Tell me why I don’t like Mondays…please Dr. Arnall

The papers, the radio, the telly and my mates have been part of the great conspiracy to make me, and the public in general, aware that today, January 21st, was going to be the bluest day of the year.

I decided to scour the Internet to discover who is behind this all this negative psychology. Thank you Dr Cliff Arnall, of Cardiff University Psychology department, who reached this conclusion based on research encompassing a variety of factors.

I’m no psychologist, but even I can work out that January is midwinter, where we’re all fighting hibernation and thinking that the winter layer might have to see us through the hard times inflicted by December’s overspending. But the idea that today was destined to be the worst sounds a little pessimistic and, dare I say it, a gem of a PR campaign – not a bad one though.

As I trundled through town in my decidedly chirpy red coat I can’t say I noticed my mood was any different to any other day, and work was pretty normal too. Granted, I was greeted by an overflowing inbox, but if you work in an office, you’ll know that’s a Monday thing, and there was nothing very nasty about today’s.

If you disagree, and the early sunsets are getting you down, perhaps you’ll be tempted to do one of the following: (or if you’re a bloke you might prefer a pint at the local…)

- book a week in the sun
- join a gym (release those endorphins)
- indulge in retail therapy in this fine bargain season
- eat chocolate (containing anandamide to make you happier)

If I were a glass-half-empty kind of girl, I might conclude that the common impact of these three remedies is the negative impact they have on my bank balance, and the simultaneous boost they give to the retail industry (coincidence?)

So, was the mood in the air, was it infectious or are the media responsible for your bad start to the week? I say, if it hit you, claim it was inevitable, and rest assured that that’s as bad as it’ll get all year! You survived!

The PR industry makes me laugh

The PR industry makes me laugh (yes, indeed, the very business I work in). Agencies have banged on for many years now about wanting to be treated and valued like other professions and senior business advisors. ‘Why aren’t we respected like management consultants’ being the common question. Well when did you last hear of a management consultant offering their services for free?

We be moan the fact that we never seem to able to charge for pitches (unlike the ad industry), we debate for hours why our client fees aren’t as high as the advertising world (I sat on a PRCA committee for a year which was very busy discussing all of that) - but then what do I spot, one PR agency offering to work for free!

Now if that’s not devaluing not only your own business but the whole industry in one fell swoop. I know the whole argument about enticing a client in and being able to prove what you’re worth…but surely that short term gain is not worth the long-term damage it does to the profession?

What’s even worse is that this particular agency was rewarded for its positioning by winning a couple of highly acclaimed PR Week industry awards. So PR Week is actually endorsing undermining its own profession…interesting.

I ask you.

Sue

Don't bloggers need legal protection?

The front page of last week's USA edition of PR Week has reported that the blog, ThinkSecret.com, has agreed to shutdown after a lengthy 3 year lawsuit with Apple. The problem stemmed from the fact that the site received leaked information about Apple products from an unknown source. The details of the settlement are unknown with the two parties settling out of court.

In this ever changing social media world, this latest news regarding ThinkSecret.com surely emphasises the need for bloggers to have more protection legally just as regular journalists already have.

SCG

what's next in technology, does Redherring have the answers?

As 2007 comes to a close and the markets are debating whether a global recession is really just around the corner, it's always refreshing to look at the future and what's going to be the next innovation in this exciting technology world of ours. Recession or no recession - new technologies never stop being developed or launched.

Red Herring has just announced its top 100 Global Award Winners at the beginning of December in the US. It's always worth taking a look in terms of which companies you have already spotted doing great things and who are the start-ups making an impact. There are definitely some nice surprises in there and some really cool looking companies.

The markets are perhaps not surprising and range from mobile and wireless (such as Actimagine, Clairmail and Truphone), security (Lifelock and IPLocks) through to TV, Film and video companies (Bablegum, Pandora TV and Joost).

At an EMEA level, another list that I always like to take a look at is the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA winners.

What's always interesting is to see which companies actually last the course after this initial recognition and glory. Good luck to them all.


SCG

Calm Down Doris

Shouting at the radio news is one of my many bad habits. Getting into a spluttering rage against a Radio 4 arts programme is a new development of my affliction. The cause of this deterioration in my evening mental state was Doris Lessing and her comments on how the Internet is destroying reading. First voiced in her interview with the Observer and repeated in her Nobel acceptance speech, the comments were rolled out again with little criticism. Perhaps the interviewer rolled over because of her Nobel Laureate status. Nonetheless this conclusion is absolute bunkum and a case of sloppy not sharp thinking. The Internet and reading are not mutually exclusive. Did Amazon build its business case on how Internet shopping would kill off the reading of books? Neither is the Internet intrinsically inane. Certainly there's lots of rubbish on online but is the Internet any more inane than a Barbara Cartland novel, any page of Mein Kampf or even a little bit of Peter Rabbit? So a little more balance please Doris before you wobble off your high perch

Probably what Lessing means is we aren't reading enough of what she regards as good books or perhaps more accurately her books. This actually is a pre-Internet argument with past book killers comic books or television or penny dreadfuls or Laurel and Hardy movies or cave paintings or whatever competing visual media loved by the masses got superior intellectuals in a froth.

Ironically enough for someone who professes loathing of the medium, there's byte loads of online coverage. And, to be perfectly honest, my reluctance to read one of her allegedly depressing scifi novels is ever so slightly reduced by curiousity to see if what she writes is as inane as the Internet.

Businessweek is asking if recession time is here again

Businessweek is the publication I find most useful for telling me about stuff I need to know. This ranges from the weekly back page column written by the management king Jack Welch (and his wife Suzy), who invariably have wise words of management wisdom, through to profiles and incisive interviews with the IT giants such as Microsoft, Oracle, Sun and the like, through to the very exciting gizmos and gadgets from the latest hot sexy Silicon Valley start-ups.

Which is why when Businessweek starts talking about a recession, I take it seriously.

Well, it makes sense too. I have been in this game long enough to know that each recession usually starts at the end of one decade and runs into the next. So if it’s true, we are just starting this one a bit earlier than normal. My business partner (who has a degree in economics so is the expert...!) argues that it’s not so simple, however, history for me suggests otherwise.

So if a recession is really on its way slightly sooner than usual, then my view is that it might be less painful than the boom and bust of 99-2002 because the IT and telecoms industry tightened its belt so tight during the last downturn that I don’t think it had chance to really loosen it yet.

My other source is Radio 5 Live, who predicted the last recession before anyone else and is very busy doing the same thing again. As we all know, we can talk ourselves into downturns.

So watch out, tighten your belts accordingly, it could be upon us sooner than we think.

Sue G

New Zealand Tech Blog gears up for CeBIT 2008

We're working for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise again on how they promote their ICT companies at next year's CeBIT. To provide another channel of information the NZTE team are experimenting with a blog to capture what's happening in New Zealand ICT and their plans for the March 2008 event