors. My feeling is that in time, PR is going to change hugely. The importance of relationships in PR will still be hugely relevant; it’s just that these are moving into new spaces. To make my colleague Stuart proud, it’s about conversations – just online ones.
So anyhoo, how am I actually using Twitter? Well, apart from seeing what colleagues are up to, I follow a number of journalists and sometimes pick up issues/news/requests through them. The other side is what I post – I put links up to press releases I’ve issued, blogs I’ve done and generally try to push out some chat about what I’m working on. You never know, a journalist might just pick up on something and contact me. That hasn’t happened yet, but we’ll see.
For any fellow tweeters out there, you can find me @KathHardwick
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In case anyone hadn’t noticed, Christmas is coming… 49 days to go or 4190819 seconds according to this site. And I’ve actually started to feel a bit festive this week.
I’ve just sent over five lots of text and images for a design agency we work with to rustle up some Christmas eCards to add to our eCard Sender in time for December. While I’m pleased with what we’ve sent over I’m under no illusion that there’ll be a few moans and groans. And “a few” might be being optimistic!
The Open University has staff and students from all over the world, celebrating different traditions and holding different views and beliefs. So it’s impossible to create a greetings card, at this time of year, which will be to everyone’s liking. Fact. You can’t please all of the people all of the time. Another fact.
Last year we were ticked off for trying to avoid Christmas completely with our eCards, and they had a point. Christmas is coming, winter is approaching and the cards we send out – should we choose to send any at all – should probably represent this.
So, while each card tells an OU story, imagery has been carefully selected to illustrate the text while looking a tad on the festive side too. And if the cards aren’t to your liking? Well, then you don’t have to send them out. But hopefully folk will go Christmas crackers over them; it certainly saves on stamps!
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Those who know me will understand how much studying stresses me out, particularly combining it with a full time job and various other commitments – so hats off to the many OU students who find time to study while holding down jobs, raising families, moving house, or fighting illness.
I’ve just finished the CIPR’s Diploma in Public Relations and, although I won’t find out until Christmas whether I’ve passed it or not, I feel a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders. No more burying my head in books when I get home from work, no more feeling guilty about reading crime novels instead of academic texts, and no more weekends spent slumped over the laptop.
However, I find myself with lots more free time that I’m not sure what to do with. Eek. Am a really thinking about embarking on more study? A lot of OU students say studying becomes addictive and although I wouldn’t go as far as that, I would like to put my free time to good use.
I’ve always wanted to write a book, starting a few of them over the years, but never finishing. So, I think The Open University’s A174 Start writing fiction course might spur me on. It’s a short course, comes recommended by one of my book-writing colleagues, and is on a subject I know I’ll enjoy. Plus, it may well give me the focus and confidence I need to knock a book out at some point in the near future. We’ll see.
It’ll also be useful to experience the OU student journey for myself. I’ve spoken to many students about their taste of OU study, and it will be nice to finally embark on my own journey.
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I’ve just been playing around with the new ‘Devolve me’ tool on the OU’s freshly launched Darwin website. Here I am as a homo heidelbergensis from 500,000 years ago:
I think it’s quite good, but I’m not too happy about my nostrils.
Have a go yourself, on our Darwin website. Enjoy!
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Ah bless, someone from the ERA project team – who just won a Handheld Learning Award – popped by our offices today to show off their award and bring us cake as a thank you for the publicity efforts!
This was not just any cake – it was a hand-made poppy seed cake with lemon icing from the local Women’s Institute. How good is that! It’s definitely motivation to seek out more PR opportunities for the project too, if this is how we are rewarded…
Lovely gesture, and you can never have enough cake. This week we have had a plethora of goodies:
– chocolate brownies from our new manager
– victoria sponge with fresh cream and strawberries from new team member
– rum and apple cake from external supplier
– muffins and profiteroles left over from a meeting
– Mr Kipling’s lemon slices (not sure who they were from. The cake fairy, perhaps)
It’s not the healthiest office, perhaps – but cakes are mostly air, I tell myself…
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I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it, but to help me in my role as Communications Project Officer at The Open University I am studying for the CIPR (Chartered Institute of Public Relations) Diploma in Public Relations.
With two of the three projects under my belt, I am moving on to the final hurdle, the research project. The topic I have chosen to investigate is public relations, reputation management and how the blogosphere fits into all that.
Personally, I don’t think the public relations industry, on the whole, recognises the power of the blogosphere and the role the blogger/community journalist plays in providing a spin-free source of information.
And if PR bods do recognise the importance of the blogosphere, how are they using it, how are they monitoring it and how atre they evaluating coverage? It’s a tricky one.
In my endeavor to find out, as part of this research project, I am asking folk who work in PR or communications to fill out this survey. It’ll only take 10 mins tops and all feedback, comments etc would be gratefully received. And don’t forget to tell your PR friends – the more repsonses I can glean the better.
So, please CLICK HERE to fill out my survey, which closes on Friday 17 October.
Thanks.
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